May 27, 2025 • 40 mins
In today's episode, senior consulting partner Lareina Yee comes on to discuss career advancement, with a discussion of what is behind fewer women n top leadership positions. She shares the current challenges, but also practical tips to help avoid missing out on important career opportunities.
Lareina Yee is an author of The Broken Rung: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women--and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It, along with Kweilin Ellingrud and Maria del Mar Martinez.
In the Q&A, a listener asks for advice on working with an administrative assistant for the first time -- how can she make sure this partnership is productive, and one that helps her be more effective?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and courtse creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing at the end of May of
twenty twenty five. I am going to be interviewing Lorena Yee,
who is a senior partner at Mackenzie, the consulting firm,
and who is also the co author of The Broken Wrung,
which is a book about how fewer women than men
get that first promotion into manager.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So I know there's been.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
A lot of discussion out there of why are there
not more women in senior leadership roles, and the authors
of this book have done the research sort of tracing
it back to that initial first promotion that women are
significantly less likely to get.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And so the book talks about ways to deal with that.
There's obviously a.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Lot that organizations can do, which they have suggestions for that,
but also about what you can do personally to make
sure that you are positioned as well as possible to
be forefront of mind as people are considering promoting someone
into management, how you can show that you have the
experience to take on a new role, sort of some
strategic ways to organize your career with that in mind. So, Sarah,
(01:44):
you've certainly observed there aren't even though women are what
half of medical school classes now, I mean, there still
aren't that many women in senior positions and like hospital
leadership and things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
On the administrative side, I don't see that to be
the case, meaning like the non physicians, we actually have
a lot of like senior female leadership, which is cool.
I don't feel like I see as many women kind
of go the directorship role. I do feel like this
has improved the ratios even in the time since I've
been in practice.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And why might that be?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I mean, unfortunately, I think some of it is just
like I mean, I think back to my division when
I joined and they had one male amongst all women
in my group, and he was like the director even
though he was like almost fresh out of training, and
I just think there's just such a and he was
a great guy, by the way. I don't think it
was like a bad hire, but I do think there's
like still this bias of like when you're looking around
(02:38):
the room to see who should be in charge, like
people instinctively tend to look for the y chromosomes, and
like that's hopefully going to keep getting better and better
because it's like disappointing.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and hopefully that will change in a
lot of places too. I'm curious you do a lot
of forward looking planning. I know you've made like sort
of ten year goals and five years old. Do you
think a lot in terms of how to sort of
strategically position your career to get to those things, you know,
five and ten years in the future.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
My story is a little different because I guess I
sort of made the decision that I prefer not to
be in a leadership role at least at this phase
in my life, like within my medical career, like I
enjoy more just being an individual contributor and like mentoring
and trying to do the best I can. But like
I don't like middle management, I guess, is what I learned,
(03:28):
And I don't like trying to serve competing interests, like
I don't like not making people happy, I guess. So anyway,
I like decided, you know what, I'd rather work for
myself and have growth on that side, and then on
the other side be more of a like contributor, a specialist,
a worker. So I mean, I don't do that much
thinking about growth. I think more about what could maybe
(03:51):
be different or new angles of expertise, Like I do
love mentoring other physicians, and I know I've made a
difference in some of my colleagues and like how they
do their work and like their productivity, and like kind
of how they feel about their work, and so I'm like, wow,
that would be fun to kind of leverage that someday
going forward. But I don't think a lot about like
climbing a ladder, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, well, there's no real ladder in my organization. As
I were, I'm at the top wrong already.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
But as I think about my career, I yes and no,
do I think long term strategy about it. I do
kind of think of sort of slow growth in lots
of ways like keep building up the audience.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
What could I do next to bring in the audience.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But a lot of it is just trying different things,
and it's like the number of times at bat you
can have right, Like I'll put this product out into
the universe and see what people think of it, and
then I'll try something else and maybe something will be
amazing and take off. But I think it is good
for us to spend some time thinking about it because
part of taking our career seriously is think about, Okay,
(04:56):
well I'm going to be in this long term, what
do I want it to look like. You know, I
Am going to be doing something professionally ten years down
the road, So let me treat it seriously and get
to that point.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So I'm excited to see.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
What Lorena has to say. So here we go with
Lorena ye author of The Broken Wrong. Well, Sarah and
I are delighted to have Lorena Yee joining us today.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Lorena, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I'm excited to have you here.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
So maybe you could tell our listeners just a little
bit about you, who you are, your career, that sort.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Of thing, sure.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
I work at McKenzie and Company, and over the last
twenty five years I've been working in the technology sector,
really on client services, helping companies grow and innovate through
using technologies. And about fifteen years ago I started what
was a side hustle project which clearly became a lot more,
(05:50):
which was to use the tools and analytics in ways
that we think about organizational change at mackenzie and apply
it to one of the hardest questions in the world,
which is how is it that we start with gender
equity and education but don't land there in the workplace?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, and so you've been doing a lot of different
research projects related to this, and this has actually sort
of informed your career at mackenzie, right, I mean you
led some of the early diversity and inclusion initiatives there.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
I co founded Women in the Workplace, which is one
of the largest studies in the United States on the
experiences of both men and women in the workplace, as
well as a kind of benchmarking on representation. So really
kind of putting representation experience together. And as you say, Laura,
this book is in some ways it's been over a
decade in the making of pulling all of those perspectives together,
(06:43):
as well as new research that we had on a
concept of experience capital and the impact that has on
women's careers, and really shifting the spotlight from what organizations
can do to what, given that it's not a level
playing field, what women can do to find ways to
succeed in.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Spite of it all.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, and I thought that was a fascinating angle because
it is one thing to point.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Out that the wrong is broken, as it were from.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
The title of your book, Clay, But given that most
of us are not in a position to change the
world right now tomorrow, what can we do within that? So,
I mean, why was that sort of a real conscious
decision on your part to tackle that angle.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Absolutely, we're always looking for different ways to understand how
to solve something that is actually quite of a systems
level challenge. Right, It's not one action, it's multiple actions.
The challenge with company level change is that it is slow.
It takes a multi generational commitment of a company to
truly go from the entry level all the way to
(07:51):
the top and to the board level, where you have
a really different type of representation of culture. And I
think for the average woman in the workplace. You just
can't wait that long. So, whilst that's super interesting and
we want committed companies to walk the talk, so to speak,
we also need a set of tactics and strategies that
we can employ if we're currently in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, I mean, we just don't all have that kind
of time exactly, I.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Don't have that time.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, let's start with let's say we've got a young
woman who you know, we have lots of different people
of different ages listening to this podcast, but let's talk
about like a young woman newly out of school, perhaps
looking around at the working world, figuring out how am
I going to start?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
What am I doing?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Are there things that she should be looking for in
companies as she is looking to get in At the beginning,
let me.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Say a couple of things that maybe aren't quite in
the book, and then we'll talk about a couple specific
strategies that she should be thinking of. The first thing
is I think if you're starting a job search or
you're in the earth stages of your career, one of
the hardest things to do is find the self confidence
without a ton of work experience to bet on yourself.
(09:09):
But I think it's really important to bet on yourself,
and that is kind of a mindset and a personal
journey that you have to be on. Now, let's talk
about some of the tactics that you can apply to that.
The first thing is knowing your facts, and we lay
that out in a section called roots of the Problem,
because I feel like a lot of women don't go
(09:30):
in understanding the facts of what they're getting into. The
fact is is that in the United States and globally
in most countries, women outperform men in school in two measures,
the percentage of the population that graduates with an undergraduate
degree and their GPAs. So here's the thing, ladies, you
(09:51):
are doing amazing at school.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Congratulations.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
Now we don't see that success at those same rates
in terms of representation, promotion, velocity, and salary in the workplace.
So how do we flip the strength of being amazing
students at school to being amazing achievers at work? And
that's where this concept of experienced capital comes in, which
(10:16):
is close to fifty percent of your lifetime earnings comes
from what you learn on the job. So what you
learned in school only gets you about fifty percent of
the way there. Then, you have to take all that
strength and confidence and resilience and pointed at work. So
a tactical thing to get started with is pick a company,
not just a job. If you're starting out and you
(10:39):
feel fortunate, which I remember feeling just so grateful to
be offered a job, that's amazing, But also ask some
other questions. Make sure you're applying for jobs or you're
comparing if you have the fortune to have two or
three offers. How many women are at the leadership ranks
of that company. What are the policies and programs that
(11:01):
advance fair workplaces in that company?
Speaker 4 (11:04):
What are the things.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
That they do for early entry employees to help them
gain the capabilities and skills to get to that next level.
What do women who are too maybe promotions ahead of
where you would be say about that company? Have you
met women? Did you see them on the website? Did
you meet them in the recruiting process? What did they
say in an authentic and genuine way. You have to
(11:26):
ask a couple more questions, because remember, this is your career,
and this is best exemplified by this incredible woman who
if I take her towards thirty years after she started,
she was the CEO of a major technology company in
the valley. But when I asked her, what's the one
story you want to share of all your stories, she
(11:49):
said why. She chose IBM for her first job as
a sales leader, and she chose it as to well,
not even a sales leader, sales rep. She chose IBM
because she was admitted to a leadership program and that
leadership program taught her negotiation taught her like business skills,
taught her how to succeed, and that investment was worth
more than just being a sales rep at a prestigious
(12:13):
tech company.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, there are certain companies that really take it seriously
to train people, and I know a lot of companies
these days are kind of weary of that because they're like, well,
they'll just fly out the door, which they do.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I mean, IBM's great.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
People go elsewhere eventually in many cases, but you know
that they still find it worth it because it's the
place that people then want to go. We're going to
take a quick ad break and then I will be
back with more from Loraena Ye. Well, I'm talking with
(12:48):
Lorena Ye, who is the co author of the book
The Broken Wrong, which looks at how the gap between
women getting that first promotion in the workplace. I believe
Loreena was a number like eighty one women for every
hundred men promoted to the first level.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Is that what it is?
Speaker 5 (13:04):
Yeah, the odds of advancement are not equal. For every
one hundred men who get that first promotion you're just
a couple of years into work, only eighty one women
will see that same set of opportunities. And that's been
a number that's been pretty sticky for the last decade.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, And it's interesting because that's like, again at the
beginning of people's careers, so not even necessarily have gotten
into that whole thing of parenthood and all that, which
we will get to in a minute. But let's talk
a little bit about how we can build our own
experience capital. So we're looking at this to say, Okay, well,
one of the big things that's going to help my
earning's going to help my promotion and possibilities is to
have more experience capital. If I'm like looking around at
(13:43):
my life, what practically can I do to make sure
I get more of that?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Sure, there are so many things, but maybe to say
I'm at the beginning of my career. First of all,
it goes unset.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
You have to deliver the results.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
So whatever the OKR nbos quotas expectations are, you have
to deliver it. That is the main bowling alley. But
as you learn how to deliver that, you are gaining
a whole bunch of skills. Pop your nose up and
ask a couple of questions. One, what are the broader
set of capabilities that I need to be great at
(14:21):
the next job, in the next job after, And how
can I start to get experience at a project level
within the role that I have to lean towards that.
A second thing is how can I start to demonstrate
entrepreneurship really early. That's not about leaving and founding a company,
although you're more than welcome to do that. I sit
in Silicon Valley. That's a very popular thing to do.
(14:44):
But entrepreneurship is also how do you take initiative and
demonstrate leadership and forward thinking in the role you have.
It could be as simple as you have fifteen minutes
with a mentor and you get some feedback. You share
who you are, but you also bring three ideas to
the tape and offer not just like problems but I
could help by doing X, Y, and Z. I would
(15:06):
be excited to try and do this to help us
deliver a better product, a better merchandising experience, whatever it
is that you happen to be doing. So, I think
how you demonstrate that leadership and that extra quotion early
is not about working more. It's about building a set
of capabilities you're going to need in the long run.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, And I find that interesting because that is a
distinct thing from academic achievement in many ways, right, that
you tend to get good grades by doing well on
projects that have been assigned and tests that you know
are going to happen, on material that it's spelled out,
will be covered. Whereas that entrepreneurial mindset is looking for
(15:50):
something new that wasn't even there, right, I mean, that's
an entirely different.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Thing, exactly, And maybe one way to think about it
is to turn on its head a kind of phrase
that's often used, which is that women are promoted on
performance and men on potential. And that is this very
frustrating thing. It's something that's been discussed for decades, like, oh,
women look at all the criteria for a next job,
(16:17):
and they wait till they've exceeded on the all the
criteria and men say, hey, two out of ten ain't bad.
I'm gonna raise my hand, okay, and then they get
the job. Now instead of saying gosh, he doesn't deserve
the job, maybe say how I mean it is what
it is. I mean, don't worry about somebody else, worry
about yourself. How do I bet on my potential? And
(16:40):
so if I turn that around as something you can do,
you can say, look, I'm two years into the job,
the next job is exit. I would be really excited
about what are the pieces that are part of my
potential that are important for that next job. How do
I start to get some experience so that when I
have maybe not two out of ten, when I've got
(17:00):
seven out of ten, I can say, look, here's some
of the things I'm doing towards the other three, and
here's how I see it, and here's how I'm excited
to grow. So kind of looking up and around the corner.
We call that being strategic. I call that being practical.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Absolutely, it's really important. Yeah, and part of this might
be switching jobs.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I think it can be easy and sort of comfortable
to stay in jobs, and sometimes it's a good job.
But I think what I read from what I took
away from the Broken Wrung is sometimes even when things
are good, if you feel like you're not growing enough,
you really do need to keep looking around.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Absolutely so, I've seen this at junior levels. I've seen
this also at senior levels, where women feel like, for
specific reasons, the C suite is elusive. Maybe someone before
them could be practical, someone before them who's a woman,
just got that big CMO role, so it's not even
something holding them back. Take your talent and consider should
(17:57):
you go somewhere else? Now, Well, that doesn't you know
people are like, oh, that's not loyal or whatnot. You
can still be loyal by doing an amazing job. You
can still keep the network of people that you work with.
You can be very authentic in your job. But you
shouldn't turn down opportunities that would allow you to get
(18:19):
to your full potential. There's a balance there.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
One of the things I also found interesting in the book,
you talked about a finding that women tend to get
less actionable feedback than men. So as we're going about
building our experience capital, having these conversations with the manager
about what I need to know to be at the
next level. How can you get a little bit more
practical feedback on how you might improve.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Yeah, So there are two things that the data shows
which I'm very focused on, like how do you turn
something slightly depressing into something that is a practical point
of action. So two things that are kind of depressing.
One is that women tend to get less quote negative
or constructive feedback, both by male and female managers. So
(19:11):
that is maybe you're like, oh, I only want cheerful feedback,
but the challenge is is that actually negative or constructive
or developmental feedback is some of the best ways you
grow when someone If you make a mistake and someone
is willing to tell you about that and help you
get to the next place, that's a huge gift. So
if you're getting less of that, that's actually not helpful.
(19:33):
The second thing is that women tend to have more
narrow and more junior networks, so there are more, fewer,
and let me just say it, less powerful people in
the average women's network.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
When you put those those things together, it is.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
Hard to have around you that kind of village that
propels you forward. So sometimes a woman may be sitting
there like how is it that the guys know everybody?
The you know what to do next? Like what meeting
did I miss? And I think you didn't miss a meeting.
It's a lot of these micro points that add up
(20:09):
to a macro difference, and so seeking directly feedback and saying, hey,
I didn't think that last project totally. I don't think
I hit it out of the park. Could you tell
me two or three things that I should take with
me to the next place.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So just de risk.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
So it's easy for people to give you that feedback.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
It requires confidence again to be like, look, it wasn't perfect,
but tell me how to get to the next thing.
I'm eager to get there. So seeking feedback out and
then also consistently building out your networks. These don't just
sort of happen to you. They are relationships that you
have to build an investment in over time. It's part
(20:50):
of your job.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Absolutely, yeah, it is part of your job.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
It's not the extra stuff, it actually is a part
of it. So yeah, this podcast is aimed at women
who are building careers while also raising families, and of
course that is one of the reasons that perhaps representation
as we go up the ladder may not be equitable.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Is that many women wind up taking time out of.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
The workforce to raise children, or they may be more
responsible for the kids within a partnership or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And so maybe we could.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Talk about how to address that elephant in their room,
like what are some ways to make sure that if
you are raising a family and want to spend time
with your family and all that, that you are still
moving your career forward and maybe even seeing parenthood not
as a liability but as something that could be a
potential moment of change in your career.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
So I have two co authors, Maria and Quillon, and
amongst the three of us, we have nine kids. Each
of us have three. I would not say it's easy.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
So first I think let's just call it as it is.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
It is not easy to work at advance your career,
do a great job in the current job, invest in
your future job as well as Ray's incredibly important people
young people to be wonderful adults like that the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And kids.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
When your kids, you have multiple kids less than ten
at home, this is challenging and it's challenging for both parents.
But we do find year over year that when we
look at even dual career families, the vast majority of
the household burden or the workload in the home economy,
(22:37):
irrespective of whether the woman is the prime bread winner
or the secondary bread winner, tends to fall on women.
So I think, like we just kind of have to
acknowledge first of all, that it's not an equal division
of labor in many cases, and we also have seen
from an economic perspective some of the challenges that really
(22:58):
face So all that said, like you know, we shouldn't
be afraid to say that it's not even that it
is harder that women have and carry different loads, and
I'm not saying which one is better or worse, but
some of those loads have a lot more in the bag.
So with that, one of the things is I would say,
(23:23):
how do you manage the tactics of your leave? And
one of the things that I always talk about, and
I this used to just be with women I mentored,
and then more and more broadly, is pack a round
trip ticket for yourself. Women do an amazing job planning
to leave.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Okay, I've made sure that all.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
The activities of my job that someone else has it
all the projects are taken care of, all the checklists
are there. If you're in a client service business like myself,
I've talked to all my clients.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
They've seen me. I'm going to be leaving at X date.
I will be back.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
You've done all all the things to prepare. You've done
all the things to prepare for taking a certain amount
of time off, no matter how long or short. That is.
What we don't often see is that women take that
same amount of care to Like what I say is like,
write your round trip ticket back, what does the return
trip look like? And that may be getting in contact
(24:21):
with your mentors and sponsors and your boss early, like
you know, a month before you come back, thinking about
the work you're going to do when you come back,
thinking about the fact that other people were doing part
of your job, how are you going to do that,
Thinking about ways that you can lead, maybe even thinking
about part time for a little bit of the beginning
and then moving to full time, but like really architecting
(24:41):
with that same executive function skill to which you left,
how you come back and thinking about how to do that.
And sometimes what I have found anecdotally is that the
first two or three months back aren't really that hard.
It really starts to hit at six and nine months
when you have the collective maybe the sleep deprivation times.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
The chips and work.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Usually the first moments aren't as difficult as the sustaining model,
to which you will have to work differently in a
world where you have one, two, three kids at home
and you are in a different stage of life and
you still have all those work ambitions.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
So I think there's.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Something about using the function there there. Second thing is
about how you think about the skills you've learned. Some
of the soft skills which we call soft skills, are
hard skills. How some of those contribute as opposed to
take away from your ability to be seen as a leader.
And then I think the last thing is do you
(25:41):
think about time differently? And maybe just to give you
one quick story, is one of my favorite stories. I
mean there are lots of favorites, say like favorites every chapter,
but one favorite story is this incredible lawyer and she
was on the rise doing a amazing things at Yahoo
(26:02):
at the time, and she had her first boy, and
then she decided to be a full time mom. And
I mean, if you saw her in action, you were
like you took that on with the same gusto that
you took on being a lawyer. Then fourteen years later,
(26:22):
she actually joined a reboarding group at LinkedIn, got back
into the workforce, and is like thriving at LinkedIn in
legal department again. And I love this story because she's
the same amazing leader, like you see it in her
(26:43):
when she was at Yahoo, when she was a full
time parent with her husband working full time, and then
now she's back and I think, like you just imagine
her kids, like her kids have seen all these different
versions and this texture to their mom, and she still
has so much energy in life and career left. And
(27:04):
so sometimes we measure it in days and months, maybe
sometimes we measure it in years. But that takes a
lot of personal courage and some companies that are willing
to invest in women to help them get back up
to speed.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Absolutely, Well, We're going to take one more quick ad
break and then I'll be back with more from Lorena Ye. Well,
I am back with Loraina Yee, who is the co
author of the book The Broken Wrung about what we
(27:40):
can do as women to help our careers advance to
overcome the problems of under representation, particularly in that first
managerial level. I want to talk a little bit though
about the mental load and the load of carrying the
household administration and work and all that that we mentioned earlier,
(28:01):
that women tend to carry more of that, particularly in
dual career couples. And you, guys, your co authors, and
you are in a field that is known for longer hours,
for travel for client services. I'm curious if you guys,
or you in particular, have anything that has found it
made it easy to feel like you have the mental
(28:23):
space to take on the job given what it entails.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
I think I might have tried something different at every season,
every phase, So I think I've been still in search
of when the kids were younger. So my kids are
I have a twenty two year old and eighteen year
old and a ten year old. So for quick math,
and I talk about this quite openly, McKinsey had won
(28:49):
every decade, every tenure. So one thing I've found is
that there are different types of tactics at different types
of tenure that are required because your responsibilities and also
your learning curve and your team and everything is a
bit different. So I don't think there's one way to
do it. I do think it's a bit custom built
(29:10):
to where you are. The second thing is there are
a couple of things that have helped, though the specifics
may have been different. One is I used to think
I was very well organized, but when you are overwhelmed,
sometimes you present is disorganized. So I found that having
(29:32):
some quiet time to think ahead three days three months
or three days three weeks three months is really really helpful.
I found that making to do lists that entail work
and home and looking at them together, as opposed to
(29:52):
I do all my work stuff and then I try
to get to my home stuff or vice versa. I
think there's something about just kind of letting it all
be on a sheet of paper. I know that sounds
incredibly tactical, but there is something about organizing in your
operating model, and that's a fancy way for saying all
the things that you have to get done. A second
category is I think over time, and it was really
(30:15):
hard for me at the beginning. I think I've gotten
a little bit better at just saying I'm not good
at that, or I'm having a hard time with this,
and then that entails getting some help or maybe even
just signaling like this.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Is gonna be a little bit sixty forty, not even eighty.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Twenty, or just maybe giving myself more time to do
something or not expecting that same level of thoroughness, and
that's less like work deliverables. But I think we add
on a lot of things at home. So there's something
about just knowing where you're at and saying, look, this
(30:58):
is a little too much for me. And it's amazing
how many people want to help you. And it's amazing
when you have a community around you, both at work
and at home. And then I think the last thing
that's a little bit tactical and helpful is as the
kids have grown up, you realize all the idioms that
(31:21):
you know are real. It's a really it's a marathon,
not a race. And part of this is being there
at the milestones in the like seventeenth lap and the
eighteenth lap and the twenty second lap. And it's like
such an honor for me to be my kid's mom.
(31:42):
And I feel like it may not accelerate my promotions
in all cases, and I think that's real and it
has real economic value to it, so I want to
discount it, but it definitely accelerates my totalness as a
person in life.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Absolutely well. And you've gotten a lot of promotions too.
So let's let's be clear. Do you think I'm very curious?
Do you think you have more control of your time now?
I mean, you had the last child than when you
are quite higher up versus the first one.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I think it might.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Have been easier. It might have been oddly easier with
the first one.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Oh, you're younger than too.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
I mean, who knows, well, well, I was younger, I
had a boundless energy.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
I still do, but I had more energy.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
But I also I do think there's a real difference
when you're managing yourself and the things that you're working on,
Like you're an individual contributor, even if you manage two
or three people, but you're largely an individual contributor versus
managing like a whole function. And so I definitely felt
a different level of responsibility when you work on a
(32:50):
project basis as an individual contributor. If you leave your work,
you give it to someone else. You can go away
from it and then you can come back from it.
That's an amazing gift for maternity leave or printal leave.
When you manage whole teams like that's a little more complicated.
So I think like the texture of what's hard is
a little different each time, which is why I think
(33:12):
investing in your round trip ticket and that that's a
long journey with a couple of stops is quite helpful.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Okay, all right, well, good to know, good to know.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Well, Lorena, we always end with a love of the week,
So this is anything that is making your life better
right now? This is gonna be a funny one, but
I've visited a friend over the weekend who happens to
have a farm and left with many, many eggs, which
is just sort of a funny thing now because they're
ridiculously expensive, but they're also really really good to have
(33:45):
these eggs, like straight from the chicken. My breakfast has
been amazing this week. So that is that is my
love of the week. What's good for you right now?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Well, I would say if I had fresh eggs, I
would make carbonara sauce.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Just kidding, scrambled're going straight to the pasta.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
I would just go to the pasta and the panchetta
and some oil. I mean, what a difference fresh eggs
make in panchetta pasta. But I think my enjoy for
the week is so I was listening and I've been
reading and thinking a lot more as I spent a
lot of time in AI about robotics and kind of
(34:25):
robotics powered by AI level reasoning. And it's really interesting
because one of the things that humanoid AI robots are
making progress in are like basic house tasks. And that's
not the exciting part. What was the exciting part is
I was listening to one of the engineers breakdown how
(34:46):
hard it is to get a robot to do things
like to clear the dishes and put them away. And
what I thought was, Yes, there is complexity in what
seem or with ours like discounted simple things, and so
I just thought it was great that, like there was
(35:07):
complexity in terms of making a essentially a computer and
a physical object do this kind of the way mow
for the house. But I also thought, in the long run,
I love the promise that AI could help take some
of the toil which really sits on both parents away,
(35:27):
because what matters most like why are we working so hard?
We're working so hard so we can be at our
best and have quality time with our colleagues and our
people that we work with. And quality time with our families,
and so you know, if there could be a real
sea change in that, that makes me really optimistic for
the future.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Also, it would be really cool to have a robot
empty the dishwasher. I would enjoy that quite a bit. Yeah,
but the dishes, it.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Seems like gonna be very high.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
There's a lot of judgment. You need a judgment involved us. Well, Lorena,
thank you so much for joining us. If people want
to learn more, where can they go?
Speaker 4 (36:05):
They can go to Broken Wrong.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
You can find it on the McKinsey dot com website,
as well as Amazon and all other places that you
buy books. It's in my local bookstore, and I found
out that it was actually at a stock so they
had to writing more, which was probably the greatest compliment.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Hopefully, it wasn't just my kids buying the book.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
It's just your family buys it and then it's like,
but it's out of stock. Now I've done that, Like
that was the last copy I bought it.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Well, all right, Laura, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Thank you so much for hosting all Right.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Well, that was awesome and probably inspiring to lots of
our listeners. So we now have a question that is
tangentially related. Someone asked they got promoted into a major
leadership role, and this actually came from one of our
Patreon subscribers, but hopefully she won't mine is getting shared
even more widely. And she said she was going to
be working with an administrative assistant for the first time.
(37:01):
So do we have advice on how to make sure
this is a productive partnership and one that helps her
be more effective in her role?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, well, I think definitely thinking about that last part, Like,
this person's role is to help you be more effective,
So you need to think about where are the places
where support would really allow me to spend my time
on my highest value skills and the.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Things that I uniquely can do.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And especially if you are in a major leadership role,
this is probably working with the senior people who are
reporting directly to you, spending time with those people and
making sure they know what they're doing leading the organization right,
providing the motivation for everyone, and encouragement in the direction
broadly for the group. And so what can this person
(37:48):
do to make sure that you can devote as much
of your time as possible to those things? So I
think it would really really help to track your time
as you are doing this, to look at how your
work hours get spent, and then to sort of go
through and say, well, which one of those things were
the ones that were my highest value use, what were
(38:08):
the things that somebody else could do, and then try
to kind of over time put more and more of
those with your administrative assistant.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
And I think also recognizing that it is something that
is going to.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Take time to build a relationship because both of you
are going to have to figure out how to work together.
So don't take anything that happens in the first few
weeks as set like it can change.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
This person will have ideas, you'll have ideas. You'll work
together to make it work.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
But you could also especially if you are getting someone
who has a lot of experience in this, which I'm
hoping that you are, Like maybe they were supporting the
previous person in your role, or it's somebody who's been
hired who's been a long time executive assistant, has worked
with people in major leadership roles. Before ask this person,
what do you do that has been most helpful? Like,
(38:58):
what have you done that has been transformative? What would
you see looking at what you know of my role
that you would like to support me on and you
think would work best, and they'll probably have ideas that
you might not have thought of.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
I think what you said earlier about like taking time
is important because it can be It may feel laborious
at first to get someone really used to the way
you like things done, or maybe they do something and
you want to give feedback, and that all takes time,
like it's going to come up the works. But at
the end of the day, if that person is someone
who's going to be staying, it's so where it's spending
that time to have him or her understand how you
(39:31):
do things, because again, that's like over and over again,
that's going to pay time dividends. I also like what
you said about like things that are the most value
of your time, But I also think kind of thinking
about like what do I least want to spend my
time doing that I'm doing right now, and figuring out
how you can template that out to have that person
help with those extremely low value tasks.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Absolutely, all right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.
We've been talking about the broken wrong getting that first
promotion into management and settings people up for.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Success in that. We will be back next week with
more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and courtse creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing at the end of May of
twenty twenty five. I am going to be interviewing Lorena Yee,
who is a senior partner at Mackenzie, the consulting firm,
and who is also the co author of The Broken Wrung,
which is a book about how fewer women than men
get that first promotion into manager.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So I know there's been.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
A lot of discussion out there of why are there
not more women in senior leadership roles, and the authors
of this book have done the research sort of tracing
it back to that initial first promotion that women are
significantly less likely to get.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And so the book talks about ways to deal with that.
There's obviously a.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Lot that organizations can do, which they have suggestions for that,
but also about what you can do personally to make
sure that you are positioned as well as possible to
be forefront of mind as people are considering promoting someone
into management, how you can show that you have the
experience to take on a new role, sort of some
strategic ways to organize your career with that in mind. So, Sarah,
(01:44):
you've certainly observed there aren't even though women are what
half of medical school classes now, I mean, there still
aren't that many women in senior positions and like hospital
leadership and things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
On the administrative side, I don't see that to be
the case, meaning like the non physicians, we actually have
a lot of like senior female leadership, which is cool.
I don't feel like I see as many women kind
of go the directorship role. I do feel like this
has improved the ratios even in the time since I've
been in practice.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And why might that be?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I mean, unfortunately, I think some of it is just
like I mean, I think back to my division when
I joined and they had one male amongst all women
in my group, and he was like the director even
though he was like almost fresh out of training, and
I just think there's just such a and he was
a great guy, by the way. I don't think it
was like a bad hire, but I do think there's
like still this bias of like when you're looking around
(02:38):
the room to see who should be in charge, like
people instinctively tend to look for the y chromosomes, and
like that's hopefully going to keep getting better and better
because it's like disappointing.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and hopefully that will change in a
lot of places too. I'm curious you do a lot
of forward looking planning. I know you've made like sort
of ten year goals and five years old. Do you
think a lot in terms of how to sort of
strategically position your career to get to those things, you know,
five and ten years in the future.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
My story is a little different because I guess I
sort of made the decision that I prefer not to
be in a leadership role at least at this phase
in my life, like within my medical career, like I
enjoy more just being an individual contributor and like mentoring
and trying to do the best I can. But like
I don't like middle management, I guess, is what I learned,
(03:28):
And I don't like trying to serve competing interests, like
I don't like not making people happy, I guess. So anyway,
I like decided, you know what, I'd rather work for
myself and have growth on that side, and then on
the other side be more of a like contributor, a specialist,
a worker. So I mean, I don't do that much
thinking about growth. I think more about what could maybe
(03:51):
be different or new angles of expertise, Like I do
love mentoring other physicians, and I know I've made a
difference in some of my colleagues and like how they
do their work and like their productivity, and like kind
of how they feel about their work, and so I'm like, wow,
that would be fun to kind of leverage that someday
going forward. But I don't think a lot about like
climbing a ladder, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, well, there's no real ladder in my organization. As
I were, I'm at the top wrong already.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
But as I think about my career, I yes and no,
do I think long term strategy about it. I do
kind of think of sort of slow growth in lots
of ways like keep building up the audience.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
What could I do next to bring in the audience.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But a lot of it is just trying different things,
and it's like the number of times at bat you
can have right, Like I'll put this product out into
the universe and see what people think of it, and
then I'll try something else and maybe something will be
amazing and take off. But I think it is good
for us to spend some time thinking about it because
part of taking our career seriously is think about, Okay,
(04:56):
well I'm going to be in this long term, what
do I want it to look like. You know, I
Am going to be doing something professionally ten years down
the road, So let me treat it seriously and get
to that point.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So I'm excited to see.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
What Lorena has to say. So here we go with
Lorena ye author of The Broken Wrong. Well, Sarah and
I are delighted to have Lorena Yee joining us today.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Lorena, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I'm excited to have you here.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
So maybe you could tell our listeners just a little
bit about you, who you are, your career, that sort.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Of thing, sure.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
I work at McKenzie and Company, and over the last
twenty five years I've been working in the technology sector,
really on client services, helping companies grow and innovate through
using technologies. And about fifteen years ago I started what
was a side hustle project which clearly became a lot more,
(05:50):
which was to use the tools and analytics in ways
that we think about organizational change at mackenzie and apply
it to one of the hardest questions in the world,
which is how is it that we start with gender
equity and education but don't land there in the workplace?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, and so you've been doing a lot of different
research projects related to this, and this has actually sort
of informed your career at mackenzie, right, I mean you
led some of the early diversity and inclusion initiatives there.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
I co founded Women in the Workplace, which is one
of the largest studies in the United States on the
experiences of both men and women in the workplace, as
well as a kind of benchmarking on representation. So really
kind of putting representation experience together. And as you say, Laura,
this book is in some ways it's been over a
decade in the making of pulling all of those perspectives together,
(06:43):
as well as new research that we had on a
concept of experience capital and the impact that has on
women's careers, and really shifting the spotlight from what organizations
can do to what, given that it's not a level
playing field, what women can do to find ways to
succeed in.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Spite of it all.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, and I thought that was a fascinating angle because
it is one thing to point.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Out that the wrong is broken, as it were from.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
The title of your book, Clay, But given that most
of us are not in a position to change the
world right now tomorrow, what can we do within that? So,
I mean, why was that sort of a real conscious
decision on your part to tackle that angle.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Absolutely, we're always looking for different ways to understand how
to solve something that is actually quite of a systems
level challenge. Right, It's not one action, it's multiple actions.
The challenge with company level change is that it is slow.
It takes a multi generational commitment of a company to
truly go from the entry level all the way to
(07:51):
the top and to the board level, where you have
a really different type of representation of culture. And I
think for the average woman in the workplace. You just
can't wait that long. So, whilst that's super interesting and
we want committed companies to walk the talk, so to speak,
we also need a set of tactics and strategies that
we can employ if we're currently in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, I mean, we just don't all have that kind
of time exactly, I.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Don't have that time.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, let's start with let's say we've got a young
woman who you know, we have lots of different people
of different ages listening to this podcast, but let's talk
about like a young woman newly out of school, perhaps
looking around at the working world, figuring out how am
I going to start?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
What am I doing?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Are there things that she should be looking for in
companies as she is looking to get in At the beginning,
let me.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Say a couple of things that maybe aren't quite in
the book, and then we'll talk about a couple specific
strategies that she should be thinking of. The first thing
is I think if you're starting a job search or
you're in the earth stages of your career, one of
the hardest things to do is find the self confidence
without a ton of work experience to bet on yourself.
(09:09):
But I think it's really important to bet on yourself,
and that is kind of a mindset and a personal
journey that you have to be on. Now, let's talk
about some of the tactics that you can apply to that.
The first thing is knowing your facts, and we lay
that out in a section called roots of the Problem,
because I feel like a lot of women don't go
(09:30):
in understanding the facts of what they're getting into. The
fact is is that in the United States and globally
in most countries, women outperform men in school in two measures,
the percentage of the population that graduates with an undergraduate
degree and their GPAs. So here's the thing, ladies, you
(09:51):
are doing amazing at school.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Congratulations.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
Now we don't see that success at those same rates
in terms of representation, promotion, velocity, and salary in the workplace.
So how do we flip the strength of being amazing
students at school to being amazing achievers at work? And
that's where this concept of experienced capital comes in, which
(10:16):
is close to fifty percent of your lifetime earnings comes
from what you learn on the job. So what you
learned in school only gets you about fifty percent of
the way there. Then, you have to take all that
strength and confidence and resilience and pointed at work. So
a tactical thing to get started with is pick a company,
not just a job. If you're starting out and you
(10:39):
feel fortunate, which I remember feeling just so grateful to
be offered a job, that's amazing, But also ask some
other questions. Make sure you're applying for jobs or you're
comparing if you have the fortune to have two or
three offers. How many women are at the leadership ranks
of that company. What are the policies and programs that
(11:01):
advance fair workplaces in that company?
Speaker 4 (11:04):
What are the things.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
That they do for early entry employees to help them
gain the capabilities and skills to get to that next level.
What do women who are too maybe promotions ahead of
where you would be say about that company? Have you
met women? Did you see them on the website? Did
you meet them in the recruiting process? What did they
say in an authentic and genuine way. You have to
(11:26):
ask a couple more questions, because remember, this is your career,
and this is best exemplified by this incredible woman who
if I take her towards thirty years after she started,
she was the CEO of a major technology company in
the valley. But when I asked her, what's the one
story you want to share of all your stories, she
(11:49):
said why. She chose IBM for her first job as
a sales leader, and she chose it as to well,
not even a sales leader, sales rep. She chose IBM
because she was admitted to a leadership program and that
leadership program taught her negotiation taught her like business skills,
taught her how to succeed, and that investment was worth
more than just being a sales rep at a prestigious
(12:13):
tech company.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, there are certain companies that really take it seriously
to train people, and I know a lot of companies
these days are kind of weary of that because they're like, well,
they'll just fly out the door, which they do.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I mean, IBM's great.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
People go elsewhere eventually in many cases, but you know
that they still find it worth it because it's the
place that people then want to go. We're going to
take a quick ad break and then I will be
back with more from Loraena Ye. Well, I'm talking with
(12:48):
Lorena Ye, who is the co author of the book
The Broken Wrong, which looks at how the gap between
women getting that first promotion in the workplace. I believe
Loreena was a number like eighty one women for every
hundred men promoted to the first level.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Is that what it is?
Speaker 5 (13:04):
Yeah, the odds of advancement are not equal. For every
one hundred men who get that first promotion you're just
a couple of years into work, only eighty one women
will see that same set of opportunities. And that's been
a number that's been pretty sticky for the last decade.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, And it's interesting because that's like, again at the
beginning of people's careers, so not even necessarily have gotten
into that whole thing of parenthood and all that, which
we will get to in a minute. But let's talk
a little bit about how we can build our own
experience capital. So we're looking at this to say, Okay, well,
one of the big things that's going to help my
earning's going to help my promotion and possibilities is to
have more experience capital. If I'm like looking around at
(13:43):
my life, what practically can I do to make sure
I get more of that?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Sure, there are so many things, but maybe to say
I'm at the beginning of my career. First of all,
it goes unset.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
You have to deliver the results.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
So whatever the OKR nbos quotas expectations are, you have
to deliver it. That is the main bowling alley. But
as you learn how to deliver that, you are gaining
a whole bunch of skills. Pop your nose up and
ask a couple of questions. One, what are the broader
set of capabilities that I need to be great at
(14:21):
the next job, in the next job after, And how
can I start to get experience at a project level
within the role that I have to lean towards that.
A second thing is how can I start to demonstrate
entrepreneurship really early. That's not about leaving and founding a company,
although you're more than welcome to do that. I sit
in Silicon Valley. That's a very popular thing to do.
(14:44):
But entrepreneurship is also how do you take initiative and
demonstrate leadership and forward thinking in the role you have.
It could be as simple as you have fifteen minutes
with a mentor and you get some feedback. You share
who you are, but you also bring three ideas to
the tape and offer not just like problems but I
could help by doing X, Y, and Z. I would
(15:06):
be excited to try and do this to help us
deliver a better product, a better merchandising experience, whatever it
is that you happen to be doing. So, I think
how you demonstrate that leadership and that extra quotion early
is not about working more. It's about building a set
of capabilities you're going to need in the long run.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, And I find that interesting because that is a
distinct thing from academic achievement in many ways, right, that
you tend to get good grades by doing well on
projects that have been assigned and tests that you know
are going to happen, on material that it's spelled out,
will be covered. Whereas that entrepreneurial mindset is looking for
(15:50):
something new that wasn't even there, right, I mean, that's
an entirely different.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Thing, exactly, And maybe one way to think about it
is to turn on its head a kind of phrase
that's often used, which is that women are promoted on
performance and men on potential. And that is this very
frustrating thing. It's something that's been discussed for decades, like, oh,
women look at all the criteria for a next job,
(16:17):
and they wait till they've exceeded on the all the
criteria and men say, hey, two out of ten ain't bad.
I'm gonna raise my hand, okay, and then they get
the job. Now instead of saying gosh, he doesn't deserve
the job, maybe say how I mean it is what
it is. I mean, don't worry about somebody else, worry
about yourself. How do I bet on my potential? And
(16:40):
so if I turn that around as something you can do,
you can say, look, I'm two years into the job,
the next job is exit. I would be really excited
about what are the pieces that are part of my
potential that are important for that next job. How do
I start to get some experience so that when I
have maybe not two out of ten, when I've got
(17:00):
seven out of ten, I can say, look, here's some
of the things I'm doing towards the other three, and
here's how I see it, and here's how I'm excited
to grow. So kind of looking up and around the corner.
We call that being strategic. I call that being practical.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Absolutely, it's really important. Yeah, and part of this might
be switching jobs.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I think it can be easy and sort of comfortable
to stay in jobs, and sometimes it's a good job.
But I think what I read from what I took
away from the Broken Wrung is sometimes even when things
are good, if you feel like you're not growing enough,
you really do need to keep looking around.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Absolutely so, I've seen this at junior levels. I've seen
this also at senior levels, where women feel like, for
specific reasons, the C suite is elusive. Maybe someone before
them could be practical, someone before them who's a woman,
just got that big CMO role, so it's not even
something holding them back. Take your talent and consider should
(17:57):
you go somewhere else? Now, Well, that doesn't you know
people are like, oh, that's not loyal or whatnot. You
can still be loyal by doing an amazing job. You
can still keep the network of people that you work with.
You can be very authentic in your job. But you
shouldn't turn down opportunities that would allow you to get
(18:19):
to your full potential. There's a balance there.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
One of the things I also found interesting in the book,
you talked about a finding that women tend to get
less actionable feedback than men. So as we're going about
building our experience capital, having these conversations with the manager
about what I need to know to be at the
next level. How can you get a little bit more
practical feedback on how you might improve.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Yeah, So there are two things that the data shows
which I'm very focused on, like how do you turn
something slightly depressing into something that is a practical point
of action. So two things that are kind of depressing.
One is that women tend to get less quote negative
or constructive feedback, both by male and female managers. So
(19:11):
that is maybe you're like, oh, I only want cheerful feedback,
but the challenge is is that actually negative or constructive
or developmental feedback is some of the best ways you
grow when someone If you make a mistake and someone
is willing to tell you about that and help you
get to the next place, that's a huge gift. So
if you're getting less of that, that's actually not helpful.
(19:33):
The second thing is that women tend to have more
narrow and more junior networks, so there are more, fewer,
and let me just say it, less powerful people in
the average women's network.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
When you put those those things together, it is.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
Hard to have around you that kind of village that
propels you forward. So sometimes a woman may be sitting
there like how is it that the guys know everybody?
The you know what to do next? Like what meeting
did I miss? And I think you didn't miss a meeting.
It's a lot of these micro points that add up
(20:09):
to a macro difference, and so seeking directly feedback and saying, hey,
I didn't think that last project totally. I don't think
I hit it out of the park. Could you tell
me two or three things that I should take with
me to the next place.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So just de risk.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
So it's easy for people to give you that feedback.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
It requires confidence again to be like, look, it wasn't perfect,
but tell me how to get to the next thing.
I'm eager to get there. So seeking feedback out and
then also consistently building out your networks. These don't just
sort of happen to you. They are relationships that you
have to build an investment in over time. It's part
(20:50):
of your job.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Absolutely, yeah, it is part of your job.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
It's not the extra stuff, it actually is a part
of it. So yeah, this podcast is aimed at women
who are building careers while also raising families, and of
course that is one of the reasons that perhaps representation
as we go up the ladder may not be equitable.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Is that many women wind up taking time out of.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
The workforce to raise children, or they may be more
responsible for the kids within a partnership or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And so maybe we could.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Talk about how to address that elephant in their room,
like what are some ways to make sure that if
you are raising a family and want to spend time
with your family and all that, that you are still
moving your career forward and maybe even seeing parenthood not
as a liability but as something that could be a
potential moment of change in your career.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
So I have two co authors, Maria and Quillon, and
amongst the three of us, we have nine kids. Each
of us have three. I would not say it's easy.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
So first I think let's just call it as it is.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
It is not easy to work at advance your career,
do a great job in the current job, invest in
your future job as well as Ray's incredibly important people
young people to be wonderful adults like that the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And kids.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
When your kids, you have multiple kids less than ten
at home, this is challenging and it's challenging for both parents.
But we do find year over year that when we
look at even dual career families, the vast majority of
the household burden or the workload in the home economy,
(22:37):
irrespective of whether the woman is the prime bread winner
or the secondary bread winner, tends to fall on women.
So I think, like we just kind of have to
acknowledge first of all, that it's not an equal division
of labor in many cases, and we also have seen
from an economic perspective some of the challenges that really
(22:58):
face So all that said, like you know, we shouldn't
be afraid to say that it's not even that it
is harder that women have and carry different loads, and
I'm not saying which one is better or worse, but
some of those loads have a lot more in the bag.
So with that, one of the things is I would say,
(23:23):
how do you manage the tactics of your leave? And
one of the things that I always talk about, and
I this used to just be with women I mentored,
and then more and more broadly, is pack a round
trip ticket for yourself. Women do an amazing job planning
to leave.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Okay, I've made sure that all.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
The activities of my job that someone else has it
all the projects are taken care of, all the checklists
are there. If you're in a client service business like myself,
I've talked to all my clients.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
They've seen me. I'm going to be leaving at X date.
I will be back.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
You've done all all the things to prepare. You've done
all the things to prepare for taking a certain amount
of time off, no matter how long or short. That is.
What we don't often see is that women take that
same amount of care to Like what I say is like,
write your round trip ticket back, what does the return
trip look like? And that may be getting in contact
(24:21):
with your mentors and sponsors and your boss early, like
you know, a month before you come back, thinking about
the work you're going to do when you come back,
thinking about the fact that other people were doing part
of your job, how are you going to do that,
Thinking about ways that you can lead, maybe even thinking
about part time for a little bit of the beginning
and then moving to full time, but like really architecting
(24:41):
with that same executive function skill to which you left,
how you come back and thinking about how to do that.
And sometimes what I have found anecdotally is that the
first two or three months back aren't really that hard.
It really starts to hit at six and nine months
when you have the collective maybe the sleep deprivation times.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
The chips and work.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Usually the first moments aren't as difficult as the sustaining model,
to which you will have to work differently in a
world where you have one, two, three kids at home
and you are in a different stage of life and
you still have all those work ambitions.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
So I think there's.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Something about using the function there there. Second thing is
about how you think about the skills you've learned. Some
of the soft skills which we call soft skills, are
hard skills. How some of those contribute as opposed to
take away from your ability to be seen as a leader.
And then I think the last thing is do you
(25:41):
think about time differently? And maybe just to give you
one quick story, is one of my favorite stories. I
mean there are lots of favorites, say like favorites every chapter,
but one favorite story is this incredible lawyer and she
was on the rise doing a amazing things at Yahoo
(26:02):
at the time, and she had her first boy, and
then she decided to be a full time mom. And
I mean, if you saw her in action, you were
like you took that on with the same gusto that
you took on being a lawyer. Then fourteen years later,
(26:22):
she actually joined a reboarding group at LinkedIn, got back
into the workforce, and is like thriving at LinkedIn in
legal department again. And I love this story because she's
the same amazing leader, like you see it in her
(26:43):
when she was at Yahoo, when she was a full
time parent with her husband working full time, and then
now she's back and I think, like you just imagine
her kids, like her kids have seen all these different
versions and this texture to their mom, and she still
has so much energy in life and career left. And
(27:04):
so sometimes we measure it in days and months, maybe
sometimes we measure it in years. But that takes a
lot of personal courage and some companies that are willing
to invest in women to help them get back up
to speed.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Absolutely, Well, We're going to take one more quick ad
break and then I'll be back with more from Lorena Ye. Well,
I am back with Loraina Yee, who is the co
author of the book The Broken Wrung about what we
(27:40):
can do as women to help our careers advance to
overcome the problems of under representation, particularly in that first
managerial level. I want to talk a little bit though
about the mental load and the load of carrying the
household administration and work and all that that we mentioned earlier,
(28:01):
that women tend to carry more of that, particularly in
dual career couples. And you, guys, your co authors, and
you are in a field that is known for longer hours,
for travel for client services. I'm curious if you guys,
or you in particular, have anything that has found it
made it easy to feel like you have the mental
(28:23):
space to take on the job given what it entails.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
I think I might have tried something different at every season,
every phase, So I think I've been still in search
of when the kids were younger. So my kids are
I have a twenty two year old and eighteen year
old and a ten year old. So for quick math,
and I talk about this quite openly, McKinsey had won
(28:49):
every decade, every tenure. So one thing I've found is
that there are different types of tactics at different types
of tenure that are required because your responsibilities and also
your learning curve and your team and everything is a
bit different. So I don't think there's one way to
do it. I do think it's a bit custom built
(29:10):
to where you are. The second thing is there are
a couple of things that have helped, though the specifics
may have been different. One is I used to think
I was very well organized, but when you are overwhelmed,
sometimes you present is disorganized. So I found that having
(29:32):
some quiet time to think ahead three days three months
or three days three weeks three months is really really helpful.
I found that making to do lists that entail work
and home and looking at them together, as opposed to
(29:52):
I do all my work stuff and then I try
to get to my home stuff or vice versa. I
think there's something about just kind of letting it all
be on a sheet of paper. I know that sounds
incredibly tactical, but there is something about organizing in your
operating model, and that's a fancy way for saying all
the things that you have to get done. A second
category is I think over time, and it was really
(30:15):
hard for me at the beginning. I think I've gotten
a little bit better at just saying I'm not good
at that, or I'm having a hard time with this,
and then that entails getting some help or maybe even
just signaling like this.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Is gonna be a little bit sixty forty, not even eighty.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Twenty, or just maybe giving myself more time to do
something or not expecting that same level of thoroughness, and
that's less like work deliverables. But I think we add
on a lot of things at home. So there's something
about just knowing where you're at and saying, look, this
(30:58):
is a little too much for me. And it's amazing
how many people want to help you. And it's amazing
when you have a community around you, both at work
and at home. And then I think the last thing
that's a little bit tactical and helpful is as the
kids have grown up, you realize all the idioms that
(31:21):
you know are real. It's a really it's a marathon,
not a race. And part of this is being there
at the milestones in the like seventeenth lap and the
eighteenth lap and the twenty second lap. And it's like
such an honor for me to be my kid's mom.
(31:42):
And I feel like it may not accelerate my promotions
in all cases, and I think that's real and it
has real economic value to it, so I want to
discount it, but it definitely accelerates my totalness as a
person in life.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Absolutely well. And you've gotten a lot of promotions too.
So let's let's be clear. Do you think I'm very curious?
Do you think you have more control of your time now?
I mean, you had the last child than when you
are quite higher up versus the first one.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I think it might.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Have been easier. It might have been oddly easier with
the first one.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Oh, you're younger than too.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
I mean, who knows, well, well, I was younger, I
had a boundless energy.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
I still do, but I had more energy.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
But I also I do think there's a real difference
when you're managing yourself and the things that you're working on,
Like you're an individual contributor, even if you manage two
or three people, but you're largely an individual contributor versus
managing like a whole function. And so I definitely felt
a different level of responsibility when you work on a
(32:50):
project basis as an individual contributor. If you leave your work,
you give it to someone else. You can go away
from it and then you can come back from it.
That's an amazing gift for maternity leave or printal leave.
When you manage whole teams like that's a little more complicated.
So I think like the texture of what's hard is
a little different each time, which is why I think
(33:12):
investing in your round trip ticket and that that's a
long journey with a couple of stops is quite helpful.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Okay, all right, well, good to know, good to know.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Well, Lorena, we always end with a love of the week,
So this is anything that is making your life better
right now? This is gonna be a funny one, but
I've visited a friend over the weekend who happens to
have a farm and left with many, many eggs, which
is just sort of a funny thing now because they're
ridiculously expensive, but they're also really really good to have
(33:45):
these eggs, like straight from the chicken. My breakfast has
been amazing this week. So that is that is my
love of the week. What's good for you right now?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Well, I would say if I had fresh eggs, I
would make carbonara sauce.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Just kidding, scrambled're going straight to the pasta.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
I would just go to the pasta and the panchetta
and some oil. I mean, what a difference fresh eggs
make in panchetta pasta. But I think my enjoy for
the week is so I was listening and I've been
reading and thinking a lot more as I spent a
lot of time in AI about robotics and kind of
(34:25):
robotics powered by AI level reasoning. And it's really interesting
because one of the things that humanoid AI robots are
making progress in are like basic house tasks. And that's
not the exciting part. What was the exciting part is
I was listening to one of the engineers breakdown how
(34:46):
hard it is to get a robot to do things
like to clear the dishes and put them away. And
what I thought was, Yes, there is complexity in what
seem or with ours like discounted simple things, and so
I just thought it was great that, like there was
(35:07):
complexity in terms of making a essentially a computer and
a physical object do this kind of the way mow
for the house. But I also thought, in the long run,
I love the promise that AI could help take some
of the toil which really sits on both parents away,
(35:27):
because what matters most like why are we working so hard?
We're working so hard so we can be at our
best and have quality time with our colleagues and our
people that we work with. And quality time with our families,
and so you know, if there could be a real
sea change in that, that makes me really optimistic for
the future.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Also, it would be really cool to have a robot
empty the dishwasher. I would enjoy that quite a bit. Yeah,
but the dishes, it.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Seems like gonna be very high.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
There's a lot of judgment. You need a judgment involved us. Well, Lorena,
thank you so much for joining us. If people want
to learn more, where can they go?
Speaker 4 (36:05):
They can go to Broken Wrong.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
You can find it on the McKinsey dot com website,
as well as Amazon and all other places that you
buy books. It's in my local bookstore, and I found
out that it was actually at a stock so they
had to writing more, which was probably the greatest compliment.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Hopefully, it wasn't just my kids buying the book.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
It's just your family buys it and then it's like,
but it's out of stock. Now I've done that, Like
that was the last copy I bought it.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Well, all right, Laura, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Thank you so much for hosting all Right.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Well, that was awesome and probably inspiring to lots of
our listeners. So we now have a question that is
tangentially related. Someone asked they got promoted into a major
leadership role, and this actually came from one of our
Patreon subscribers, but hopefully she won't mine is getting shared
even more widely. And she said she was going to
be working with an administrative assistant for the first time.
(37:01):
So do we have advice on how to make sure
this is a productive partnership and one that helps her
be more effective in her role?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, well, I think definitely thinking about that last part, Like,
this person's role is to help you be more effective,
So you need to think about where are the places
where support would really allow me to spend my time
on my highest value skills and the.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Things that I uniquely can do.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And especially if you are in a major leadership role,
this is probably working with the senior people who are
reporting directly to you, spending time with those people and
making sure they know what they're doing leading the organization right,
providing the motivation for everyone, and encouragement in the direction
broadly for the group. And so what can this person
(37:48):
do to make sure that you can devote as much
of your time as possible to those things? So I
think it would really really help to track your time
as you are doing this, to look at how your
work hours get spent, and then to sort of go
through and say, well, which one of those things were
the ones that were my highest value use, what were
(38:08):
the things that somebody else could do, and then try
to kind of over time put more and more of
those with your administrative assistant.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
And I think also recognizing that it is something that
is going to.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Take time to build a relationship because both of you
are going to have to figure out how to work together.
So don't take anything that happens in the first few
weeks as set like it can change.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
This person will have ideas, you'll have ideas. You'll work
together to make it work.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
But you could also especially if you are getting someone
who has a lot of experience in this, which I'm
hoping that you are, Like maybe they were supporting the
previous person in your role, or it's somebody who's been
hired who's been a long time executive assistant, has worked
with people in major leadership roles. Before ask this person,
what do you do that has been most helpful? Like,
(38:58):
what have you done that has been transformative? What would
you see looking at what you know of my role
that you would like to support me on and you
think would work best, and they'll probably have ideas that
you might not have thought of.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
I think what you said earlier about like taking time
is important because it can be It may feel laborious
at first to get someone really used to the way
you like things done, or maybe they do something and
you want to give feedback, and that all takes time,
like it's going to come up the works. But at
the end of the day, if that person is someone
who's going to be staying, it's so where it's spending
that time to have him or her understand how you
(39:31):
do things, because again, that's like over and over again,
that's going to pay time dividends. I also like what
you said about like things that are the most value
of your time, But I also think kind of thinking
about like what do I least want to spend my
time doing that I'm doing right now, and figuring out
how you can template that out to have that person
help with those extremely low value tasks.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Absolutely, all right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.
We've been talking about the broken wrong getting that first
promotion into management and settings people up for.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Success in that. We will be back next week with
more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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