Thriving as a Woman in a Man's World

The world of work has evolved a lot over the decades. Few groups have made more progress in that world than women, but we know that they still face systemic barriers to success and equality. After all, the infrastructure of the world of work was largely built by men.

Ancestry President and CEO Deborah Liu has successfully navigated that world and broken through barriers. Her resume reads like a who’s who of the tech world —?Facebook, eBay and PayPal, for example. Now, she’s putting what she learned into a new book Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work . Liu joined LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman to talk about her new book and some of the most valuable lessons she’s learned during her career.?

You can hear their conversation on the latest episode of Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen .

TRANSCRIPT: Thriving as a Woman in a Man's World

Andrew: From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's managing editor for jobs and career development. Each week on Get Hired, we talk about leveling up. Sometimes, we talk about finding work. Other times, we talk about excelling where you are right now. And through it all, we focus on how to stay true to yourself in the process. We live and work in a world that was built by and for white men, which means that if you are a woman or a woman of color, your needs might not be top of mind for your workplace. There continues to be pay disparity between women and their male counterparts, discrimination against working or nursing mothers, and plain old unconscious bias. But that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of women looking out for each other at work and offering their advice for how women and allies can make sure that we are all thriving at work regardless of gender. My guest today, Deb Liu, is the author of a new book that aims to do just that. It's called Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work. And it's chock-full of advice and stories about Deb's own experience as a woman in a male-dominated field. Deb came up through a who's who of tech companies: she's worked at PayPal, eBay, Facebook, and now Ancestry, where she serves as president and CEO. She also serves on the board of a nonprofit called Women In Product, which helps provide a community for women in product management roles. Deb has clearly had a lot of career success, but I wanted to start by asking her about some of the challenges she's faced at work over the years, especially ones that other women could relate to. Here's Deb.

Deb: Well, I think part of the challenge of women in the workplace is the expectations are different. I mean, there's a study that said that men are seen as leaders if they're confident and competent. And women need to also be competent and warm. Is that fair? Absolutely not. And yet, at the same time, that's the reality. There is a double bind. If you look at the statistics, women are judged differently in the workplace. So, how do you face that and how do you actually thrive in a workplace where it's not overt discrimination, it's a lot of unconscious bias. At the same time, actually a lot of women take on a lot more responsibility at home. They have less support from their partners. They're expected to do a lot more, both office housework and home. So, there's a lot of these subtleties that women face in the workplace.

Andrew: For women out there who are maybe facing some of those struggles about “where does this balance lie,” how can they overcome that? Or what is your suggestion for them when they feel maybe overwhelmed?

Deb: I shared this on LinkedIn recently about the help that I've had over the years. I share very openly. I think that's really hard when we pretend that the women who succeeded have done this alone. That is a huge disservice to the people who have supported – it takes a village to actually have a family and to also work. It was funny, in the comments, there were so many people were like, "Well, didn't you miss out on your children's childhood?" And my husband goes, "No one has ever asked me that question." It's a subtle message. And it was exacerbated in COVID in particular, because when the kids are home, who's taking care of them? And when you can't get help from outside, when you can't support them, when you don't have the schools open, who takes on that burden? So, I do think we have to have that conversation. Again, these are things which are affecting women's careers, but they're not directly the work that they're doing. It's just this subtle weight that's happening. And I really hope that we can actually have a much more open conversation around the support that's necessary to support a career, both for men and women.

Andrew: Yeah. Something that I noticed from your book is that you talk about allies and it's always so important, because I think so much advice, when people come across it these days, is about individualized and “pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” But no one does anything alone. For someone who maybe is in a small company or maybe looks around and says, "I don't really see a lot of allies in my company." What is your advice to them?

Deb: One thing that I hope more people do is build your own circle, build the people who are going to support you. I have been a member of both Lean In Circles within Facebook when I was there, but also several Lean In Circles in communities outside of my work as well, where you can actually get together with like-minded women and men, and actually support one another. How do you support each other at work? How do you talk through some of the challenges? These mentoring circles and support circles may be exactly what you need. But if you're in a workplace where there are no allies, you should really take a hard look and wonder why that is. Really asking yourself, "Is this the kind of workplace I want?" The greatest workplaces are those where the people around you, your team, your partners, your stakeholders are part of your support system, too, and you're supporting them. So, really finding a company with that culture, the supportive culture, supporting the things that you want in your life. That's just as important as work. I think we treat work as something completely separate. You go into the office, you concentrate on work and you go home. But in our workplace today, first of all, a lot of us are working remotely. So, our life and our work is actually fluid. The second thing is, how do we think about actually doing our best work by supporting people at home, so they're not worried about getting things done or picking up their kids. I think the move towards flexibility and work is actually a great thing, especially for families that had a lot less of that before.

Andrew: You've obviously studied this area. You've had personal experience with this area. When you were researching this book, was there anything that stood out to you as surprising? I always love to ask people that.

Deb: I think I kind of understood the challenges of women in the workplace, because I have a nonprofit that supports women. It's called Women In Product. That's 30,000 members. And I've been working in this industry for a long time. I think what surprised me was just the depth of some of the challenges that I didn't even realize. In doing the research, I just uncovered more and more. Actually, it's 10 rules. The first rule is “know your playing field.” So, it's all the background research, all of the challenges that women face. It was just so much deeper than I imagined. I speak in the Stanford classes, Stanford GSB invites me back to an alumni panel every year. I've been there for almost, I think, seven or eight years. Every year, I said, "When I was sitting in your seat, I thought the world was fair. Then I got into the workforce and it smacks you in the face." And I said, "What I hope to do in this class is to remind you that it's not fair, now, so that you can inoculate yourself, so that you're not so surprised." I think we just don't realize these small things can actually trip you up in so many different ways. There's a lot that we have to face.

Andrew: What about people who are job searching? What is your advice to them, especially women, to say, "Listen, this is how you find those places," like you said, "that have support, that have that structure." If you were looking at a company from the outside in, how would you examine a company?

Deb: I think we often pick a job, but we don't pick the culture, we don't pick our manager and we don't pick our team the same way. But actually people don't leave companies, they leave managers. So, first, if you don't feel like you have a manager who can be your supporter, your mentor or your sponsor, is that really the right job for you? The other thing is, you spend way more time, not just with your manager, but with your team. A lot of people haven't even met the team that they're working with every single day. You're spending more time with your team probably than sometimes the waking hours with your kids. You think about, do you feel like it's a team of psychological safety? Do you think it's a team that works well together? Do you think it's a place that you want to be? And then company culture matters a ton as well. I think the culture, one of the things is I've worked in really intense environments, but had complete flexibility. I think that is so important, because my middle child, actually, she was sick for about a year and we didn't know what it was, and turned out to be something minor, but she was basically in and out of doctor's offices for an entire year. So, you think about that, but the flexibility of actually being able to pick her up and take her home and bring her to the doctor constantly, and specialists, whenever they're available, you have to go. That is incredible. The other part is, I felt safe to just pick up and leave, but a lot of workplaces would not be okay with that. I think these are the kinds of things that make a huge difference to the quality of your work and the quality of your life.

Andrew: We're going to take a short break. When we get back, Deb talks all things allyship.?

Andrew: We're back with Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry, and author of the new book Take Back Your Power. Now, you've heard me say this before, whenever it comes to a systemic issue – and I think that's what women face in the workplace is systemic discrimination – I never want to put the onus on a marginalized community to fix the system that is oppressing them. So, I wanted to know: what can men do to be better allies and make life easier for their female colleagues and those who don't fit the male-female binary? Here's Deb.

Deb: Well, I think first that we should all be allies to each other. That is incredibly important. Because people are spending eight, nine hours at work a day that's more than they're sleeping or spending at home. So, I do think that feeling supported in a place where you spend so much time is really important, regardless of how you identify. Sometimes it's easy to overlook other people because you just don't see them, you don't see their struggles, you don't see their challenges. So, being really intentional, making sure that you are participating and supporting the ERGs, actually reaching out and saying, "Hey, is there something I can do?" There was a study that Laszlo Bock did where the most successful teams are not the ones full of experts or super diverse or full of superstars. It is actually the teams that have psychological safety. And how do you build psychological safety? And that's through acceptance and support. I think being great allies to each other, regardless of where people are coming from, that is the first step of really building that trust and building that connection.

Andrew: Yeah. I think a lot of times people, in the idea that competitiveness is better, they think psychological safety and stuff like that is like noise in the background. But really research shows that focusing on psychological safety, focusing on inclusiveness actually improves business results and improves performance. So, beyond the whole idea of just being a nice person, it's actually a business matter when it comes down to it. What is your advice for people who feel like, with all the world events, everything's consuming them, how do you create psychological safety for yourself and create that space to say, "Listen, I have family, I'm a citizen of the world. I have a job." What is your advice for navigating that?

Deb: Well, I think that if you have an incredible team where you feel like you have that safety, you can bring that up. I recently got COVID, my entire family got COVID and being able to talk about that and say, "Hey, we're going to be offline. This is going to be really difficult." Having that level of support, super important. I think that saying, "Hey, I feel like things aren't great today. Can we reschedule?" Or, "Hey, I can get this done today, but I really need to take tomorrow off." I think that we need to be able to be there for each other and support each other.

Andrew: Yeah. I think a lot of times, too, what I always suggest to people is we can't necessarily always fix what's going on, but if you're at work and your mind is on something and you need someone to talk to, one of the best things a colleague can do is just sometimes listen. You can't fix it, but you could hear a person's concerns and hear their voice. Sometimes that's just enough to help them get through the day, which I think is important.

Deb: Yeah, definitely.

Andrew: What's your advice for working mothers who are looking to transition back into the workforce?

Deb: The question is how do you frame it? Have you been volunteering? Have you been supporting organizations? Have you been doing things with your kids' school that you can talk about? The other thing is, one opportunity is to start by consulting. There are a number of companies, especially startups, looking for expertise in a number of areas. Have you thought about doing consulting and work your way in? But then, if you're looking for a full-time job, I think it's really saying, "Hey, I have these incredible skills. These are the things I'm really passionate about. I have something to bring to the table." We are looking for the best employees and a lot of the best employees maybe had to take a break and that's okay. They say that it's not the career ladder, it's the jungle gym. You're actually maybe getting off the jungle gym for a little bit and then coming back on. But I do think that companies now are much more supportive of that than they ever have been. But really framing a narrative that you feel good about. Then, talk to people, get referrals, your friends and your network are your best allies, because you're so much more likely to get a hearing if you have support from those who say, "She's incredible, she took this time off, but I would love to work with her and I would hire her any day."

Andrew: For those who maybe have jobs, what would you suggest is really one step that people should take in their day-to-day lives to really put themselves on a better path, maybe make their load a little bit easier?

Deb: I think sometimes we think that we are kind of fixed, right? We are the expert. We're really good at our job. There's a thing that we love doing. But you don't realize is the work that you give your company, that's incredible. But there's also what you're taking away, too. Are you growing in different ways? Do you have a learning mindset? Are you pushing yourself to get 1% better every single month? That's the kind of thing that I think will benefit you in the long term, whether that is learning to write or public speaking, getting on panels, whether it's speaking up and bringing out your ideas and participating in hackathons. I think sometimes we forget that our job is so all-encompassing and our lives are, that you forget, what is my future “you”? I always ask myself, "What does the future you wish you did today? What is the one thing you could spend 15 minutes on to make your life in five years better?" And I think that that is something which I hope you, if you bring that learning mindset, you're always growing, you're always changing, you're always getting better at something. And I hope that, as we grow as people, we're actually taking with us so much more than just the job that we're doing.

Andrew: Thank you so much for joining us, it's been so wonderful chatting.

Deb: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew: That was Deb Liu, CEO and president of Ancestry.com, and author of the new book Take Back Your Power: 10 Rules for Women at Work. Remember, it's up to you to put our advice into practice. Still, you always have a community backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. You can also join my weekly Get Hired live show every Friday on the LinkedIn News page. And if you liked this episode, leave us a rating on Apple Podcast. It helps people like you find the show. Of course, we'll continue this conversation next week, right here, wherever you like to listen. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Michele O'Brien, with help from Gianna Prudente, Derek Carl, Taisha Henry and Elias Avalos. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and video. Dave Pond is head of news production. Dan Roth is the editor-in-chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.