0:01

LinkedIn News. From

0:06

the News Team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessi Hempel

0:08

and this is Hello Monday. It's

0:10

our show about the changing nature of work and

0:13

how work is changing us. Before

0:20

we get into the show today, a quick favor. There's

0:22

a link to our listener survey in the show notes. We

0:25

have it up just a couple more weeks and it would

0:27

be really helpful to all of us if you would take

0:29

just a couple of minutes and fill it out. Your

0:32

thoughts and advice here, they really help

0:34

us shape the show. All right.

0:36

Thank you. I'm

0:45

a daughter of feminists. My parents

0:48

raised me to believe that I could

0:50

be anything I wanted. They

0:52

pushed me to achieve in college. They

0:55

encouraged me to be ambitious in my

0:57

career and I

0:59

really did believe that work was a meritocracy.

1:02

I could do anything I put my mind to. I

1:06

remember landing a junior writing job at

1:08

business week and then getting hired at

1:10

Fortune. I thought

1:12

that I was just coming in at the

1:14

very best moment in history. I mean,

1:17

there were still people on staff back then

1:19

who remembered when women weren't allowed to be

1:21

writers. They had to be researchers, fact checkers.

1:24

Five years before I was even born,

1:27

a group of women had sued Fortune's

1:29

parent company, demanding change. And now

1:31

here I was, writing features,

1:34

sometimes cover stories. I

1:38

don't know when things began to seem more

1:40

complicated, but it was probably in

1:42

my early 30s. That's when

1:44

I looked up and noticed that many of my

1:46

female peers had moved on to different kinds of

1:48

roles. As I grew

1:50

more and more senior at Fortune and then

1:53

joined Wired, I became one

1:55

of just a few female writers and then

1:57

somehow the only senior woman magazine.

1:59

a writer, a wired, and

2:02

I often felt that my male colleagues

2:04

didn't share my story's sensibilities. I

2:07

had to get more comfortable with rejection and

2:09

to fight more for my ideas, and

2:12

I found myself asking, is it

2:14

me? Am I just not good

2:16

at this? And

2:19

as I considered where I might go in my career, I remember

2:23

thinking then, oh, this was

2:26

never a meritocracy. In

2:28

the most senior ranks, everyone still looks

2:30

pretty similar to the way they did decades ago.

2:34

Maybe it's the system. Maybe

2:37

the system is rigged. I've come

2:39

to believe that getting to this

2:41

point in one's career, not just

2:44

intellectually, but experientially, well, it's a

2:46

critical moment in our development. It's

2:49

when we gain the tools to define

2:51

success on our own terms. We're

2:54

going to get into this today, right after the

2:56

break. I'm

3:01

Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer.

3:03

In my new podcast, Building One, I interview

3:05

some of the best product builders out there,

3:08

people at the intersection of dreaming and building

3:10

and learning. Together, you and I

3:12

will learn from their experiences. If

3:15

you're just as curious as I am, follow

3:17

Building One wherever you listen and check out

3:19

the conversation on LinkedIn. Today's

3:24

guest is the journalist Samita

3:26

Mukupadhyay. Earlier in

3:28

her career, she was the executive

3:30

editor of a website called feministing.com.

3:34

I loved it. Her work

3:36

has appeared in a ton of publications,

3:38

including New York magazine and Vanity Fair.

3:41

Samita arrived at Conde Nast just

3:43

after I left, and she spent

3:45

three years there as the executive

3:47

editor of Teen Vogue. It

3:50

was her dream job, and it

3:52

became a wild ride. She's

3:55

just out with a book called The Myth

3:57

of Making It, a workplace reckoning. In

4:00

this episode, Samita and I will dig into

4:02

some of the promises the modern working world

4:04

makes to those of us who aren't rich

4:06

white men. Also, some

4:09

of the lies. And we'll

4:11

highlight some ways we could be doing all this

4:13

differently. But first, let's go back

4:15

to those early days at Teen Vogue. Here's

4:18

Samita. It was exciting. It felt

4:20

ascendant. It

4:22

felt like I was part

4:24

of something that I'd always been on the outside looking

4:26

at this constant feeling of like, I don't deserve to

4:28

be here. So I should just be really happy

4:31

and excited and lucky that I got to be here. And

4:33

maybe not too loud about it because I don't want anybody

4:35

to notice that I don't deserve to be here. Yeah, or

4:37

that like maybe I don't have like, I

4:40

don't belong. I'm not like the rest. I did not

4:42

spend the summers in France. As

4:45

many of you may have. So yeah,

4:47

there was like a faking until you make it,

4:49

you know, and something that I've like told many

4:51

young women to do and I was definitely doing.

4:54

So, but this brings us to the point,

4:56

which is here you are and you have

4:58

made it. Yes, yes. I feel like

5:00

I've made it. At that point I was 40. So

5:02

I was like pretty old even to be

5:05

at a teen brand. And

5:07

it definitely was, you know, it was this moment

5:09

where I think for much of my career I

5:11

was working in feminist media. I was very critical

5:13

of places like Vogue, right? I was very critical

5:15

of women's magazines. And

5:17

then all of a sudden I was like, I had a

5:19

seat at the table, right? And

5:21

that absolutely, yeah, it felt like making it, but it

5:23

also felt like making it on my own terms because

5:25

I had the pleasure of

5:27

joining the magazine in this moment where, you

5:30

know, young people had become increasingly politicized.

5:32

And so what they were actually looking

5:34

for was a politics editor who

5:36

had kind of a social justice background and

5:39

I fit the bill. And so yeah, in

5:41

many ways that there's no question that it

5:44

absolutely changed my life. Right. I

5:46

think the other side of it was that I was,

5:48

I had just worked so hard to get to that

5:50

point that I hadn't taken care of myself. And

5:53

the dark side of it was I

5:55

was always feeling uncomfortable. I was constantly

5:57

questioning like, what am I doing really? Like

6:00

what am I actually doing here? Do I really

6:02

like fashion? Do I really want to work in fashion?

6:04

And even though that was like not the main, you

6:07

know trajectory of this particular position It

6:09

was definitely I was part of that like people started to

6:11

talk to me like they're like, oh you're a fashion editor

6:13

And I'm like am I a fashion editor? I'm a fashion

6:15

editor. Well, I'm just

6:17

gonna say like Teen Vogue like whatever

6:19

the brand aspired to be and did

6:21

very well at that time It is

6:24

the descendant of a Vogue era

6:26

that defined what fashion was It wasn't just

6:28

you which I weren't in fashion. Vogue was

6:30

fashion. I was of fashion Yes, exactly and

6:32

and that part of it was really exciting

6:34

at the time like my closest girlfriend They

6:36

were like if people knew you they would

6:38

know this is the perfect job for you

6:40

because I've always been obsessed with fashion It

6:42

was just like this was another level of

6:44

it. So yeah, I mean on paper on

6:46

Instagram I had made it I had the

6:48

dream job as one of my friends told

6:50

me the quintessential girl boss job You know

6:52

editor to fashion magazine and but I was

6:54

you know, I was physically not feeling well

6:56

I was really tired. I had

6:59

just come off of I had been laid off from

7:01

a job and I had sworn that I would never

7:03

work in media again And then I

7:05

didn't even have time to recover from that before Philip

7:08

Picardy who was the former chief content officer slid

7:10

into my DMS asking me to come in for

7:12

an interview So it was kind of one of

7:14

those like I had experienced a lot of things

7:16

hadn't really dealt with them In

7:18

terms of how stressed out I was how burned out I was

7:20

and I just went into another really big job You

7:23

know, and then I think when the pandemic hit I had a

7:25

moment to reflect And without all

7:27

the perks of the job, right? You're not going

7:30

anywhere You're at home and you're

7:32

on zoom overrides don't matter as much exactly

7:35

Like what I can't even go to a restaurant what? What

7:38

point is being able to expense a dinner, you

7:41

know, and I think that really made me reflect on the

7:44

structure of work and Management

7:46

and all of the different kind of pieces

7:48

that I think are unraveling and work right

7:50

now that I think you talk about In

7:52

your show all the time where I was

7:54

like, you know, is this actually in alignment

7:56

with what I want to be doing and

7:58

Is this a struggle? structure that is even

8:00

sustainable at this point. Right. You

8:03

know you weren't the only one asking that question in 2020. And

8:07

here we are four years later, and it's

8:09

such an interesting time for you to attempt

8:12

to offer some advice and insight

8:14

on these questions. Because in

8:17

many ways, we've kind of closed the chapter on

8:19

the reinvention of work. And a

8:21

lot of things on the surface kind

8:24

of look the same. Unexpected to me,

8:26

honestly. Like, you're still expected to go

8:28

into the office. You know, the same

8:31

kinds of people are still getting promoted.

8:34

But beneath that, there has been

8:36

this massive reckoning, right? And

8:39

you talk about so many of

8:41

the myths that we come up

8:43

with that we have sort of

8:46

re-envisioned. Like one is this idea

8:48

that representation alone can save us,

8:50

right? Wonder if you want

8:52

to sort of share what you have learned

8:54

about that. Yeah, absolutely. And

8:57

it's complicated, right? So representation, and

8:59

you know, to

9:02

elaborate on that, I think the idea that

9:05

one or two people in these senior level

9:07

positions, and I think this is very much

9:09

the legacy of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, is

9:12

if you have one woman at the top, this is good

9:14

for all women somehow, right? And what

9:16

we're seeing is sometimes that's true, right? Like

9:18

there is definitive data that suggests that women

9:21

are more likely to hire women, right? And

9:23

which is why historically men have hired men

9:25

or white men have hired other white men.

9:28

And so there is an opportunity there. But

9:31

the downside of it is that there

9:33

is, you know, more of a

9:35

competitive attitude, right? So you have like one woman

9:37

who can make it to the top and there's

9:39

no guaranteeing that she's actually going to be the

9:41

mentor that you hoped that she would be to

9:44

help the next woman. And also

9:46

it shouldn't be on the shoulders of us as

9:48

individuals to try and lift up women as an

9:50

entire social class. I mean, that's a very hard

9:52

thing to do. So to put that on the

9:54

shoulders of like one boss. Yeah,

9:57

and that was really the challenge with Lean In and

9:59

in the moment. of Lean In and the

10:01

introduction of those ideas, which

10:03

is that somehow it became packaged

10:05

as feminism writ large and the

10:07

message was, you can do it.

10:10

You just gotta do it better, harder, right?

10:12

Yeah. But also

10:14

while you're talking about that competitive way in which like,

10:16

well, if there's only one seat at the table, then it

10:18

is my job, I mean, here you are and I

10:20

am at the table, we're both in the industry, I

10:22

need to box you out. That

10:24

feels to me like the workplace that

10:26

my mother grew up in. I

10:29

am looking ahead at the women who came

10:31

before me and that is the way they

10:33

operated. I would like to think

10:36

that it doesn't exist in the same

10:38

way anymore. There has historically been and

10:40

what I call trickle down feminism is

10:42

the feminism of the workplace was really

10:44

this kind of you can do it,

10:47

pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you are as deserving

10:49

as the man next to you, so you just have

10:51

to work double as hard and you can get the

10:53

same position and having some sharp elbows, that's

10:56

part and parcel of the game. There's only space for

10:58

one woman at that table and I'm gonna be the

11:00

woman who's gonna be at that table and

11:02

I do think that that has engendered a

11:04

type of toxicity when you think about kind

11:06

of what has been labeled now as girl

11:08

boss feminism or this kind of lean in

11:11

feminism that really isn't looking at the collective,

11:13

it's looking at us as individuals and how

11:15

we ourselves can get ahead. Now,

11:17

I also think that's natural, like one of

11:19

the things that I reflected on as I

11:21

was leaving is I can say

11:23

that it was all these high and mighty politics

11:26

that I was like, oh, this was not in

11:28

alignment, I was also overlooked for promotion. I

11:30

had personal reasons that I no longer wanted

11:32

to continue my career there or that was

11:34

no longer a place that was gonna hold

11:36

my personal ambitions and I think that we

11:38

are kind of always toggling between those two

11:41

realities where I don't think the solution here

11:43

is telling women that they shouldn't go for the

11:45

promotion, right? Or that they shouldn't be competitive in

11:47

the workplace because I think that's the reality of

11:49

a lot of workplaces but

11:51

I also think there's an opportunity to really step back

11:53

and say, what is the most

11:56

beneficial thing both for myself and my team

11:58

and especially as... is

12:00

when we look at how we're giving feedback

12:03

or how we're giving promotion or how we're giving

12:05

raises, what

12:08

is the way that we can actually engender

12:10

a feeling of more community and more like

12:12

we are actually working together as a team

12:14

and what does it look like to actually

12:16

have a healthy environment where we are all

12:18

actually supporting each other and we want to

12:20

always be giving everyone the most

12:22

that we can possibly give them. How do

12:24

we create cultures like this? And do they exist just

12:26

not in media? They

12:29

definitely, I don't know that

12:31

they exist in media. I

12:33

think that there are companies

12:36

and organizations that are really

12:38

taking seriously workplace culture and having kind

12:40

of a more worker-centric, worker-driven model. And

12:43

I think Chani Nicholas was one of the

12:46

examples I use in the book and they

12:48

had a job description that went viral because

12:50

they had a lot of benefits for

12:53

their employees, including nobody gets paid less than

12:55

$80,000. They

12:58

had menstrual leave, domestic

13:00

violence leave, a stipend to build your wealth.

13:02

I mean, things that people were laughing at

13:04

because they were like, this is so unreal.

13:07

But then when you really think about it,

13:09

you're like, oh, these are actually all the

13:11

different ways that women are held back and

13:14

women and gender nonconforming people are

13:16

held back in the workplace without

13:18

making accommodations for pregnancy or

13:20

for motherhood or all of these things that

13:24

we are kind of as women expected

13:27

to just be like, oh, I'm fine, I'm

13:29

back at work, I'm fine. And

13:31

caretaking, like caretaking your parents. I mean, women are

13:33

disproportionately more likely to be taking care of their

13:36

elders as well, so while taking care

13:38

of their children. And so I think

13:40

a model that

13:42

centralizes that and says care is a

13:45

fundamental part of what our employees have

13:47

to do and all of

13:49

these different things that they're navigating and saying,

13:51

we're gonna actually embed that into how we

13:53

hire, how we support our staff. And the

13:56

result is very impressive, right? I mean, they're in

13:58

Forbes magazine having had a lot of great work.

14:00

had, you know, like they

14:02

have profits, you know, like they're actually, they

14:04

make, they're a money making business, but

14:07

they also have really high employee retainment,

14:09

right? And they also

14:11

have a beautiful product. Like

14:14

when you engage with the app, you're like, oh, these are not

14:16

people that are calling it in, right?

14:18

Like every part of it feels like it's made

14:20

by somebody who feels deeply invested in the mission

14:22

of what they're doing. And I think that to

14:24

me is a really good model. And of course,

14:26

like I'm sure there's drawbacks. I'm sure they deal

14:28

with the same management issues that the rest of

14:30

us are managing right now, but at the same

14:32

time, just the intention of saying, this

14:35

is the kind of environment, like I'm going

14:37

to build a company and it's going to

14:39

be focused on how my employees who are

14:41

my best resource, because that's fundamentally true, how

14:44

they are experiencing this, and how can I

14:46

create an environment where they can actually do

14:48

their best work. Right. You know, I think

14:50

sometimes we get so caged by our idea

14:52

of what business is, and

14:54

we're quick to blame capitalism. Well, capitalism

14:57

just incentivizes us all wrong. And

14:59

I think that one thing I've come to

15:01

believe is that no, we incentivize us all

15:03

wrong. And there are plenty of ways to

15:06

support people in making a living and

15:08

creating value for the world that

15:11

don't actually damage employees in the

15:13

process. Yes. Yes. You

15:17

know, there's like new language now around like workplace

15:19

trauma, right? And I think we can all like

15:21

agree that trauma is used a lot, you know,

15:23

and it may not always- It's a little bit

15:25

of a heavy word. Yeah, it's a heavy word.

15:27

And, you know, it's kind of become a throwaway

15:29

word in some ways, because everything is now labeled

15:31

as trauma. But they are finding

15:33

that there are experiences that are coded in your

15:35

body in the workplace as trauma, right? Like we

15:38

can all agree that there are things that happen

15:40

at work that are, can be, you know, categorized

15:42

as traumatic. And we bring that to work, right?

15:44

And so a lot of those kinds of toxic

15:47

work environments then propagate because

15:49

we don't address whatever might have

15:51

happened. Like none of us

15:53

want to have a difficult conversation. Nobody really wants to

15:55

be like, you know, you talked over me in that

15:57

meeting and it really didn't make me feel great. And

16:00

like, how can we process this? Nobody wants to have

16:02

that conversation at work. And so, especially as a manager,

16:04

it's much easier to just be like, I'm

16:06

just gonna do what I do, because I'm doing

16:09

it, I'm the boss, and I'm just gonna keep

16:11

going. And so I think, you know, really thinking

16:13

actively about like, what does it actually look like,

16:15

without it derailing from doing the work itself too,

16:17

right? What does it actually look like to create

16:19

an environment where people feel comfortable saying,

16:22

you know, I was really uncomfortable in that situation,

16:24

and this is how we could have done it

16:26

differently. We'll

16:29

be right back after this with more

16:32

from Samhita Mukhopadai. A

16:57

leading observability and security company

17:00

enabling software worldwide to work

17:02

perfectly. Even the software you might

17:04

be running right now. Explore

17:06

job opportunities worldwide

17:08

at careers.dynatrace.com. Have

17:12

you been feeling the effects of

17:14

stress, burnout, or anxiety at work?

17:16

Workplace culture is changing, but we're

17:19

not done yet. Listen to the

17:21

Anxious Achiever podcast to rethink the

17:23

relationship between your career and your

17:25

mental health. Hear stories

17:27

from psychologists, entrepreneurs, even

17:30

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17:32

how they balance success and ambition

17:35

with staying mentally healthy, and walk

17:37

away with practical advice you can

17:39

implement today. Get the Anxious Achiever

17:41

wherever you find your podcasts. And

17:46

we're back. At a

17:49

certain point, many ambitious women get really fed

17:51

up with the status quo. A

17:53

lot of them opt to become entrepreneurs. Instead,

17:56

it's one really ambitious path, but

17:59

it isn't necessarily- more stable or

18:01

sustainable than a traditional day job.

18:04

Earlier in her career, Samita had

18:06

had some experience working with the

18:08

National Women's Business Council, and

18:10

so I wanted in particular to get her take on

18:12

this path. Once again, here's

18:15

Samita. Yeah, absolutely.

18:18

Yeah, this is like the best way to ask the girl boss question without...

18:21

on some level. No, it's true. I

18:23

mean, you know, I spent a couple

18:25

of years working at the

18:27

National Women's Business Council, which, you know,

18:30

was supporting women-owned businesses, and

18:32

many of the women that had started businesses

18:34

started them because they had hit the glass

18:37

ceiling, and they were not... They were looked

18:39

over for promotion. They

18:41

were leaders naturally. They had ideas. They were creative,

18:43

and they wanted to go out on their own,

18:45

and so they decided to start their own businesses.

18:48

And while I think those are really

18:50

valuable and important, and I think that,

18:52

you know, an economic model that has

18:54

space for people to have cool and

18:56

interesting ideas and products for us to

18:58

participate in is awesome, but

19:01

it's very hard to sustain those environments, right? I

19:04

mean, you know this, like,

19:06

what is it? The 2% of VC

19:08

funding goes to women-owned businesses, right? And,

19:10

you know, that is even worse for

19:12

women of color and for black women

19:15

that are more likely to often be

19:17

entrepreneurs because they're more likely to be

19:19

not promoted into especially the

19:21

C-suite, but even into managerial positions. And

19:23

so while I think it is...

19:26

It's this kind of like band-aid solution, and

19:28

I think it gives people a lot of flexibility, and

19:30

especially now I don't think people want

19:32

traditional work environments anymore, but I

19:34

do think it's hard to sustain and grow those

19:36

businesses in a way that's ethical as

19:39

we've seen, right? And

19:41

in a way that kind of is in alignment

19:43

with the values that I think a lot of

19:45

them may want or want to engender, but are

19:48

very challenging to do without resources. Right, well,

19:50

and I think it also speaks to the fact that,

19:52

like, we need

19:54

for women and people of color,

19:56

and LGBTQIA people to have

19:59

more capital. period. And

20:01

starting a solo entrepreneurial

20:04

venture is rarely the way

20:06

to maximize your capital. Yeah,

20:09

absolutely. It's a great way to waste your

20:11

money though. It

20:14

doesn't mean you can't do very well for yourself. But

20:16

like, you know, what I want for

20:18

women is for them to be rich and

20:20

to put that money to work. Right. Right.

20:23

Or at least to be paid fairly. Right. I mean, I

20:25

think that, you know, it's the entrepreneurship

20:28

model in general. It's like, you

20:30

know, male entrepreneurs fail up

20:32

constantly. I mean, they have so many failed

20:34

entities. They continue to get investment. And the

20:36

thing that women entrepreneurs will say over and

20:38

over is I failed and

20:40

now nobody will ever give me money

20:43

again. Whereas failing is actually considered part

20:45

of building businesses in the entrepreneurship landscape

20:47

for men. And

20:49

so, you know, to me,

20:51

it's even less about like, yes, wealth is a

20:53

piece of it, obviously. But again,

20:55

you know, as I tackle in the book, like money

20:58

also corrupts, right? There's no guarantee that like when you

21:00

become wealthy, you're all of a sudden going to

21:02

create this equitable feminist utopia of

21:04

a business. Likely you're not going to. But

21:06

there should the opportunity should be the opportunity

21:08

for you to be a horrible boss should

21:11

be there. I'm

21:13

just kidding. In

21:16

her book, Samita talks frankly about what

21:18

she calls the diversity industrial complex. It's

21:21

another contributor to this myth of making it.

21:23

Now, we're seeing a

21:25

backlash to DEI programs across North America

21:27

and more broadly the world right now.

21:30

I believe that inclusion

21:32

is necessary for successfully

21:34

working together. But

21:36

a lot of what really builds inclusion,

21:38

well, Samita would say it isn't in

21:41

these programs. So

21:44

it's a what, $9.7 billion business or

21:46

something. And it's estimated to be far

21:48

more than that in the next handful

21:51

of years. And one

21:54

of the pitfalls of it is largely

21:56

we're learning that diversity and

21:58

inclusion training is ineffective. that

22:00

it doesn't actually do

22:02

what we hope that it will do. Often,

22:07

some research is suggesting that if anything,

22:09

it elevates our differences, and sometimes that creates

22:11

additional agitation. And I think we've all

22:13

kind of experienced that too in the workplace,

22:15

and we don't really feel comfortable or

22:17

have the language to be like, maybe this

22:20

isn't working, and we need a better

22:22

way to be talking about how to actually

22:24

include the most diversity of perspectives, or

22:26

especially in the hiring process, but even in

22:28

team building and creative ideation, any of

22:30

that. And so, I think that in some

22:32

ways it has helped us, right? Because

22:36

it's at least started the conversation. I

22:38

think ultimately, has it been able to

22:40

sustain and change many of the work

22:42

environments that we're hoping to change? They

22:45

haven't. I mean, we don't even have

22:47

enough evidence to say whether it's been

22:49

largely successful or unsuccessful, because

22:52

white men still dominate every C-suite.

22:55

So it's really hard to kind of say like,

22:57

oh, this has been the most effective thing. And

22:59

I think in studies done

23:01

with employees, the

23:04

race of your boss has less to do with

23:06

whether you're gonna feel comfortable or included than how

23:09

they talk to you, how they include you, whether

23:11

they respect your opinion, how they pay

23:13

you, how your onboarding experience was, all of these

23:15

kind of cultural things that are less

23:17

to do with the color of your skin or

23:19

your gender, and more to do with how the

23:22

workplace is set up, and the kind of cultural

23:24

norms that are created to help people and

23:28

employees feel included. Well, it seems like we're in this moment of a

23:31

grand reckoning with the EI programs, right? Like

23:33

what happened with the Supreme Court decision last

23:35

year, the trickle down of that is that

23:37

you just see this, your corporations pulling back

23:39

in the language, at least that they're using

23:42

to talk about this stuff. Would

23:44

it be your perspective that this is actually

23:46

an opportunity for a re-envisioning? Absolutely.

23:49

I mean, I definitely think it is an

23:51

opportunity for re-envisioning. I don't

23:53

think the initial strategies were taken particularly seriously.

23:55

I think that they were always symbolic. I

23:57

think you had a training, you had a

23:59

binder. Yeah. Yeah.

24:04

I mean, and genuinely everyone was like trying to grapple with the

24:06

material, but it is, you know, I mean, it is, you're just

24:08

like, okay, like, you know, checking

24:10

your email between these sessions and you

24:12

know, you're like, yeah, obviously I agree.

24:14

Like racism is bad. Like, how

24:17

could you disagree with that statement? You know,

24:19

and it really is these kinds of like

24:21

microaggressions and interpersonal experiences that people have where

24:25

that are much harder to document and

24:27

identify and kind of, you know,

24:29

to solve for. And I think

24:31

that that's where, while

24:34

I want to say, and I hope that

24:36

this is an opportunity to rethink, and

24:38

I do think there are people that are actively thinking about

24:40

this and how to do it, but I think most people

24:42

don't really know the right way to do it. And I

24:44

don't like part of why I did the interrogation into it.

24:46

It's because I also didn't know how to do it. Like

24:48

I was tasked with, you know, managing

24:51

really diverse teams. I'm a woman of color.

24:53

I felt pressure for my white bosses to

24:55

act a certain way. And, you

24:57

know, and then I'm South Asian on top of that. So

24:59

there's like some quiet, you

25:01

know, racial ideas around how

25:04

I should be behaving in the workplace as well

25:06

around kind of the model minority. And you know,

25:08

all of these different narratives that I felt like

25:10

I was navigating consciously and

25:13

subconsciously. And while

25:15

I wanted to create an environment that was very safe

25:17

for everyone where they felt that they could bring their

25:19

full selves to the workplace, I also had to be

25:21

like, shut the fuck up and get the workshop done.

25:24

And it's like that constant management where it's like,

25:26

yeah, of course I want to hear how

25:29

you're feeling, not all the time, but

25:31

like, I certainly don't want you to

25:33

be upset at the same time.

25:35

Like this is a workplace. Like I'm not your

25:38

therapist. Like we kind of need to figure out

25:40

how to like navigate through this. And I think

25:42

a lot of people feel stuck in that right

25:44

now. Right. I like

25:46

thinking about it through the lens

25:48

of psychological safety. Yeah. How

25:51

do we build communities in which every

25:53

stakeholder can feel psychologically safe to contribute?

25:55

Yeah. Right. That feels like maybe one

25:57

way to be. begin

26:00

to think and talk about it. So

26:04

this is not your first book, but it

26:07

is certainly, I think it's fair to

26:09

say that it is probably your most

26:11

personal book. Yes. How did

26:13

it feel to explore this in a way that

26:15

would ultimately be very public? Ugh. Really

26:19

hitting on that vulnerability right now. I

26:21

don't know. Well, really hard, I'll be

26:23

honest. It was, I tend

26:26

to be a more analytical writer and in

26:28

the last few years, I have been writing a

26:30

little bit more personally. I think it was really

26:33

important to me to not write a book that

26:35

sounded lechery. It's like, I do have a 20

26:37

year career. I am, you know, have the auntie

26:39

authority. I've managed a lot of teams and there's

26:42

a lot of advice I could give. And I

26:44

didn't want this to be an advice book. I

26:46

really wanted it to be a journey

26:49

that I kind of went through in

26:51

terms of my own relationship to work,

26:53

my own politics, my own ideals

26:55

around what a feminist workplace could look

26:57

like and the reality of trying to

26:59

do those things, which is very challenging

27:02

and also interrogate some of my own

27:05

internalized ideas around hustle culture. Because as

27:07

much as I can

27:09

objectively be like, yeah, sure, we shouldn't work

27:11

like that or, you know, gate keep girl

27:14

boss, whatever. I'm like, gas light

27:16

girl boss, you know. As much as I said that,

27:18

like, I was,

27:20

I am deeply ambitious and like, I am,

27:22

you know, constantly thinking of more things I

27:24

have to do. Like does the act of

27:27

writing a book is ambitious? You

27:29

know, so it has been this, you know, mirror

27:31

that I hold up to myself and it was,

27:33

you know, parts of it were a bit of

27:35

an out of body experience and parts of it

27:37

were just really scary. I've worked in some pretty

27:39

high profile places and, you know, I didn't want

27:42

to get in trouble. Like I wanted to say

27:44

something interesting and I didn't want it to be,

27:46

but I also didn't want it to be

27:48

another like tell all about like working in

27:50

media, you know. I think we

27:53

have enough of those. And so,

27:55

yeah, I think that it

27:57

was very challenging. I had a really

28:00

amazing. group of like friends, friend editors,

28:03

that I was like, you just need to tell me if

28:05

I'm like humiliating myself because I also think there's like a

28:08

sharing too much version of it, right? And

28:11

then there's also the version of it that's like, I'm

28:13

the victim of every part of these stories. And I

28:15

didn't feel that way. I was like, look, I'm

28:17

a manager. I know I'm not a victim,

28:19

but I still faced real challenges and

28:21

I want to talk honestly about them. So what

28:24

next? Where's that ambition going? Because you know what,

28:26

you are not even close to the middle of

28:28

the career that I could envision for you. Really?

28:30

Longevity being what it is. Oh my God, you've

28:32

got like another 120 years.

28:34

Okay, that's scary. I don't,

28:36

I appreciate that. I think I have 19 to

28:38

20 years left in my career. And

28:41

that is, that is many years though. I say that out

28:43

loud. So I'm, I'm exactly at the midway point, I guess

28:45

you could say. And yeah, I mean,

28:47

I want to keep writing. I want to

28:49

keep having these conversations about what an equitable

28:51

workplace looks like. And I think

28:54

the thing that I'm like really thinking a lot

28:56

about right now is like how to just have

28:58

difficult conversations with people that we don't agree with.

29:01

And you know, and I think that's like been

29:03

the theme since 2016. Right.

29:08

And you know, all of these years that

29:10

I have invested in, you

29:12

know, ensuring workplaces are diverse, that they're

29:14

thinking about gender inequality. And in

29:18

many ways, it feels like we're having a

29:20

harder time talking across difference than we

29:23

are able to like see each other and

29:25

understand each other. And I don't mean like

29:27

go out and like convert your Trump uncle,

29:29

but I do wonder,

29:31

you know, a lot about

29:33

where nuance has gone and our ability

29:36

to kind of connect across issues that we

29:38

may not necessarily agree on or, you know,

29:41

issues that come up around diversity in the

29:43

workplace where I'm seeing a lot of behaviors

29:45

that are kind of like, well,

29:48

I'm just going to be deferential to this kind

29:50

of really flat understanding of what diversity means or

29:52

what gender equality means. And it's like, we need

29:54

to be able to have a more complex discussion

29:57

about that, that takes into consideration all

29:59

of the different. factors that we

30:01

take into consideration when we come to work. So that's something

30:03

I'm thinking about a lot. I don't know how that will

30:05

manifest. We'll see. It

30:08

was so lovely to have you at this table. Thank you.

30:10

It was great to be here. Great questions. That

30:15

was Samida Mukhopadai. Check out her book, The

30:17

Myth of Making It, wherever you buy your

30:19

books. There are

30:21

many things that I will remember from

30:24

this conversation. First, there

30:26

are companies and people doing a pretty

30:28

decent job of setting up equitable workplaces.

30:31

And it's important to lift them up as an

30:33

example of what's possible. There's one

30:36

that Samida talks about. It's Chani

30:38

Nicholas, the astrologer and company, and

30:40

we'll link to their career page

30:42

in our show notes. Second,

30:45

DEI initiatives alone aren't

30:47

the solution. Representation

30:50

is important, but it isn't enough

30:52

on its own. We have to

30:54

think beyond training and hiring practices

30:56

and actually revolutionize the workplace itself

30:59

to be a safe and equitable

31:01

place where everyone can

31:03

do their best work. Last,

31:07

and this is the big one. Making

31:10

it is a construct. We

31:12

quite literally make up our ideas about what

31:14

making it even looks like. And oftentimes when

31:16

we finally get that thing that would mean

31:18

we made it, it's not all we'd build

31:21

it up to be. Instead

31:23

of channeling our energy into our

31:25

personal visions of making it, what

31:27

if instead we focused on a

31:29

collective vision for a more just

31:31

and enjoyable workplace? So

31:34

what might a really feminist workplace look like?

31:37

Well, we're going to dig into that at Office Hours,

31:39

and I really hope you'll join us. The

31:41

Hello Monday team will go live from

31:44

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31:46

at 3pm Eastern. You can

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or from the Events tab on the LinkedIn

31:52

News page. Or if you're

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31:56

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the link. Hello

32:10

Monday is the production of LinkedIn News.

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I'm Jessi Hempel, back next Monday. Thanks

32:41

for listening. I

32:52

will tell you that

32:54

this is my only me story. No,

32:56

that's not true. I talk about myself way too much. I love

32:58

that. That makes me feel very comfortable when the interviewer does that.

33:01

I actually really prefer it. I do it as an interviewer too.