Speaker 1: Hi, This is Malan Vervier and this is Kim Azarelli.
Speaker 1: We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Speaker 1: Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Seneca's conversations on power and Purpose. Welcome to this special edition.
Speaker 1: This new six part series called Getting to Equal will
Speaker 1: change the way you think about women and leadership, and
Speaker 1: it comes at a time when women's leadership has never
Speaker 1: been more crucial. We have two amazing leaders who are
Speaker 1: guest hosting these six episodes, Carol and Tastad, Group President
Speaker 1: North America and Deiana Bass, Vice President Global Diversity, Equality
Speaker 1: and Inclusion, both from PNG, one of the largest consumer
Speaker 1: goods companies in the world. Together, Caroline and Diana have
Speaker 1: created an impressive gender equality strategy for PNG, and it's
Speaker 1: a strategy that's really breaking new ground on these issues
Speaker 1: in the private sector. And they'll be joined by incredible
Speaker 1: guests from all walks of life. In this kickoff episode,
Speaker 1: Caroline Indianna talk with soccer legend, Olympic gold medalist, author
Speaker 1: and speaker Abby Wambach. They discussed why women's leadership is
Speaker 1: so important right now and why we need to, as
Speaker 1: they say, tear up the old definition of what it
Speaker 1: means to be a leader and see it in a
Speaker 1: whole new way. Caroline, Indiana, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us and for guest hosting this series. It's so nice
Speaker 1: to be here. It's great to be here. We at Seneca.
Speaker 1: I have had the great pleasure of working with you
Speaker 1: for several years now on your gender equality initiative. So, Dianna,
Speaker 1: let me start with you. Why is this work so
Speaker 1: important to you personally and what are you trying to accomplish? Well, first, Kim,
Speaker 1: let me say how great it is to be here
Speaker 1: guest hosting with you on these conversations on power and purpose.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate being invited. Caroline and I have been
Speaker 1: working for the last several years with a lot of
Speaker 1: really great leaders inside and outside of our company too.
Speaker 1: We call it debunk a series of myths and narratives
Speaker 1: that continue to hold women back in the workplace and frankly,
Speaker 1: in the world. Our goal has been to create a
Speaker 1: new narrative, a new story about women in the workplace
Speaker 1: that gets to a better, more equal world where women
Speaker 1: and men can contribute to their fullest potential. That's really
Speaker 1: what our work is about. Interesting, So what do you
Speaker 1: mean by a new narrative and what's the old narrative. Well, first,
Speaker 1: let me say a narrative is basically a story that
Speaker 1: gets told so often that we all begin to assume
Speaker 1: that it's true, um, you know, and that's where we
Speaker 1: come up with it with with what a myth is.
Speaker 1: So these stories get told everywhere. They get told in
Speaker 1: books that people write, they get told in op eds,
Speaker 1: they get reflected and how women are seen in the media,
Speaker 1: in movies, in advertising, and so that it's really ubiquitous,
Speaker 1: which is why it's important that you learn to recognize
Speaker 1: a myth or a false narrative and then figure out
Speaker 1: what's your part in correcting that narrative. So these false
Speaker 1: narrative tells, they tell us things like women lack confidence,
Speaker 1: women fear failure, women fear risk taking. They tell us
Speaker 1: things like women's time is not as valuable as men's time,
Speaker 1: or that sexual harassment is only a woman's issue. Now,
Speaker 1: the reality is that none of that is true. I mean,
Speaker 1: the reality is that communities and companies and countries thrive
Speaker 1: when women are fully represented in all forms of leadership
Speaker 1: and at every level, and that includes at the very
Speaker 1: top levels of the public, private, and not for profit sectors.
Speaker 1: So we've been working really intentionally to reframe these stories
Speaker 1: or narratives UM, and that's why we're really happy to
Speaker 1: be hosting this series on Conversations on Power and Purpose
Speaker 1: where we can we can have the opportunity to unpack
Speaker 1: those those myths with really great leader as an artists
Speaker 1: and activists UM as part of the conversation. Well, we
Speaker 1: are so excited about this. Carolyne. You lead the North
Speaker 1: American business for PNG, representing almost half of the company's revenues,
Speaker 1: and you're the executive sponsor of gender equality. Why is
Speaker 1: gender equality so important to P ANDNG and why should
Speaker 1: it be important to all companies? Look, and for us
Speaker 1: at PNG, it just makes sense. You know, many of
Speaker 1: our products are made specifically for women always Tampex, Olay, Secret, Pantine,
Speaker 1: just to name a few. And we know that women
Speaker 1: influence the majority of purchase decisions in most households. Right
Speaker 1: of purchasing decisions or something are influenced by women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely right, and so it's just the right thing
Speaker 1: to do for our business. It's the right thing to
Speaker 1: do for our people, and we know that when we
Speaker 1: have diverse teams, diverse voices working together with the broadest
Speaker 1: range of skills, experiences, and styles, we get better results.
Speaker 1: There are so many studies that show this. These studies
Speaker 1: show that good things happen when you build a diverse team.
Speaker 1: There's a study done by Boston Consulting in that showed
Speaker 1: that companies with diverse management teams had nineteen percent higher
Speaker 1: revenues from innovation. And I just read the other week
Speaker 1: that an organization in the UK called the Pipeline looked
Speaker 1: at companies on Britain's Footsie Index and found that firms
Speaker 1: that had more than thirty three women on their executive
Speaker 1: teams had a net profit margin that was more than
Speaker 1: ten times that of companies with no women on their
Speaker 1: executive teams. Ten times. That's an incredible statistic. Imagine what
Speaker 1: they could do when they hit fifty of women on
Speaker 1: their executive team exactly Exactly At p and we are
Speaker 1: operating with the most diverse leadership in our company's history.
Speaker 1: Forty percent of all managers are women. Of C suite executives,
Speaker 1: the top thirty executives in our company are women men,
Speaker 1: and of our independent directors on our board are women.
Speaker 1: And we're delivering our best results in more than a decade.
Speaker 1: These things are connected. That's amazing. So clearly women's leadership matters.
Speaker 1: Now we're living through a pretty unique moment in history.
Speaker 1: What have we learned about women's leadership in the past
Speaker 1: months and why is it so important right now to
Speaker 1: get more women into leadership. Well, as you said, we
Speaker 1: know that women make strong leaders. We're seeing those examples
Speaker 1: every day, and during this time of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: social unrest around the world, we're seeing examples of countries
Speaker 1: led by women doing an excellent job of containing the
Speaker 1: pandemic with very decisive actions and amazing leadership. Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Jacinda our Dern in New Zealand, Angela Merkel in Germany.
Speaker 1: We've seen this in the US as well, with Governor
Speaker 1: Michelle Leuhan Grisham of New Mexico. Now, as it relates
Speaker 1: to social justice, women have again proven to be strong leaders.
Speaker 1: Atlanta's Mayor Kesha Lance Bottoms was widely praised for how
Speaker 1: she handled the protests in her city, speaking not only
Speaker 1: as a mayor, but appealing to our citizens as a
Speaker 1: mom in an emotional, personal, and highly effective way. So
Speaker 1: women's leadership and women's authentic voices are needed today more
Speaker 1: than ever, and we're seeing the profound impact that they have. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why we had Seneca. Are so delighted that you're
Speaker 1: going to be guest hosting these next six episodes, Deanna. Today,
Speaker 1: you're kicking it off with an exciting conversation with soccer
Speaker 1: legend Abby Wambach, which I can't wait to hear. We'll
Speaker 1: be back after this break. Abby Wambach is a soccer legend,
Speaker 1: a two time Olympic gold medalist, a FIFA World Cup champion,
Speaker 1: and she's the author of two New York Times bestseller books, Forward,
Speaker 1: a memoir, and the number one best seller wolf Pack,
Speaker 1: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power and Change the Game.
Speaker 1: It's based on her inspiring two thousand eighteen commencement speech
Speaker 1: to Barnard College graduates that went viral. Abby's message to
Speaker 1: all women, if we keep playing by the old rules,
Speaker 1: we will never change the game. Abby. I am so
Speaker 1: excited to have you here today. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Oh man, thank you so much. That
Speaker 1: was such a nice intro. So glad you're here. Abby.
Speaker 1: We're so happy to have you here because you always
Speaker 1: bring so much great perspective and energy to the conversation.
Speaker 1: So you have captained the women's soccer team to more
Speaker 1: victories than any other individual. As Diana said, you're the
Speaker 1: two time best selling author, including this book on leadership,
Speaker 1: a very sought after speaker, and a great friend of ours.
Speaker 1: So let me open it up by asking you how
Speaker 1: you lead. I would say one of the most important
Speaker 1: things that I ever saw and witnessed with my own eyes,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's really important, that this idea
Speaker 1: of representation is seeing another woman stepping into her full
Speaker 1: humanity as a woman in a leadership position. And this
Speaker 1: happened to me when a coach from Sweden came to
Speaker 1: coach the United States, our US national team, Pia Sundhaga.
Speaker 1: She showed up in the first day. She showed up
Speaker 1: with this guitar and she starts playing the guitar of
Speaker 1: our first meeting. And at first I was like, this
Speaker 1: lady is crazy, this lady, what is she doing? And
Speaker 1: then as the song progressed, we kind of in our
Speaker 1: seats were inching forward because we had never seen a
Speaker 1: woman step into her own self like that, and Pio
Speaker 1: was that way. Every space she walked into in every room.
Speaker 1: She was the exact same. She never changed her personality
Speaker 1: for anybody. She was the boss. She was the big boss,
Speaker 1: and it gave us that confidence to do that in
Speaker 1: our own ways, whether it be on the field or
Speaker 1: in meeting rooms. And so she gave me the confidence
Speaker 1: as a person, like not just as an athlete or
Speaker 1: a leader, but as a person to be who I
Speaker 1: really was. And around this time is when I really,
Speaker 1: you know, so concerned with endorsements and not being the
Speaker 1: gay atypical gay person. I didn't want the whole team
Speaker 1: to know. I didn't want the world to type cast
Speaker 1: our women's national team as the gay team. So I
Speaker 1: kind of kept it to myself. But when PA showed
Speaker 1: me this form of leadership, I realized authenticity was one
Speaker 1: of the most important key elements to having people follow you.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about getting a group of people from where
Speaker 1: they are to where they ought to be, and to
Speaker 1: be able to do that, you have to have people
Speaker 1: follow you. And the only way people will trust and
Speaker 1: believe you is if you are truly yourself in every
Speaker 1: room you walk in. So that is the story that
Speaker 1: is That is kind of the way that I try
Speaker 1: to lead in my life and sometimes you know, I
Speaker 1: am too much of myself. My wife would say, well,
Speaker 1: I think this notion of authenticity is so important, and
Speaker 1: I think it's exactly what you said. Authenticity builds trust,
Speaker 1: and when you have that trust, I think it is
Speaker 1: easier to lead. So your New York Times bestseller, wolf Pack,
Speaker 1: is about women and leadership, and you've got this amazing
Speaker 1: way of describing the rules that you think are important
Speaker 1: for people to truly lead authentically, as we've talked about,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, by the way, for our listeners,
Speaker 1: Abby's also got a second book coming out this fall,
Speaker 1: which is wolf Pack, targeting a younger audience. So Abby,
Speaker 1: tell us about wolf Pack and where it all began. Okay,
Speaker 1: so where it began a few months after I retired,
Speaker 1: ESPN called me and they wanted to award me with
Speaker 1: what they called the sp Icon Award. Now for the
Speaker 1: listeners who don't know what the sps are, it's essentially
Speaker 1: the Oscars for sports. And I found myself on stage
Speaker 1: standing next to Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant. May he
Speaker 1: rest in peace, and I just remember this poignant moment
Speaker 1: where the lights were on in the camera was on,
Speaker 1: and I was just feeling like this immense amount of gratitude,
Speaker 1: like we women here, we are, we have finally made it.
Speaker 1: They see us like they see Peyton and they see Kobe.
Speaker 1: And then the lights turned off and the three of
Speaker 1: us turned to walk off stage, and something totally different happened. Um,
Speaker 1: what you might have thought would have been the best
Speaker 1: celebratory night of my life turned into what I kind
Speaker 1: of called the Jerry McGuire moment, where I spent sweating
Speaker 1: and like pacing in my hotel room trying to figure
Speaker 1: out why was so piste off. And I think what
Speaker 1: I realized that night is that I spent my whole
Speaker 1: career fitting in and staying inside the lines and and
Speaker 1: not pushing the envelope as much as I needed to,
Speaker 1: as much as maybe the world even thought I was.
Speaker 1: Because the three of us were walking into very very
Speaker 1: different retirements. You know, Kobe and Peyton, they earned a
Speaker 1: ton of money, and their biggest concern and retirement was
Speaker 1: where they were going to invest. They're hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars rightfully, so they rightfully earned those dollars. But
Speaker 1: my biggest concern was where I was going to do
Speaker 1: and how I was going to recreate myself in a
Speaker 1: career on being able to pay my mortgage. You know,
Speaker 1: I played for the national team. I won gold medals
Speaker 1: and World Cup and and and players of the world.
Speaker 1: How can it be that I have literally basically nothing
Speaker 1: to show for it. Um, and especially by comparison to
Speaker 1: my male counterparts, that we were all getting the same award.
Speaker 1: So I promised myself two things at night. One, Hey, Abby,
Speaker 1: is it fair for me to say so? Everybody's clear
Speaker 1: you didn't squander your money away, you didn't get paid exactly.
Speaker 1: This is not the This is not the broke story
Speaker 1: where I spent all of my money. Um, this is
Speaker 1: the this is the whole idea that women are paid
Speaker 1: far less. And I felt like that night, if I
Speaker 1: realized that this was happening to me, this is happening
Speaker 1: to every woman in every space, right, I fancied myself,
Speaker 1: but it was a very sobering nights. So I promised
Speaker 1: myself that I would do every that everything that I
Speaker 1: can for the rest of my life in service of
Speaker 1: not just the players that are still playing that I
Speaker 1: didn't want them to have this experience, but other women
Speaker 1: in every industry. Um. And I want to fight for
Speaker 1: the voiceless. I want to fight for the people who
Speaker 1: don't even know that they that they are under the
Speaker 1: spell also, so that's kind of what I've been doing.
Speaker 1: And you know, the books UM, They've been kind of
Speaker 1: one of the things that have just kind of come
Speaker 1: out of me since retiring UM and so, yeah, the
Speaker 1: books have been like such a an avenue for me
Speaker 1: to figure out what it was that I knew about
Speaker 1: leadership and how I learned some of the methods and
Speaker 1: and and the tactics of leadership like making failure of
Speaker 1: fuel UM and demanding the ball. You know, I am
Speaker 1: so grateful for the time that I spent on the
Speaker 1: national team, because had it not been for that experience,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have learned the very lessons of life of
Speaker 1: leadership that would allow me access to this conversation with
Speaker 1: some of the biggest and brightest women in the space
Speaker 1: of corporations of the corporate landscape UM fighting the good
Speaker 1: fight as well. Well. One of the things we're certainly
Speaker 1: really proud of is to be working with you. Our
Speaker 1: secret brand has worked with you and Women's soccer to
Speaker 1: really become an advocate for pay equality and equal pay
Speaker 1: for women in sports, and you have made such a
Speaker 1: huge impact in that space and it's so very important.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit more about some of these rules.
Speaker 1: Make failure your fuel. Old rule failure means you're out
Speaker 1: of the game. New rule failure means you're finally in
Speaker 1: the game. And essentially what this means is when you fail,
Speaker 1: you need to in your mind. It's a mindset shift.
Speaker 1: It's not easy, but when you fail, you need to
Speaker 1: look at it as an opportunity, not a thing to
Speaker 1: take your ball and go home. It's the moment that
Speaker 1: can change your life. You can do it. Fail year
Speaker 1: is your fuel. I'll just tell you this story. It's
Speaker 1: great because it's an old one. It's the first time
Speaker 1: that I got invited to play as a youth national
Speaker 1: team player. This is like back in ninety six. So
Speaker 1: we got to tour the U S women's national team,
Speaker 1: the full senior team's locker room. So there I was,
Speaker 1: We're sixteen years old, and here we were. We found
Speaker 1: ourselves at the foot of Mia Hamm's locker. There was
Speaker 1: this picture that was taped up right next to the door.
Speaker 1: As I you would assume every player could see and
Speaker 1: look at right before they were going to go step
Speaker 1: on onto the field for training each day. And you
Speaker 1: might think this was a picture of them, I don't know,
Speaker 1: celebrating a goal or their last win, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was of the Norwegian women's national team, in fact,
Speaker 1: celebrating obnoxiously, in my opinion, the previous year's win over
Speaker 1: the United States in the Women's World Cup, knocking the
Speaker 1: US out of the World Cup in and as a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old, I just was like, what is this about?
Speaker 1: And we talked about it for the rest of that week.
Speaker 1: Is a team because a lot of us were stunned
Speaker 1: and surprised. And then when you kind of break into
Speaker 1: it and get down to the basics of it, you know,
Speaker 1: the fear of failure is also the fear of success
Speaker 1: when you get straight down to it. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's one thing that I have grabbed onto, held
Speaker 1: onto and continue to enforce in my data that even
Speaker 1: after soccer, you know and and and it's a muscle,
Speaker 1: right that you have to train. I wasn't born being
Speaker 1: completely fine with failure, right. I had to learn that
Speaker 1: the failures of my life we're going to be the
Speaker 1: arrows that were pointing me in the directions that I
Speaker 1: needed to go or that I needed to steer to
Speaker 1: steer clear of. And I wasn't going to not try
Speaker 1: something because I was going to be afraid of what
Speaker 1: the outcome was. So I don't know. I think that
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite lessons of the wolf Pack
Speaker 1: book and um and I think it's one of those
Speaker 1: lessons that I keep having to relearn every single time
Speaker 1: that I fail. I have to remind myself, no, this
Speaker 1: is actually the beginning, this is not the end. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's it's such an important lesson for young girls and
Speaker 1: for women to not fear failure. But like, I love
Speaker 1: that you turn it into failure is fuel, right, It's
Speaker 1: such an amazing reframing of how to think about failure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think it's important, especially women, when you find
Speaker 1: yourself in if you're in the corporate world, or you
Speaker 1: find yourself in male dominated spaces, there's this mindset that
Speaker 1: we have to be perfect in order to get any success,
Speaker 1: to find any worthiness, right, And I think that this
Speaker 1: concept really will help you move forward. You know, men
Speaker 1: are allowed to fail up, Why the heck can't we
Speaker 1: Why can't we fail and also grow, rather than fail
Speaker 1: and get demoted, or fail and lose all of our
Speaker 1: confidence and take our balls and go home, like we
Speaker 1: have to be strong enough and courageous enough to come
Speaker 1: back and continue to fight, because it's going to take
Speaker 1: all of us continuing to come back failure after failure
Speaker 1: to make sure that we have more representation not just
Speaker 1: in corporate worlds, but in governments and in every institution.
Speaker 1: I think your point that failure becomes the way to learn. Right,
Speaker 1: If you don't learn, if you don't push the boundaries
Speaker 1: and push yourself, how do you expand your impact? How
Speaker 1: do you expand your influence? How do you expand your
Speaker 1: knowledge base? So the notion of learning is so important
Speaker 1: in that you have one more rule that I want
Speaker 1: you to share. You have a lot of rules here,
Speaker 1: but we're going to make people go get your book
Speaker 1: to find the other rules because it's just extraordinary way
Speaker 1: that you frame leadership. So what's your last one that
Speaker 1: you want to share with us? Demand the ball old rule,
Speaker 1: play it safe past the ball, new rule. Believe in yourself,
Speaker 1: demand and the ball. We women have been conditioned to
Speaker 1: believe that we need to stay silent. That I mean,
Speaker 1: we need to be quiet. And I'm here to tell
Speaker 1: you that if you want what you want in your life,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, you have to demand it. The
Speaker 1: call to the wolf pack. Believe in yourselves, stand up
Speaker 1: and say, give me the effing ball, give me the
Speaker 1: effing job, Give me the same pay that the guy
Speaker 1: next to me gets. Give me the promotion, give me
Speaker 1: the microphone, give me the Oval office, give me the
Speaker 1: respect I deserve, and give it to my wolf pack. Two.
Speaker 1: I found myself. It was a couple of years after
Speaker 1: the other story. At sixteen, I was about eighteen years
Speaker 1: old as a the Olympic training facility and we were
Speaker 1: there with the U eighteen women's national youth national team
Speaker 1: and one of my idols, her name is Michelle Acre.
Speaker 1: She at the time was thirty five, at the end
Speaker 1: of her career for the senior team, and she was
Speaker 1: walking towards our training session and I was like, why
Speaker 1: is she walking towards our practice? Well, she sits down
Speaker 1: next to me and she starts putting her own cleats on,
Speaker 1: and so now I'm starting to like actually have panic attack.
Speaker 1: I'm like, is she actually going to be playing soccer
Speaker 1: with us today? So she had to elect to come
Speaker 1: and play with eighteen year olds, right, that was that
Speaker 1: was her choice. And so for the first like a
Speaker 1: couple of quarters of the game, you know, I noticed
Speaker 1: Michelle and she's kind of staying back and letting the
Speaker 1: players kind of do their thing and and and motivating
Speaker 1: them and also like cheering them on and telling them like,
Speaker 1: great job. Well, the last quarter comes around and it
Speaker 1: was like something totally switched on or off, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure which, and Michelle ran right back to the goalkeeper,
Speaker 1: got in her face and goes give me the ff
Speaker 1: thing ball. Michelle takes the ball and dribble dribbles it
Speaker 1: through our team, leaving all of us basically on the
Speaker 1: floor literally, and she scores and it was winners keepers
Speaker 1: so which that which means her goalkeeper again got the ball,
Speaker 1: and you can guess what's going to happen. So Michelle
Speaker 1: runs back to the goalkeeper again, give me the ball.
Speaker 1: And she does this time and time and time again
Speaker 1: until her team wins five before which sucked for me. Yes,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing, right, I thought a lot about
Speaker 1: this story because though I was you know, I'm a competitor,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the most fiercest competitors you'll ever meet here.
Speaker 1: This moment was in my life that I have and
Speaker 1: and and maybe not even since then, I've never seen
Speaker 1: somebody step into her power, let alone a woman right
Speaker 1: step into their power quite like she did that day.
Speaker 1: And what that did is it gave me the ability
Speaker 1: to do the same. Like she demanded the ball, she
Speaker 1: demanded what she knew she needed to help the team. Right.
Speaker 1: The caveat to this is that she delivered. Right. You
Speaker 1: can't go around in the world, then give me this,
Speaker 1: give me this, give me that, give me that without
Speaker 1: actually following through on what it is that you're trying
Speaker 1: to become responsible for. And I think what Michelle taught
Speaker 1: me was that we all have power, we all have
Speaker 1: something to demand. So that's kind of the story. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good one. It's a good one. It
Speaker 1: is a really good one. You know. Um, Caroline and
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about UM. We talk about changing
Speaker 1: this narrative that has been in the world for a while,
Speaker 1: and it got really loud several years ago. UM, And
Speaker 1: it is this. And what I love about your story
Speaker 1: and what I love about you is that you're one
Speaker 1: of the women that's out there correcting the narrative with us, right,
Speaker 1: and so the narrative is, you know, it basically says
Speaker 1: that women, women lack confidence, women fear failure, women fear
Speaker 1: risk taking. It's this whole lack narrative about women. And
Speaker 1: what's frustrating about that narrative, um, is that we've taken
Speaker 1: the very essence of what leadership is, courage, confidence, risk taking, failure,
Speaker 1: those things that are core to extraordinary leadership, and we've
Speaker 1: labeled them as lacking in our gender. Right, women lack confidence,
Speaker 1: women lack you know, fear failure. And so we're really
Speaker 1: part of part of our desire and bringing people like
Speaker 1: you and to have this conversation with us is that
Speaker 1: when you say demand the ball, when you say failure
Speaker 1: is fuel, it's a way that starts to course correct
Speaker 1: that narrative that really is one of the things that
Speaker 1: holds women back, whether it's in the workplace, in the
Speaker 1: world and their communities. And the problem with the narrative
Speaker 1: is that people start to believe it if you hear
Speaker 1: it enough, Um, People who are making hiring decisions, pay decisions,
Speaker 1: promotion decisions, they start to hear that narrative and they've
Speaker 1: heard that narrative and it becomes what they act off of.
Speaker 1: And so, um, I what I love about your story
Speaker 1: is that it is the opposite of that, that narrative
Speaker 1: of lack. Really, it's it really starts to reframe the
Speaker 1: narrative of lack. Uh. Carol, and you'd like talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the Hewlett Packard study which started that that,
Speaker 1: which is really kind of the basis of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was one of the when we looked at it,
Speaker 1: you know, Dana and I spent a little bit of
Speaker 1: time going back and saying, where did this come from?
Speaker 1: You know, this notion of women lack confidence and the
Speaker 1: the crazy adoption of that within companies, workplaces, communities, including
Speaker 1: by women. You know, Um, Diana and I would have
Speaker 1: conversations with women inside PNG and people would say, well,
Speaker 1: I've got a confidence issue. And I was like, you
Speaker 1: made it through a crazy recruiting and vetting process, you
Speaker 1: graduated top of your class. Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: And while we know all of us as individuals can
Speaker 1: have moments of self doubt, for it to get labeled
Speaker 1: and gendered as such was was something that we wanted
Speaker 1: to really understand. But HP did h V of the study.
Speaker 1: This is the other thing that kind of made us
Speaker 1: crazy when we looked at it, because they looked at
Speaker 1: job applications of men and women, and what they found
Speaker 1: is that men applied to the jobs when they had
Speaker 1: six of the qualifications. Women applied when they had a
Speaker 1: percent of the qualifications. The man says, I got six
Speaker 1: out of ten, I'll figure out the rest. The woman
Speaker 1: takes the briefing at face value and says, oh, they
Speaker 1: asked for these qualifications. I'm going to go for these qualifications.
Speaker 1: As a result of that case study we created, this
Speaker 1: is where the narrative came up. They were like, well,
Speaker 1: women must struggle with confidence. We could just have well
Speaker 1: have said women read instructions, but we didn't say that,
Speaker 1: you know. And so as Deanna said, then the other
Speaker 1: part that makes me a little bit crazy is no
Speaker 1: one spent any time on the that prototypical male behavior.
Speaker 1: We could have called that overconfident, we could have called
Speaker 1: that reckless. As I say all the time, I'm still
Speaker 1: waiting to read that book. I haven't seen it. But
Speaker 1: we've got hundreds of books on women's confidence. So um,
Speaker 1: again we misinterpret and it's the adoption of that false
Speaker 1: narrative that gets in the way. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Women and men are different, but there is a inherent superpower, right,
Speaker 1: So that's what these these these philosophies and ideas and
Speaker 1: these rules that I write about and and wolf back
Speaker 1: are there to remember and remind women out there. Sometimes
Speaker 1: this conditioning of lack of confidence, of quietness, of um
Speaker 1: staying on the stay on the path, otherwise you're gonna
Speaker 1: get eaten by the big bad wolf. Like those are
Speaker 1: Those are systemic and institutional things that are keeping women down.
Speaker 1: And and what we need to remember is that what
Speaker 1: is coined feminine in some women, right, being emotional, um,
Speaker 1: being pragmatic, some of these things. When it's when it's
Speaker 1: compared against the masculine that we oftentimes see in more males, um,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's it's not as good, right, But
Speaker 1: there is. I mean, if there is a place, and
Speaker 1: I know we're gonna keep talking about this, but if
Speaker 1: there is a time in history that feminine leadership is
Speaker 1: more required right now, is it? I Mean there's just
Speaker 1: like all of the studies, when these institutions have been built,
Speaker 1: they've been built by men, and they've been built for men.
Speaker 1: So of course we're standardizing ourselves against men and we're
Speaker 1: not them. It makes perfect sense why it feels weird
Speaker 1: in an uncomfortable world. But like my goodness, thank goodness
Speaker 1: for Cheryl Sandberg writing the Leaning Book, though it feels
Speaker 1: like so archaic thinking about how how far we've come
Speaker 1: since that book was released, her time and her writing
Speaker 1: that was important because it gave women permission to be
Speaker 1: inside of those spaces. You know, I think the notion
Speaker 1: of lean in gave women permission. But we still see
Speaker 1: this default to male behavior as the standard that we
Speaker 1: look for, you know, I saw it in the last
Speaker 1: year and there was this remarkable story that a CEO
Speaker 1: told of hiring a CFO for his company, and he
Speaker 1: was working so hard to ensure that he had an
Speaker 1: equal slate of candidates male and male and female. And
Speaker 1: he got down to his two final candidates, one man,
Speaker 1: one woman. He went through the whole interviews. At the
Speaker 1: very end of the interview for each of them, he said,
Speaker 1: I want to know if you can cut my corporate
Speaker 1: tax right now, you're you're interviewing somebody who's not been
Speaker 1: with the company, doesn't unders. I mean, that's a complex,
Speaker 1: very complex question. Right. The man responded immediately and said, yes,
Speaker 1: I can. The woman paused, hesitated, and said, I don't
Speaker 1: have enough information to answer that question. I would need
Speaker 1: to know more. So smart it is smart. The CEO,
Speaker 1: in telling the story, which I think was very cool, said,
Speaker 1: my initial instinct, my gut reaction, was I'm hiring the man.
Speaker 1: He gave me the answer that I wanted. But luckily
Speaker 1: this CEO had surrounded himself with counselors and advisors and
Speaker 1: people on his team who said, hang on a minute,
Speaker 1: hang on, she gave you the better answer. And so
Speaker 1: to your point, this notion of systemic fixes, that's what
Speaker 1: I like about this story. The CEO had put in
Speaker 1: place a system people who could balance his perspective. He
Speaker 1: had men and women in his inner circle, and then
Speaker 1: he listened, and as a result, he hired the woman.
Speaker 1: He said, it was a great decision. But this whole
Speaker 1: notion that we have to restructure systems and we have
Speaker 1: to ensure that we're designing systems that work for everyone
Speaker 1: is the point of this story. As you said earlier,
Speaker 1: women and men are different. Thank goodness, right, it makes
Speaker 1: the world a wonderful place for all of us, and
Speaker 1: so the notion that we've got all of these unique
Speaker 1: individuals and unique personalities is what makes this world an
Speaker 1: amazing place. So we've got to find a way to
Speaker 1: broaden that in how we build the systems. And we've
Speaker 1: got to stop focusing on fixing the women, and we've
Speaker 1: got to fix the systemic bias and systems that are
Speaker 1: in place. Now you're doing that with Angel City. So
Speaker 1: let's talk Angel City. So the end of your cell
Speaker 1: is the National Women's Soccer League, and you know PNG.
Speaker 1: You all know them very well because you've been a
Speaker 1: sponsor of the league. And thank you for being one
Speaker 1: of those companies that puts their money into places where
Speaker 1: not only it's needed, but you know, to get some
Speaker 1: sense of respect, to see a secret to see PNG
Speaker 1: on the boards of the sidelines like that actually does
Speaker 1: something to somebody's psyche, right. Angel City is is a
Speaker 1: team that is going to be starting in two founded
Speaker 1: by these four folks. Natalie Portman, I think you all
Speaker 1: know who she is. She called me a few days
Speaker 1: before they were going to release the statements that they
Speaker 1: were coming into the league, and they decided that they
Speaker 1: were going to structure this team very differently than what
Speaker 1: most professional sports teams and how they're structured, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to do this differently to give access to professional
Speaker 1: sports ownership to the people, to the very people who
Speaker 1: helped build the mid soccer. So they found a bunch
Speaker 1: of women who played for the United States wimens national
Speaker 1: team at certain points throughout the history of our national
Speaker 1: team that lived in southern California, and they reached out
Speaker 1: to them that and asked if we wanted to be
Speaker 1: a part of the founding investor group. And you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in a dream a I
Speaker 1: was talking in Natalie Portman right right, and it was
Speaker 1: this idea of building her own system, her own institution
Speaker 1: that is going to be built for women, and so
Speaker 1: she wanted to be built by women. UM and you know,
Speaker 1: our women's national team. The only reason why you know
Speaker 1: who the women's national team is isn't just because we win,
Speaker 1: though that's great. It's because we had immense unity. And
Speaker 1: by the way, that doesn't mean that every player always
Speaker 1: agreed on every UM contract negotiation topic, uh specific bullet
Speaker 1: point that we were trying to get from US Soccer Federation.
Speaker 1: It just means that in the end, we agreed and
Speaker 1: we had a democratic systems set in place to support
Speaker 1: each other. And so what this this situation and hold
Speaker 1: the whole point of the wolf Pack book is to
Speaker 1: find your pack, is to find your people, right and
Speaker 1: and that is why I know our women's national team
Speaker 1: has found not just success in getting decent contracts over
Speaker 1: the years and especially now since I've retired, but they
Speaker 1: won medals, they've won championships, and then they won and
Speaker 1: they won the hearts of our country, right and and
Speaker 1: it is no surprise to me because when you get
Speaker 1: a bunch of badass women together, excuse the language, but
Speaker 1: it's important for that sentence. When you get a bunch
Speaker 1: of badass women together, good things happen. Right. And then
Speaker 1: of course, like I don't know, it's just so it's
Speaker 1: so freaking exciting, and it's and it's restructuring and reorganizing
Speaker 1: and reimagining what is possible. Right. We can't keep banging
Speaker 1: their heads against the ceiling of a house that was
Speaker 1: built for a man. We have to do what Ava
Speaker 1: du Vernese has said. We have to start building our
Speaker 1: own homes. It's so funny because you keep reminding me
Speaker 1: of these we you know, myths or false narratives that,
Speaker 1: um that just your storytelling helps debunk them along the
Speaker 1: way what Angel City makes me think about Caroline and
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about. And again, this is in
Speaker 1: a corporate setting, right. So there's another one of these
Speaker 1: false narratives that kind of plagues women in the workplace.
Speaker 1: And the narrative is that there are just simply not
Speaker 1: enough qualified women in the workplace to take on top jobs. Right.
Speaker 1: And what's so frustrating about that narrative is that you've
Speaker 1: literally take in quantity and quality and stuck it in
Speaker 1: the same sentence. They're not enough of them and the
Speaker 1: ones that are there aren't quite good enough. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you listen in the workplace, you will hear this
Speaker 1: quantity and quality narrative kind of played over and over
Speaker 1: and over again one of the ways that we like
Speaker 1: to talk about it. And you just debunked the myth
Speaker 1: in in what Natalie A. Portman and you and all
Speaker 1: the women who are really fixing the systems are doing.
Speaker 1: But we talked about um. So here's how this narrative
Speaker 1: plays out. Um. There's a lot of discussion in the
Speaker 1: corporate world about getting to fifty fifty representation of women
Speaker 1: in fortune five hundred CEO roles. Right, so there are
Speaker 1: I know, it's amazing. There are thirty eight women there today,
Speaker 1: so half would be two and fifty or about two
Speaker 1: eighteen two twelve more women, right, And the narrative is
Speaker 1: simply that there just aren't enough qualified women to take
Speaker 1: on those additional two hundred and twelve jobs. And so
Speaker 1: my pushes, wait a second, We're looking for two hundred
Speaker 1: and twelve women on a base of a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six million women in the United States, right, it's crazy,
Speaker 1: it's a crazy number. And people will go, yeah, yeah, Danda,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter because all those women aren't you know,
Speaker 1: they aren't even in the workplace yet, right, some of
Speaker 1: those are newborns. I'm like, okay, that's very fair. Point
Speaker 1: cut a hundred million off the top of that number.
Speaker 1: Just cut a hundred million off. And so we're dealing
Speaker 1: with thirty six million women now and still holding the
Speaker 1: narrative that there aren't two hundred and twelve that have
Speaker 1: the risk, risk taking profile and the courage and the
Speaker 1: you know, um, the mentorship and the sponsorship to take
Speaker 1: on those jobs. And if people still don't like that number,
Speaker 1: cut that number in half. You know, take that thirty
Speaker 1: six million, cut it in half, and I just keep
Speaker 1: cut cutting it in half and cutting in half, and
Speaker 1: it's like, how low does that denominator have to get
Speaker 1: before we get rid of that narrative that there aren't
Speaker 1: enough quality, our quantity of women to take on some
Speaker 1: of these top jobs. It's really amazing what you just said,
Speaker 1: because what what you're all doing is you're breaking that
Speaker 1: narrative of quantity and quality and refrain redoing doing it
Speaker 1: your own way through Angel City. I think all of
Speaker 1: what you just said is so important to umber who
Speaker 1: is creating the narrative exactly. I think it's it's how
Speaker 1: do how does it? You know, come from the ground up.
Speaker 1: But there's also there are enough women that are so
Speaker 1: close to hitting that CEO role because I also think
Speaker 1: that's still part of the solution there in the in
Speaker 1: the corporate lane, most of these problems, the number of
Speaker 1: women in CEO roles is completely within the remit of
Speaker 1: a board of directors. That is a solvable problem today.
Speaker 1: It just requires that you have people that you know,
Speaker 1: that aren't afraid of losing their power, that are courageous
Speaker 1: enough to make the decisions to shift, you know, shift
Speaker 1: the dynamic. There's a lot of work that's being done
Speaker 1: about paying attention to how many women, how many people
Speaker 1: men and women of color are you know, sitting on
Speaker 1: boards of directors of these big companies, because when the
Speaker 1: when that mix changes, right, then you start to see
Speaker 1: changes in the system where they have. Most of the
Speaker 1: stuff is solvable. Pay equality is solvable by a leader
Speaker 1: who decides I'm going to do it differently. See, you know,
Speaker 1: CEOs are changed because a board of directors is courageous
Speaker 1: enough to say we're going to do it differently. This
Speaker 1: kind of thing is not just from the top down,
Speaker 1: but also from the bottom up. This is no longer like, well,
Speaker 1: we feel bad for those who are on the margins,
Speaker 1: so we just want to like make some room for them.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's going to make our company look good.
Speaker 1: It's gonna make your company more freaking money, right, and
Speaker 1: so it's like for me, I think the long term need,
Speaker 1: the long term viability of any company is to get
Speaker 1: way more diversity and inclusion on every leadership board, in
Speaker 1: every leadership boardroom, at every leadership table that you possibly can,
Speaker 1: because then all of the campaigns you run all the
Speaker 1: marketing ideas, all the products that are going out into
Speaker 1: the world will not have biased because somebody in that margin,
Speaker 1: on that margin wall have had had a voice, had
Speaker 1: an opinion that had something to do with that actual
Speaker 1: product going out to somebody that might look like them,
Speaker 1: might like talk like them. I don't know. I get
Speaker 1: so fired up about this. I do because I think
Speaker 1: it's so important, and it's so important, not just in
Speaker 1: the corporate world, but it's important in government, it's important
Speaker 1: in schools, it's important in our like small communities and
Speaker 1: our pta meetings. Everybody needs a voice and we will
Speaker 1: all be better. It'll make it the world gets better,
Speaker 1: and not just for the marginalized. The world gets better
Speaker 1: for the majority. The world gets better for across the board.
Speaker 1: We we just fundamentally believe that, and we've seen it
Speaker 1: time and time again. It's so important. And uh, I
Speaker 1: was saying this to Diana after we talked the other day.
Speaker 1: I said, every time we talk, every time, I am
Speaker 1: just so struck by your generosity. And I really, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's so sincerely because it's your generosity with us, it's
Speaker 1: your generosity, your spirit out in the work that you're doing.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it very much. I mean, that's so sweet
Speaker 1: of you. My my wife says it's my superpower. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, Look, I grew up in a huge family.
Speaker 1: I've been on teams my whole life. Um, I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to have an ego and operate through
Speaker 1: that and and want to be the one, the chosen one,
Speaker 1: the best one. I know all of the feelings and
Speaker 1: the reason why I can be generous is because I've
Speaker 1: gone through all of that and I've come out the
Speaker 1: other end. And what I have found is that you
Speaker 1: win more when you open yourself up and you bring
Speaker 1: people along with you. You get to to more places,
Speaker 1: you win more championships, You find more success when more
Speaker 1: people around you that not just are supporting you, but
Speaker 1: actually helping you and pushing you. People that you can
Speaker 1: also follow, people that you can learn from. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite books is Like Happiness. One of the quotes
Speaker 1: is happiness is meant to be shared. And I think
Speaker 1: that that also has to do with success. Agree, Abby,
Speaker 1: that's so incredible. Thank you so much. So before you go,
Speaker 1: is there one last thought you'd like to leave us with?
Speaker 1: So I think what I'm trying to teach my daughters
Speaker 1: and son right now is they're young twelve, fourteen, and seventeen.
Speaker 1: UM this idea because I think about this a lot,
Speaker 1: like how the heck did I get to be one
Speaker 1: of the best of the best. And I always knew,
Speaker 1: no matter what situation I was in or what team
Speaker 1: I was on, I always knew that I wanted to
Speaker 1: continually level up. I don't know if it's the youngest
Speaker 1: child in me, UM, but I wasn't afraid at a
Speaker 1: young age. I wasn't afraid of being mediocre in a
Speaker 1: field of better players. I knew that that was the
Speaker 1: way I was going to get better. And then over
Speaker 1: time and and and through team after team after team, UM,
Speaker 1: finding myself in college leveling up. I'm like, looking around,
Speaker 1: these players are faster, they're stronger, they're four years older
Speaker 1: than me, and it's seventeen years old. That's a huge difference.
Speaker 1: And then I find myself getting to call up to
Speaker 1: the national team, UM, the best of the best of
Speaker 1: the best. Uh and and it's the play is too
Speaker 1: fast for me. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, they're running circles around me. But I'm like
Speaker 1: this uncomfort is part of what allowed me access to
Speaker 1: success later down the road, and I think people don't
Speaker 1: understand that enough that there is going to be on comfort.
Speaker 1: And then the other component to this is I had
Speaker 1: this crazy audacity about me that I believed that I
Speaker 1: deserved to be in every leveled up position that I
Speaker 1: found myself. I knew that I was not yet the
Speaker 1: best player on that team. I knew that I was
Speaker 1: even like maybe middle of the road, but I had
Speaker 1: this sense of confidence that if I just gave myself
Speaker 1: time to adapt to level up, then I would in
Speaker 1: fact one day be worthy. Right. But it takes this
Speaker 1: courage inside of us as people two believe that we
Speaker 1: belong wherever we stand. We belong in some spaces and
Speaker 1: guess what it's going to be uncomfortable, and guess what
Speaker 1: it's going to hurt, and guess what there will be tears,
Speaker 1: and guess what it's not all going to go well.
Speaker 1: But you can never stop believing in yourself, otherwise you're
Speaker 1: never gonna get anywhere. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Abby
Speaker 1: for being here. It's just such a joy to spend
Speaker 1: the afternoon with you. My pleasure. That was an incredible
Speaker 1: conversation with Abby Caroline Indiana. To learn more about Abbey's work,
Speaker 1: go to Abby Wombach dot com. Here are three takeaways
Speaker 1: that I got out of the conversation. First, as Caroline
Speaker 1: and Diana remind us, we need to stop trying to
Speaker 1: fix the women and instead fix the system. This includes
Speaker 1: debunking the myths and rejecting the false narratives that hold
Speaker 1: women back in the workplace and in the world. Instead,
Speaker 1: we need to create new narratives as well as address
Speaker 1: head on systems across industries that lead to inequality. These
Speaker 1: include how women get paid and how women get promoted, and,
Speaker 1: as they remind us, if we want to get to equal,
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that women leaders are equally
Speaker 1: represented in top leadership roles across industries. Second, we need
Speaker 1: to broaden how we define leadership. The legacy model of
Speaker 1: leadership that is often described as quote mail may not
Speaker 1: be working for anyone, men or women. Instead, we need
Speaker 1: to recognize that women's leadership matters and it drives results.
Speaker 1: In these past several months, we've seen women leaders step
Speaker 1: up and model incredible styles of leadership and strategies that
Speaker 1: are working. Both women and men should look to these
Speaker 1: models of leadership as a source of guidance and inspiration.
Speaker 1: And finally, we should all become a student of Abby's
Speaker 1: wolf Pack and remember the rules, including demand the ball
Speaker 1: and remember that failure is fuel. I hope you've learned
Speaker 1: as much as I did from this conversation and join
Speaker 1: us next week when Caroline and Diana speak with actor,
Speaker 1: producer and entrepreneur Justin Valdoni on the role that men
Speaker 1: play in advancing gender equality and getting us all to equal.
Speaker 1: Have a great week. You're listening to Seneca Women Conversations
Speaker 1: on Power and Purpose, brought to you by the Seneca
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Speaker 1: a great day.