Worth listening to – HBR Women at work podcast series

Monday, October 29, 2018

A woman wearing a blue headscarf and pink blazer sits in a cafe taking notes while simultaneously listening to audio from her phone.

Posted by: Donyelle Murray

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Do you love podcasts and need something new to listen to?

Harvard Business Review editors Amy Bernstein, Sarah Green Carmichael, and Nicole Torres launched a two season series called Women at Work.

The series promises to “untangle some of the knottiest issues around being a woman in the workplace,” including finding “authentic” female leadership, and the changing landscape of sexual harassment. They talk to experts, dole out advice, and present the latest research, so you’ll have plenty of fodder the next time someone at a dinner party wants to talk about #MeToo!

Click through to Listen to the whole series free online or explore the episode guide below.

Season 2 – Episode 5Perfect Is the EnemyPerfectionist tendencies are a trap that can be difficult to avoid, but we’ll be more productive and advance faster if we don’t worry so much about making the occasional mistake. We talk about how perfectionists can get out of their own way, and how to effectively manage a perfectionist. Guest: Alice Boyes.32:17

Season 2 – Episode 4We Deserve Better Than “Attagirl”Both male and female managers tend to give women low-quality feedback. And when we don’t hear how we’re really doing at work and what we can do to improve — and men do — we’re put at a disadvantage. We talk about how to get high-quality feedback that is direct, specific, and focused on behavior we can change. Guests: Robin Ely and Ella Bell Smith.38:51

Season 2 – Episode 3Making Great DecisionsBeing a great decision maker is uniquely challenging for women. It’s not us; it’s sexism. Stereotypes about the way we make calls can be insulting and distracting. Knowing that we’ll be judged more harshly than men when we make mistakes is discouraging. We talk about how to make informed decisions that stick, despite gender bias. Guest: Therese Huston.38:30

Season 2 – Episode 2Managing Parental Leave (Yours or Someone Else’s)Women around the world have access to vastly different amounts of paid parental leave. In some countries, they can take a year or more. In the U.S., they’re not guaranteed any paid leave at all. We talk about how to manage your leave, or someone else’s, no matter how long it is. We also hear from a woman in Washington, DC, who had the rare opportunity to take a year of paid leave. Guest: Daisy Wademan Dowling.59:26

Season 2 – Episode 1Let’s Do Less Dead-End WorkWomen are expected and asked to do thankless tasks — order lunch, handle less-valued clients — more than men, and research shows that doing those tasks slows down our career advancement and makes us unhappy at work. We talk about why we end up with so much office drudgery and how to get some of it off our plates. Guests: Lise Vesterlund and Ruchika Tulshyan.47:36

Season 1 – Episode 6The Advice We Get and GiveProfessional women get all kinds of advice — some of it helpful, some of it really unhelpful, and some of it nice-sounding but pretty impossible to use. We question some of the classic advice women get (and give) on asking for more money, achieving more by doing less, and not burning out. Guests: Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, Arianna Huffington, Tiffany Dufu, Susan Orlean, and Alison Beard.1:06:25

Season 1 – Episode 5Work After #MeTooWhile once accusations of sexual harassment would be met with — at most — a monetary settlement and a non-disclosure agreement, today they are more likely to be publicized and investigated. Now, the challenge is, how do we harness this new attention to sexual harassment to make work a safer place for women? Guests: Joan Williams, Amy Gallo, and Michael Kimmel.54:30

Season 1 – Episode 4Mind the (Wage) GapThe gender wage gap is the lifetime financial curse that punishes so many of us. What’s going on in women’s careers that causes us to earn so much less? Guests: Claudia Goldin and Margaret Gullette.44:10

Season 1 – Episode 3Lead with AuthenticityWe talk with an expert on authenticity, as well as a woman trying everyday to bring her best self to work and help others do the same. Guests: Tina Opie and Candice Morgan.01:07:34

Season 1 – Episode 2Couples That WorkWe talk with three experts to help us paint a picture of what a truly supportive dual-career relationship looks like, and understand how to get our own relationships closer to that ideal. Guests: Jennifer Petriglieri, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, and Stephanie Coontz.54:12

Season 1 – Episode 1Make Yourself HeardWe tackle three aspects of communication: first, how and why women’s speech patterns differ from men’s; second, how women can be more assertive in meetings; and third, how women can deal with interrupters (since the science shows women get interrupted more often than men do).44:11