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this is beautiful thank you for being here that's amazing Cheryl Sandberg Adam
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Grant in your home territory home turf this is a very long time coming um you don't know this but in 2010 I had a
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student in one of my MBA classes send me this Ted Talk and I was like okay cool I'll I'll watch it later and then about
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an hour later another student sent me the same talk and with in the first 3 hours I had about a dozen emails and I
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was like this is really annoying I'm going to I'm going to watch this talk so
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I clicked I've been annoying you ever since it's true but I I watched the talk and I was
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like oh this is this is cool it's a you know it's a woman leader talking about
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women leaders it's like the Seinfeld episode with the coffee table book about
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coffee tables and then and then I watched a little further and you were using all these studies some of the same
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studies that I talked about in my own classroom and I was like wow this is kind of
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awesome and then I started reading admissions essays and there were just scores of essays where our students
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wrote I'm applying to business school because I want to follow in Cheryl sandberg's footsteps and it happened
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over and over again and then in the classroom I would ask what leaders do you admire and students would name
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hundreds and hundreds of male leaders and yours was basically the only female name that ever came up and then Leen in
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came out and I read in and there was this sentence that that just it hooked me um there are a lot of powerful
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sentences in that book but my very favorite one was the one where you said I I was on a treadmill reading a
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sociology Journal Cheryl are you aware that even sociologists don't do that I'm a geek I enjoy that um so
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welcome it's such a treat to finally have you here seven years later thank you for coming I'm so glad to be here
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everyone this is really fun so we're going to we're going to talk about option being and resilience
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for the first half we're going to talk about women leadership and leanin for
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the second half um I want to start talking about Dave though um Dave gave me one of the greatest gifts I've ever
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received in my life which was an introduction to you and I wonder if you could just talk to us a little bit about
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how you met and uh what it was that made you fall in love with him um let me say again thank you to all of
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you for being here it's really I feel I feel very close to you all because I'm
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so close to Adam I even got to talk on the speaker the other day to one of your classes early in the morning um but it's
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really it's really nice to be here where Adam teaches and Adam's work worked and
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so many of the great ideas that I've learned uh I know Adam's always quoting
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his students as them coming from them so it's a real honor for me um I met my husband in 1996
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like weren of you born then um I had just uh graduated from business school I had gotten divorced I
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moved to LA to work for McKenzie and I didn't really know anyone I was moving
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far away on purpose to try to get away from what was uh personally painful at the time and a friend of mine I I was
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dating someone he was out of town a friend of mine was going to dinner in a movie with a friend so he invited me and
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and the three of us went to dinner in a movie and I fell asleep on the friend's
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shoulder the friend was Dave and he thought that me I was super into him but now he yeah well now he he knew
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then he learned later that I fall asleep on anyone's shoulder especially in any
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movie Dave became my friend I think it was right after I got divorced I wasn't
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ready to date anyone who was the right person and I dated a bunch of the wrong person for a bunch of years and then I
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said to my mom I was dating someone and breaking up and I just said I don't feel
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lucky this person's not you know it's it's not working not not the right
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person and then I said whoever marries Dave Goldberg is going to be the luckiest person in the world and he was
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my friend and my mom said well you should really listen to that and so Dave and I Dave and I
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started dating and then we got married and had two children uh Dave uh Adam knew him Dave
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was brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant Dave never believed kind of what everyone else believed he always
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had his own view on everything and he wasn't afraid to say it but he never said it in that I know more than you way
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he said it in that you have your opinion I totally respect it but here's mine and
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I feel it strongly um Dave was funny he played a lot of April Fool's jokes not always on
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April fools almost always on me Dave was a great father and a great friend and I was lucky for a long time
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and then I wasn't so I remember um I remember after the funeral you it was so telling
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instead of you I think a lot of people in that situation would have asked like how do I get through this you know I've
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just lost this person who's the center of my world your question was how do I
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get my kids through this um and I was struck then as as so often by how how other focused you were um when you think
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about all kinds of adversity or hardship what what are the most important things
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you've learned about how to get other people through it I was totally unprepared for a
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tragedy Dave died suddenly we had no idea I found him I had to tell my children they were seven and 10 that
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their father was gone and grief which is something I had read about but not experienced it's an overwhelming thing
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it felt like a void closing in on me my brother-in-law described it as a boot pushing on his chest and I had no idea
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what to do and I didn't invite anyone to the funeral I was just in a fog and Adam
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showed up and at the end of the Shiva at my house you know everyone was leaving and I asked Adam to
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stay and I was like oh psychologist this could be good and helpful seriously I was like maybe and I
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looked at him and I'm sure hysterical I was like what do I do how am I going to
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get my kids through this like tell me what to do and Adam did something thing that might not have worked for everyone
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but for me was incredibly comforting which is he started summarizing the research no this
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was this is by the way this is the idiot's guide to how to be a good friend like I know what's going to cheer you up
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cherl longitudinal studies but it did I mean it didn't cheer me up it didn't cheer me up
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nothing could cheer me up but it helped Adam said okay there's been one longitudinal study very well done of
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children who have gone through divorce or lost parents and here's what it says
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and then he said um here are the Trap psychologists talk about the 3ps you know Etc but it it it didn't help lift
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the grief at all but it gave me steps I could take and what I learned with Adam I was asking the wrong questions how do
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I how do I get my kids through it was the right question but the wrong question I followed up on was well how
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much resilience do they have how much resilience do I have how do I figure out if we're going to make it he was like no
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no no resilience is a muscle you build it you build it in yourself you build it in other people don't ask me how much
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you have ask me how to build it and for I know there are a lot of people I just had an opportunity to meet with some
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amazing students they right here who are in a grief group on campus supporting each other when the grief closes in it
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is a complete loss of control it feels like there's nothing you can do and there is in many ways nothing you can do
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so when anyone gives you any steps you can take particularly for me ones that social scientists had studied that they
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knew worked that was a lifeline and in many ways the path to writing optionb and forming optionb.org so let let's
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talk about the 3ps since you mentioned them um I remember when I first brought them up you were like what why do you
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psychologists need three of everything why do they have to start with the same letter um but we we talked
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a lot about the the traps of of personalization this is my fault pervasiveness this is going to ruin
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every part of my life permanence I'm going to feel this way forever and I wonder if you could just talk about
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getting through those yeah Adam said look when you face adversity and it's not just death it can be the Small
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Things losing a job getting fired not getting into a school you want to get into the breakups the big things death
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cancer incarceration you know serious long-term unemployment these things don't cure
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everything but there are these psychological traps you can follow into and I was falling into all three he told
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me about them and then he just kept pointing them out so personalization it's your fault I blamed myself I blame
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myself for Dave dying we originally thought he had fallen off an exercise machine my brother's a neurosurgeon and
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he kept telling me that wasn't true but then we figured out we had an autopsy he died of coronary artery
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disease I'm the only non- doctor in my family I didn't understand why I couldn't diagnose it maybe I should have
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gone to medical school as everyone told me all along but I I didn't diagnose it
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I didn't solve it I didn't fix it then when I kind of got over that because
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everyone explained I wasn't a doctor I was upset that I was inconveniencing everyone all the people
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at Facebook that were taking meetings from me my mom who gave up her life to live with me for a while I said
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sorry like always every sentence was I'm sorry for this I'm sorry for that and so
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Adam told me I wasn't allowed to say sorry anymore yeah and then you were like well I apologize for
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that's not okay either but Adam said if you if you don't he told me that if I
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didn't stop blaming myself my kids can't recover cuz I couldn't recover and as
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we've done the resilience research and I've learned from such great research
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Adam's done it's not just forgiving yourself when it wasn't your fault it's
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forgiving yourself when it was self-compassion turns out to be hugely important for
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Recovery we formed optionb.org and we put this Ted Talk up it's by this woman
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and she has a story of another woman who got divorced first and a while after that was going on her first date and she
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was all excited and she gets dressed up she goes and the guy leaves after 10 minutes and then and wait she as she
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tells the story she says the friend said to her you know you're unattractive and
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boring of course he left right there's the gasp right but a friend didn't say
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that to her she said it to herself a friend would never say the things we say to ourselves our friends
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are usually so much nicer than we are to ourselves and finding self-compassion there are tragedies that happen that are
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people's faults and Adam and I on purpose included them in this book and those people have to forgive themselves
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too and that doesn't mean anything anyone does is okay and there's not real responsibility and
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there shouldn't be real punishment that's not what we're saying but what
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we're saying is when when things happen we have to find self-compassion speak to
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ourselves as we would to a friend and men and women do this women do this more but we speak to ourselves much more than
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we would ever to a friend the second is pervasiveness is everything in your life everything in my
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life is a disaster and it definitely felt that way it really felt that way and the third was permanence was
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Adam and others who had been through real loss Adam with his experience others saying it it would feel better
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and I did not believe it the grief is still here the sadness lingers but it does not feel the way it
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did to we 2 years ago I can breathe there is no longer a boot sitting on my brother-in-law's chest and we want
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people to know that those are the traps so they can help get not just themselves
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but other people out of them you said I think a long time after we we began the discussion about the 3ps we said I wish
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I had known this when I was in college and in business school can you tell us yeah I think these are actually really
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good thoughts traps that you can all avoid right my first day of work after college I went to the World Bank someone
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asked me to enter data into what was Lotus 123 it's a spreadsheet I didn't know how to do that
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even though I studied economics and the guy who's a professor said to me I can't believe you got this
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job not knowing how to do this and left the room so I went home crying to my three roommates from college and said
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I'm about to get fired because the guy I work for just said I shouldn't have
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gotten the job and it's only day one but it wasn't pervasive I wasn't bad
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at everything I was just bad at spreadsheets and I learned and then when I got divorced you know I got divorced
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young and early I was 25 I thought I was the biggest failure in the world and I thought I would never recover it would
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affect all areas of my life you know and it was my fault and so just applying those lessons to even the
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small stuff I've already found can make a really big difference so let's uh let's talk a little bit
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about uh some of the the discussions around how to imagine alternative paths um I remember just a couple weeks after
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Dave passed away uh we were we were sitting uh in your family room with your mom and I I told you that you should
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imagine how this could be worse so you all know this Adam's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met
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but when he said that I looked at him like he was absolutely insane right I mean how it could be worse I just lost
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my husband like suddenly with no warning and he said well Dave could have had that same cardiac arhythmia driving your
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children and that happens it happens to people and the minute he said it I was like I'm good kids are alive I'm
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fine right I mean that thought I could have lost all three of them and it's so counterintuitive because you
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would think that if you're trying to recover from hardship or tragedy you should think positive thoughts but
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actually thinking about what things could be worse helps us see what's still
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good in our life and what we can be grateful for and it is the great irony of this journey for me and really
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studying resilience with Adam and Adam's Brilliance to this which is that you can
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come out of this obviously lingering sadness lingering grief but more grateful I am more grateful today than I
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was two years ago more grateful for the gift of life itself something I just completely took for granted it never
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occurred to me Dave wouldn't turn 48 God willing I turned 48 in August and my God will that birthday
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mean a lot to me just like 47 did just like every birthday everyone around me has how many people have made a joke oh
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I'm turning I guess 20 I'm getting old come on how many people have made an I'm getting old
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joke if I can give you one thing today don't do that and I'm not joking don't do that my
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cousin Laura turned 50 two months ago and I called her and said happy birthday and I bet you woke up this morning with
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that oh my God I'm 50 thing this is the Year Dave doesn't turn 50 there are only two choices we grow
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older we don't and if we do it is a gift and just appreciating that is what we talk about in the book
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and Adam taught me is post-traumatic growth it is the things where you go through hardship that make your life
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better and we believe deeply in pre-traumatic growth some of you have faced trauma some of you I got to meet
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some of you I haven't but a lot of you haven't but what would you do if you
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knew you had a year left how would you live what would you do if you remembered that not everyone lives until your next
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birthday you can have that that gratitude right now right here and it's pretty incredible
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thing so that I think that that surfaces the the idea of privilege which is you you have had a lot to be grateful for
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there are very few people who have the resources that you do and who also have such great supportive friends um who you
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know have benefited from your generosity for for years and had a chance then to to pay back
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um I I found it really interesting when we started writing about resilience that
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resilience research started with extremely disadvantaged groups um looking at children in severe poverty
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who had suffered violent abuse and asking how did some of these children come out so strong anyway and I'm just
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wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about what you've learned from you know sort of comparing across
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the spectrum of of resources that people have available nothing prevented this for me
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and my kids but I know how lucky are in many ways still and even in the face of trauma resources matter and I've thought
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a ton and Adam and I have talked a lot about what it would be like and a lot of people have this to go through the
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trauma I went through and lose your house and lose your apartment and lose your job about the single mother waking
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up every day in our country where our public policy is just abysmal and has to choose between taking
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care of a sick child and losing a job that that she needs and it is interesting that the
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research the book is my story partially the book is also the research and the book is lots of other Amazing Stories
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some of which are from this community they're people Adam knew they're amazing um and the research and the
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other stories really come from people of all different backgrounds and one thing we've thought
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a lot about and we wrote a chapter about is about Collective resilience Collective I got through this because
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Adam's an unbelievable friend friend you know someone who could just be there
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emotionally and write with me and process with me and summarize data for me in ways that maybe wouldn't have
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helped others but really helped me but but we build resilience in each other and there are a lot of programs we
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talk about in the book that work with with severely disadvantaged population the nurse Family Partnership is one
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example these interventions where they go to underprivileged families and they start visiting homes from pregnancy till
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2 years those people 15 years later have you know half the incarceration rates or
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more than that I mean the numbers are outstanding what happens and it just shows us that we have a deep
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responsibility to help prevent hardship because hardship is not evenly distributed racism disadvantage poverty
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those people in who face that have more violence More Death more job loss all of
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these things things that cause more illness so we need to prevent that hardship in the first place but then we
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need to help rebuild and one of the things we are we are talking about is both the public policy the corporate
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policy but also trying to talk about and teach how we build Collective resilience
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because we have a responsibility to do a lot more than we do as a society in terms of what we can do as individuals
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to support other people who are suffering I I remember being a little stunned by a few of the the comments
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that you faced uh you know the friend who said after a year gee aren't you done with that grief Thing by now or um
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the other so-called friend who said you're just too angry and sad it's hard
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to be around you and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what you
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learned about how to be a good or supportive friend Adam's joke that there's a whole
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section of self-help books but there's no help other section help other section we want our
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book and what we're doing with optionb.org to be in help other section and I really realized I got a lot of
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this wrong before before I lost Dave if someone was going through something hard
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I would mention it the first time maybe I'm so sorry and then I would never bring it up again because if they wanted
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to talk they should tell me and I didn't want to remind them that's ludicrous you
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can't remind me I lost Dave I know that and you can't remind someone she went
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for K therapy this morning you can't remind someone that his dad just went to
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jail they know and I'm not saying that every person will want to talk every time but you can
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always acknowledge and always ask I know you're suffering I'm here if you want to
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talk the other thing I learned was the power of not just offering to do anything but doing something again
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another thing I got wrong I've said to many people just let me know if there's
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anything I can do and I meant that really kindly I was coming from a good place but the problem is when people
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said that to me it shifts the burden to the person who needs the help to answer the question and what do you say well
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can you make Father's Day disappear so I don't have to live through it do
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something my dear friends Dan and Esther Levy tragically lost a child and they were in the hospital for many months and
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a friend of his texted and said what do you not want on a burger a friend of mine read this book
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two weeks ago before it came out I gave it to her and she has a not close friend
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friend who has a child with leukemia and they went back into the hospital and she
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said before she read the book she would have done nothing because she's not her
00:22:06
best friend how dare she impose they're in the hospital with leukemia but she
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read the book so she went to the toy store she bought a stuffed animal she went to the hospital Lobby and she
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texted and said I'm in the lobby in case you want this or you want to come down
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but I'm leaving in 15 minutes and the woman texted right away and said please
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come up and she gave this stuffed animal to the four-year-old and she said the mother was standing behind her
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crying mouthing the words thank you thank you for showing up you don't have to be someone's best friend from the
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first grade to show up with a burger you don't and you don't have to be someone's
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best friend to mention this asking is always right it won't be the right thing
00:22:46
to show up in all circumstances but a lot more showing up and a lot more acknowledging would help a lot of people
00:22:53
you were determined early on to make sure that you found joy and I I remember in the the Facebook post you wrote my
00:23:01
least favorite sentence was I will never feel another moment of pure joy again I
00:23:05
tried to talk you out of writing it you wrote it anyway you clearly should have listened
00:23:12
to me so often when when Adam and I disagree he's almost always right it's
00:23:16
true I I will I I will say one of my moments of joy is proving you wrong but in this case I would have preferred
00:23:23
not to not to have to but I think that you know it was it was actually really interesting that you said despite that
00:23:29
right I I'm going to search for Joy um even though I don't believe that I'm
00:23:32
going to find it and you have found joy um can you talk to us a little bit about
00:23:37
how well it wasn't easy and one of the sentences we write in the book that I
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really love is that Joy is a discipline it takes work and it definitely takes work post loss or grief and it takes
00:23:47
work for a lot of us anyway about four months after Dave died I went to at Bar Mitzvah and a childhood
00:23:55
friend uh pulled me on the dance floor and we were dancing and a minute in I basically broke down
00:24:01
kind of had to be taken outside it's kind of embarrassing and I didn't know
00:24:05
what was wrong cuz it felt different than the grief i' had been experiencing
00:24:08
for 4 months and then I realized oh my God I was happy for one minute four months later and then the guilt just
00:24:15
washed through my body just the guilt how could I be happy when Dave was gone how dare I be on a dance
00:24:23
floor and around that time my brother-in-law called me crying on the phone and he said all they've ever
00:24:28
wanted was for you and your children to be happy don't take that away from him
00:24:33
in death so that was the permission I needed permission to be happy and I gave it to my kids early I
00:24:42
said Daddy would want you to play Daddy would want you to be happy but I hadn't
00:24:46
given it to myself but then the question is how and Adam really helped me the day
00:24:50
after that perit so I came here with my kids and I told Adam how I collapsed at the dance floor he's like of course you
00:24:55
did you don't do a single thing that would make anyone happy right yeah you're like you're you're
00:25:01
working you're taking care of your kids and you're writing about grief in a
00:25:05
journal like sounds delightful but what Adam said is that I I think I thought happiness was going to
00:25:13
be the big things we think happiness Al so often is you know getting into pen or
00:25:16
Wharton getting a job having a kid but happiness is the daily stuff the small stuff and Adam said start doing things
00:25:24
that are more fun even those that remind me of Dave I took things back my kids and I started playing Settlers of Katon
00:25:30
again even though Dave and I had been playing right before he died I started watching TV again even though Dave and I
00:25:35
watch Cheryl Sandberg watches TV yeah I do I used to every night but then I didn't because it reminded me of Dave
00:25:43
everything fun reminded me of Dave so I did none of it but I took things back I took back Game of Thrones even though I
00:25:50
don't really understand it now that Dave's not there oh and you all don't either it's
00:25:56
very confusing unless you read the books which Dave did there's no way you understand who every
00:26:03
little character is and they die so quickly you can hardly remember them I took back Scrabble Dave played
00:26:11
with his brother Rob I Rob Dave and Rob played and now Dave and I played and now
00:26:17
Rob and I play but I also started noticing Adam suggest that I write down three moments of joy in my journal
00:26:23
before I go to bed and I started doing it and I still do it and they weren't
00:26:29
big had a cup of coffee someone told a joke my son gave me a hug without being asked maybe hinted at but not
00:26:40
asked but because I was going to write them down at the end of the day I notic them I was like oh that makes the
00:26:45
journal and so I savored them more and we have to give ourselves permission and we have to give ourselves the tools what
00:26:53
we focus on is what we focus on it doesn't mean there's joy every moment
00:26:56
there's not there's still a lot of grief but there is Joy now and there is pure
00:27:00
joy now there are moments I am happy and I know Dave would want me to be I want to talk about uh gender and uh
00:27:10
there's a there's there's one subject in the book and I think issue core to your
00:27:15
experience and your values um the bridges the two which is confidence um I've not known you as a
00:27:22
person lacking in confidence but pretty early on yeah you you said I I don't feel like I can do anything Well
00:27:30
you certainly saw it after Dave died I mean I'd read about grief and so when
00:27:35
the anger came when the sadness came I had heard about that not in the amount they came but I wasn't shocked but what
00:27:41
did shock me is really Dave's death trashed my self-confidence and I had thought a lot about self-confidence I
00:27:48
wrote lean in and I had studied selfconfidence I definitely had trouble with it in
00:27:54
college when I sat where you sat I learned the data again the data always helps me that women feel less
00:28:01
self-confidence than men I don't like sexism even if it's in myself so I really work to correct it
00:28:07
and in writing leanin in building the leanin circles all around the world I gave a lot of women a lot of advice on
00:28:13
how to feel more self-confident and I took that advice when you're giving advice all day you take it and so I was
00:28:19
feeling good like I deserved my job like I could do my job like I could be a good
00:28:23
mother and work stuff I hadn't even felt a couple years before but it was pretty
00:28:27
solid and then Dave's death just trashed it because I was now mothering by myself
00:28:32
two grieving children I didn't know how to do that and I went back to work and I could
00:28:37
barely Focus through a meeting and not think about Dave let alone contribute and Mark Zuckerberg 15 years
00:28:44
younger than I am I have no idea how he knew how to do this what I used to do when someone was going through something
00:28:49
hard at work is offer them time off really important I think at Facebook we do this very well I think other
00:28:54
companies need to step up some do well we need to do better we need better public policy for those not covered by
00:29:00
companies but I would offer them time off and I would say things like well of don't worry of course you can't fully
00:29:07
Focus look at what you're going through but when people said that to me that
00:29:12
just proved what I knew which is oh my God I didn't do I can't do my job and
00:29:15
the pervasiveness I've lost da I'm going to lose my job I'm going to lose
00:29:19
everything and then I'm going to have nothing to do all day but grieve CU my
00:29:23
kids are going to be in school it was very scary but what Mark did is he said oh
00:29:29
you would have made that mistake before it was actually very comforting when I fell asleep in the first meeting
00:29:37
of of the first day back he's like a lot of people fall asleep in meetings I was like who he's like a lot
00:29:43
of [Laughter] people but then he said but you made two good points today and here's what they
00:29:50
were and he built me back up and now when someone's going through something hard I offer them time off I ask if they
00:29:58
want the project taken off them but if they don't and if they're back I say do
00:30:02
you want to do this you're great at this or I take the time to complement the
00:30:06
little things that they might not have needed complimented before and that's really important
00:30:13
because I think when we think about helping people get through trauma through tragedy through loss through
00:30:18
illness through any of these things it is comforting them and holding them as they cry and showing up at the hospital
00:30:26
it is also building bu them back up telling them they can do their job giving them permission to laugh and
00:30:34
live so let's uh let's talk about how to support women more effectively um you
00:30:41
you have some pretty strong views about career advice for women um in particular
00:30:46
can you talk to us about how to manage a personal brand oh my God you don't have a
00:30:55
brand I get this question a lot particular L from Young audiences and I shudder every time so I'm so glad you
00:31:01
asked it if you think you are building your personal brand please don't you don't have a brand Crest has a brand
00:31:09
perier has a brand I work in marketing these things are packaged up and marketed like
00:31:15
products but when I hear anyone talk about building their personal Brands I know I know that's not right
00:31:23
and the reason it's not right is that products are marketed this is sparkling
00:31:26
water it is one of my favorites it is put in a bottle that I really like with packaging I really like but people are
00:31:35
not that simple and we're not packaged and when we are packaged we are ineffective and
00:31:41
inauthentic I don't think I have a brand but I do think I have a voice but it is not clear and consistent
00:31:48
and wrapped the same way consistently it is a voice that I use to help build a company it is a voice that
00:31:57
I spoke out women it is a voice that sometimes gets things wrong I've gotten a lot wrong and
00:32:02
a lot wrong publicly over the years and it's a voice I now use to talk about grief and try to break some of the
00:32:09
isolation I felt if you think you are building a personal brand you will not have the
00:32:16
career you want to have because you will not be authentic don't package yourself just
00:32:23
speak and speak honestly I think speak with some data behind you don't assert things that
00:32:30
aren't true and speak from your experience and be clear what the differences
00:32:38
are Cheryl another topic you have another topic you have strong views about um we know that that women get
00:32:51
much less mentorship and sponsorship than than men do and you want to change that
00:32:58
yeah it is amazing uh one of the things that happens pretty frequently to me but
00:33:03
does not it's always women is women will say can you be my mentor women I don't
00:33:07
know and I would love that to be the case but men never say that and I really can't Mentor someone I don't know and no
00:33:15
one really can and I find it so striking that women ask that all the time and not
00:33:20
men the other thing and this one I hate just as much as I hate the brand thing is will you be on my personal board of
00:33:26
directors no now now you don't have a personal board of directors because you're not a
00:33:36
company much like you're not a bottle of perer you're not a product and I really
00:33:41
feel strongly about this I have mentored a lot of people I Mentor a lot of people
00:33:47
and they are people that I've met through work through organically who also are working on things with me if
00:33:55
two people start Facebook today and this happens all the time time I will try to
00:33:58
see anyone I can 3 months in one person comes to see me and says you're really
00:34:03
important here so I'd like you to help me I'll try but 3 months later someone
00:34:08
else comes and says I've been working here for 3 months or 6 months or 3 years
00:34:12
and I've noticed this and I think we got this wrong or I think you've got this
00:34:15
wrong or I don't understand why we do it this way I'm so much more likely to
00:34:20
Mentor the second person because the second person just made a really good point or a third person pick picks up
00:34:28
and solves a problem if you ask someone to be on your personal board of directors you are asking them to do for
00:34:34
you and you're not giving them any tools to do it the way we build the relationships where you really Mentor
00:34:41
people are by working with them and by helping them so don't ask someone if you
00:34:48
can be on their personal they can be on your personal board of directors ask someone if they have a problem you can
00:34:53
solve and they will then wind up advising you and I'm so sad the way we keep telling
00:35:00
women to ask for help that way not because we don't need help we all need help but because it's not going to work
00:35:06
the other thing that is so powerful is peer mentorship when I was sitting where you're
00:35:13
sitting you know if I had fast forwarded to my career there was no internet so I could not have figured out
00:35:22
I would go to Google and Facebook but the people over the years that told me not to go to Google and not
00:35:30
to go to Facebook were my mentors the people who told me to take those jobs over others older media jobs were my
00:35:38
peers and it's been proven that peer mentorship can be just as important leanin circles are one way of doing it
00:35:43
we now have 30,000 in 150 countries we grow by over a 100 a week we have some here get into yourself into a group it
00:35:51
can be through lean in or through any program and Mentor each other and do a great job and solve a lot
00:35:58
of problems and that is the only way to get real mentors at work I want to I want to ask and join a
00:36:05
board you can be on someone else's real board one [Laughter] day there there's one little Wrinkle in
00:36:12
that I think in the you know try to help the person whose mentoring you want which is um I every once in a while I'll
00:36:20
have a student come to offs hours and say how can I help you and I just recoil because it feels like a violation of the
00:36:26
professor student relationship I became a professor because I want to be helpful
00:36:29
um not because I want my students to help but but but but but generic offers much like an option b aren't as good how
00:36:37
about I think this case study could make your class better case studies are terrible that's why I don't teach at
00:36:42
Harvard okay sorry all right okay okay I went to the wrong School how about I talked to five people after that
00:36:59
lecture and these are three ways I think it could be better and I wrote it up for
00:37:03
you that is being helpful you'll take that or how about you know I think we would benefit if we did a project or we
00:37:10
did a survey and I wrote it up or I'd like to do that can I take the initiative
00:37:15
yeah that works that'll work don't do the case studies I didn't like them that much either to be
00:37:22
honest um can you talk a little bit more about how women can help each other yeah and I think this is really
00:37:30
important I think there's this myth out there that women don't help other women
00:37:33
and it's grounded in some reality and this historically you know historically
00:37:39
if you were the one woman or two women there really was room for one promotion because it was a situation where there
00:37:45
was going to be one room in the in the room one woman in the room if any um so historically there was I think
00:37:52
the queen bee syndrome people talk about but I don't think that's true anymore
00:37:57
and one of the things that happens is that women get less credit for the ideas they
00:38:01
put forward women get less credit for the work they do and if you're a man and
00:38:06
you take credit that usually goes pretty well or at least better for a woman if you try to take credit that's badly but
00:38:13
saying my dear friend Mindy is here she's in Alum Mindy did a great job on that project that is a win-win I look
00:38:21
communal and helpful and I'm supporting someone else she gets the credit she
00:38:25
deserves jumping in and helping with we're going to do this together we really can help each other
00:38:32
it's also an easy way to point out the biases which exist they exist everywhere
00:38:37
they exist at Facebook I'm sure they exist in the classroom here going to a professor and saying you know the women
00:38:43
are getting interrupted more than the men sometimes it's easier it's great to
00:38:47
do it when it's you but when it's not you I just watch these three women get
00:38:52
interrupted today we speak for each other and for ourselves I don't want to dissuade
00:38:58
anyone for speaking up for themselves but sometimes we're not as good at that
00:39:02
helping each other is a very good path to correcting bias building careers that speaks a little bit to the
00:39:11
the biases that often hold women back and I will say I've had over the past few years quite a few undergrads and
00:39:19
mbas um men come by and say look you know look I understand that there's supposed to be a lot of biases that you
00:39:27
know that may hurt women but I don't think those exist today the way they used to and also you know I see all
00:39:33
these you know like career recruiters OCR people coming and like creating special opportunities for women that
00:39:40
feels like it's disadvantaging men and I always want to say back to them look if
00:39:44
if you actually read the data I'm pretty convinced that there is not a single
00:39:49
white man who in a lifetime will face the same kind of bias that a typical woman does in a week but particularly a
00:39:56
minority woman especially um but it's it's often hard to to make that case and
00:40:01
I'm wondering if if you could talk a little bit about how you view those situations that feel very zero some no
00:40:06
we do we know through the data that um that white men particularly young white men believe that the deck is stacked
00:40:12
against them because there's a lot of talk about diversity someone asked me that who was a young employee at
00:40:17
Facebook and I just looked at him I said God if we're biased for women and minorities do we
00:40:23
suck right because we don't have enough women and we don't have enough underrepresented minorities in senior
00:40:30
rank so if we're actually biased we're doing it really badly it's hard to imagine there's bias
00:40:37
against male leadership with 95% of the Fortune 500 CEO holding those jobs and and this is important 30% more first
00:40:46
promotions last year for men than women based on the most comprehensive survey done which is the lean in McKenzie
00:40:54
survey of of over 100 companies 30% more first promotions for men with the same tenure so if there's bias the other way
00:41:05
it sure isn't showing up in the data and I think we need to recognize that the
00:41:09
biases are really real and we need to call them out and explain what they are and it's definitely
00:41:17
gender a man can be competent and liked because as he gets more powerful and considered more competent we like him
00:41:23
more women face a trade-off as they get more powerful we like them less you can give out a resume the same
00:41:31
resume with a white sounding name and a black sounding name and the white sounding name will
00:41:37
get 50% more call backs it's worth 8 years of experience in the workforce to
00:41:43
have a white sounding name over a black sounding name that is recent data the biases are
00:41:51
real you audition Orchestra members behind a screen and all of a sudden you you hire more women some of those women
00:41:59
were backups they were T whatever they call them under studies no forget what they call that understudy they were
00:42:05
playing in the orchestra as Subs but they didn't realize they were that good
00:42:09
until they were behind a screen because they were women and so the data is super
00:42:13
clear on this and I think we have to make sure that we are willing to call out the
00:42:20
biases without making people feel I think the other answer is we have to recognize that a more equal world where
00:42:26
people were given equal opportunity despite sorry given equal opportunity without regards to race without regards
00:42:34
to gender would be a better world we would be more productive our companies would be better run our kids would be
00:42:41
happier and do better in school and so it's better for everyone this is not a
00:42:46
zero sum game economic growth moves a lot of companies up and we could have more of it one more question before we
00:42:54
go to the audience questions um I get a lot of students uh some who are here in the audience today asking uh what I
00:43:01
think of their 12-year career plan or the 15-year path yeah they've mapped out
00:43:06
what would you like to say to those students yeah so the trash can with the personal
00:43:11
brand and the personal board of directors you put your your what is your six-year plan sure yeah when I was where
00:43:18
you are Mark Zuckerberg was in elementary school and so if I had mapped out my career I would not be here I would not
00:43:28
and could not be here you need a long run dream and think about what it is and make it big and ambitious particularly
00:43:35
if you're a woman particularly if you're an underrepresented minority you can do
00:43:40
anything but white men too all of us you can do anything we don't want to leave
00:43:45
you out but I want to be clear why I say it that way we know that performance of
00:43:54
minorities and women is systematic Al underestimated compared to white men and we know that it's systematically
00:44:02
underestimated by them as well as other people and so there's a reason I said
00:44:07
that so we take a minute and everyone ambitious doesn't mean you need to be CEO I know not everyone wants a
00:44:16
corporate job but ambitious to make a difference in the world to live your dreams ask yourself what you would do if
00:44:23
you weren't afraid long run and then ask ask yourself what am I doing in the next
00:44:28
year or two to get there you know year two years I say 18 months cuz it feels kind of in the middle it is a great idea
00:44:35
to map that out and it's not just what you're going to do and what's going to
00:44:39
go on your resume something people worry about too much now it's what skills am I
00:44:44
going to learn what am I bad at that I might need to get better at try that don't build the perfect resume no one
00:44:52
buys those anyway give yourself the opportunity to fail and to do the stuff you you don't
00:44:57
think you can do yet because you're going to need those later and map out the next year or two
00:45:04
of skill building of investing in yourself and do not try to connect the short-term plan to the long run dream
00:45:11
because you will miss opportunities because Facebook didn't exist and I believe that so strongly I
00:45:17
think you all grew up in a much more structured world than I did and even the world I grew up in is pretty structured
00:45:24
it doesn't work that way careers are a jungle gym not a ladder move sideways
00:45:30
and backwards be willing to try new things but don't tie yourself up in Nots
00:45:35
building the perfect resume or building the perfect long run plan because it will hold you back it really
00:45:42
will so we're taking sure we're taking audience questions uh we have a a really interesting platform
00:45:56
called Facebook that you can use to submit uh you can submit them on the authors at Wharton page for those who
00:46:03
are interested we have a bunch already so here's one that I like um I'll add a little bit of color to
00:46:10
this too uh Facebook has redefined what it means to be a friend um or at least broaden the term friendship um and I
00:46:18
will say this took on personal meaning for me when uh one day you introduced me as your friend and I didn't realize we
00:46:24
were friends uh how do you actually Define a friend and what do you think of when you
00:46:29
think of friendship I mean there are your closest friends your your more distant friends
00:46:38
but I think a friend is someone who has your interest at heart and wants things to go well for
00:46:44
you and someone who will be there when things are hard and celebrate when you when things are
00:46:53
good go on I mean I I think think that's it actually I think it's pretty simple
00:46:59
it takes different forms we need different things from our friends over different years but do you have a term
00:47:05
for those people who are like in between friend and colleague or acquaintance I don't know if I spend a
00:47:13
lot a lot of time thinking about what what you call that but I think I think it's nice to think of the
00:47:21
world is filled with a lot of friends I think losing taught me that there's a lot I could
00:47:30
do for friends there's a lot they did for me it's pretty special thing to have
00:47:37
people that care that care about you and have the people you can keep in touch with over the course of your
00:47:42
life there are uh several people who want us to talk a little bit about the process of writing option b uh my
00:47:50
recollection of it was I would uh receive usually a journal entry from you um and then then read it and give
00:47:57
feedback and then I would draft some research and I would get like lot of track changes about 4 seconds
00:48:04
later and uh I'm wondering what you remember from it I mean so Adam and I it's been for me
00:48:12
one of the best if not the best collaboration certainly writing I've had in my career we we wrote together before
00:48:18
we wrote A New York Times series on women in leadership uh based on the data and
00:48:23
experience um and this book really has three Parts it's my story which come from my journal entries not everything
00:48:31
of course I don't share everything but some of that and some research and Adam
00:48:35
always wrote the first draft of that and then a lot of other people's stories of
00:48:38
just amazing people who have faced all kinds of adversity and learned a lot that they can share and we kind of split
00:48:45
writing those up and I know that as much as Adam helped me get through this and is still
00:48:52
helping me because I'm still getting through it the process for me of writing
00:48:56
was so important you know I like writing the first drops when I do I like I like I
00:49:02
like editing he likes writing he likes editing finding one voice was hard we wrote the book we started writing it as
00:49:09
we because it really is we we both wrote it together but it just it couldn't read
00:49:13
well so much of it was my story so we went back to first person singular and Adam I say Adam that part's
00:49:21
a little weird but there was like no other way no other way to do this but the writing process itself was
00:49:28
uh for me was really really a fun one uh two two final questions one is uh can you tell us a little bit about how
00:49:37
you would go back and live college or business school differently oh my God yes I really I'm so glad to get that
00:49:45
question my son um his team basketball team lost the playoffs and all the other little boys
00:49:54
were pretty upset this happened a few weeks ago and and they some were crying and I said are you okay and he was Mom
00:50:01
this is sixth grade basketball I'm fine but what he was saying was that his friends hadn't lost their
00:50:12
father so they thought it was a super big deal I am sure there are students here
00:50:18
that super big deal things are happening to some of you are losing parents some of you do have cancer some of you are
00:50:25
facing life-threatening illnesses but the rest of the stuff please some perspective students are so nervous I
00:50:34
promise it is not going to matter to your career if you are elected president of whatever Club you are
00:50:40
forming and it's not really going to matter I hope this is okay Dean if you get like an A or a b or whatever form
00:50:47
you use for that if you even have grades here do you have grades here just checking after the whole case
00:50:53
study fiasco but most of everything I worried about in college and business school was silly
00:51:04
and that doesn't mean I'm not trying to belittle it at all I'm really I'm not I
00:51:09
know that breakups are real working hard on classes are real it just doesn't have
00:51:14
this importance I thought it did and perspective would have made me understand it better and deal with it
00:51:21
better and I do think for whatever reason students today and I do interact with a lot of them we do a lot of
00:51:27
recruiting or anxious and like I have something to tell you you guys go to Warden and then
00:51:35
you're going to be fine there are a lot of people in our society who are going to have a hard
00:51:42
time getting jobs that's not you it's very clear that's not you and so some laughter some
00:51:51
perspective do the stuff you enjoy you will be better at it will help you a lot and I wish I had known that more when I
00:52:00
was in school what I would do to take art history now I mean what a fun thing to
00:52:08
take it was harder for me than the economics I majored and I stressed a lot now I just wish I enjoyed it because
00:52:15
when I go to museums I don't remember stuff and I think that's because I was
00:52:18
so nervous about it so Cheryl in closing um you're you're the leader I admire most um but more
00:52:26
than that you're the the friend for me who has redefined what it means to be a
00:52:30
giver and uh I'm just so grateful that you were willing to come here um with
00:52:35
all the priorities that you have on your plate I am aware though that you know there's a little bit of a a Bittersweet
00:52:42
flavor to this visit because you disappointed some very important family members by not coming to
00:52:48
pen and in of that my mom wanted me to come to pen maybe we'll draw you back to
00:52:54
teach a class one day but in lie of that I wonder if you could just share um as a
00:53:00
as a wouldbe Alum uh your wishes for the audience oh I like that I will say that
00:53:08
Adam has redefined friendship for me I am I believe to the extent I have been able to find joy and happiness in my
00:53:18
life Adam is just a ginormous part of that because he showed up and he showed up
00:53:24
often he did what Dan's friend did he didn't just show up with a burger he
00:53:27
showed up with the information and the love and the support I needed and I know his dear wife uh couldn't be with us
00:53:35
tonight cuz kid kids kids are sick but she did too and I'm so grateful for both of
00:53:42
them and wishes for all of you wow I wish that you focus on what you care about that you do the things you believe
00:53:58
in that you believe it's going to work out even when it didn't work out when I
00:54:05
lost my husband so suddenly there's another side there's another day there's another laugh
00:54:13
there's another cup of coffee and there's another day to cry too last year right around now Dave on
00:54:26
May 1st it was 11 days before May 1st a friend of mine had this conversation and we talked about
00:54:36
how a year before Dave had 11 days left and we had no idea how would I have lived my life if I had 11 days left and
00:54:48
I don't mean blow off your classes cuz it turns out that like investing in yourself and doing real things it's not
00:54:54
about partying all the time even though some of that's good but what would you do with your
00:55:00
life if you knew it was limited Katie kurick interviewed me and Adam on the stage in New York on Sunday
00:55:06
it was our first book event and she said something pretty profound she said everyone's
00:55:13
terminal everyone's terminal like you only have so many days left and you actually none of us we don't know how
00:55:19
many they are live them worry less live more love more more joy I wish that so deeply for all of
00:55:35
[Applause] you for more insight from knowledge at Wharton please visit knowledge. won.
00:55:47
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