Speaker 1: Hi, This is Milan 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 Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you
Speaker 1: by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Attorney and businesswoman Valerie Jarrett rose to political heights as
Speaker 1: the longest serving senior advisor to President Barack Obama. She
Speaker 1: joined Seneca Women at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to
Speaker 1: discuss her journey to the White House, lessons she learned
Speaker 1: as a leader, and effective ways to fight for progress.
Speaker 1: Enjoy this conversation with Valerie Milan and stick around after
Speaker 1: the discussion for our top takeaways. Valerie was the longest
Speaker 1: serving senior advisor to President Obama. Among her multiple roles,
Speaker 1: one that I worked with her closely on was the
Speaker 1: Council on Women and Girls, and a lot did get accomplished. Today,
Speaker 1: she is the senior adviser to the Obama Foundation and
Speaker 1: the chair of When We All Vote. She is also
Speaker 1: the author of the New York Times bestselling book Finding
Speaker 1: My Voice, A Journey to the West Wing and the
Speaker 1: Path Forward. And each of you has a copy of
Speaker 1: that book in your gift bag today. Thank you so, Valerie.
Speaker 1: We're coming up, as you heard, and as you well know,
Speaker 1: to the hundredth anniversary of women's suffrage in the United
Speaker 1: States and the twenty anniversary on the Beijing Conference. What
Speaker 1: is your sense that this anniversary moment, are we doing
Speaker 1: better and especially in terms of women's leadership, Well, we
Speaker 1: are doing better, but we still have a very, very
Speaker 1: long way to go. By almost every possible metric, women
Speaker 1: and girls are still lagging. One important that one though,
Speaker 1: where we are making progress, and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: key one is education. We're graduating from college at a
Speaker 1: higher rate than then now and we're half the population.
Speaker 1: But we all know as soon as we enter the
Speaker 1: workforce there are barriers, both structural and cultural. Barriers have
Speaker 1: come to work and so the question becomes, what are
Speaker 1: we going to do to remove those barriers? And one
Speaker 1: of the many lessons I learned my eight years in
Speaker 1: Washington is it people who are in power actually like power,
Speaker 1: and they're not inclined to want to give it up.
Speaker 1: And the only way you can try to do that
Speaker 1: is to have a coalition of the willing and not
Speaker 1: talk about these issues any longer as a nice to
Speaker 1: do or the right thing to do, but frankly as
Speaker 1: a business imperative for businesses in the United States that
Speaker 1: want to be globally competitive, and of course the same
Speaker 1: thing applies to everyone else. You can live anywhere, work anywhere,
Speaker 1: and be productive. And the only way we're going to
Speaker 1: compete is to both attract and retain the most talented people.
Speaker 1: And right now there are obstacles to us doing that.
Speaker 1: But I guess one message in this kind of comforts
Speaker 1: full circle to coming up on the hundredth anniversary is
Speaker 1: that change takes time, and it takes a relentless amount
Speaker 1: of hard work. It takes broadening the universe of people
Speaker 1: that we include in this struggle far beyond those who
Speaker 1: are directly impacted, but to get those who are indirectly
Speaker 1: impacted to appreciate that affects their lives too. And I
Speaker 1: would close this question perhaps by saying to one year.
Speaker 1: For my birthday, President Obama gave me a copy of
Speaker 1: the Petition for Universal Suffrage, which was assigned in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, and alongside of it was the resolution introduced
Speaker 1: to Congress UH to give women the right to vote,
Speaker 1: which was introduced in May of nineteen, nineteen fifty three
Speaker 1: years And so if you think about the women who
Speaker 1: are out there are demonstrating and being imprisoned and hunger
Speaker 1: strikes and having their husband's pretty ticked off at them
Speaker 1: at the beginning of that journey, many of them didn't
Speaker 1: see the finish line. And I think part of what
Speaker 1: we have to help people understand is is it this
Speaker 1: takes time and relentless effort, and we need those thunderbolts.
Speaker 1: And I think, for example, the Me Too movement was
Speaker 1: a thunderbolt dealing with culture, and the question is how
Speaker 1: do we keep putting our foot on the pedal to
Speaker 1: keep that progress changing? And you're exactly right, we need
Speaker 1: to accelerate that progress, which is what we're all about
Speaker 1: here as we gather. So, how did you see this
Speaker 1: progress in your own life, because clearly you've been on
Speaker 1: a trajectory. Yeah, in a sense of a trailblazer in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. I will say, one thing I
Speaker 1: figured out after six years is to work in a
Speaker 1: culture where I could thrive. And I was fortunate because
Speaker 1: I had choices. And they're far too many women and
Speaker 1: girls who do not have choices and therefore it's up
Speaker 1: to the rest of us to advocate for them. But
Speaker 1: once I figured out, and sorry if I'm offending anybody
Speaker 1: at a big law firm, But once I figured out
Speaker 1: the big law firm was actually not from me uh
Speaker 1: and began to work in an environment where I could
Speaker 1: be my whole self and I didn't have to pretend.
Speaker 1: When I was in a law firm and I was
Speaker 1: nine months pregnant, I was trying to pretend I wasn't
Speaker 1: pregnant while I gained ninety pounds. I was pregnant. So
Speaker 1: you obviously didn't succeed in I did not succeed. Everybody
Speaker 1: knew it. But I thought if I talked about it,
Speaker 1: and after my daughter was born, if I talked about her,
Speaker 1: that people would not take me so seriously. And I
Speaker 1: think that is that's wrong, but yet that is still
Speaker 1: the case in far too many places of employment. And
Speaker 1: I actually believe that when you make yourself vulnerable and
Speaker 1: you say what you need, if you are in a
Speaker 1: position to do so, then it's a teaching moment. And
Speaker 1: I think too often we expect people to read our
Speaker 1: minds and recognize that when you're nine months pregnant can
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom a lot, right, but nobody wants
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Or in my book I talk
Speaker 1: about menopause. You know what, guys, it's the reality of
Speaker 1: our lives and we shouldn't be shining away from expressing
Speaker 1: what's different artus and what our needs are. And it's
Speaker 1: not just women, it's working families, right, working families. My
Speaker 1: son in law is much more engaged with my grandson,
Speaker 1: my brand new grandson's life than my husband was in
Speaker 1: mine or my dad, who was a great dad, was
Speaker 1: in mine. And so I think part of it is
Speaker 1: understanding that in this new environment, fortunately, men and women
Speaker 1: should be treating be treated on par and equal if
Speaker 1: we're going to compete. So one of my big policy
Speaker 1: positions that I've been talking about lately is paid leave.
Speaker 1: First of all, we're the only developed country in the world.
Speaker 1: We are the only developed country in the world that
Speaker 1: doesn't have one. But why do we have when we
Speaker 1: do have it? Why is there a difference between what
Speaker 1: women and men have. Don't we want our men to
Speaker 1: be equal partners? And why are women taking off let's
Speaker 1: say three and four months or six months, which they should,
Speaker 1: But why are we not thinking about men in the
Speaker 1: same vein and if we really want to level playing field,
Speaker 1: those are the kinds of conversations I think we should
Speaker 1: be having, and that is good progress. Talking about what
Speaker 1: your son in law is doing that you didn't see,
Speaker 1: you know, in earlier generations. Uh. And I find that
Speaker 1: men are realizing more and more when they are in
Speaker 1: those settings with their newborn. Uh. They they are realizing
Speaker 1: benefits they never they never felt before or understood. But
Speaker 1: they would be in a work environment where policy are
Speaker 1: the possible people have to live it or the policy
Speaker 1: means that the benefits are all there if we would
Speaker 1: just realize that. You know, at the first Equal Rights
Speaker 1: Convention Women's Rights Convention back in I think it was, um,
Speaker 1: the women were pretty scandalous in some ways. One was
Speaker 1: the fact that they were speaking out when women were
Speaker 1: not supposed to speak publicly. So again some change. Um.
Speaker 1: But I you know, one of the things you have
Speaker 1: written about and spoken about is the need for women
Speaker 1: to use their voice and to speak out when they
Speaker 1: are in positions where it can have impact. Why is
Speaker 1: that so important because we don't often realize that that
Speaker 1: could make such a difference. Well, I think part of
Speaker 1: it is we're afraid to speak out, I know, and
Speaker 1: this is one way I hope it has changed that.
Speaker 1: When I was younger, young working mom, I was afraid
Speaker 1: that if I talked about my daughter, people wouldn't take
Speaker 1: me as seriously. And what I grew to understand as
Speaker 1: I became a manager is that when my team told
Speaker 1: me what was going on in their lives, it was
Speaker 1: it would enable me to bring out the best in
Speaker 1: them and it developed a level of vulnerability and relationship
Speaker 1: that actually made them more productive in me a better manager.
Speaker 1: And so I think when you go into it realizing
Speaker 1: that if you open up and talk about what's going on,
Speaker 1: rather than expecting people to read your minds, there's a
Speaker 1: moment that they can actually learn something, and it is
Speaker 1: on us to teach. We can't just expect them to
Speaker 1: clare clair voyalant. We know what we need. And I
Speaker 1: think it's also helpful when we get academics to do
Speaker 1: research and begin to show that. For example, there's mounting
Speaker 1: research that shows that employers who focus on issues like
Speaker 1: equal pay and raising the minimum wage and workplace flexibility,
Speaker 1: paid leave, paid sick days, affordable childcare, a culture free
Speaker 1: from sexual harassment, that they have a more productive workforce,
Speaker 1: a more efficient workforce, a loyal er workforce, and the
Speaker 1: private sector more profitable, and the better we can make
Speaker 1: the business case for it. I think then it is
Speaker 1: enlightened self interest and people are willing to not as
Speaker 1: much like give you their power, but certainly share and
Speaker 1: appreciate the fundamental proposition that diversity is a strength. And
Speaker 1: if you go into it assuming diversity is a strength
Speaker 1: and that you will make better decisions as a CEO
Speaker 1: or a manager. If you're not simply being in an
Speaker 1: echo chamber with people with your own life experiences, then
Speaker 1: you realize it's in your enlightened self interest to work
Speaker 1: at achieving the diversity that you need in your workplace. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you said that so well. Um, in fact,
Speaker 1: it's an evidence space case today and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: data to uphold what you just said. Uh, and that
Speaker 1: is it's a win win, it's a win for business,
Speaker 1: and it's a win for a better world. So thank
Speaker 1: you for saying that. Now, when you were in the
Speaker 1: White House, you did many wonderful things. Uh. They were
Speaker 1: tough times as always. Uh, it is having also been
Speaker 1: in the White House for eight years and a different administration.
Speaker 1: But it's not an easy job. And I thought one
Speaker 1: of the great things you did for the women and
Speaker 1: to teach a lesson to the guys, was amplification. What
Speaker 1: precipitated that and what did it result in. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you asked me that, because I think there was a
Speaker 1: Washington Post story about this. It probably gave us credit
Speaker 1: from being more deliberate than we were. But I think
Speaker 1: the way we did it was the best way. So
Speaker 1: I began to notice a few months in, and I'll
Speaker 1: take a step back to remind you when President Obama
Speaker 1: was elected, our economy was in a free fall. The
Speaker 1: banks were a big bank around the verge of collapse.
Speaker 1: Millions of people were losing their homes and their jobs,
Speaker 1: and we had two wars going on. There was a
Speaker 1: lot going on, let's just say that, and so tension
Speaker 1: was high. We were all new, none of us had
Speaker 1: worked together in that setting before, and we were, as
Speaker 1: we used to say, driving off seven forty seven at
Speaker 1: the same time as we were trying to put gas
Speaker 1: in the UH if you can imagine that. So I
Speaker 1: began to notice early on, not so much in meetings
Speaker 1: with President Obama, but in our senior staff meetings that
Speaker 1: the women's voices were shrinking, and it troubled me. And
Speaker 1: I knew how important it was to the President that
Speaker 1: he had this robust group of advisors with different expertises
Speaker 1: and life experiences, um weighing in on critical matters. And
Speaker 1: so I mentioned it to him and he said, well,
Speaker 1: that's not acceptable, and he's like, what's going on? I said,
Speaker 1: all the same things that always go on at a
Speaker 1: workplace where you have men and women, and uh, he said,
Speaker 1: but that's not the culture I want in this White House.
Speaker 1: And I realized that people come to each job with
Speaker 1: the experiences that they had before to bear and they
Speaker 1: couldn't read his mind and say it's going to be
Speaker 1: different here. And there were a lot of loud voices.
Speaker 1: Let's face it, um. And so he said, we let's
Speaker 1: have everybody over dinner. So he invited the senior women,
Speaker 1: about twelve of us over for dinner, and he asked
Speaker 1: each one of them to go around and explain what
Speaker 1: the issue was. And I had gone to each of
Speaker 1: them ahead of time, and I said, you better speak up,
Speaker 1: because if you go in there as you are wanting
Speaker 1: to do people are wanting to do. Yes, Mr President,
Speaker 1: everything is just fine. Then I will look stupid, and
Speaker 1: I don't really care to look stupid. So fortunately they
Speaker 1: were quite forthcoming, and he listened so closely. And it
Speaker 1: was the same day as if Ford could um massacre,
Speaker 1: and so terrible to have this kind of a crisis
Speaker 1: on our own military basin. President had been in the
Speaker 1: situation room all day and some of the women thought, well,
Speaker 1: he probably won't come, and I said, no, he'll come
Speaker 1: because this as important to him. So what I remember
Speaker 1: most is it at the end he said, look, this
Speaker 1: is a white house. I know it's tense. I know
Speaker 1: we have a lot going on, but you're here for
Speaker 1: a reason. You're here because I need your voices. So
Speaker 1: don't go in there and fight for yourself and let
Speaker 1: your own pride and ego hold you back. If you don't,
Speaker 1: if you get re buffed, fight for your ideas, because
Speaker 1: I'll make a better decision with the benefit of those ideas. Right.
Speaker 1: How empowering was that you tell a group of women
Speaker 1: that they need to go in there and fight because
Speaker 1: that's what the leader of the free world has asked
Speaker 1: you to do. It was amazing. So at the end
Speaker 1: of the dinner, he goes, look, culture takes a minute.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna work on this, but I want you to
Speaker 1: come back to me if you don't think we're making progress,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna get this right. And so then I
Speaker 1: started inviting the women to dinner, and we had our
Speaker 1: own dinners without him, and at the end of the
Speaker 1: each dinner, I would say, um, do we need to
Speaker 1: have another dinner with the president? They go, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're We're good. And the reason we were good is
Speaker 1: that we got to know each other. We told our stories,
Speaker 1: our children, our parents, our life dreams, where we've been before,
Speaker 1: and we developed a relationship with one another. When you
Speaker 1: go into a meeting and you see somebody around the
Speaker 1: table who you just had dinner with the like the
Speaker 1: night before, and they know you, you are much more
Speaker 1: confident about speaking up right. And people thought we orchestrated
Speaker 1: this to like wellify each other's voices, but it actually
Speaker 1: happened quite organically because we cared about each other. And
Speaker 1: if somebody's hanging out there on a sentence and nobody's listening,
Speaker 1: and you care about that person, you'll say to the
Speaker 1: room and wait a minute, what about what Melancha said,
Speaker 1: and I think, so there is safety in numbers, but
Speaker 1: there's also safety and relationships. And it can't just be
Speaker 1: the woman though that was really important. It has to
Speaker 1: be the men too. At the end of the first term,
Speaker 1: somebody said to President Obama, how do you compare how
Speaker 1: you started out to the end of your first term?
Speaker 1: And he said, at the beginning, I had the absolute
Speaker 1: best players on the field, because that's what we needed.
Speaker 1: He said, at the end of the first term, I
Speaker 1: had the best team. Wow. It's a great statement, right,
Speaker 1: and that takes a while to build. And I think
Speaker 1: what we have to do is be intentional about building
Speaker 1: it and not expect it just happened because you think
Speaker 1: it excellent. You know, I have so many questions and
Speaker 1: we have no time. Um, but you have the book,
Speaker 1: so you will find a lot of wisdom in that book.
Speaker 1: And I think this, UM, last statement that you made
Speaker 1: about using one's voice and UM, really saying what you
Speaker 1: need and you see needs to be done, is really
Speaker 1: very very good advice. Thank you for your leadership, Allan,
Speaker 1: Thank you everyone who's here. You're a coalition of the
Speaker 1: winning and we appreciate it. Thank you. I love that
Speaker 1: a coalition of the winning. Stay tuned for our takeaways
Speaker 1: after this break. If you enjoyed that conversation, make sure
Speaker 1: to check out Valerie's book, Finding My Voice, My Journey
Speaker 1: to the West Wing, and The Path Forward. Now. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of important takeaways from that discussion that
Speaker 1: can be applied to any workplace or project. First, get
Speaker 1: to know your network. Valerie advises that it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to manage and work with people that you know
Speaker 1: and trust. A trusted network can build an individual's confidence
Speaker 1: and create a strong and product of team. Second, change
Speaker 1: takes time and partnerships are critical. Sometimes you just need
Speaker 1: to think outside of the box on how to include
Speaker 1: unexpected allies. Lastly, aim to work in a culture where
Speaker 1: you can thrive and be your most authentic self. Successful
Speaker 1: careers are rarely linear and sometimes you just need to
Speaker 1: change course to find the right environment for you. Just
Speaker 1: think about a Valerie had never resigned from that first
Speaker 1: legal position. You're listening to Seneca Women Conversations on Power
Speaker 1: and Purpose, brought to you by the Seneca Women Podcast
Speaker 1: Network and I Heart Radio with support from founding partner
Speaker 1: p And Listen to Seneca Women Conversations on Power and
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Speaker 1: great day, h