Interview with Catherine Harrison (returns)

What’s the deal with International Women’s Day? Author Catherine Harrison returns to the podcast to talk about what it should be, and what constitutes “performative feminism”.
Watch: https://youtu.be/leh7ghP29c8

Unedited Transcript

Jim Allan: So what's the deal with International Women's Day? I think that's the way Seinfeld would say it anyway. Here to help me decode International Women's Day is second time guest Catherine Harrison who will now explain to me what this International Women's Day thing is all about. Is that too much? Is that too much to ask of you?

Catherine Harrison: Yes. Yes.

Jim Allan: You're representing all women. All women today. So how are you? You were here about a year ago.

Catherine Harrison: Yeah. Has it been a year?

Jim Allan: About a year ago. So what's happened to you in the last year? What have you done?

Catherine Harrison: Lots of things. I'm almost, I'm rounding out completing a master's in Applied Psychology around the biopsychosocial aspects of health and well-being as it applies to human-centered leadership, which is kind of my jam as you know. That's been, that's taken up the bulk of my time as you can imagine. I'm doing it in a very concentrated way. So I've been a full-time student. And continuing to write and to share and to discuss and to debate and to you know prod various related topics. Still spend a lot of time in the music industry space talking about mental health advocacy and addiction recovery.

Jim Allan: I saw an article you wrote. Where was that?

Catherine Harrison: That was in Canadian Musician Magazine in January.

Jim Allan: Right.

Catherine Harrison: And doing some workshops and some support work with music organizations around the country as well around various aspects of optimal health and well-being. So yeah that's what I've been doing.

Jim Allan: So it's International Women's Day on Wednesday. That's if you're you know but this is evergreen content. So if you're watching this later it doesn't really matter. Now on LinkedIn, similar to the first time you caught my attention, on LinkedIn you commented on a long post by Sophie Walker who used to be a journalist in England and was the founding leader of the Women's Equity Party in the UK. And her post started with a week to go till we hit the annual corporate calamity that is also known as hashtag International Women's Day 2023. If you are planning to participate in this branding bun fight, here are some handy tips to survive until you do have to do another 24 hours of performative feminism next year. And then you liked that and said all of this, stop the performative hogwash-laden language and get to consistent meaningful action.

Catherine Harrison: Right.

Jim Allan: Do you regret any of that?

Catherine Harrison: I know. I'll double down on it. Yeah. So I will not speak for all women for the first part. I will speak for me, this woman. I will represent conversations I've had. I will represent decades of experience I've had. I will represent the current literature and research on the subject. And share with you I guess my thoughts on it and the reality which is it's another one of these non-binary both and situations, right? Which is I guess just around the concept of any day because now there's a day for everything.

Jim Allan: Yes.

Catherine Harrison: There's a day for everything. It's usually about a marginalized group in some iteration. And I think that there's a lot of value in noting, recognizing, celebrating, bringing attention to whatever that group is and whatever the ideal state for that group is. So on the one hand, great. On the other hand, and equally important is what does this do? Like what does, in this case, International Women's Day do? What do the hashtags do? What does the corporate wokeness do? What does it do? And that's where I think that post really spoke to me and which is why I added to it and forwarded it. It is like many things, and I talk about this in all other aspects of my human-centered leadership and optimal health and well-being spaces, is that there is a dichotomy and a misalignment between the language of values and the actions of values. So there's a lot of language around International Women's Day and oh my god, this is so amazing and la, la, la, la, la. And even companies and organizations have policies and written practices and will hashtag the crap out of this and probably spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, hiring a marketing team to like brand their thing. But they don't actually do anything meaningful on a daily basis in their organizational cultures. And that to me is where the hogwash comes in and that's my polite way of saying something else.

Jim Allan: Though it's her words, but what do you think performative feminism is?

Catherine Harrison: Well, and I don't even know if it's performative feminism per se. It's just performative for this. But sure, let's just use that. Performative feminism. And again, I'm not the expert on this subject. This is purely just, you know, this.

Jim Allan:You're closer to being an expert than I am.

Catherine Harrison: True. That is true. I know nothing about women. You know, I think how I perceive it is how it is, how that could be defined, which is I'm acting as if this is of great importance to me. I'm acting as if this will be activated, integrated, measured and sustained in my daily behavioral practices. I'm acting as if that's performative in my mind, which means it doesn't necessarily equate to the real daily behaviors, tangible, observable, measurable, sustainable behaviors that is actually driving meaningful change within the equality and equity space of the genders.

Jim Allan: It's kind of a marketing thing, and they slap a logo on it to maybe get scores and points on one day or one week or whatever. Is that fair to say?

Catherine Harrison: And again, this can be applied to almost anything. There's some interesting, like I was saying earlier, like the corporate wokeness is a thing now, which is different than corporate social responsibility, which is a concept that's been around for probably 30 years-ish, which is quite meaningful. Within the capitalist space, again, not all bad, not all good, but there is a corporate social responsibility, which is important. But now we've gone to an extreme, and now we have this thing called corporate wokeness, which is how do I, as a corporate entity, tether to something that's trendy and really woke to appear as though I'm really cool? And there's pros and cons to doing that.

Jim Allan: Okay. So when you're talking like that, it makes me think, and you're active in the mental health space, as we just talked about as well. It makes me think of that Bell Let's Talk thing. What do you think about that? Because I have an opinion about Bell Let's Talk.

Catherine Harrison: Yeah, and don't sue me for slander. I feel that it's a great brand, it's a great theme, it's a great idea. It brings to light the fact that mental health is stigmatized. People don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about mental health like they want to talk about other physiological health issues. So on that, I think it's great. However, it is performative in nature. And one thing I have heard repeatedly from people in the telecommunication space is that company itself is actually not a mentally health environment. In fact, it can be very toxic. And that's a great example of what is known as sort of a hypocrisy penalty where a corporation claims something and it is known to not be true. And it's a backlash. There's what's known, it triggers a hypocrisy penalty.

Jim Allan: They're definitely getting backlash now a few years into it, for sure. Because they paint themselves into a bit of a corner because they've often had layoffs within weeks of that day, right? So to their chagrin, really. Because people don't forget about it, even. Because then the next year, even in anticipating that day, people are, by the way, I was laid off two years ago. By the way, you ain't so great on this issue.

Catherine Harrison: And to be clear, corporate layoffs are unavoidable in some cases. And they cannot or should not be explicitly tethered to mental health. So the issue is, how does a company do corporate layoffs? That's where we actually have the mental health and holistic health conversation. Because there are times when a company actually needs to right its ship in terms of resources, including staffing, employees, et cetera. But it's how they do things that are either aligned with their language of values or misaligned with those values.

Jim Allan: Bell Let’s Talk day rubbed me wrong from the very beginning. And it was because they put their name first. And I'm sure all the marketing and the PR people were giving themselves high fives. And then every retweet or whatever, it was a nickel. I think they stopped that this year. And so people kept doing it. This was great. They'll pay. But meanwhile, they're getting all these, the bells just flashing all over the internet. And it just felt awkward to me that they put them, it's just the language that they put themselves first in that. And I don't even, did they really need to be in that at all? They could have been, let's talk or something about mental health, let's hear by Bell. Just something subtle. It's like there's a baseball field around here that someone paid for. And we don't need to say the car company logo, but there's like 20 logos. Like I get it. Maybe how about one logo? I get it. I appreciate that you paid for the baseball field. But why? Anyway.

Catherine Harrison: And so, but that's an interesting conversation. And I think that again, there's, and perhaps I'm full of it. That's highly possible. There's one thing around like baseball diamond, have a logo. I'm going to invest all this money. I'm going to use it as a branding opportunity. There's another thing when we talk about health and mental health or equity and marginalization. And the challenge, I just read a really interesting paper published through the Harvard Journal around the challenge of this, where companies will not face that hypocrisy penalty I referred to earlier. If they're actually more explicit around we're using this as a marketing campaign. It's when they take this moral high ground and that's the performative piece. And they come across as this and then people go, not so fast, right? It doesn't align with the reality and our experiences and what you said and did over here. And so I think that's where we're getting some, that's where we get these kind of comments around something that could be really good. Let's take a day to actually reflect and recognize what are we doing every day? Take a day to reflect on how are we in fact integrating our policies and values every day in our organizations. That would be a good use of our time but it's more just like one day a year, everybody hug yourself and like, and by the way, I'm totally allergic to that campaign this year. I don't like it one bit. Have you seen it?

Jim Allan: No, hugging, everyone hugging each other. You're against hugging, okay.

Catherine Harrison: I love hugging. And again, I'll probably get in trouble for this. And here's the other thing, intention versus impact. I have no doubt that the intention is positive and it's difficult to do campaigns that everybody's happy with. The campaign for this year is Embrace Equity. I like it generally, sure. Embrace, who wouldn't want to embrace equity? And so the campaign is everyone like doing this, right? And I think that feeds deeply into the stereotypical gender roles that women play like being this nurturing, soft, huggy, touchy. In my mind, it is not in any way empowering. It doesn't actually promote equity. I would like to see a more activating verb there. To me, embracing, although it's a verb, but it's kind of a passive thing, right? I'd like to see activate equity, catalyze equity, something like a little-

Jim Allan: It's not really what you're talking about. You're talking about equal pay and a lot of benefits that you can get.

Catherine Harrison: Talking about a lot, yeah. And so I think even that has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Jim Allan:The pay, pay?

Catherine Harrison: No, just that theme this year, Embrace Equity. It's like, eh, okay. But yeah, we can get into the difference between equality and equity.

Jim Allan: International Women's Day. So what are a couple of, just off the top of your head, the biggest issues facing women in the workplace today in 2023?

Catherine Harrison: Okay, my opinion. And based on some of the-

Jim Allan: It's always your opinion.

Catherine Harrison: Yeah, I know. But we want to be clear that I am not a de facto expert in this space. I have experience. I have knowledge. And I did do a bit of a research literature search just to know that I'm not completely speaking on both sides of my mouth. So one of the primary issues is that- Well, there's a good conversation going on right now with respect to the difference between equality and equity. Equality means everybody gets access to the same opportunities, right? Equal opportunity. But equity means that there are things put in place to actually bring greater equal outcomes. And that's very different. So an analogy that often gets used is equality means everybody gets a pair of shoes. But they get the same pair of shoes. They get a pair of men's size nine court shoes. What it doesn't mean is that that four-year-old who has a size four and that woman who has a size six and that person who has a prosthetic leg. They all have the same shoes, but they don't perform to the same way. And they're not going to have the same outcomes. Only people who are men, size nine, right? Will actually have positive outcomes with that. So the notion of, well, women are given equal opportunity, therefore everything's equitable, not true.

Because representation doesn't equal inclusion, does not equal power. So even though we may have 50-50 men and women at a given manager level in the STEM program. So for example, there's even more women than men in STEM programs right now. Even though there may be higher numbers of representation, it does not mean that they actually have inclusion. And inclusion means that they have power, that they have a voice at the table, that they have decision-making for not just the daily practices, but the infrastructural and systemic ways that things happen. And that's a big disparity even now. So there's a lot of great research around women who are, I read a paper the other day, women in the political sciences who represent, let's say, 50% of the graduating class, but only represent 20% of tenured professors. They don't get hired and they don't, and if they do get hired, they don't stay. Why? Because the organizations actually don't have in place practices that enable equitable outcomes for women. Whether it's the culture, which is not conducive to, it's not devoid of harassment or biased behaviors. It is not actually conducive to having families. I mean, the jury has definitely concluded that the reality is women do more unpaid work in the world than ever, when it comes to household, when it comes to raising the families, et cetera. So there's a lot of systemic biases, even by women, that continue to be in play. And so that's why we have to keep talking about this. But that's the kind of conversation that would be cool, as opposed to embrace equity.

Jim Allan: So, let's go over her list. This is Sophie Walker again. And it's just, a lot of it's very lighthearted too, right? Yeah. You know, it says, pay your women's speakers. Benchmark their rate around the last invoice you got from a top male consultant. You can jump in any time you want to try it. Don't make anything pink. So I guess you get sick of seeing these things and everyone wears pink for a day and that sort of thing. At any panel event, refrain from asking either of these questions, but is it really a problem? And B, what about men? If you are planning an event, evening event, provide onsite childcare and pay babysitting fees. Benchmark the ladder around your top male consultant's day rate. Now you were work, you're in the workforce full time when you had a child. So what was that like for you? What were some of the problems that you had?

Catherine Harrison: Well, I can tell you.

Jim Allan: You needed to leave work early sometimes, did you?

Catherine Harrison: Yeah. And I need to leave work early or just leave work period if there was, you know, an emergency or whatever. I was fortunate that I had an engaged father available also, although I was definitely the primary child care parent. I made decisions, but here's the thing. I made decisions in my career because I was a mother that precluded my ascension into other more powerful positions, for one. I made specific decisions that would enable me to be home more, to be proximal to my child. So that in and of itself.

Jim Allan: Therefore, altering your career path.

Catherine Harrison: Absolutely.

Jim Allan: So you might not, you need to go to Asia if you expect to be, come back here and be president or something like that.

Catherine Harrison: Right. Or you need to do this, but that means you're traveling 70% of the time. Well, and some people do that and that's a choice. That wasn't something that I wanted to do. That wasn't something that was going to fit with my belief system around what I wanted to do for the optimal well-being of my child and for me as the mother. I also have explicit firsthand experiences of getting a job after a man in a senior position and getting a different title and lower pay, even though it was the same job.

Jim Allan: Right.

Catherine Harrison: I saw that play out in many, many instances. Same job description, different title, different pay. Just a subtle thing, but you know what it is. Different pay. Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Allan: That's still going on, presumably.

Catherine Harrison: Yeah, it is. In a subtle way.

Jim Allan: In a subtle way. How do you fix that?

Catherine Harrison:  Well, this is the million dollar question.

Jim Allan: Because you need leverage, don't you? How do you withhold your services? I mean, there's always someone else there to take the job.

Catherine Harrison: That's the million dollar question, Jim, though. How do you fix it? I think it's a long game. It's not a simple answer. It is going to be a combination of both individuals making conscious choices and systems and infrastructural changes happening slowly and painfully because the people in power right now benefit from that. I mean, that's just the reality. It's not going to change overnight. I think it's actually going to be a cultural generational shift in the coming years. I'm hopeful that the next generation sees things slightly differently and as they become leaders will actually be more inclined to align language of values with actions of values.

Jim Allan: So it's kind of as the boomers kind of die off, basically.

Catherine Harrison: You said it, not me.

Jim Allan: Technically, I'm a boomer. Barely, but I'm a boomer. But certainly, white guys in power 10 or 20 years older than me think differently.

Catherine Harrison: You said it, not me, but I do agree with you, Jim.

Jim Allan: Very different generation. And you see that all the time.

Catherine Harrison: And that's where you get the performative things because those individuals, again, and I don't think that there's not a pernicious attempt. I love them. I have daughters. I have granddaughters. They'll say, we have policies. We've invested in this program. We've invested in training. We've invested in this. We have an International Women's Day event every year. We've hired. We have 50% women managers. But what they don't do is they don't align the cultural behaviors on a daily basis to those values. They can't see it, for one thing. It's an unconscious bias in many cases. And if they do see it, they don't want to see it because it doesn't serve them. And so that therein it lies one of the biggest issues and it may just take some time. But I think we need to be preparing younger generations for that eventuality so that we don't just unconsciously or because of momentum just continue to perpetuate the same things, right? Because that's easy to do too. The path of least resistance is like, well, you know.

Jim Allan: So Sophie Walker actually mentions hugs on our list. Number eight, avoid suggestions that equality will make for a softer, gentler workplace. More hugs at the end of difficult meetings, et cetera. Women aren't naturally empathetic. Mostly, and especially now, they're very pissed off. Ignore this point at your peril.

Catherine Harrison: That's a good one. So that's an example of the gender stereotypes, right? Well, men are like this and women are like this and if this, then that. And it's just simply not true that men and women are socialized to leverage and behaviouralize certain aspects of human psychological concepts more than others. But it doesn't mean that women are naturally more empathetic and men are naturally more competitive. It doesn't bear out.

Jim Allan: Point number nine, have a look at last year's proclamations about improving female representation at the top, on the board, in middle management, on your R&D teams. If these airy claims have not been met, I refer you to point five, which is check the organization's pay gap.

Catherine Harrison: Yeah. So what I love about this is what I mentioned at the top of our conversation is if International Women's Day was a day where organizations said for this day, we are actually going to have a review of the past 12 months and the promises that we made and the policies and practices that we have and the training interventions that we've invested in and see how we have activated, integrated, measured, and sustained these behaviours and what the outcomes have been in terms of equitable outcomes. That would be a great use of our time. But simply to say we're going to hire our marketing team to create a really cool splashy slogan and beautiful thing and we're going to look like this woke organization but not do anything different.

Jim Allan: Point 10. If at any point on March 8th you find yourself thinking why am I doing this? Congratulations, you have finally stumbled on the essential rule of International Women's Day 2023. Don't do anything without first asking the women you take for granted 364 days a year what they might want instead.

Catherine Harrison: Yeah, and I think also that speaks to when you say you know I know you it was sort of tongue in cheek earlier okay Catherine you're speaking on behalf of all women but to me that point is about that. Women are individuals just like men are individual human beings are individuals and although that there are collective needs and some common needs I think that's a great suggestion. Talk to the women in your life talk to the women in your family life your social life your community life your work life education life health care life whatever community you're and say hey on this day I want to understand what's what's the biggest challenge for you? What's what can I do to best help serve learn understand whatever and you don't even have to it doesn't have to be a big debate it can just be like the goal is learning and the goal is commitment to just something just something progressive and and and and meaningful.

Jim Allan: Point 10a so she's got 10a 10b so she got stuck on 10. Do not on any account host any International Women's Day 2023 training courses for women on how to be confident like men learn to ask better for a pay raise like men or memorize handy tips to get that promotion that keeps going to their male colleague or you'll have me to deal with. 10b make sure your contractual fine print agrees to full payment of any women you've hired in the event of a last minute cancellation when you realize you've bitten off more than you can chew.

Catherine Harrison: Can I speak to 10a for a moment? So I applaud her for adding that there once again because often when we think about women moving into leadership positions the goal is to make women behave more like men and that's what she's getting at there these little workshops on how to be more confident how to ask her raise like a man how to be like a man how to be this how to dress too right and so it's more about and and this is deep in my space of human centered leadership is we need to develop human centered leadership practices not man centered leadership practices or women centered leadership practices human centered leadership practices that are practiced by both men and women by all genders that are actually that actually optimize the health and well being of humans within the workplace because that is good for business and and and what the 10a speaks to is right now what we say to women is in order to be successful and get a seat at the table and have power at that table you got to learn how to be a man you got to learn how to act like a man even if they don't say it explicitly that's the message and that doesn't serve anybody

Jim Allan: it's like like i'm looking for a killer kind of thing to yeah and you know what or whatever and you

Catherine Harrison: i talk to women all the time and i've had this experience myself and a lot of women will say the worst boss i ever had was a woman first of all people are people women woman or man so you might just have somebody who is is just a deeply anti-social person but also many women as they move through the ranks if they are ambitious and that's a dirty word for women but not for men if they are ambitious and they move through the ranks they often feel and learn that they better behave in the same way that men behave to get to those high-powered positions now when a man behaves in that way he's seen as assertive and confident and like you know like oh yeah he's like you know he won't put up with anything whatever but when a woman woman behaves in that way people are very uncomfortable so there's a whole bunch of there's a whole bunch of of of nuances and it all comes down to our sort of socialization and our culturalization and our stereotypical biases that we have about each other and about ourselves

Jim Allan: so that whole ambition angle so you still think that's a thing like people are not women are not allowed to be ambitious or it's just an unattractive trait

Catherine Harrison: well it's seen as an unattractive trait and sometimes subconsciously but there's some pretty good research data on that that that that that there are certain words that that don't line up for people because we've been culturalized that ambition is it's not a very it's not a very lady-like thing and I know that sounds very sort of you know Edwardian well or 50s but there's still there is still a negative attribution with respect to an ambitious woman versus an ambitious man right

Jim Allan: I guess how do you get the job without asking for it you know you know what I mean that next job up the ladder don't you have to if you're in sales don't you have to ask for the sale don't they tell everyone to do that so is that did you experience something like that yourself in the how do you mean well

Catherine Harrison: how do you mean

Jim Allan: again it's that naked ambition like how do you if you're a senior manager how do you become vice president without asking for I want that job you have to apply for it if it's right it's either it's either advertised internally or it's not but somehow you have to let people know yeah I wouldn't mind being vice president yeah

Catherine Harrison:  I think there's there's differences in in the nuances you know between between ambition and striving and pursuit of excellence and you know interested in you know developing and expanding oneself and there's a whole bunch of things what I was saying about ambition it's not that ambition itself is wrong I'm saying that the attribute of that word has different connotations but absolutely you know you need to ask for it women are less likely to proactively ask for those things because they've been culturalized that it looks bad on them because of that attribution of ambition right they still will the but you but we have to and I've had experiences myself with this I've had conversations with friends community members that are so blatantly sexist it blows my mind and they and these individuals wouldn't even see themselves as sexist they just don't get it

Jim Allan: Can you give an example or without naming names or it's just sort of implied sexism kind of thing

Catherine Harrison: it's it's unconscious it's subconscious sexism because of um culturalized stereotypes um it's kind of the the example is you know the behavior conducted by a man is seen as one way strong confident assertive the same behavior in the same situation conducted by a woman is seen as bitchy aggressive nasty you know what I mean like it's there's there's like a negative and

Jim Allan: that might come up in a performance review or something

Catherine Harrison: it comes up in performance reviews it comes up in terms of reputation it comes up just at cocktail parties

Jim Allan: just the whisper in the lunch room kind of thing right by the water cooler

Catherine Harrison: right and so that's a challenge for women is how do we do that and and recognize so we have to also be thoughtful that we as women can't enter into that conversation

Jim Allan: right attacking each other kind of thing right

Catherine Harrison: which is known as the crabs in the barrel phenomenon right which is a group of people within the same marginalized class start to actually have hierarchical fighting within that within that same group and that can happen and we need to be really careful about that because also patriarchy benefits from infighting with it with women yes benefits

Jim Allan: yes yeah just take each other out yeah um so I stumbled across a McKinsey report you know just the top three reasons why women leaders switch jobs you can chime in if you want so number one women leaders want to advance but they face stronger headwinds than men two women and

Catherine Harrison: I don't know what the headwinds that they're going to articulate there but that's a great example of the difference between equality and equity right so so equality might be man and woman is here they have the same opportunities to move forward but if a woman has stronger headwinds right it's going to be harder for her to move forward than the men

Jim Allan: they say in many companies women experience microaggressions that undermine their authority and signal that it'd be harder for them to advance for example they are far more likely than men in leadership to have colleagues imply that they aren't qualified for their jobs and women leaders are twice as likely as men men leaders to be mistaken for someone more junior

Catherine Harrison: yes that is true

Jim Allan: so you just assume someone walks in and you assume they're an assistant or something that's true and that happens in lots of different lots of different industries and sectors I can say this happens a lot in health care right a female physician or a surgeon walks in   where's the real doctor

Catherine Harrison: where's the doctor thank you nurse where's the doctor I'm the surgeon right it still happens yes happens in the corporate world all the time yes

Jim Allan: and that's just what ingrained I guess

Catherine Harrison: it's just the cycle of socialization that's what I was saying it's culturally women do it just as much as men do because we've been raised through the way we're socialized including media all of this stuff comes in and we just keep it socializes us to have this so we have to be really thoughtful about recognizing some of these biases as they come up and we make assumptions and go where did that come from that's interesting so as you know Jim one of the fundamental behaviors or practices that I am a vocal advocate for is cultivating a reflective mindset and when you cultivate a reflective mindset it means you're deeply curious and interested in how you perceive the world and what are the filters and biases and assumptions that go through and stereotypes and stigma that go through your own brain as you perceive the world and we all do that even when they don't match up with our ideologies

Jim Allan: so why women leaders are switching jobs point two women leaders are overworked and under recognized compared with men at their level women leaders do more to support employee well-being and foster DEI work that dramatically improves retention and employee satisfaction but not is not formally rewarded in most companies

Catherine Harrison: right so yeah diversity equity inclusion is the DEI otherwise known as EDI sometimes they move the letters around the bulk of the work is done by women probably because they are part of a marginalized group so maybe it is an easier space to recognize that I'm not sure of but yeah my experience and observation is women work harder for the same job for less pay and there's a lot of because of that self-imposed in many cases it becomes just assumed it just becomes expected here's a great example you can be at a corporate event you can be at a corporate management leadership party or a meeting and there's talk of some sort of social event 100% the planning of said event will fall to a woman be like hey Susan could you right the men will never say I will take care of planning this event it's just assumed that a woman well you're better at that right and so all this extra work now is going to fall on that woman because women are better at planning parties

Jim Allan: but also when I hear read that support employee well-being I mean that could just be a phone call with a colleague after hours right because my wife gets calls like that on a Saturday afternoon or they just went to a conference and then there's the phone call at 7 p.m. and it's like and they're debriefing or what's this really mean or what you know and they're supporting each other but it's after work out yes

Catherine Harrison: that's a great example so it's a great example

Jim Allan: so point number three why women are leaders are switching jobs women leaders are seeking a different culture of work women leaders are significantly more likely than men leaders to leave their jobs because they want more flexibility or because they want to work for a company that is more committed to employee well-being and the DEI

Catherine Harrison: yeah agreed because companies say it but they don't do it

Jim Allan: what could we what could be done to make international women's day better it started in 1909 apparently the earliest reported women's day observance called national women's day was held in February 1909 in New York City organized by the socialist party of America by the 21st century international women's day has been criticized as being heavily diluted and commercialized particularly in the west where it is sponsored by major corporations and used to promote general and vague notions of equality rather than radical social reform so it started here and it's now here it's been kind of co-opted by the that's sort of what we were talking about at the very beginning how can we make what would you do to make it better how can you I will just say is it meaningful

Catherine Harrison: yeah I will say that I think that that's happened in all aspects of social justice social justice itself has been co-opted politically and corporately in this sort of corporate woke space and this is one aspect I think of the social justice milieu that has also been as you say it's sort of hijacked I think you know the list that Sophie articulates is a great place to start I think as I mentioned earlier if there was two things one individually and one collectively individually to use international woman's day as an opportunity to make a commitment to invest whatever 20 minutes individually to learn about what like why is there a need for recognition celebration voice conversation around the inequity or inequality of genders so if I don't know then like take some time to learn about it in a in a non-binary non-political way right I'm not going to go to the far left and I'm not going to go to the far right I'm actually going to look at everything and say what is from 1909 or before what does this all mean so that I'm not just ingesting the stuff that I see on my social media feeds and on mass media and to then reflect either I am a woman how does how does this how does my life reflect equality and equity or not how did the other women in my life reflect the equity and equality or not what are some small micro daily decisions and choices that we could make that would make it better so having and maybe having conversations you mentioned earlier you have a wife you have two daughters like what what conversation might you invite with them to say hey what does this mean to you what would be meaningful to you what if you could do something tangible to to shift things what would that look like to really learn from an open exploratory curious mindset that would be cool collectively as I mentioned earlier if International Women's Day was an opportunity for an organization to say we're going to take a pause today the company is not going to go belly up if we take one day to take a pause and maybe it's a week but to take a pause and actually reflect on the commitments that we've made not just last year but the commitments that we make in our language of values in our stated values of the corporation it's usually around equality and respect and inclusiveness and innovation and all that stuff how do we actually behave in accordance with our usual HR policies around inclusion diversity equity parental leave harassment because oftentimes the policies are in place but they are not the but the policies don't mean anything because we know that what actually happens around here isn't that stuff so to actually review this in a vulnerable honest way and I would suggest with some sort of third-party arbiter whether it's an internal ombudsman committee whatever or maybe it's a third party to hold and obviously organizations and leaders of those organizations have to be willing to do that it's ugly sometimes because it's easy for us all to say we have values we're humans humans aren't perfect we all say things and then do other things myself and yourself included but it takes courage and it takes vulnerability but it also takes commitment and it takes real leadership to say yeah we're going to we're actually going to take some time and have a hard look in the mirror about whether we are actually doing what we say we believe in or if it's really just a marketing thing and we're full of it there's a lot of really good evidence that shows that companies are more sustainable and more profitable over time and maintain employee engagement and retention when they in fact do focus on employee health and well-being and not just the performative stuff

Jim Allan: if they're smart because right because it costs a lot of money to train someone new from scratch yeah and you're just chucking out someone's tenuous experience

Catherine Harrison: and especially now there's an employee crisis yeah right quiet quitting is real people can't hire people I have to talk to people in all different sectors of work they can't find people I can't find people because people are saying I don't want to work in a toxic environment I don't want to do it so something's something needs to shift and organizations have to see that as it's actually good for business to incorporate human-centered leadership practices that's why people human-centered practices

Jim Allan: people in the interview process are now asking more pointed questions about yeah company culture

Catherine Harrison: yeah and what we have to be clear about too is as we develop young people and young professionals to let them know that it's not about that this is not at the expense of accountability it's not at the expense of being committed of being responsible of being accountable because then people say oh they just make this you know it's all ping-pong tables and unicorns and I can just call in whenever I want to go I don't feel well today I'm having a self-care moment like this happens right at the same time when you do it thoughtfully and avoid the either or thinking you can actually create a way where you can leverage the incredible creative problem-solving and collaborative learning culture that you only get when you synergize people from different perspectives areas of expertise generations backgrounds thinking styles etc what an incredible thing to do and you know what this is the other thing we make our whole identities and our whole life the whole definition of success is what do you do for work people are kind of tired of that I know I am if that was just about money I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right now I'd be working in some corporation be high on the right but like you literally couldn't pay me enough

Jim Allan: Catherine thanks for coming thanks for coming I can't keep you all day

Catherine Harrison: no well thank you for inviting me it's always fun so I'm hoping another post in the future will trigger you to invite me again

Jim Allan: just keep posting keep posting it could be a weekly show

Catherine Harrison: sure