Season 8 Highlights — and a Host Reunion!

NICOLE TORRES: I have a lot of close friends who are my age, in their thirties, and they’re always asking me how I found mentors and who do I turn to for advice and how did I learn some of the stuff that I apply in my work. And I always point to the show, and I just wish it’s an experience that everyone could have – that they could have hosted with Emily and the Amys and Sarah.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah, every episode is a little bit of mentorship.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. I’m just grateful that this experience brought all of us together.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. I can’t believe it has been this long since we decided to have a host reunion episode.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: It is funny, ’cause actually I do listen to the episodes that you guys have been producing post my departure, and it’s like spying on friends. I’m like, What are the Amys up to today? But of course, it’s very one-sided, so I haven’t actually gotten a chance to hear directly from you or ask you questions or whatever. But I enjoy getting the updates and hearing all the questions you guys ask the experts you have on, and I loved the last season you guys put out that we’re going to be talking about today. I’m really excited to talk about it.

AMY GALLO: It is rare I think to have the work experience, to have a safe space to talk about these things with people who are at different points in their life and points in their career. And it’s funny that we do it with a microphone in front of our face because you would think that would put us on edge, but this is one of the safest spaces I have.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, no one is listening, right? You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein.

NICOLE TORRES: I’m Nicole Torres.

EMILY CAULFIELD: I’m Emily Caulfield.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.

AMY GALLO: And I’m Amy Gallo. And we’re winding down season eight with a host reunion. Sarah, Emily, and Nicole are here to reflect on the issues we’ve covered this season and to tell us how they’ve been doing. All right. Let’s start with life updates. Emily, what’s new with you?

EMILY CAULFIELD: Well, I am trying to learn how to be a business owner. Sometimes feeling successful, sometimes failing, but I’ve been doing–since I left HBR, I’ve been doing vintage markets once or twice a week and getting by that way, not saving a lot of money, but it’s been fun. It’s been a totally different world. So yeah, I’m enjoying it, but also struggling through it and trying to figure out how to do this well.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s awesome ’cause our goodbye episode, you were like, “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do this.”

EMILY CAULFIELD: It’s been six months.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s awesome.

EMILY CAULFIELD: So, at least six months. Let’s see what happens.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, Nicole, what’s going on with you?

NICOLE TORRES: Well, since leaving HBR, I have been focused on building a life in London. So, I’ve been here a little over two years and I recently became deputy editor of my team, Bloomberg Opinion Europe. So, that has kept me pretty busy, work has been very full on.

AMY GALLO: Congrats on the promo.

EMILY CAULFIELD: That’s huge.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Amazing.

NICOLE TORRES: I called it a little promomo.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes. That also means we’ve gone from me being Nicole’s boss when she was at HBR to now her being higher on me on the masted. I was going to say “superior to me,” but she was always superior to me. So, now she’s also higher on the masthead, which is what she deserves. Yes, I have changed jobs twice since leaving HBR. And last time I was on this podcast I was briefly at Barons where I was the ideas editor. And then I have now been at Bloomberg Opinion for about three years, so. And I had a baby during the pandemic, so that’s also been a big life change.

AMY GALLO: Minor update.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I just a minor update, two job changes and a baby.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Sarah, was there any episode in particular that caught your attention?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I mean many, I think given my life stage, the supportive spouse one really hit me in a different way than the last time we dealt with that topic. So, last time we talked about that with Jen Petriglieri, I did not have a child and now I do. And that of course changes a lot. So, there was so much in that episode that I actually was taking notes on my phone. But I think one thing that really struck me was how much these arguments feel like an interpersonal argument, but they are in fact shaped by so much around us that she specifically had talked about I think the challenge of nursing early on and that establishing a pattern in the relationship where because she was the one physically feeding the child there was sort of less for her husband to do and how that might set them off on an unbalanced course from the very beginning. And I’ve heard that from so many other women and they’re just following the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But actually, in my own situation, I’m sort of grateful that breastfeeding really just bombed. It just did not work out. And at the time that was really upsetting to me. But now I’m like, actually, by switching to formula really early, my husband was able to be involved in a way that he just I think would not have been, had my grand plans worked out. So, I don’t know, there was so much there to dig into. But really the thing that struck me was we are just shaped by things like how long our parental leave is versus our partners, the American Academy of Pediatrics, so many external and societal forces beyond just the relationship and then the relationship has to carry all the weight of all that external stuff.

AMY GALLO: That’s such a good way to put it. And I think we were sort of hinting around that with Becky, just that the expectations of society, family, our employers, our colleagues, how the relationship is just burdened by that. And then it’s putting so much pressure on these two people to navigate all of these biased systems.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And one thing that hit me in the course of that conversation was how marriage is this constant negotiation. And I wonder if you found that as well, Sarah?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes. I think that what has really helped us during this phase of life is to focus on what we need from each other and not so much on what’s fair because anytime you’re in a fairness conversation, it’s now kind of a tug of war, like a zero sum game almost. But if you’re just saying, “Look, what I really need from you tonight is you put the baby to bed and I just put my feet up ’cause I’m just done. Or what I really need from you this week is to you take care of the baby all by yourself so I can go speak at a conference.” That’s something I just did and my husband had our daughter for nine days by himself. And it’s also by focusing on needs, not fairness I think. I don’t know if I could be a solo parent with as much a plum as my husband just did for nine days. I’ve done it. He got Covid and I had to be super mom for 11 days and it was awful. And so, I actually think sometimes we can ask things of our partner that we cannot quite give back to them. So, that’s why I feel like making that shift to focus on needs and not sort of 50/50, what’s 100% fair, has really helped us.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s never 50/50, right?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: It’s never, no.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s always 90/10

AMY GALLO: In one way or the other, right? In one direction.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And day to day it might change or hour to hour, so yeah.

NICOLE TORRES: One thing that stuck out to me was how, or something that I found that makes so much sense and is very obvious but just hearing it was really reassuring. You have to have these big picture conversations, important conversations with your partner about values and priorities regularly or if not regularly, at least periodically because values and priorities change when you get promoted, when you get a different job, when you have a baby. So, as life changes, things in your own relationship will change. And I am partnered and so we’ve had a few conversations about big life goals and values and how we want our independent lives to go alongside each other and merge. And it’s helpful to know that those won’t be the last conversations we have. We will have to keep having them as things change.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. So, Nicole, was there a particular episode that caught your attention,

NICOLE TORRES: Like Sarah, I have notes on each one, but I guess the one that is most relevant to my life currently was the ups and downs of first-time managers. It’s something I’ve been thinking about because my work has gotten a bit more managerial in nature. So, the thing I really took away was that you don’t need to have all the answers. In fact, you shouldn’t go into a team trying to show that you have all the answers. You just need to be asking questions and trying to figure out what you don’t know and trying to show up and learn from people around you. So, that’s something that I’ve been trying to do in my role. But I think what also helped in building trust with my team and winning their respect was not just focusing on learning but also showing that I was hearing what they were saying and trying to incorporate that into my work. So, one thing I found useful is to ask my writers what they think makes a great editor. And they’ll all give me very different responses from, “Just email me back when I send you a pitch or be decisive,” things like that. But all kind of generally different for each person. And then when working with them each time after I will make a point to demonstrate that I did hear them, I’ll get back to them faster or I’ll try to be more decisive.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I love that.

NICOLE TORRES: So, that was something that I thought about while listening.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So simple, and any manager could do that. What do you think makes a great boss?

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah, exactly.

EMILY CAULFIELD: And honestly, just listening to that episode, Amy B. had an answer for everything. You had an answer for everything.

NICOLE TORRES: For everything.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh God.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Every scenario that came up, you had just such a good response. I know you do your job as an editor, and all the other jobs that you do, but being a manager is a totally different skill set and you have those skills and you knew exactly how to respond to everything they could bring up and-

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, it helps to have made every mistake in the book, so.

EMILY CAULFIELD: So, I guess that’s how you learn, but, it was awesome.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, thank you.

EMILY CAULFIELD: That’s reassuring that you can learn that skill.

AMY GALLO: Yes, and I agree that’s a skill I think we often treat it as, especially in first time managers, I think they step in and think, “Well, why don’t I know all this?” And I’m, “I should know-

AMY BERNSTEIN: Who’s born a manager? I mean, what child says, “Golly, I hope I grow up to be an editor and a manager.”

AMY GALLO: Yep, that’s right.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I found myself in that episode really remembering the research you mentioned by Daniela Loop that said that women tend to not experience greater job satisfaction when they become a manager, but men do. And you talked about some possible reasons why that might be the case and I wondered how much it’s has to do with role conflict. Because when I was a first time manager, I really felt that it was sort of was like I’ve been raised to be likable, to be a pleaser, to do what people ask of me and now I’m in this role where I’m sort of also trying to be an authority and boss people around and not please them. And that was just so much internal conflict that it was challenging.

NICOLE TORRES: I think one of the hardest things for me though, and I’m curious how you all have dealt with this in experiences managing. So, for me and some of the women and the episode brought it up, they really had a hard time with delegating or relinquishing control, which I think is a big issue when you go from being an individual contributor to then being in charge of people. And I do struggle with that.

Something I found is in the past I would always reach for or try to take up the coolest, most exciting projects, but now I still want to do that. But part of the job also it seems like I have to make sure other people are getting to do that work. And I have a really hard time letting go. And I don’t know if I’m doing a bad job, but I feel like that’s something that a good manager does is they step back and let other people have opportunities, but that is a learnable thing.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, a lot of this learning is learning to give up some stuff and it’s learning what really matters. And when you become a manager, part of your job is helping other people to shine. And you get marked on that and it’s also where you should find joy, right?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I’m just going to make a plug here for, we have done an essentials episode last spring on delegation so you can all listen to it right after this if you’d like.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But for me, it was the hardest thing. Took me years to learn to do that. What about you, Sarah?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, I think for me partly what was helpful was reframing it from, I’m dumping this work, I don’t have time for it find someone else, to, I’m actually giving up the parts of the job, but in some ways I enjoy them most so that other people have an opportunity to do them and to learn them. And I think what then became hard was like, How do I right-size the delegation to the person’s skill level so that I’m not just saying, “Okay, sink or swim, have fun, this is a great project, I wish I were doing it.” But then it’s sort of like, yeah, you sort of have to customize that to the person you’re delegating to.

EMILY CAULFIELD: This weekend I’m actually–so, I want to do as many markets as possible because I have to make money. So, this weekend on Saturday there’s a market I wanted to do it but I can’t because I have to be somewhere else and I physically need to be in the place to sell the clothes so I’m going to hire somebody. And this will be my first time having somebody work on their own, and I’m so scared. I’m so scared because I do like that part of the job where I get to interact with customers and help people style things and try things on. And this person seems great. I think she’s going to do a great job. I’m still worried about it. But I think the benefit of this is it’s kicking me into gear to be like I have to make sure that I’m setting her up for success. It’s not the same as having a full blown career or a full-time job, but-

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s hugely important to your business.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. There’s something about this little opportunity that I’m like, “Oh, this makes me feel like I’m growing up.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: But it’s a huge opportunity ’cause it helps you scale.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yes. I have no business scaling at this point.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, maybe you’re not the best judge at that.

AMY GALLO: But you do because you have somewhere else to be. that’s the reality.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I think the market’s telling you you need to scale. Exactly.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Can we talk about retirement?

AMY GALLO: Yes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, God. That again.

NICOLE TORRES: Please talk about retirement.

AMY GALLO: I think that’s the episode that made us most uncomfortable.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, I think I spent a full week getting over that episode.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL I have to say it was so funny to me to, I’m not usually funny ha-ha, funny, weird, or I don’t know. But it was so remarkable to me to listen to you guys painfully talk about retirement, that is clearly something you’d, meanwhile I’m over here dreaming of my retirement and building castles in the sky, thinking of about all things I’m going to do.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, yeah. Easy to say when it’s decades away.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, yeah, I mean, yeah fair point. Yeah. I was like, “It’s way too soon for me to be so excited about retirement.” But anyway, I love the episode.

AMY GALLO: Did you pick up any tips?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes. The three questions that came up of what do you want, why do you want it, and how are you going to get it? I felt like that was super helpful whatever life stage you’re at or career stage.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. Funny enough, retirement has been a fairly common topic since I’ve moved to London and it’s not one that just my friends’ parents are talking about and colleagues are talking about. It’s something that my friends and my peers have been talking about too. And I never thought I would get to retire. It’s just not something I’ve ever thought I would ever be able to financially achieve or I wouldn’t have enough in my life to be able to fill the time that I spend working. But since moving abroad, it is something that I think about now. And I don’t know if that’s because it’s just more built in the UK. I know it is in Europe, but there are just systems and it’s sort of expected that you will get to retire at a decent point in your life and have a nice life that does not revolve around your job. So, that’s been a big change for me around retirement. And then hearing this, I was like, Oh, now I can actually start thinking about it practically.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I think there’s probably less of a hustle culture too, which the like the, “I’ll never retire” as sort of a badge of honor.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: It does seem like in another culture that sort of “I’ll never retire” might seem pathological not admirable.

NICOLE TORRES: Yes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s a weird machismo actually. It’s like busyness. Well, what scares me is as having it foisted upon me rather than choosing it. I mean, I spent days after we recorded that thinking about what was making me so uncomfortable about that.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, and Amy, 50% of retirees in America don’t retire by choice. So, one-

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, I didn’t know that number, but thanks for putting.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Sorry. But yeah, half, the people-

EMILY CAULFILED: She just pulled that stat out of nowhere.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: No, I know.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s the Sarah Green Carmichael that we all love.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, it has to do with a lot of your financial situation too. ‘Cause you might have a plan to retire at 70 or 75 and then suddenly you have a health issue at 68, so it’s a huge problem.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And just wanting to maintain my sovereignty over myself. And that becomes… when you’re in your 30s or your 40s, it’s salient, but it’s very real for me in my early 60s. And I’ve seen it happen to a lot of people. It’s happened to my friends who were suddenly retiring when I knew that was not in their plans. So, maintaining the control over my future is important.

AMY GALLO: Well, the word that, I don’t think it came up in the episode, but your integrity. I think we want to make all of our career decisions with maintaining our integrity, which is an element of control, but is also about am I doing this in the way that I want to do it? And that aligns with my values. I mean I think that’s ultimately what Ann’s three questions were about is can I do this in a way that I feel good about and that’s not as strongly influenced by outside forces.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And we need to recognize that even the ability to ask yourself those questions is a privilege.

AMY GALLO: Yes, that’s right.

EMILY CAULFIELD: I think of the five of us, I’m currently the most retired of all of us. I feel like I’ve-

AMY BERNSTEIN: You think being an entrepreneur is retirement?

EMILY CAULFIELD: I’m not the best entrepreneur. I could be working 40 hours a week on this business and I’m kind of like, How do I spend my time? And listening to this episode, the two women that you spoke to – Audrey and Donna – they had their shit together so well. They both had a plan before they retired. Donna looked at her clock that she like down to the minute she planned her life out. They both had several things that they were doing. Donna, she said that she was six months out from leaving her job. And I was like, Oh my God, that resonates with me so much, I’m six months out from leaving my full-time job. And she’s like, I’m in the best shape ever and this and that. And I want to get to that point too. And I’m thinking like, Oh, I should have left this job with more of a plan of how I’m going to spend my days. So, when I retire for real, I will do that. And right now that I’m at the six month mark, I’m feeling like I need to have more structure around it. I took up a part-time job at a yoga studio because I’m like, I need to fill my time more. I have to feel more productive. I have to do more. And I also wanted a free membership so I could exercise ’cause I need do that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But that’s smart.

EMILY CAULFIELD: But financially in a bad position.

AMY GALLO: But I’m glad you pointed that out about Donna and Audrey because I think most people probably don’t go in and Audrey didn’t have as much of a plan as Donna ’cause she didn’t have the external support that Donna had brought in. But I do think most people go into retirement a little bit like, Well, let’s see how this goes. And I think they all, both Donna and Audrey and Ann all made a very strong argument for being more planful about it.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And a lot of people unretire, like retirement contains so much. My parents are partly retired, but they are busier than ever somehow. So, it’s easy to fill up that time if you’re the kind of person who is engaged and interested and just fills your day with stuff.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. My mom said she was going to read books for two years after retirement and then she’ll figure out, but within six months she’s on the housing board in her town and helping to advocate for affordable housing. And you’re like, Oh, okay, I see how this is going to go.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: When I sort of see what actual retirement is, it actually looks very busy.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I don’t think retirement is being idle. I think retirement is a change in your direction.

NICOLE TORRES: And just living all kinds of lives.

AMY GALLO: “Retirement: Living All Kinds of LIves.” Like yes, absolutely. Here, here, I’m ready. No, I’m not.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What I would love to see from corporate America on that front is making part-time work more viable for more people. ‘Cause I think there’s demand at all faces of life, but I think I especially see it in some colleagues who are approaching retirement and they just don’t want to put in 40 or 50 hours a week. I had some colleagues I worked with at Bloomberg who actually alternated months. So, One of them would work September and then the next one would come in and take over that same set of tasks for October and then they would flip back. And for them for a long time, for years it worked. It seemed to work really, really well. And I think that whether it’s something like that or whether it’s working 20 hours a week, I just don’t think that most companies are set up to accept that. But there’s such a huge market out there of skilled people who would really like to work that way.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And there is a market of those people and their skills and experience are invaluable, right?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And we have a labor shortage if you haven’t noticed.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And we don’t have a labor shortage, right?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: This seems like a good time to segue into one of the other episodes that really caught my attention, which was the most recent one on leaving organizational change. Oh my goodness.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Sarah, we had you firmly in mind when we were planning that episode because before you had Georgia, you fought the good fight for parental leave here. And I think that might be one of the reasons you left.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Were you pregnant at the time when you were fighting the fight?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: No, I was displeased and frankly embarrassed by our parental leave policy at the time. HBR had one week of paid parental leave for all new parents and then if you were the birth parent you could take seven additional weeks of short-term disability. And then the seven weeks were partially paid if you were an employee for fewer than seven years and fully paid if you had been an employee for more than seven years, which was under a Harvard University policy. And actually universities have terrible, it turns out parental leave policies, including a lot of the other universities in the Boston area. I thought, “Well, I’ll build a case for this by looking at those and they’ll have better policies and they’ll be shamed into changing the Harvard policy.” And it was like, Nope, actually they’re all really bad. So, anyway, I was not pleased by that. I didn’t think it was enough time and I just thought we need to change this. And I thought at the time, to the extent that I have any political capital at this organization, from the work I’ve put in for the last 11 plus years I’m going to cash in every chip on this fight. And I think listening to that episode, I felt like there were definitely some things I could have done better in pushing for the change.

AMY GALLO: Like what?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, like Amy G, you talk about how you’re a spreadsheet person. Guilty, also a spreadsheet person and I’m like, “Behold my beautiful spreadsheet and just change.” Because what I did end up doing was I ended up finding other media organizations and we were behind if you looked at other media organizations in terms of our leave offering. And I sort of thought that the data would just speak for itself. I’m not sure I did enough to build a sort of coalition at the senior levels. I could have done more I think to build a coalition among other employees. But I also didn’t want to start a petition because I was like, I don’t want to be seen as a rabble rouser and I don’t want to ask other people to stick their neck out. I know. I might have failed and been seen as a rebel rouser anyway, I don’t know. But I think that I could have definitely approached that more skillfully. In the end, the policy did change and it is a better policy now.

AMY GALLO: But that point about being seen as a rabble rouser – I don’t think we covered that enough in that episode – which is that you’re expending social capital, but you are also changing your reputation, either for positive or negative while you’re pushing for that change. And you have to be aware of that, and also while you build a broader coalition so you’re not the only one carrying that reputational cost if there is a cost as opposed to a boost. I

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Also felt a little bit at the time like, I can take this hit, ‘m not going to ask other women who might not have as much political capital to spend it on this.”

AMY GALLO: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I will take this hit if it’s a hit.

EMILY CAULFIELD: One thing that I always wanted to tackle in all my full-time jobs was pay transparency.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah!

EMILY CAULFIELD: I wanted to talk about my pay with my coworkers and I wanted my coworkers to talk about pay with me. And I never knew how to do that, but I had this idea. I was like, I kind of want to add my salary to my email signature and I want everybody else to do it too. But of course that opens up a big can of worms. But pay transparency was always one of those things that I’m like, Why are we so secretive? In all of the jobs that I’ve ever been in! Why are we so secretive about how much money we make? But I realize that not everybody feels that way.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I think each of us are probably more comfortable on some issues than others. I will carry the flag anytime for parental leave. And then you start talking about money and I’m like, Money’s awkward.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah, I know. Money is so awkward for all of us to talk about. I feel like I see the Women at Work  newsletters – It’s called How I Got That Raise – and oh my God, the numbers are right there. And I’m like, These ladies are making a lot money.

AMY GALLO: We can’t not talk about the body size episode. The stats in the opening about the pay gap between, Normal size women versus women who live in larger bodies. It was so eye-opening to me and so depressing that the stigma is so deep.

NICOLE TORRES: I will never look at office cake the same way. Just some of those examples of the comments that you hear in meetings when there is an office snack or some celebration, like there’s cake and people are aware of who reaches for the cake and who doesn’t. That act can signal so many things and make people go into these shame spirals. Hearing that story stunned me because we are in situations like that pretty constantly. There’s always food around, there’s always talk about office lunches and snacks and exercising and there’s always this little valence of morality attached to that.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, Emily and I just had this moment just now where I brought cookies. I’m like, “Do you want a cookie?” She’s like, “No.” I’m like, “Are you sure?” And she’s like, “I think this should be –“

EMILY CAULFIELD: –This is very relevant to the body size episode.

AMY GALLO: I was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” And you just don’t even realize.

EMILY CAULFIELD: No, but I do want a cookie. I just need to have it after we’re done her.

AMY GALLO: And the comfort we have on commenting on other people’s bodies, particularly women’s and their eating habits, it’s so intense.

EMILY CAULFIELD: I think before I listened to that episode, I would’ve said, “No, of course I don’t have any weight bias or body size bias.” But then when Habiba was talking about going through the self-assessment and coming back that she was biased in this way or exhibited some implicit bias, I thought, Yeah, I do, too. The way I talk to myself when I’m a few pounds heavier or a few pounds lighter, I’m not nice as nice to myself when I’ve gained a few pounds and I’m so congratulatory if I’ve lost weight, even if it was through not doing anything of my own through not exercising or like.

AMY GALLO: Or just being sick.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: I mean, that’s the sickest thing to me is like the way we congratulate ourselves for losing weight because we were sick. Oh my God.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I recently came through a very stressful period and I dropped 12 pounds… and who was in her closet trying on the clothes from the back of the rod and feeling pretty proud of herself?!

AMY GALLO: Thank God all those horrible things happened in my life, now I fit in these pants.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, at least there’s this, right?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. It’s just so upsetting.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, I feel like this is something that I’ve wrestled with a lot in the past couple of years. Both because when I was trying to get pregnant, I ended up going on a crazy diet to help anyway, whatever. I went on a crazy diet where I cut out a lot of “toxic foods,” lost 12 pounds, and then got pregnant and then gained 45 pounds. And then that took a long time to come off. So, my weight has been all over the place. And yes, the voices in your head that are talking to you are not your voice, but there is some voice that you learned along the way. And now I have a daughter and of course I’m like, Well, I don’t want her to hear this toxic language from me. So, even if some of those voices still talk to me, I’m sort of like, what can I exhibit in front of my child so that she maybe grows up with less of this? ‘Cause I don’t think in our society we can totally block that out.

AMY BERNSTEIN: No, we can’t. The whole body positivity movement I think has been huge.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Body neutrality is something that has been helpful for me.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, wouldn’t that be nice to get.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: If body positivity is for me a bridge too far right now we can just be neutral. These are my legs, there they are. And that’s been something that’s just been helpful for me in terms of I don’t have to love them, they’re just there. They get me where I need to go.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Self-acceptance all the way around. It’s helped me too. There’s certain things that just aren’t going to change. Apparently my legs are never going to be long and lean. That’s okay.

NICOLE TORRES: But one other thing that I liked about the body’s episode too is the importance of having, basically just generating more awareness about this because we can have all the self-acceptance in the world, but that will be hard to achieve and hard to maintain if you go into workplaces and people are still weirdly judging you and making comments about bodies. So, there were some interventions in the episode that I thought were really good. One just stood out to me where when you’re reaching for that piece of cake, just like cheers and nothing, no comments on what that food means or what eating it symbolizes because it shouldn’t symbolize anything. And I think more tiny little gestures like that can go a long way. Neutralizing should be a communal goal, not just something we individually are seeking to do when it comes to accepting our bodies.

AMY GALLO: So, as you all might remember, just as soon as the season closes, you start thinking about the next one. So, we’re already planning for our next season and have a few topics. We’re thinking about particularly how divorce affects women at work, whether or not you need a personal brand, what does that mean? How do you build it? And I’m curious from Emily, Sarah, and Nicole, what you would like to hear us talk about. Sarah?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I have been writing a list.

AMY GALLO: Oh, good. Send me one.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Did she say she likes spreadsheets?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Just type it up and email it to us.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Type it up.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, you guys have talked about health issues on the show before, and you actually had a great episode this season about working while having a child who’s going through mental health issues. I just feel like I’m in a phase of life where more and more friends are I either having health issues themselves. A friend of mine had breast cancer earlier this year and that was really hard on her family. And then – she’s okay, she made it… but it was really hard. And then we have some other friends whose spouses have been diagnosed with devastating and very sudden forms of cancer. And they were a two-parent family, working family, and now they’re just a single parent, working family because their spouse was gone very quick. So, to me, the health issues are very salient and I would love to hear you guys talk more about managing that. In addition, I have two other topics. One is scheduling and rigidity and flexibility. I think this is such a big issue for so many women – especially women who are not part of the laptop class who can zoom in. It’s like if you have to be at your job and you have no flexibility, how does that work? Especially if you’re like, don’t find out until Tuesday that you’re working on Wednesday. That’s just something I’ve been thinking a lot about. And then, you know, mentioned personal brand and I feel like we’re living through such a time of social media transition now where these platforms are either plateauing or they’re starting to disintegrate or they’ve been shown to create mental health problems and people who use them. And I feel like so much of a personal brand is being on social. And so, I am very curious to know if you guys have thoughts on when you have to be on social media for your job, but you really don’t want to be, it’s not good for you. Well, how do you manage that?

AMY GALLO: Nicole, What do you want us to cover?

NICOLE TORRES: Well, as soon as you said personal branding, I thought of something very different. And that might just be time in my life and what my closest friends are talking about, which is, women change their names. That affects your personal brand and how do you handle that decision? I’m like having a lot of these conversations now with friends who are getting wed and some are changing their names, some are not. And we always have very interesting discussions about why or why not and how that affects their professional lives. So, that is also a big part of branding that women have to consider. Separately, selfishly, I’m also interested in hearing from other women who are thinking about children. Just the decision to become a parent when your life has been so structured on your work. Basically, how do you make that decision? If it’s a decision that you make it all, I don’t know, but that weighs on me and I could imagine you all would treat that subject very gracefully and insightfully.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: You guys, I really want to be back for some of these episodes.

AMY GALLO: We might have to have you back. Emily?

EMILY CAULFIELD: I would, ofcourse, love to hear more about entrepreneurship. I want to know how women who have their own businesses are planning out their days ,in their weeks, in their months, in their years, and how they’re making it work for them. Whether it’s, we’ve talked about this before. I’m very extrinsically motivated, and so, having this one employee for one day is so helpful for me. But anything like that. So, I’m wondering how other women who are doing it on their own are making it work because I could use that advice myself. I also really found that organizational change episode very interesting and I want to hear more examples of people doing that within their organizations. I want to hear how people did it, what they wanted to change, what steps they went through to do it. More of those very tangible examples will be so exciting.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I think we’ve talked about how that episode could have been four episodes, right? I do think a case study would be so helpful to others. These are all such good episodes that makes me miss being on a team with you all so regularly ’cause these are wonderful ideas and I’m sure we’re going to pick up on a few of them for next season. Emily, Sarah, Nicole, this has been a joy, truly. Thank you.

EMILY CAULFIELD: This was so fun.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Thank you so much for having me.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, so good to see you guys. [crosstalk, goodbyes]

AMY GALLO: As you know, at the end of every season of the show, we like to leave our listeners with some additional reading, listening and a sense of when you’ll be hearing from us again. So help me do that. Nicole, why don’t you start.

NICOLE TORRES: So, I’m going to tell everyone to subscribe to the Women at Work newsletter, which Amanda Kersey, our producer writes. It’s twice a month, it’s free and you get resources, practical advice, personal stories to lift you up and move you forward. I think that’s the tagline. But beyond that, it’s just like a really fantastic resource for what Women at Work is up to, what HBR is covering in terms of gender. I love it because I get little snippets into Amanda’s life. I learn a lot from that newsletter every time and I look forward to it. So, plug that for everyone else.

EMILY CAULFIELD: That was such a nice little plug. I highly recommend also the HBR Women at Work book series. There are three new books and they’re being released on December 13th. They’re available now for pre-order, Thriving in a Male Dominated Workplace, Next Level Negotiating and Taking Charge of your Career. I’m really excited to read these.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Also until we meet again, there is the archive of episodes. I will say some of them I have listened to before, but they sound really different when you are, for example, suddenly a working mom. All those Working Parenthood episodes suddenly just hit my ear differently when I’m on the other side of it. So, depending on where you are in your career, it can be worth going back and taking a listen.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Then on January 9th, we’ll return with another four episodes of The Essentials, which is our skill building series. Each episode we go deep on a particular skill and we talk with a subject matter expert, like a researcher and a woman working in a particular industry like say aerospace. And together we talk through the principles and mechanics of whatever skill we’re covering and how they apply on the ground, on the job, what they really look and sound like.

AMY GALLO: Actually, right before this recording we had a meeting to discuss what topics we’re going to cover in those episodes. And we’re talking about skills like office politics, decision-making, the very sexy topic of project management.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Which I’ll take.

AMY GALLO: Yes, Amy was very excited about project management.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I was very excited about that

AMY GALLO: And soliciting feedback, receiving feedback, being on the other end of that conversation.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Those are such good topics. I can’t wait to listen.

AMY GALLO: Thank you.

AMY GALLO: Women at Work’s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey Mack, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Robin Moore composed the scene music. And Remember, Women at Work isn’t the only podcast from Harvard Business Review.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: For starters, there’s the HBR IdeaCast, which I used to host and hosted for about 10 years. It’s a weekly interview show with leaders in business and management. I really miss hosting it.

AMY GALLO: You interviewed me on that show.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, I miss that. It’s still a good show. Even without me, you should still listen to it. I miss it.

AMY GALLO: Finally, if you’ve ever wondered how to sustain Women at Work, subscribing to Harvard Business Review really is the best way. A subscription gets you unlimited online access to digital articles, editor curated reading lists, the weekly insider newsletter and charts you can use in presentations. The print and premium plans offer all those benefits, and then some. You can decide which plan is for you by going to hbr.org/subscriptions. Thank you so much for your support. All right, we got to say goodbye, as sad as it is.

All: Bye.

AMY GALLO: Bye everyone.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That was a sad bye.

AMY GALLO: It was a bye, okay. Bye.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Bye.

NICOLE TORRES: This was so fun. Bye.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Ta-ta.

AMY GALLO: This was so much fun.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I know.

EMILY CAULFIELD: This was fun.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s so fun.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: We should do this again sometime.

AMY GALLO: I’ll miss you guys.

AMY BERNSTEIN: We should reunite every single episode.