Starting out your career is a formative, fragile time — in the best of circumstances. It’s even more challenging during the intersecting crises we’re living through. Many young women are navigating work relationships and cultures without strong networks, sponsors, and other kinds of support that take time to build. So we’ve pulled together perspectives and practical advice for women who are new to the workforce or entering it now.
First, two women early in their careers tell us how they’re learning to rely on their peers for professional development while working from home. Then Hana Ayoub, a career coach, suggests practices for orienting yourself in an unfamiliar workplace and making the most of less than optimal circumstances. And finally the Amys chat with a graduate student doing an internship at HBR about what’s helped her feel heard at work and optimistic about the future.
Guests:
Rachel Bronstein and Nina Jones are consultants at Engine and part of the company’s network for junior women.
Hana Ayoub is an executive and career coach.
Alex Hemmer is a graduate student and intern at Harvard Business Review.
Resources:
- “Networking Doesn’t Have to Be a Drag”
- “Sponsorship: Defining the Relationship”
- “We Deserve Better Than ‘Attagirl’”
- “Let’s Do Less Dead-End Work”
Sign up to get the Women at Work monthly newsletter.
Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org
Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, in the course of putting together this episode, we heard from a lot of our listeners who are early in their careers, about the kinds of challenges they’re facing. And it brought me back, way back, to what a really fragile period that is.
AMY GALLO: Yeah, it brought me back, it made me remember how little guidance anyone gave me. I felt like I just sort of entered the workforce and was really left to fend for myself. That’s a lot of what I hear from young women now is they’re just trying to figure out how work, works.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And they’re walking into a world of turbulence and unknowns.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s daunting for you and me, imagine not having any experience in the workplace.
AMY GALLO: Right. I worry about the ways in which it’s compounding, the pay gap, the opportunity gap, women’s confidence as they enter the workforce and that’s what I was excited about doing, which is to help them, give them some advice from people who’ve been through it, but also from their peers around, how can they navigate the beginning of their career that probably looks so different than they expected it too.
AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein.
AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo. For the women listening who are in their first jobs, we’ve pulled together perspectives and advice that we hope will make the challenges you’re facing more manageable. And for those of you further along in your career, we have ideas on how to support the young women in your life.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Talking with two young women in London who had emailed us, helped me better grasp the pressure they and their peers are under. Rachel Bronstein and Nina Jones are consultants at Engine, a marketing and advertising company. Because they haven’t been getting enough of the support they need from senior leadership, they’re leaning on each other. Rachel is the co-founder of Engines network for junior women, called Beyond Her, and Nina’s the networks newest member. Rachel and Nina, thanks so much for joining us today.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: Of course. It’s great to be here.
NINA JONES: Thank you for having us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, let’s start with you Rachel. Where exactly are you in your career and tell us a little about what you do.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: Sure. So, I would classify myself as a junior woman and this is a time I have grappled with because I sort of want to own the Junior label and make it something that’s positive for me and not feel like I have to be senior to contribute and to own my voice. But equally sometimes it can feel like until you have that validation of senior in front of your title that you can’t fully contribute, or you can’t fully be involved in decision making. So, I am a strategy consultant and that means that I work on projects that are aimed at helping businesses look at various problems that they might be having and come up with solutions, and I’ve been in this role for the past almost two years.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Great. Nina, how about you? What do you do and where are you in your career?
NINA JONES: So, I’m an employee experience consultant, so I help, or try to help companies understand their employee experience and measure it and try to improve it. And I feel like I’m just really starting out in my career. While I feel like I have some expertise, I definitely feel like I have a way to go in learning about the field.
AMY BERNSTEIN: How has the pandemic and the ensuing recession, how have they interrupted your career?
NINA JONES: It’s been interesting because I have been furloughed from my role and that means that for the last two months I haven’t been working. And that’s been, I guess an obstacle for me because in my plan of the year, this was the time that I was going to get really good at my job, I was going to get loads of client experience and I was going to really try and build up my reputation at Engine. That for me has been a bit of a challenge, thinking about how I can build my reputation and skills up whilst not working.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And you’ve been doing something kind of cool with your time, since you’ve gone on furlough. Tell us about it.
NINA JONES: Yes, so obviously it’s a bit of a shock to be put on furlough, even though I was aware of the possibility. And I suddenly realized that I had time that I wouldn’t normally have and was looking to do some volunteering really, thinking about ways that I could maybe use my skills a bit more, and also use the time to learn as well. And another young woman in my company had also felt the same and had actually reached out to her network on Twitter and LinkedIn to say, would anyone need her skills? And we formed a little team to tackle this pro bono project and we’ve just about finished it. And has been a great experience to me because it’s sort of been like work, but we haven’t been as strict as ourselves as maybe you would with a paying client. We’ve been quite free to experiment and learn different skills. So it was a really cool project, but I’m a little bit worried about when I’ll be brought back to work. I can kind of sense that companies, especially in difficult times might be looking for more senior people to come back, or experienced pairs of hands to come back. And so, I’ve been thinking about how I can demonstrate that I’m ready to take on different kinds of work and that’s where I guess, trying to think about other pro bono projects that I can take on, or specific areas of skills that I can build up and learn from, and try and workout how to demonstrate, could stand me in good stead to be brought back to work and to make a difference when I come back.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, that’s a lot to deal with.
NINA JONES: It is.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It sure is. How about you Rachel? How have these two crisis interrupted your career?
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: So, for me I mean, I’ve been working fulltime, five day week for the duration of the pandemic and what I found is that businesses at this time are focusing on staying afloat and protecting jobs, and of course, this is a natural priority, but at the same time, conversations about development and progression have somewhat slipped off the agenda as a result. And when I think about my progression and moving forwards and what it means to me to develop at this time, I feel really selfish because I’m technically one of the lucky ones. I’m someone who is still working. I’m privileged to still be working. So almost how dare I be thinking about my own development and my own progression when there’s this pandemic and there’s this crisis going on? And of course, I feel so grateful to have a job and to be working a five day week, but then at the same time I’m perhaps not pushing conversations about my objectives or thinking about next steps in the same way that I would have otherwise. I’m worried about being on the back foot both developmentally and financially because the whole sort of climate of economic uncertainty has meant that businesses are doing what they can to forecast. But we can’t ignore that with cuts being made across the board, it leaves employees and it leaves me wondering about pay and wondering about future stability as a result of everything that’s going on in the backdrop. And I want to feel like I’m moving forwards and progressing, but that can feel really challenging when we just still don’t know what the future holds and how stable that future is going to be.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. I think a lot of people are grappling with the tension between wanting to continue the forward movement and not wanting to be selfish in a moment when so many people are losing so much, so.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: Exactly.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I hear you. So, Rachel you cofounded the Beyond Her network.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: Yes.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I wonder if you would tell us a little bit about the network and what drove you to start it?
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: So, I cofounded Beyond Her with two friends, Tash and Imogen. And we formed this great trio and we all complimented one another’s skills and that was great. And we decided to found Beyond Her after numerous conversations that we felt were being had about opportunities for women who were already senior and it felt like because of pay gap reporting showing that there’s more of a gap at the top than there is at the bottom, that people weren’t really thinking about junior women and what needed to be done there. And for us we found that that was actually quite a narrow minded way of thinking about the problem, because actually, of course, issues start at the bottom. Issues start when you enter a profession and then they are compounded when you’re senior. So for us it became important to start thinking about what it would mean to enable junior women to own their voice now, rather than waiting to have that senior title. So, Beyond Her is a network for women at the start of their careers and our mission is simple. It’s to make women feel less like imposters and more like instigators. So, we run sessions on topics like, building your brand, how to fail, resilience, confidence and then there’s the informal side which is often socials with the network and a chance to have sort of conversations. We’ve been using our Slack channel a lot to have more informal chats as we’ve been in this lockdown, and to ensure that people feel supported and recognized. That’s the journey that we’ve been on and that we’re still going on and thinking about our next steps and expanding what we think is quite a unique network outside of just Engine.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Nina, you’re a member of the Beyond Her network and I wonder if you could talk a bit about how the network has supported you over these last few months.
NINA JONES: Especially as a new colleague, I just joined the business last year, Beyond Her has been amazing at helping me feel more connected to the company. And working with Rachel especially has been brilliant because having someone who can really connect me to things and give me opportunities like this has been pretty fantastic. And I feel like everyone at Beyond Her really has each other’s backs and really looks out for each other. And the sessions have been really great because they’re often things that you feel like are on your mind. So building a brand or just having confidence and we had a great session on mentorship and how that can help. Just the network existence makes me feel supported as a junior woman coming into the company and I guess when there are sort of uncertainties on the horizon, in the future, I know that the Beyond Her network will be there to support me if I wanted to have a conversation with someone. And will also be trying to organize events that really help people within the situation and offer really sort of practical advice that you can actually act upon. But also just a friendly ear to chat if you’ve got something on your mind.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: And we are together with another team member Vicky, working on a session that we’re doing in a few weeks’ time. It’s about navigating development during lockdown. Because we feel like we can’t necessarily expect things to change or expect progress to be made if we’re not having that conversation together and working out what those changes need to be.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Rachel in founding and leading Beyond Her, you’ve really taken on a lot of responsibility. And I’m wondering how you feel about that, the pressure you’re facing.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: It’s mostly positive and it’s mostly a responsibility that I relish and enjoy and has afforded me opportunities to step up in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily yet have at my stage in my career. However, it does sometimes feel pressured in the sense that there are 80 something members of our network at Engine and I’m conscious that of those members, some of them followed, some are taking on increased workloads due to other team members being furloughed, and some are just dealing with everything going on during lockdown and during this pandemic. And I do feel having setup Beyond Her partially responsible and like it’s up to me and the other team members to be thinking about what we can be doing to help, or what can we do to support. Do people want more lighthearted socials? Is that something that’s going to help? Do people want a session on development? Is it something that people even want to talk about right now? Do they just want to hide away from it and feel like actually they can just exist at the moment and that’s enough and that’s cool. And it can be hard finding that balance and it can be hard feeling like we’re doing the right thing, and we’re thinking about our members and what our members need.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It sounds both motivating and a bit daunting.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: Definitely. But I think no one ever achieved anything by being in their comfort zone, right? So, we’ve got to try.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, amen to that. Rachel and Nina, thank you so much for sharing your experiences. And thank you for joining us today.
RACHEL BRONSTEIN: Thank you so much. It was great chatting to you.
NINA JONES: Thank you very much.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I found talking to Rachel and Nina absolutely inspiring Amy G. I mean, they are being so constructive in a moment of such fear and so many unknowns, and they’re helping each other. And the way that Nina is doing her pro bono work, I mean she’s just determined to keep developing herself. I took a lot of inspiration from that.
AMY GALLO: Yeah, me too. I loved hearing your conversation with them and I was just really impressed that they’re making such good use of their time, and that they have real fears, realistic fears about the future and they’re just reacting to that by being proactive.
AMY BERNSTEIN: This is going to come back to benefit them in so many ways.
AMY GALLO: And also, we can’t deny the immense pressure they’re under. The pressure they feel to support their peers, or to further their career, or to make good use of their time. I mean several other young women emailed us too about the obstacles they’re facing. So, we’re bringing in Hana Ayoub, a career coach has advice for handling those obstacles. She also has suggestions for habits to get into now, to serve your future self. Hana, thanks so much for joining us today.
HANA AYOUB: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really happy to be here.
AMY GALLO: You were in your 20s when the 2008 financial crisis happened. What was the fallout for you professionally?
HANA AYOUB: It was actually a pretty dramatic event to be quite honest. It was early August for me, 2008. I had showed up to work, which was a real estate title company in the Bay area, where I grew up, and there was a small piece of paper, an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper taped on the door of our office and it said that our company had gone bankrupted and that they would be in touch with more information.
AMY GALLO: Wow.
HANA AYOUB: And for me I was in a position where I had been doing well in that role for about six years, but I knew it wasn’t right for me. I knew there was more out there in my career. I knew I wanted to change, but it was going too well for me to walk away from. So, I saw that note and it was unsettling. Absolutely, I felt like the rug had sort of been pulled out from underneath me, but there really was a bit of a relief that kind of came from it. I had felt sort of trapped in that role. So, this was sort of an invitation to break free from that. And I don’t think my colleagues at the time, people who were far more tenured and committed to that path necessarily had that same mindset. They had families and homes and mortgages, and it hit them a bit differently. I still felt relatively young and agile where I was at in my career.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, before you were a career coach, you spent several years at Blackstone working with interns and recent grads. What piece of advice did you use to give the young women in particular that you think is useful for young women new to the workforce today?
HANA AYOUB: I love that question. I think earlier these young women can learn to, one, double down on networking efforts. So to really play the long game with the relationships that they’re presented with. The sooner we can build that practice and embrace it and find our own style of cultivating working relationships, the longer time horizon we have to really see the payoffs of that. We want these relationships before we have any asks, so the earlier we develop them, the more we can give to others and the more we can kind of receive. So, I think that’s something we can’t learn too early in our careers. Another thing, capture your career wins. No matter how small, no matter how big, keep a working file. Keep a folder in your email. Keep a blank page on the back of your notebook. Use the Notes app in your iPhone. Wherever, however you do it, take note of what’s going well. And I think that can serve us in so many ways. It can serve us on our rainy days, when we need a confidence boost. It can serve us if and when we’re plagued with imposter syndrome. It can serve us when we’re advocating for a promotion. It can serve us when we are interviewing for a new job, when we can look at themes across time of what’s the pattern that lives within those career wins that you enjoyed and had a positive outcome.
AMY GALLO: Yeah, yeah.
HANA AYOUB: Another really simple tracking system that I recommend is three columns. Like, dislike and want. So, what are the elements of your career, or previous roles you’ve had that you like? The same for the elements that you’ve disliked, and then want is really, what have you not been exposed to that you’ve seen or heard about that you want? And I think that can really help interrupt the spinning that happens sometimes when we reflect on our careers, and it really organizes what’s working, what’s not and what we want more of. And I think that can really help orient us as we navigate career growth and transition.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Hana in an episode this season on confronting setbacks, Daisy Auger-Dominguez said that this is the perfect time to reimagine your career. But how do you think that advice translates to women whose careers have just started?
HANA AYOUB: I listened to that episode by the way, and I wrote that down because it really, I feel like the way that that came up was so striking. You know, I’d say we always need to be in touch with the concept of reimagining our careers. I think it’s all too common and all too often that we become passive and sort of set ourselves on cruise control, and don’t look up. So, whether that’s induced by this crisis, whether that’s induced by listening to this podcast, or the previous one that you referenced, I really encourage young professionals to maintain their sight lines as to what they really want in their careers. Oftentimes we are go, go, go and we don’t have time to look up. I work with some clients who find themselves in their 40s at the top of the ladder and then asking themselves, how did I get here? Is this the right ladder? And so I think if there are early stage professionals with some time to reflect right now, I think that’s a really key opportunity to clarify what you’re going for, why you want it and stay the course. I think it’s a really good practice to instill in young people.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. So, Hana in our main newsletter we asked recent grads and women who are early in their careers to tell us about this specific obstacles they’re facing right now. And we just wanted to share some of what we’re hearing and some of the questions they asked us. So, the first one is from a recent grad who is going through what she describes as a chaotic job search. And she said that before the pandemic she felt confident that her education and experience would land her an entry level position in her field. And now, she fears that she’s not going to be able to measure up to all of the people who are newly unemployed, have more experience, who are surprisingly her competition. Any advice for what might help her feel more competitive as a candidate?
HANA AYOUB: So, what I would encourage her to think about is one, really diversifying her search strategy. Which means, sort of finding this blend between being focused and being flexible. Not too narrow that it eliminates all opportunities, but not so open minded that it’s scattered or that other people aren’t clear on what she’s looking for. And then also, through the search channels she’s looking. So really kind of uncovering first and second through great connections, leveraging recruiters. Even if she’s an early grad, circling back to former professors or her career center on her college campus, job boards, going direct to companies’ websites. Like really canvasing the landscape from all angles. I would also encourage her to perhaps find a friend or two who are like minded and in a similar position to just kind of stay in touch and support each other, really create a space for boosting each other’s efforts. Holding each other accountable. Also, I’d remind her that this is temporary. I know how much recent grads are looking forward to the next chapter. If we had to rewind and go back to that point in our life it’s such a big transition. But it’s a marathon. Right. It’s a long road ahead. So, I would just encourage her to stay the course and try to keep in mind some elements of hope and optimism, and that she will land somewhere.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Is there any cost to taking a first job that has nothing to do with what you studied in college, or what you actually eventually hoped to do? I imagine that might be something this listener might need to do.
HANA AYOUB: Yeah. I really do encourage people to use the information they have available at this time. Use the opportunities that are available at this time, and make the best decision they can. And if that means saying yes to an offer that she previously wouldn’t had considered, what I would ask her to do to serve her future self is to continue to check in. How is it going? What am I getting from this opportunity? How else can I extract what I’m looking to do from my current situation? And then pivoting accordingly. So, I do encourage her to stay in motion, to stay active, but to also hold herself accountable and not be passive after she’s made that decision.
AMY GALLO: Right, right.
AMY BERNTEIN: So, we also heard from a 22-year-old who just got her Master’s overseas, paid for by her parents and now she can’t find a job. She’s now miserable. She feels that she’s disappointing her parents and she’s feeling a tremendous amount of pressure to be successful from the start. What do you say to her?
HANA AYOUB: I would tell this woman to think about, if her career were a book, what is the name of this chapter? I think what she might be doing is really holding such a big picture in mind that she’s adding even more pressure to what she might be feeling from her parents, from society, from her peers and I think that can get really, really big, really fast. This is something that I do quite a bit with clients, which is if you’re career were a book, name this chapter. What is this period about for you? And that can be anchoring. It can help her focus. It can also remind her that it’s temporary and that she has every right to name the next chapter and move towards that when the time comes. But the reality is these are her circumstances.
AMY GALLO: What about people who went back to get a degree while they were working, hoping that they could move up in their organization because they got a Master’s, or they finished a Bachelor’s. And they don’t want to let this education go to waste. How do they start a conversation with your boss about making sure that new credentials still gets recognized?
HANA AYOUB: I think the sooner you start this conversation the better. So I would hope that the first conversation isn’t upon achieving that graduate degree. But if that is the case, I would really encourage internal conversations about what this employee’s willing to do, what this employee is interested in doing. But then also, staying committed to that path by potentially pursuing external opportunities as well. When it comes to reshaping our roles internally, there are external factors that we cannot control. If we are hired for job X and we want job Y, we can do the very best we can. We can advocate for ourselves, we can build the case, we can find a champion, pound the table with our manager’s, but to an extent there’s a limit. And so I think we owe ourselves to have those conversations if we like the organization. But if and when those doors don’t reveal themselves, I think as employees we have to extract ourselves from those environments and really find a home that will allow us the careers that we want and the growth that we’re seeking. Especially if these professionals have committed to a degree along that path.
AMY GALLO: Yeah, I think of advice Kathleen McGinn who was on our last episode gave which is that even if you aren’t pushing at this particular moment, or pounding the table, you’re at least laying the foundation for showing the value you bring. And so, maybe you’re not saying hey, I need that promotion now, but you’re just bringing to your bosses attention, hey I completed my degree and when the time is right I’m hoping that I can get that promotion. Just really trying to make it clear that you’ve contributed value so that when things open up a little bit, you’ll be top of mind.
AMY BERNSTEIN: We also heard from a couple of women who wrote to us about their first encounters with men who said something sexist about women in general, or to them individually. And they wanted to know how to speak up knowing that these men think less of them for being young, and for being women. What are your thoughts Hana?
HANA AYOUB: Those sound like situations that warrant the big guns to be honest. This does not sound like something to take on as an individual, if these are the circumstances. I would encourage someone in this situation to have a trusted conversation with an HR professional, with a manager and really form some strength in those conversations. Unfortunately, I don’t think by the nature of the problem that addressing it directly would be effective.
AMY GALLO: So, if you’re going to a manager, an HR person, what’s the first thing you say? What does that sound like?
HANA AYOUB: Yeah, I would describe as objectively as possible the interaction, the situation, the behavior and then I would call out the relevance of that. The impact of it. The problem that leaves on both an individual and an organizational level. And then I would shift into listening mode and question asking mode, and I would get curious and I would really ask whoever you’re having the conversation with, whether it’s somebody from HR or a manager, how do you see this situation? How do you recommend I handle these interactions? How do you as an organization respond to something like this? I would ask open ended questions and really listen for the sake of really understanding the perspective and allowing the powers that be to reveal how they will address something like this. And I think there can be a lot of information in the listening portion of that conversation.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. I think this might be a situation where you could also draw attention to the fact that this is the first time you’re having to deal with something like this. I think oftentimes we give young women advice to not, not draw attention to the fact that they’re young or inexperienced. I’m curious what you think Hana. I think it would be OK to say, this is the first time I’ve experience this in the workplace and given that I just would love your advice on how you’ve advised others to handle these things, how you’ve handled them in your own career. I just think that could help make clear that you’re looking for advice and learning from people’s previous experience.
HANA AYOUB: I love that. I fully endorse that.
AMY GALLO: And I would absolutely hate if the response to that conversation was, yeah, I had to learn to deal with that too. Right. I really hope we’re not giving young women the advice like learn to deal with it, because that’s what I did.
HANA AYOUB: Couldn’t agree more. That is not an acceptable response to it and I hope nobody hears that.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. So we got a question from a woman about saying no. She’s about two years into her career at a tech startup and she’s overwhelmed with the work, but if someone asks for her help with something, she doesn’t have the courage to say, I’m sorry. I just can’t do it right now. The current crisis has made that even worse because everyone is trying to up their game and going that extra mile at work. So she’s even more overwhelmed. Any advice about how to draw boundaries?
HANA AYOUB: Yeah. I think I wouldn’t address all of these asks equally. There might be some of these asks that are great opportunities that might afford this person to learn some new skills, gain new exposure. So, I wouldn’t encourage her to kind of universally say no, or delegate, or deflect. I would really ask this person to consider what are meaningful work experiences that are coming her way right now? How might she be able to take advantage of this and get a little more of what she wants in her career? And then the other side of that is, what does she need to get off of her plate and how? So, I would really look holistically about what’s coming her way and use this as an opportunity to cherry pick what might be valuable to her and lean into that. Get excited about that. What a great situation to be in, but then do the second part of that which is, outsourcing, delegating, saying no, explaining what’s on her plate and surfacing that. She can’t do everything, or I may not get to project X until next week because I’m prioritizing projects Y and Z. You know, really finding the language to manage what’s on her plate, but the subtext here is this is a really kind of exciting position to be in.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I love the way you answered that because it shows the way toward taking control of your own professional development. And the answer that includes I’m so excited to take this on. I suggest that I put that thing on the back burner. It says that you’re thinking about the organization. So, we heard from a woman who just started her first fulltime role. And she’s worried about asking what she things maybe stupid questions in meetings with senior staff. She says she’s not sure if she should ask someone else after the meeting ends, or ask in the moment. What do you think about that Hana?
HANA AYOUB: If she is debating the question, I might encourage her to err on the side of caution and if she’s new to an organization, observe. Like get the lay of the land. Check out how things are done before you ask a question that may or may not be a stupid one in front of senior people. I would really encourage that person at least in these early days to play it a bit safe. Find someone with some more experience there who stands out as someone who can really understand the culture and seems to be accessible to junior folks, but really kind of understand how to manage upwards towards these senior managers. And have the conversation. Even directly ask, this was a question that came to mind in that meeting. What do you think of that and collect some data on how these interactions play out if you’re the newcomer.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. I remember sitting in meetings in my first job and thinking, I don’t know if this is a good question to ask and then someone else would ask it, and no one thought that person was stupid and I was like, OK. All right. So, I’m learning my questions aren’t, 20 percent of them, probably aren’t up to par, but most of them are OK. So it’s OK to sort of dip my feet in. So, I think that observing are people asking similar questions to what you’re wondering. Is there someone you trust who you can ask afterward, how would this had sounded if I had asked this?
HANA AYOUB: Actually one of the nice benefits of this particular moment is that Slack is a great way to ask someone else on the team who’s sitting in the meeting, one on one, hey, I didn’t quite get that. Here’s my question. It’s just one on one. It’s happening in real time.
AMY GALLO: Yep and you can get feedback that way. Speaking of feedback, one of the women who emailed us asked for insight on how to get actionable and useful feedback, especially as someone who’s new. Any thoughts on that Hana?
HANA AYOUB: I love thinking about feedback as a two-way street. So, not just waiting for it, but soliciting it. And when I think of action plans as it relates to feedback, I think of building them just as much for the praise we received, as we do for the criticism that we receive. All too often we’re a bit too prime, or our ears are too primed to wait for the criticism. When we sit in an annual review, we’re tuning everything out until they get to the part of what we didn’t do well that year. That’s why, I think if we can embrace feedback as ongoing conversations, ones that we initiate, ones that we pay as much attention to the praises as we do the criticism, I think we all will have a much better understanding of our own performance. So, this is such a great question because it sounds like this person is already primed to tune into feedback. So, I would say, get comfortable being explicit about it. When somebody hears good job in that meeting, in the right circumstances ask. Hey, I want to get a better understanding for my performance. What went well? Do you have a few extra minutes to talk this through? Just to get some extra color around what does good job mean? Because what we think a good job means may not be what somebody else does and it’s really helpful to sort of highlight those differences.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, one thought I had about that is to be specific in your ask, because the question how did I do will get the response, you did great. But if you ask, what could I have done better, or I worry that I wobbled on this point. How did it hit you? How do you think I could have handled that better? You will get specific actionable feedback.
HANA AYOUB: I think about bookends of any conversation as being really important. So when I think of the bookends that live within a feedback conversation, I think the frontend is what happened, how did it go? And the feedback model is a really easy acronym I refer to the SBI model. Situation, behavior, impact. You kind of want to hear all three of those components in order to really understand what happened. What was the situation? What is the behavior I did? And what is the impact that had? And then the backend of the bookend there is so now what? What’s the action? What are the next steps? How can I convert this conversation and leave me in some state of action that’s relevant to my growth and relevant to this conversation. So, I think a really easy check if you are the employee in a conversation receiving feedback is to, before you part ways, ask yourself, am I in the state of action? Is this clear? If not, ask for that. How can I convert our conversation into some actionable advice?
AMY BERNSTEIN: We also heard from a woman asking for advice on maintaining workplace relationships virtually while still being productive during working hours. She says when working remotely, I’m even more aware of the time not spent working and having social conversations with coworkers through IM. How do you balance that the need for the relationship and the need to get your work done?
HANA AYOUB: What I hear in the framing of that question is that it’s an either or. Either I’m being productive, or I’m not being productive when I’m interacting and socializing. And I might respectfully offer a reframe and an opportunity to integrate the act of engaging with colleagues, whether it’s socializing, as a form of being productive. These are colleagues that you will likely ask questions to, ask favors of, partner with on future projects. I completely understand that the need to meet deadlines, to be aware of time sensitive projects. But I wouldn’t completely dial down the workplace interactions to zero. I think we miss them when we’re a part of dispersed teams. The opportunity to grab a cup of coffee with someone. Catch someone in the elevator. And I think, as more and more time goes on outside of our offices we will grow to miss that more. So, I might push back a little bit on the framing of that question and perhaps encourage this person to reframe and really integrate how she might see these interactions as actually contributing to her productivity within reason of course. Keeping in mind her deliverables.
AMY GALLO: This is really useful advice Hana. Thank you so much for talking with us today and answering our listener’s questions.
HANA AYOUB: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and allowing me to take part in such an important conversation.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Finally we’re unpacking what we heard from Hana and from Rachel and Nina earlier with a new colleague of ours. Alex Hemmer is a graduate student at Boston University who’s doing an internship with us at HBR. She’s also a career counseling assistant for the University and the founder of a website for international students in the U.S. Alex, we are so glad you could join us to talk about all this, and what you’re going through.
ALEX HEMMER: Well thanks so much for having me Amy B. and Amy G.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So let’s just start with what you heard in the conversation with Nina and Rachel and how that landed for you, and how it compares to your experience.
ALEX HEMMER: Yeah, I think really just the idea of being a junior woman in the workplace, how can I already start to make my voice useful without having to wait for a job promotion, or to reach a certain age?
AMY GALLO: But have you found to be helpful, making choices about how to make your voice useful?
ALEX HEMMER: That’s a great question. I have really benefited from deciding on what voice serves me versus what voice doesn’t serve me. I think as young women, especially the way we’re brought up, it’s so easy to think about how you want to please other people and make sure that you’re not bothering anyone. You’re getting out of people’s way. And that was really the voice that guided me for the first half of my first year of working, if not most of the year. And I really had to fight that voice and ask myself, how productive that was going to be for me, and whether that was who I wanted to be in the workplace. Do I really want to be that person who just smiles at everyone and doesn’t bother anyone, or do I want to be more confident, or I think really asking myself am I bothering people as much as I think I am in my head? And what am I really trying to get out of asking questions?
AMY GALLO: Yeah. That feeling, I hadn’t really thought about it a lot lately, but that feeling brought me back so clearly to my first and second job where I just was so worried that I was a nuisance.
ALEX HEMMER: Yes.
AMY GALLO: That I was asking too many questions and I was demanding too much. I almost forgot how pervasive that feeling was in my first few jobs. And it’s hard to navigate. Yeah, Amy B. do you remember that?
AMY BERNSTEIN: I just remember a feeling of abject terror, anytime the spotlight roamed the room and settled on me. That I would invariably say something wrong, that I would overstep and I’m thrilled to hear Alex that you have recognized that and are dealing with it. So, I’m pretty senior. Amy’s pretty senior. How do we help people who are feeling that, what is apparently universal feeling, as young women in particular? How do we help them step outside that feeling?
ALEX HEMMER: Right now what’s helping me is being able to have weekly check-ins with my managers, people I directly report to and even if it’s just 30 minutes a week, or 30 minutes bi-weekly, just being able to chat one on one. I’m very lucky that my bosses are women and I’m surrounded by so many amazing women here at HBR. But really just having those 30 minutes to talk women to women, catch up on how the week is going, on how the internship is playing out for me and how I’m feeling about my work and not just how I’m managing my work, has helped me feel empowered to find my place in the organization even as an intern who’s only here for three months.
AMY GALLO: Alex, Hana gave us a lot of advice in our interview with her and I’m curious listening to that, was there anything, any one piece of advice that you thought, oh I need to do that, or I want to do that?
ALEX HEMMER: Yeah, definitely. One piece of advice that Hana gave was to make a record of all of your wins and to just kind of write down all of the achievements you’ve had and I thought, oh that’s a great practice, as I was listening to this yesterday and very quickly later on in the day, I started to, I was battling a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress of just really being stuck at home and feeling like there’s just so much ahead of me that I need to accomplish and get through. I was just feeling very helpless and hopeless, and instantly, that practice came to mind. I didn’t realize I was going to be practicing it right after listening to it. But I started to think about all of the things that I have done well, even if they were small wins. Like I have an internship. I got really good grades this last semester. Really, really small things that aren’t going to solve my problems, but remind me that I am stronger than I think I am and I have been through tough experiences before and I can do it again.
AMY GALLO: Right. That was great. Well Alex thank you so much for talking with us today and we’re so glad you’re with us this summer at HBR.
ALEX HEMMER: Thank you so much for having me.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Thanks Alex.
AMY GALLO. That’s our show. And we’re at the end of Season Five. We started this season early on in the Coronavirus crisis. And we weren’t sure what we were going to do. But we knew at the beginning we really wanted to do what we had done in the past which was to foster a sense of connection.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And we all sort of went through this crisis together, these crises. I don’t think any of us involved in this podcast would have predicted that it would have unfolded the way it has. But gosh, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the pressures that so many of us are facing as not just people trying to move their careers forward, but as mother’s, as daughter’s, as spouses. It just, it all sort of came down on us at once, didn’t Amy?
AMY GALLO: It did. I have to admit the show felt like a lifeline for me throughout all of it. Because not only were we learning as you said Amy B., about what other women were going through, listeners were so generous in sharing their stories and asking us questions, and just sending thoughtful insights. And I feel like I learned so much, but I also had a place to process a lot of the thoughts I was having with you and with our guests. And it just, I was so glad to be able to do this even in the midst of an incredibly difficult time.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. I also got the feeling that we shifted into a new relationship with our listeners because they were reaching out to us, not just for advice, but also to offer help to one another. And I felt like that took us into a new place. A good place.
AMY GALLO: We love our listeners.
AMY BERNSTEIN: We do.
AMY GALLO: And we want your input. What was most useful to you this past season? What do you want more of when we’re back? Email us at Womenatwork@HBR.org.
AMY BERNSTEIN: We’ll keep publishing our newsletter between seasons. Subscribe if you haven’t already at HBR.org/newsletters. And remember the best way to support Women at Work is to subscribe to Harvard Business Review.
AMY GALLO: And a big thank you to the team who, week to week, work together to make this show happen. First and foremost our amazing producer Amanda Kersey. Our supervising editor, Maureen Hoch. Our product manager, Adam Buchholz. Tina Tobey Mack, the engineer who mixes and sound designs our show.
AMY BERSTEIN: Mary Dooe, our consulting producer. Erica Truxler, who copy edits our episode notes and newsletter. And Rob Eckhardt who publishes the show. I’m Amy Bernstein.
AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo. Thanks for listening, emailing in your thoughts and questions, adding your voice to our conversations, and all around supporting us. Take care.