AMY GALLO: Hi everyone. We have some sad news to share. This is going to be our last episode of Women at Work.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, this is a tough one, and it’s a decision that I made, purely for business reasons, but this was really hard because this podcast has been a big part of my life for a long time and has given me enormous joy. I’ve got a lot of gratification out of it; and for much of the last eight years, I guess it’s been the most fun thing I get to do. So, this is a very sad day for me.
AMY GALLO: Yeah, it is. And this show has been such a big part of our lives, and I know it’s been a big part of our listeners’ lives, so we wanted to take this episode to really talk about what the show has meant and what we are leaving you with because we’re not disappearing, but we want to invite Amanda Kersey, who you hear from occasionally, but what you don’t know, I don’t think we’ve ever done justice to the role she plays in the show. She has been from the very first episode, from the very first trailer, she has been behind the show deciding who to bring on the show, what episodes we’re doing. She shapes those episodes—
AMY GALLO: She shapes those episodes. She coaches us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh my gosh, is that what it’s called?
AMY GALLO: [Laughter] Tortures us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: She scripts me. [Laughter]
AMANDA KERSEY: Hi. Yes. I’m the person who bosses you two around. Yeah, this is a difficult end. We knew it would end one day, of course, and we’ve built a legacy. I’d say we really have through. It’s not just a podcast, in the literal sense. I’m looking at our books, the Women at Work book series right in front of us. We have a newsletter, Amy G, that you write, that I used to write, that Nicole Torres wrote before me. We have done events, Women at Work Live events, we, what else have we done? Newsletter, books…
AMY GALLO: Well, we have one of the most active inboxes—
AMANDA KERSEY: We have a very active inbox.
AMY GALLO: You all write us. We write you back. We love it.
AMANDA KERSEY: I’m actually going to read from some of them—let’s play the crying game, see if I can you make you cry.
AMY GALLO: It doesn’t take much for me.
AMANDA KERSEY: Because I do want to draw attention to the impact that the show has had and some of the praise that we’ve gotten. I’ve called it “listener love” in our Slack channel, our Women at Work Slack channel. I would drop—
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, I love your listener love emails.
AMANDA KERSEY: —the beginning of the week, I tried to do it or the end of the week, some piece of praise to motivate us and just to share what I was hearing. Okay, so I’m going to read some. We got this one from Steph. She says, “I love this podcast. I hope to find a circle of women in my own life that talk about work like this, but until then, the podcast is such a source of support for me.” “Thank you to the Women at Work team for all you do. Your podcast has been a constant bright spot for me through the ups and downs in my career, and I’m so grateful for you.” That was from Michelle. Here’s one from Jill. She says, “First thank you so much for your podcast. Just its existence is enough on those tough days to make me feel better about the state of the world. I have heard every. single. episode., some more than once.”
AMY GALLO: Me too. I mean, I just thank every single person who wrote in with positive things, constructive things, with their stories, with their vulnerability. I think about how much we give, but I can’t express how much I’ve gotten from this show. I mean, first and foremost, my relationships with you and with the former co-hosts, the connections with listeners obviously, but even my connection with my daughter, because I’ve been able to share episodes with her. I’ve been able to invite her on the show,
HARPER (AMY’S DAUGHTER): And this is something that I did realize is that I’m not afraid to ask for what I want. You raised me with that idea that it’s okay to ask for things. You’ve definitely taught that to me.
AMY GALLO: I’m having a proud mom moment that I raised you to ask for things, but what did you see me ask for that made you feel comfortable?
HARPER: Yeah, a lot of different things. [Laughter] I think that it varies from, I’ve heard you on the phone with credit card companies and airplane companies, all these different places just asking for things. It was through example of just seeing you ask for what you want and get it.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And we watched her grow up.
AMY GALLO: I know, I know.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Now she’s going off to college. I remember when she was just a little thing and coming in and her matched top and bottom. Do you remember that?
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Stripes and polka dots.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Little stripes, and she was adorable.
AMY GALLO: Yep. Yeah, and it’s been a real gift. And the other thing I’ve gotten is my voice. I did listen to the first episode I was on, so you did two seasons without me, which I’ve forgiven you for, [laughter] but the episode where you introduced me and my voice sounds squeaky and young, and I just realized through Amanda’s adept coaching, obviously modeling you because you’ve always had such a strong voice, Amy B. But also just being able to do this all the time, I’ve found not just a calmer, more assertive voice in terms of how it sounds, but also what I want to say and what I want to be in the world.
AMANDA KERSEY: Should we tell the origin story of the show?
AMY GALLO: Yeah, let’s bring in Maureen.
AMANDA KERSEY: Let’s bring in Maureen. I’ll go get her.
AMY GALLO: So, Maureen, thank you for joining us.
MAUREEN HOCH: So happy to be here.
AMY GALLO: Appropriate since this was your idea.
MAUREEN HOCH: It was my idea.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It was absolutely your idea. [Laughter] Just for our audience, I need to say that Maureen diffidently sort of denied that this was her idea. [Laughter] I really had to come down hard on you.
AMY GALLO: You did.
AMANDA KERSEY: Yes.
MAUREEN HOCH: Well, thank you.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It was your idea.
MAUREEN HOCH: I would say as I recall, the fall of 2017, a very specific moment, the MeToo movement, stories of sexual harassment and other pressures women faced, and I was newly promoted to the role of editor of hbr.org, and I started pitching this idea of, why don’t we do a popup podcast?
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh my gosh, I remember this. The popup.
MAUREEN HOCH: The popup podcast.
AMY GALLO: There’s a popup, six episodes!
MAUREEN HOCH: Six episodes—
AMANDA KERSEY: Seven years later…
MAUREENS: Six episodes…
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL (archival audio): Now we are launching this new limited-run podcast, Women at Work, six episodes each covering one of the big issues we as women have to deal with on the job.
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): Like figuring out how to talk so that our ideas get heard.
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): The challenges of being a female leader and why women aren’t advancing. I’m Amy Bernstein, editor of Harvard Business Review.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL (archival audio): I’m Sarah Green Carmichael, executive editor.
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): I’m Nicole Torres, associate editor.
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): Join our conversation.
MAUREEN HOCH: And from there, I have to say Amanda and Sarah really picked up that idea and ran with it and made it what it is. And I was telling Amanda that I remembered sitting in an early meeting about the show and trying to figure out—again, at that point, we were just still hoping to do one episode, and Amanda came back with a sketch of what that episode could look like about interruptions. And I remember so clearly thinking, oh my God, we’re actually going to be able to do this because the vision that she put together made sense to me. It made sense for HBR. I thought it would do something for the audience. It was different from other things we were doing—
AMANDA KERSEY: Like getting Amy B and Nicole and Sarah to open up about their personal lives and professional lives.
MAUREEN HOCH: That was a big ask of us that I don’t know that everyone totally clapped when they got the pitch.
AMANDA KERSEY: Seven years later, we know so much about them.
MAUREEN HOCH: But I will always remember our first episode, hearing Nicole say—
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): Let’s go back for a few minutes to the 1990s. More women were in the office increasingly working alongside men or above them, not for them.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I remember those first shows—Well, first of all, I remember that meeting and I remember thinking, well, this could be cool. And I remember thinking, I wonder who will get to host this [Laughter] because Sarah Green Carmichael came in with years of experience as the host of IdeaCast.
MAUREEN HOCH: Exactly.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Our marquee, our big pod.
MAUREEN HOCH: Yes. Our flagship.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And Nicole and I had an equal amount of experience in front of the mic, which is to say nothing. And I remember Nicole, I’m sort of looking over to where Nicole used to sit.
AMANDA KERSEY: We left that space empty. It’s like she’s with us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: But do you remember just watching her warm to the mic and become more and more comfortable and sort of come into her own? It was a beautiful thing to witness.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Okay, how do you get out of those conversations? I cannot successfully—
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): I just gave you two lines.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Yeah, I use those lines. “I need to go get—”
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): “Oh, I see someone over there I need to say hi to.” You don’t even have to make an excuse. You can say, “It was great to talk to you. I hope we run into each other again.” Something like that.
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): OK, my line is, “I have to go.” And then I actually go.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): You leave?
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): I leave. [Laughter]
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): Wow.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Yeah, you just walk to a different part of the room. Because think about it—
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): But they’ll see you, and they’ll know you left them!
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Of course they’ll see you, but they want to move on too, usually.
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): It’s not dating.
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): “It was so great to talk to you. I’m going to go get another drink.”
AMY BERNSTEIN: “It was great to talk to you. See you around.”
NICOLE TORRES: “See you around.”
AMY BERNSTEIN: And I have to say a wonderful friendship grew out of that and also with Sarah Green Carmichael, who I knew, but I didn’t know the way when we all now know each other. [Laughter]
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL (archival audio): Yeah. I am hearing a sort of common thread between the two stories that you guys have shared, which is that people pleasing is the path to unhappiness. [Laughter]
AMY BERNSTEIN: It was a catalyst. This pod has been a catalyst for a lot of really wonderful relationships.
AMY GALLO: It’s hard to believe it’s been going on for so long, in a way. Like, to think it was a pop-up idea… By the way, piece of advice we often give is, propose something as an experiment, and then it will just become permanent. Podcast, exhibit A.
MAUREEN HOCH: Proof of concept, yes.
AMY GALLO: Exactly. But I don’t know if we ever thought we’d get to 10 seasons and seven years.
AMANDA KERSEY: Or to talk about as much as we did. I printed out every year what we—here, take, that’s 2019 [sound of Amanda handing out papers]. You take that.
AMY GALLO: Don’t give me 2020. Don’t give me 20—Oh, 21.
AMANDA KERSEY: I mean, going through everything we did, we have covered dead-end work, how to not do that. We talked about the art of claiming credit, parental leave, caregiving and elder care.
AMY GALLO: What I love is that we’ll be chatting and—with any of you—we’ll be chatting about something that’s bothering us and we’re like, oh, that’s an episode. And it’s been such a joy to be able to say, who’s the right expert? I mean, the episode about parenting teenagers while working was therapy for me.
DANNA GREENBERG (archival audio): I think the thing you have to think about is how do I best manage chaos? Not controlling chaos. You’re not going to change the chaos of Harper’s life, but what kind of management of that do you need so that you can do your work, not so that you can control the calendar or not so that you can control. That’s her.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Why can’t I control everything, Danna?
AMY GALLO: And the fact that we get to ask Danna Greenberg, one of the foremost researchers on working motherhood, to talk it through with us, it’s just an enormous privilege.
MAUREEN HOCH: I’m looking at 2019.
AMY GALLO: Okay. Good year, good year.
AMANDA KERSEY: That was a good year!
MAUREEN HOCH: That was the season Amy G joined us. It’s a really good, great season, but I just have to say, Amy G, we were so lucky to be able to ask you to join this group.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh my gosh, what a natural.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Hi, everyone.
NICOLE TORRES (archival audio): Welcome Amy…G!
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): Welcome aboard, Amy G.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Thank you. So many Amys!
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): So many Amys.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL (archival audio): I’m super excited. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have take my chair.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): Thanks, Sarah. I’m actually nervous. I want to make you all proud.
MAUREEN HOCH: And not only were you already the internal counselor for so many of us here, but also just as an expert in so many things about how people communicate. So, thank you. It was like you were always on the show.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. I like to think I was there since the beginning, although I was on the first episode as a guest.
AMANDA KERSEY: Yes, you were!
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh my gosh!
AMY GALLO: Yeah, yeah. So, I have been here since the beginning. [Laughter] I have to be included. But 2019 was the year we did, I think I did my first on-the-scene interview, with Lily Zheng, who became such a regular on our podcast.
LILY ZHENG (archival audio): I think the most important thing for managers at the end of the day is, ask your gender-diverse employees how you can help. You might say during your first one-on-one, “Hey, I want to help you have the best workplace experience you can. Is there anything that’s on your mind? Any way that I can help you out?” Just ask.
AMANDA KERSEY: What else happened in 2019?
MAUREEN HOCH: Let’s see. Okay, 2019, No Partner, No Kids, No Problem. I remember that one too.
TRACY DUMAS: Although single, childless people don’t have things like childcare responsibilities, they don’t have the same level of domestic responsibilities, what we do see in our research is that they are reporting more community involvement. They are reporting more personal development, and that’s even controlling for age.
AMANDA KERSEY: Tracy Dumas, I saw her recently at a conference. What year do you have, Amy B? What’s in front of you? Did I give you 2020?
AMY BERNSTEIN: I have 2020.
AMANDA KERSEY: 2020, the April that we had recorded multiple episodes, and then the pandemic happened, and then we dumped all those episodes and started anew.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I remember that so well.
AMY GALLO: Recording in my daughter’s bedroom.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I remember you recording in your daughter’s bedroom. I was kneeling in our closet—
AMANDA KERSEY: Under a blanket at times, remember?
AMY GALLO: [Laughter] Oh my gosh…
AMY BERNSTEIN: Under a blanket at times. And then halfway through I just said, screw it. I’m sitting at my desk in my home office, and I don’t care if it echoes because my knees hurt.
AMANDA KERSEY: We don’t want that.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And it’s hot.
AMY GALLO: It’s hot under this blanket.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I am not comfortable.
AMY GALLO: Those were hard times. But we did some good episodes.
AMY BERNSTEIN: The episodes were good. And boy, that’s probably when I felt the most acute need from our listeners for what we could bring to them.
AMANDA KERSEY: Here, let me try to make y’all cry again. I remember this quote, this is from a woman who listened in 2020 to our Beyond Stretched episode, and she said, “I listened this morning and I cried. I just cried. Having others say out loud, put my feelings and struggles into words and conversation, made them real in a way that I had been trying to minimize to myself. I know there are no easy answers and appreciate that you didn’t try to provide any. So, thank you for this episode. Be safe and well.” That’s from Jessica in 2020.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I hope Jessica’s doing well now.
AMY GALLO: I have 2021.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, what was 2021?
AMY GALLO: 2021 was fun because we did a popup, with Family Management, with Erica Truxler and Kevin Evers, four episodes about trying to work with a family during the pandemic.
KEVIN EVERS (archival audio): So, the last time we saw each other, I think it was February, 2020, Willie was four months old at the time, so I had a newborn baby. And you were expecting your second at the time.
ERICA TRUXLER (archival audio): Yes. So yeah, my last trimester was home with Claire, without daycare. So, Claire was around full time, working full time, my husband was working full time. He was in the travel industry, so you can imagine how that went.
AMY GALLO: Those episodes were amazing. Kevin and Erica did a wonderful job sharing their worries, hopes. That was also the season or the year we introduced The Essentials episodes.
AMANDA KERSEY: Yes.
AMY GALLO: We did the very first one on Giving Feedback with Therese Huston, who was wonderful.
AMANDA KERSEY: And that school principal.
AMY GALLO: Oh, I loved her.
THERESE HUSTON: The tricky part is all too often employees will come in saying, “Jessica, could you give me some feedback on my teaching?” And Jessica’s like, “Of course.” And Jessica assumes they want one kind of feedback when they really want another. So, the advice I would have for principals, for Jessica, for anyone in a management role would be to say, “I’d love to give you some feedback. What would be most helpful to you right now? Do you want me to let you know what I love about your work? Would you like some coaching and advice? Or do you want to know where you stand?”
AMANDA KERSEY: And that series, we got to learn about skills through the context of an individual woman’s life and her job and her priorities and concerns.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. That was also, 2021 was also the year, we can brag a little, we had a Nobel Prize winner on our show.
AMANDA KERSEY: We did. Claudia Golden.
AMY GALLO: Claudia Golden. Economist Claudia Golden, about greedy work and how so many of the inequities that women face are about the way we structure jobs.
CLAUDIA GOLDIN: An employee who is willing to work at all hours in the evenings, weekends, vacations, is on call at the office, is the worker who gets big rewards. These rewards can be disproportionate to the amount of time put in, meaning that doubling the number of hours more than doubles the earnings.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. She wasn’t a Nobel Prize winner when we, meaning I interviewed her,
AMY GALLO: Yeah, but it was the interview I think that tipped the Nobel Prize Committee. [Laughter]
AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s exactly where I was going. [Laughter]
AMY GALLO: Yeah, you’re welcome. Claudia. [Laughter]
AMANDA KERSEY: And 2020, 2021, was the year that Emily Caulfield joined us as a host.
AMY GALLO: Oh, Emily.
EMILY CAULFIELD (archival audio): So, I was really hoping that I was going to have completed something huge by this time that we had this conversation. And I haven’t yet, but I have worked on my passion projects every day. So that’s felt good. I was really happy to have you guys here waiting for me. [Laughter]
AMY GALLO (archival audio): We were. We were waiting.
AMANDA KERSEY: Emily was at my house last week hanging out in the backyard.
AMY BERNSTEIN: How’s Emily doing?
AMANDA KERSEY: Very well. Started another business. Emily is an entrepreneur, artist, designer, community builder, and she has a studio in Cambridge now where she does workshops. I learned how to make candles with Emily.
AMY BERNSTEIN: What fun!
AMANDA KERSEY: It is fun.
AMY GALLO: My core memory of Emily joining the podcast was that our first meeting, because it was pandemic, was in a park.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yes.
AMY BERNSTEIN (archival audio): You’re listening to Women at Work, and we are sitting outside.
AMY GALLO (archival audio): We’re outside together, finally, after months of being apart. And we’ve got a new person with us, our HBR colleague, Emily Caulfield, who’s our new co-host.
EMILY CAULFIELD (archival audio): Thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be sitting beside the two of you for the show, and I cannot believe it’s real.
AMY GALLO: Oh, I miss Emily.
AMANDA KERSEY: I have 2022.
AMY GALLO: Okay.
AMANDA KERSEY: What happened in 2022?
AMY BERNSTEIN: Take us back.
AMANDA KERSEY: Okay. Oh, that was the year we introduced the Getting Along series, where Amy Gallo—
AMY GALLO: Oh yeah! My book came out.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Right!
AMANDA KERSEY: —talks to people dealing with difficult people at work.
KIM (archival audio): George is so defensive about everything and attacks every idea. So, then I’m just constantly considering, okay, is it worth it to say anything because what’s the likelihood of getting a response that will feel good versus a response where I’m going to go home and scream into a pillow for an hour?
AMY GALLO: And that was, we did a live event around the book too. And my memory from that is that there was this woman, we had a—thank you to everyone who came. There was a nice long line for me to sign books. And this woman got to the front of the line and she said, I’m going out to drinks with the three people I just met in line waiting to have a book signed. And she emailed us and said, we’re going to meet monthly. There were four people who had never met before, met in that line and said, we had so much to talk about and we’re going to meet monthly because we all live here in Boston.
AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s amazing.
AMANDA KERSEY: Yeah. That was also a year that exemplifies this scope of what we covered and who we made episodes for. One episode was The Ups and Downs of Being a First-Time Manager. And then the next episode I think was Have You Started Thinking About Retirement? And then there’s When Your Partner Isn’t Giving You the Support You Need and Working While Managing Your Child’s Mental Health. We covered—so, How to Push for Policy Changes at Your Company, which you could do at any point in your career. But we really spoke to the breadth of women’s experiences.
AMY GALLO: I mean, we know from our audience surveys the range of ages and experience levels and different industries that you all come from. And we’ve always tried to speak to as many of you as possible while also giving the advice you need for what you’re facing. I think one of my favorite episodes was about working in a male-dominated career. It’s something we get asked about all the time. We got to talk to students from Olin, which is an engineering school that has an even number of male and female students. We got to talk to their professor.
JESSICA TOWNSEND (archival audio): I did go for the master’s, and then I found this job at the aerospace company, where I had a fantastic female mentor and had generally a good experience, which is a funny thing to say because there were pockets that were a harder space to be in as a woman. So, the machine shop…
AMANDA KERSEY: Yeah, I loved anytime we went out into the field.
AMY GALLO: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA KERSEY: Alright, I’m going to cut us off at 2022 because we have some parting words of advice, and we have some gratitude to express and a final farewell. So, I want us to have time to do all that because I’m producing you.
AMY GALLO: Bossing us around one last time.
AMANDA KERSEY: One last time. So, the episode that came out before this one was an Ask the Amys. You took on seven questions from newsletter readers, from our listeners. Since then, some more have come in, we can’t get to all of them, but we’re going to get to a couple. And Maureen’s going to help me read the questions, and then you two can give your advice.
This first one is from a woman who, she’s an executive. She works at a small tech startup. She’s been there for several years. Actually, she’s been there since our podcast started 2018. She was hired to lead people operations. And over the years she’s come on to lead HR operations and now finance. She’s not an accountant, but in December, she was told she would receive a bonus if she flawlessly completed some finance tasks in Q1. She said, “I knew that was unlikely, but I committed to doing my best. And I have. I’ve worked hard to learn, build processes, and ask the right questions.”
She goes on to write, “But I’m doing this alone. I often require input for my CEO to complete the month end close, but his responses, when they come, can take weeks. I’m still expected to close the books within the first four business days. I’m set up to fail yet held to standards that assume I’m fully resourced and supported. The truth is I’m not.”
“I’m often told in team settings that ‘I’m valued.’” She puts that in quotes, “but I don’t feel it in my day-to-day experience. I’ve been excluded from board meetings despite being a VP. I’m the only woman in the company and the only person who is not an engineer. It feels like a boys’ club and increasingly like a place where I don’t belong. I deeply value transparency and candor, as does my CEO, or at least he used to. But somewhere along the way that trust eroded. We no longer communicate in a meaningful way. And I’m left guessing, questioning, and bracing for what’s next.”
“I’m still holding up HR operations and finance. I don’t take real vacations. There’s no one to step into my role when I’m away. So even when I do take time off, I stay tethered. I haven’t truly unplugged in years. I’m 57. I know I bring a great deal of experience, heart and resilience to my work, but I also know how tough the job market can be at this stage. And right now I’m emotional. I feel like I could be let go at any moment because I don’t have the accounting skills he wants” the CEO, “skills that I was never hired to have in the first place. I feel discarded. I feel sad, and I’m grieving a workplace I used to believe in.”
What do you think?
AMY GALLO: Breaks my heat.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, it’s terrible. And she has been set up to fail. And any enticement that is conditioned on flawless completion of the task is just cruel. That’s terrible. This is a person with deep experience and understanding in HR, operations, and finance. She’s worth her weight in platinum on the market. She ought to go out there and test it.
AMY GALLO: And I think she’s setting up the idea of leaving as a failure.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And as a betrayal.
AMY GALLO: Right. A betrayal and a failure on her part. What if leaving is a next step in her career because she’s gained so much and she has more to offer to an organization that will welcome her?
AMY BERNSTEIN: She hasn’t failed in any sense of the term.
AMY GALLO: No.
AMANDA KERSEY: I think she might find some tips and if she listens to our 2024 episode How to leap Mid-Career. That episode is about from one industry to another. But there’s some good advice for people who are really busy and burned out. How do you find a new job? Just how to make the time because she’s got a full plate.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Take a vacation, please.
AMANDA KERSEY: Yeah. Okay, Maureen, you’re going to introduce the next question.
MAUREEN HOCH: Okay. So, this question has the subject line “Preparing for the job after the job.” And it comes from a woman who was part of a large layoff in January from what she calls her dream career path. And she says the job she was doing wasn’t perfect, but it was laying the groundwork for the next steps of what she saw as a really long career with that company. She liked the people, she liked the culture, the industry, everything was going great. She gets laid off. So now she’s taking a job that she says is fine, and it is a tough market right now. She sees some potential, but it’s not really where she wants to be. Her question is, “Can you offer advice for how to exist and do my best in this job but also lay the groundwork to leave for a different opportunity? I’m trying to see the positives. I think this role will force me to work on my executive presence and give me experience in a semi-government workplace.”
AMY GALLO: So, I think she’s already doing all the right things in terms of focusing on the positive of this just-okay job. But also thinking about what isn’t working for her for this job. Is it not the right industry? Is it not the right role? Is it not the right salary? What is it that’s not working? And do the things—I mean, she mentions later in the letter that she wants to maybe do some volunteering. That’s a great way to be exposed to other things. Do some networking. Just have that learning mindset all the time. What can I get from this? And the other thing you can learn in the negative, meaning maybe this job is teaching you what you don’t want and that’s just as important.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I totally agree with you.
AMANDA KERSEY: Excellent advice. No surprise. It’s a bummer you two won’t be doing this regularly anymore.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. But find me in coffee shop. I give out advice to anyone who asks. But of course, all the Ask the Amys that we’ve done are in the feed, and the show is going to live on through that archive. You can always listen to any of the episodes you missed. Re-listen to some of your favorites if you’re missing us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Buy our books.
AMY GALLO: Buy our books.
AMANDA KERSEY: They’re right in front of us. Next-Level Negotiating; You, the Leader; Speak Up, Speak Out; Taking Charge of Your Career…
AMY BERNSTEIN: What about Amy’s books?
AMANDA KERSEY: Getting Along and the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
AMANDA KERSEY: Right?
AMY GALLO: Yeah, HBR Guide to Dealing With Conflict. Yes. I have to say it myself to remember it. And HBR has so many other resources. The IdeaCast, Muriel Wilkins’ podcast Coaching Reel Leaders.
MAUREEN HOCH: I mean, a great way to keep up with all of us and the work that we’re doing here is to subscribe to HBR.
AMY GALLO: And we have a new offering too, right?
AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s HBR Executive, which is geared towards the C-suite, very senior leaders, anchored by a newsletter from Adi Ignatius, our editor at large, former editor-in-chief. And it includes webinars and playbooks—
AMANDA KERSEY: Masterclasses.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Masterclasses, which are fantastic. I learned a lot about managing my calendar from Nitin Nohria, even though I’m not a CEO. And you should check it out. You just go to hbr.org and find it.
AMANDA KERSEY: That’s a project, HBR Executive is a project that I’m going to be working on after Women at Work is done. And I want this audience to help shape the newsletter and the webinars and anything else related. So, if you’re an executive and you want to have influence here, please say so through a LinkedIn note. You can connect with me or an email to [email protected] so I can add you to my list of sources, so I can call you, email you, shadow you at your job.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. And when you email [email protected], you’ll get our auto response, which is going to include listening and reading lists by topic. So, feel free to reach out to us. You’ll get that. And as I said at the very beginning, we’re not disappearing. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Please go to my personal website, https://www.amyegallo.com/. You can sign up for my personal newsletter there. I’d love to stay in touch with as many of you as possible.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I want to say thank you to every guest who has joined us and shared her wisdom, to every listener who wrote in to share her story and who helped us figure out what to cover and how.
AMANDA KERSEY: We’re grateful to the rest of our editorial and production team, our associate producer, Hannah Bates.
HANNAH BATES (archival audio): Testing, testing. Do you want me to keep talking? Oh, it’s fine. You were great. Totally editable. Plenty to edit around. Yeah.
TANIYA UPPAL (archival audio): So, you’re hosing this one, huh?
HANNAH BATES (archival audio): I am, guest hosting.
TANIYA UPPAL (archival audio): Oh, how exciting.
HANNAH BATES (archival audio): Yeah.
AMANDA KERSEY: Our engineer, Tina Tobey Mack.
TINA TOBEY MACK (archival audio): So, if it looks like the recording isn’t there, don’t panic… Do you have something you can read for me, or do you just want to tell me how great Halloween was or breakfast or how much you love your sweatshirt so I can send this to Amanda because I think you sound pretty good…You’re a natural! You’re totally a natural!
AMANDA KERSEY: Our audio product manager, Ian Fox; and our post-production specialist, Rob Eckhardt.
AMY GALLO: We’re also grateful to everyone who’s ever worked on the show. First and foremost, Sarah Green Carmichael, who was one of the founding co-hosts, big shoes for me to fill when she left.
Nicole Torres, who sat in this room with us for many years.
Adam Buchholz was our founding audio product manager. He helped bring the show to life, get it out to all of your ears, into all of the feeds. We miss Adam a lot.
Emily Caulfield was such an important part of the show during deep pandemic days and really brought some light to our conversations.
And Erica Truxler, who you’ve heard a few times on the show, she’s been a guest talking about maternity leave. She was the co-host of our short but sweet 2021 series Family Management, and she has been our show note editor, our newsletter editor, along with Holly Bauer. And Erica has also just been a fan and all-around supporter of the show.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s clear that we’re leaving with very full hearts and the deepest gratitude for your trust and your time and your voices. So, thank you.
AMY GALLO: Thank you.
AMANDA KERSEY: Thank you, very much.
MAUREEN HOCH: Thank you.