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Speaker 1: Picture this. You've just finished an incredibly important presentation. It

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Speaker 1: was dense with crucial information and you absolutely nailed it.

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Speaker 1: But at the end one of your colleagues wants to

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Speaker 1: give you some feedback. You thrive on constructive criticism and

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Speaker 1: welcome the chance to learn. But all he says is

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Speaker 1: your outfit is too distracting. Your dress is so sparkly

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Speaker 1: it made it difficult to concentrate. Hm, how do you react?

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Speaker 1: I know I would be fuming to hear something so

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Speaker 1: overtly sexist and inappropriate, would send almost anyone into a

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Speaker 1: fit of rage or even despair. But not doctor Katrina Wallace,

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Speaker 1: a world renowned expert and entrepreneur in the field of

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Speaker 1: ethical AI. When this happened to her, and yes, this

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Speaker 1: actually happened, she had spent enough time I'm navigating male

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Speaker 1: dominated businesses and boardrooms to know that outrage wasn't the answer.

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Speaker 1: It might have been reasonable, but it wouldn't have been productive. Instead,

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Speaker 1: kat chows empathy. But how did she manage to achieve

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Speaker 1: this with emotions running so high. My name is doctor

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Speaker 1: amanthe Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of

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Speaker 1: Behavioral Science Consultancy inventium and this is how I work

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Speaker 1: a show about how to help you do your best work.

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Speaker 1: On today's My Favorite Tip episode, we go back to

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Speaker 1: an interview from the past and I pick up my

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Speaker 1: favorite tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak

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Speaker 1: with Katrina about how she avoids just getting defensive when

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Speaker 1: met with blatant sexism and responding in a different and

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Speaker 1: more productive way.

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Speaker 2: So there was a time when I was doing a

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Speaker 2: presentation to a whole bunch of investors and one of

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Speaker 2: the investors came up to me afterwards, and an older

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Speaker 2: man who said to me, look, I've got some criticism

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Speaker 2: about your presentation. And I said, oh, okay, sure, happy

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Speaker 2: to hear it again. You know, it's the numbers not

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Speaker 2: quite right, or I'm missing anything. And he said, the

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Speaker 2: dress that you're wearing, it's too sparkly, and my attention

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Speaker 2: was on the dress and I couldn't focus on your presentation,

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Speaker 2: and it was like gold smacked obviously, but it was like, ah,

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Speaker 2: I see, okay, And so then it's just like, oh,

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Speaker 2: so I hear that perhaps you were distracted because of

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Speaker 2: the dress that I'm wearing and you weren't able to

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Speaker 2: focus on the presentation and the incredible amount of financial

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Speaker 2: details that I provided in that presentation, is that what

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Speaker 2: you're missing? And he said, yes, that's right. And so

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Speaker 2: instead of like then ridiculing him because obviously it's the

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Speaker 2: most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, I just said and

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Speaker 2: there were people standing around me watching, like how is

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Speaker 2: she going to handle this? And I was just very

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Speaker 2: kind and said, I hear that you weren't able to concentrate,

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Speaker 2: and that's a shame because there was really rich stuff

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Speaker 2: in the presentation. So what I'll do. I will email

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Speaker 2: you through that presentation and there you won't have me

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Speaker 2: in the sparkly dress to distract you, so you could

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Speaker 2: just focus on the numbers in the presentation. How would

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Speaker 2: that sound? And he said, oh, that would be very good,

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Speaker 2: and I said that's great. We'll make sure that happens.

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Speaker 2: And so for me, instead of going, oh, you idiot, like,

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Speaker 2: well would you say something like that, it's very much like,

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Speaker 2: obviously this is a person that has absolutely no awareness

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Speaker 2: that what he said was entirely sexist and inappropriate. But

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Speaker 2: for me, I believe I needed to assist him in

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Speaker 2: understanding how to kind of handle things rather than dismiss

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Speaker 2: him or be rude or anything else. And I do

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Speaker 2: have other younger women who are always with me, because

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Speaker 2: wherever I go take women with me. And I was

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Speaker 2: also just watching them kind of watch me handle these

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Speaker 2: situations should I have time and time again, So I've

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Speaker 2: learned to actually just be very empathetic. I believe my

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Speaker 2: role as a woman leader is also to assist those

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Speaker 2: who struggle with women leaders understand how to interact with us,

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Speaker 2: rather than dismissing them and being angry with them and

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Speaker 2: marginalizing them.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what a story.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't always like that much.

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Speaker 1: Were there any sort of like key moments that you

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Speaker 1: look back on and think that that changed me in

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Speaker 1: terms of how I think about responding to these ridiculous comments.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So I had another really intense situation with one

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Speaker 2: of the investors who had put a lot of money

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Speaker 2: in the business, and it was at a time in

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Speaker 2: the business the share price had dropped and so he

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Speaker 2: on paper he'd lost a lot of money. He was

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Speaker 2: very angry. He came and he wanted up meeting with

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Speaker 2: the board directors. So he came in and we sat down,

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Speaker 2: and he was fuming. He was furious, and he is

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Speaker 2: aiming all his quite vile anger and fury towards me

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Speaker 2: and was saying things like you should be sacked. I'm paying,

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Speaker 2: and I pay for your children, and I pay for

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Speaker 2: your standard of living. In all of this, it was

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Speaker 2: just horrendous. And all the board members were just like,

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Speaker 2: which are all male other than me, We're just like,

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Speaker 2: what do we do? And then they were trying to

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Speaker 2: be aggressive to him, and it wasn't what he was

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Speaker 2: just making him more aggressive. And I realized, like I realized, man,

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Speaker 2: he is just in pain because he has lost money.

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Speaker 2: And I'm the CEO. It's my responsibility. So I'm just

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Speaker 2: going to own this shit right here, and I'm actually

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Speaker 2: going to say how sorry I am. And so I

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Speaker 2: got a bit emotional and I said that to the guy.

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Speaker 2: I said, look, I'm really sorry. I hear that you're

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Speaker 2: in a huge amount of pain because you've lost money

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Speaker 2: in this investment and that's really really bad and it

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Speaker 2: must be causing you all sorts of grief at home.

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Speaker 2: And I'm the CEO. I'm responsible for that, and so

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Speaker 2: I just want to say to you that I'm incredibly,

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Speaker 2: incredibly sorry for the pain that my leadership has caused

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Speaker 2: you anyway. All the other directors going don't say, they

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Speaker 2: don't do it. And I just hailed him, and I

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Speaker 2: was like at a few tears in my eyes, and

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Speaker 2: he immediately softened, and he immediately softened, and he was

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Speaker 2: then emotional, and he walked around the table, came over

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Speaker 2: and just gave me a big hug and said that's

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Speaker 2: all I wanted to hear. I went, oh, my god, Okay, great, great,

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Speaker 2: and then I walked him, you know, downstairs and out

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Speaker 2: the door. And when I came back, my chairman, who

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Speaker 2: was a very experienced chairman, he said, I've never seen

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Speaker 2: anything like that in my life, never seen anything like that.

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Speaker 2: And I said, boll that was my genuine truth. I'm

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Speaker 2: genuinely sorry that he was in so much pain and

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Speaker 2: his anger is coming from a place of loss, and

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Speaker 2: I'm responsible for that. So I'll own that. And so

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Speaker 2: that was a really profound moment for me to realize

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Speaker 2: to not just do all the corporate the way we're trained,

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Speaker 2: which is much more a masculine way, which is don't

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Speaker 2: admit anything, never be sorry, never show weakness, never be emotional.

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Speaker 2: And I dropped all that because that would never work

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Speaker 2: and just was my genuine self and I was genuinely

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Speaker 2: sorry that he was in pain. Genuinely sorry for all

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Speaker 2: investors that lost money in any adventure that I've been in.

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Speaker 2: Also very happy for the ones who've made money, don't

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Speaker 2: much I've been in, but for the ones who've lost money,

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Speaker 2: you know, I really feel that I take that as

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Speaker 2: a personal a personal thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you enjoyed this my favorite tip episode. If you

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Speaker 1: are keen to listen to the whole interview that I

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Speaker 1: did with Katrina, you can find the link to that

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Speaker 1: in the show notes. If you're looking for more tips

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Speaker 1: to improve the way that you work, I write a

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Speaker 1: short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've

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Speaker 1: discovered that helped me work better, ranging from software and

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Speaker 1: gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting research findings. You

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Speaker 1: can sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. That's

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Speaker 1: how I Work dot co. How I Work is produced

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Speaker 1: by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios. And

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Speaker 1: thank you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio mix

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Speaker 1: for every episode and makes everything sound so much better

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Speaker 1: than it would have otherwise. See you next time.