Getting Ahead for Competence Not Confidence with Suzanne Doyle-Morris

Are you ready to create riches in your work and life? It's time for Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches in life you deserve. So let's welcome your ball of fire host, Bernadette Boas.

Good day, good day, good day everyone, and welcome to another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV. And I'm so excited about this subject. It's kind of one that's dear to my heart, but yet has such a unique spin on it. So we're going to be talking about getting ahead for confidence in a world obsessed with confidence. So if you've ever kind of questioned whether or not, um, or why you're so skilled but not getting promoted, you're so capable and yet people aren't recognizing it, then this is definitely, definitely the episode for you. And we're gonna get all into it with our guest in just a second. But before we do that, I wanna definitely thank our new and ongoing viewers and listeners. You are tweeting, Facebooking, you're sharing, you're leaving comments, ratings, you're subscribing, and you're actually giving me suggestions as to the topics and the experts you want to hear about. So continue doing that because that is providing great visibility and a number of ears and eyes growing on a daily basis to Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV. And we're so, so grateful, grateful, grateful. I also need to thank our ongoing sponsor, NG Tax Solutions. Debbie Snelling and her team are a full-service financial and tax services company that services small to corporate-sized clients all over the country, as well as works with your personal and business needs. So if you need any financial and tax services support, then please reach out to her team at ngtaxsolutions.com. Now, one closer to my heart and to Atlanta, Georgia specifically is another sponsor, Up Top Roofing of Atlanta. Jay came to me about 6 months ago and has been part of the community for the last 4 or 5 years and loved what we're doing and said, I need to figure out how to support you. So though he is right here in Atlanta, Georgia, and all over the, the state, um, if you have any home services or roofing needs, please reach out to Jay and his team. You can reach him at up-toproofingofatl@yahoo.com. All right, so let's get into this subject and Listen for your rich question that I'll give you after we discuss what we're going to be talking about today. So we are talking about, like I said, getting ahead for confidence instead of what the world's obsessed with, and that's confidence. You're skilled, but you do feel overlooked at work. If you've ever felt passed over or that you need to put on a show— have you ever felt that way? You need to put on a show in order to get ahead. Then definitely listen up. Not progressing is too often blamed on lack of confidence, but this hoax misses genuine capability. This means we fail to get the right people into the right jobs. Let's redefine confidence today and to make it less about doing a song and dance and more about who actually knows their stuff. So this is, you know, so it's not with gimmicks. But by getting credit for your valuable skills and hard-earned insights, your confidence. So what we're going to discuss specifically is how to capitalize on what you're doing well to silence the imposter. And we had a recent discussion about imposter syndrome, but this is a whole different slant on using your skill and capability. Convince others to value your hard-earned earned experience and redefine confidence so it doesn't continue to advantage the status quo. So what's your rich question for today? I really want you to be thinking about this. We often talk about the negative. I want you to be thinking about what skills, capabilities, experience, and competence do you have that you need to be honoring more so you're then recognizing and rewarded for it? OK, so what are those skills and competence and experiences that you do have that you should be recognized and rewarded much more than what you are today. Alright, be thinking about that as I introduce our guest. So Dr. Suzanne Doyle Morris is the author of The Con Job: Getting Head for Confidence in a World Obsessed with Confidence. She is focused on helping professional women get the roles they want and the recognition they deserve. She has helped women move into senior roles at over 50 organizations in the UK, Europe, and the US, mainly in STEM, legal, and financial services. Her PhD from the University of Cambridge looked at the experiences of women in male-dominated fields. Over the last 25 years, Doyle Morris has helped organizations improve their gender balance, particularly at the senior level. In that time, she has also written two other books, Beyond the Boys Club: Achieving Career Success as a Woman Working in a Male-Dominated Field, and Female Breadwinners: How They Make Relationships Work and Why They Are the Future of the Modern Workplace. They're both available on Amazon. She shares the best tips from the stellar careers of her clients on her YouTube channel and her latest book, which is The Con Job: Getting Ahead for Competence in a World Obsessed with Confidence. It was published in summer of 2020, and you can also check that out over at Amazon. So welcome our guest, Suzanne. How are you?

I am fantastic. And I gotta tell you, with that intro, I'm thinking, oh, I'd love to hear that lady. Like, what is she gonna say? I hope it's gonna be good. So let's see what that's gonna be.

It is always going to be good. I mean, one, I love, love, love the subject. And I'm so impressed— talk about honoring your riches is what we call them here— I'm so impressed that your doctorate focused on this subject of women in male-dominated fields, so forth and so on. We need you. We need you, Suzanne. We the women of the world, we need you. But help us understand kind of who you are as a person, as a woman, as someone who, you know, has been so influential in this space. And then how did you get into it? Like, why was this the subject that you were gonna kind of hang your hat on?

Yeah, so who I am as an individual is I'm an American raised, but has lived in the UK for the last 25 years. I literally came to the UK and thought I'd stay for for a year or two, 25 years ago. Two months, two weeks after I graduated my undergraduate. But I, you know, decided to stay because I really loved it. I was lucky enough to, I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but my really cute guy actually that I was somewhat dating, he said, you should stay. And I said, well, my visa is going to run out soon. And he said, Well, why don't you apply to do your graduate work here? And I said, well, I don't— you know, there's really only a couple of universities that most Americans, because that's where I'm going to make my career, they have heard of. And I probably won't get into those. And he says, why don't you just try? And I tell you, Bernadette, it was free to apply, which was really interesting. I was like, oh, it's free? Because as you know, in the States, it costs a lot.

Every application you send out costs a million.

Yeah, it's amazing. So all I needed was an essay and obviously all the grades from BFOR, and I got in, which I was like, wow, okay, Cambridge will take me. Well, then that is great.

Of all places too.

Yeah, yeah. So that's what, what kept me here, and the cute guy who has now been a great husband for the last 17 years. But so that's who I am as an individual. Um, but why I got into this topic, uh, or and more specifically started writing for women who work in very male-dominated fields. My PhD, as you said, focused on it, but I only started writing on it a couple years after finishing my PhD. And I would like, potentially like you, maybe some of your listeners, I would listen to great speakers talking about leadership and I would read their books. And I would sometimes ask these guys, "Book was really interesting, but I didn't notice many stories about any women. Did you interview any women for your book?" And let's go back 15 years, but I'm not sure it's that much better now. And they would say— and I remember one in particular saying to me, "Oh, women? No, no. As you can tell, I focus on leaders." Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. I was like, OK, in his mind, female— being a woman and being a leader were mutually exclusive. And I thought, you know what? I work with some damn-ass wonderful women, hugely impressive women. And I just thought, he's missing a trick if he doesn't tell their stories and how they— yeah, how they not just survive, but how they thrive in fields that were never really set up for them and still aren't set up for them. That's why I started writing.

Good for you. Good. And we need more, we need more of you, but we'll take you to really kind of— that's all I got, that's all I got to put that out there because it's, it's still such a disjustice. It's so unfair that we still are struggling with this. Oh yeah. Um, and, and let me ask you a question though. Obviously there's some uniqueness when it comes to male-dominated fields, and you know, in your intro talks about STEM and a couple of other industries. Yeah, but at the same time, do you see it even in those industries that aren't— that maybe be a good blend of male and female? Is there still this challenge for women to be seen differently for their skill set? And for their capability.

I think that what was interesting to me is when I first started, because my PhD looked at women engineers, and I remember thinking, okay, that's who I would work with. But when I would give presentations and I'd go and I'd coach, what was interesting is I'd get inquiries from other organizations that were not at all what I thought of being male-dominated.

Right.

Like, let's say, law firms. Because you and I, Bernadette, know actually women have been beating men at law, graduate fields in law, right? For like over a decade we have been crundling out women law graduates. And yet look at most firms and they are really struggling to get women to, if not partnership level, which most of them still are, but to definitely equity partnerships. So I think there's something really— that surprised me because I just thought it's that. And I also, you know, I got inquiries from FMCG firms, you know, fast-moving consumer goods. And that was a surprise to me because I was like, well, who's buying all these fast-moving consumer goods, right? How can those fields be full of men? So the, the way that I look at most of the work that I do is that because I'm working with leaders just like you are, um, what you find is that there's a triangle. Right? So a lot of the worker bees, the competent people, are often women, but not just women, but anybody from underrepresented backgrounds.

Right, right.

I talk about that in my most recent book, "The Khan Job," which was looking at the status quo. Because the status quo where I sit in the organizations where I work, well, the status quo tend to be white, heterosexual male, able-bodied, extroverted, native English speaker. And if you're not one of that, like you don't fit in that, then you have a bit more of a difficult time to get ahead or be valued. I mean, I'll tell you, I had a coaching session just 2 days ago where a woman was, she works for a tech firm and she said, yeah, I just could get, you know, I think I need to do another course for my tech. I mean, I get lots of people saying, oh, you're good at a lot of the people I have a lot of technical skills, but the firm doesn't really value people skills. And I said, really? I said, you know, that's really sad. She goes, because it is. She said people don't value it because we're mostly men, and so they think it's enough to be technical. But you and I, Bernadette, know that it is not enough to be technical.

Right, right.

Nobody wants to work with the guy who's always right, but can't get on with anyone else.

Correct, correct.

So, and I'm sure there's people who are listening who are kind of like, I'm feeling you, I've been there myself.

Absolutely. So, so what do women do? And we will talk those that are in the male-dominated, um, fields, because I came from, I came from retail initially, and then I came, I went into, um, technology, um, and consulting technology. And then when I started hitting executive levels, of course I was typically the only woman at the table, so to speak. So what can women do to— whether they're at the beginning of their, you know, their careers or middle or kind of working their way up— what can they do to really be effective? And like you said, you know, not have to use all the fake, you know, smile and the fake, you know, show, but that they are recognized for just the wonders that they possess and the skill that they have.

Okay, so I will answer that question, but I want to pick up on something you just said a minute ago about working in technology, um, because what I see, and certainly the labor statistics show the same, is there's a lot more people who are accidental technology workers now. There's not a single field that has not turned into a technology service. So what's interesting, the fields that are growing, the companies that are growing, right, their services online. Oh, okay.

Yeah, okay.

Really interesting is that you said, oh, and I was in technology. I don't think there's going to be anybody on this, on this listening today who is probably not going to be butting up against that. Yes, that's a good point. Forward. Um, and And that's definitely where I was as well. So I just wanted to say, people, like, for me, that's a real realization that I think we all need to have about this, you know, the field that we're in. So in any case, what I wanted to say— I'll go back to the answer that you really wanted. That's okay.

No, that explanation was good because you're right. You know, the last couple years has changed the makeup of what organizations are right now. So no, I'm glad you pointed that out.

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean, let's be honest, had you heard of the phrase? I certainly hadn't. Maybe 5 years ago, fintech.

Right.

But everybody needs to get on board. I work with lots of lawyers who are now doing the same, and I just think this is, this is where we're headed.

Yeah.

So let's go back to what you can do. So the first book I wrote was about what the women that I worked with were really impressive, what they were doing to get noticed. And I think there was a range of things. A lot of it was something about sponsorship. So let me be really clear, that is not mentorship. That's not just having a mentor who's going to pat you on the head and say, "Good job, Bernadette." Mm, you need to get somebody who's going to, who you can say, "Okay, Bill, I'm glad you think that's great. What can you do based on what I just delivered? How can you help me make the most of that?" Right. That makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So it's much more active on, on the person, the person who's giving the credit, making sure that that credit is worth something that's more tangible. So the sponsorship is important, but I think the reason I wrote it is because when you're in a male-dominated field as a woman, you have to do something that is historically deeply uncomfortable for women, which is that you have to draw attention to how great you are. And you know, that is just so deeply uncomfortable for my clients because, you know, the girl who walks around telling people how great she is, well, she doesn't have friends for very long, you know. And we raise our girls to be— I mean, I don't know about you, but, you know, be humble, you know, be good, smile, you know. I mean, this is the crazy thing. I'm sure you've seen research that talks about how many women will go, will get in a car of someone who they don't know just to be, play nice, to go along with, say, "Oh, I've lost this dog, I'm looking for this child." Like, that's how people grab us. I mean, I'm getting a little off topic, but really, right, right, we are raised to be amenable.

Oh, that's a good— that I was going to say a different word, which is probably too drastic, but amenable. I like that.

What was your word? I want to hear that.

Submissive.

Yeah, yeah, I would say the same. We are, we are. So, so then you put these women in these fields where this big swinging dick, like that kind of guy, right? And you're like, what? That does not sit well with me. And the reason I wrote the third book was because I thought, well, it shouldn't sit well with you. And it also shouldn't sit well with employers because his self-promotion is not really serving anyone because we all kind of work in teams. So talking about how great you are and being confident is not necessarily really of use to an organization as much as being competent. That is skills. I don't know how many women are afraid— and you'll have to tell me because actually sometimes I don't know if this is a phrase that I only learned in Britain because I really only worked as an adult in Britain for the most part— that phrase "safe pair of hands." Have you heard that phrase? No. So maybe that's a British term, and what that means is the person is very confident competent. So this person that you would give any work to, that they're a safe pair of hands and they will get on and do it. And the thing is, here in Britain certainly, but I know in America as well because I have coached lots of women and worked with organizations there, women are often— a safe pair of hands is also what you might recognize as a workhorse.

Yes, yeah, well, yes, yes, yes, yeah, that is definitely US.

Exactly, exactly. Here I am translating the way that we talk about these for both audiences.

That's okay, that's okay.

It's funny because it really is deeply unsexy, and when I mean sexy, I mean that it's not like something to get excited about, but actually I think, you know what, employers, that should be what you should be excited about because if they can do things, they reduce your risk, they make sure everybody gets along, if they can deliver for you, like That is worth getting excited about. So why do we get so excited about the person who says, "Yes, I can handle it," when research shows— I mean, you probably are aware of that research, which is pretty dismaying, which shows that women are more likely to be put in C-suite positions only after a man has failed in the position. Lovely. But if a man has gone, if their predecessor has done really well and is a guy, he's more likely to be replaced with another man. That gives us the term, which I'm sure you probably have heard, which is called glass cliff.

Yes, yes, yes, right.

So we've messed up here. That John did not work out. I guess we're gonna try something crazy, so let's hire her, right?

Right?

She can go and fix it. Does that make sense?

It does, it does, it's— it does make sense to the point where it hurts. Yeah, it does, it just hurts. So what do they do? Like, what does a woman do? Okay, well, you, you were saying they have to be willing to, you know, kind of what I call honor their riches. They have to be— they have to be willing to kind of be boastful.

Exactly, so they have to, I think for me and the audiences that I work with, certainly the individual clients, I help them straddle this kind of sense of I want them to maintain authenticity, but I also want them to get more comfortable with, as you just said, owning their riches.

Right.

So I work a lot with, you know, help them think through, okay, how do I get noticed for this work more? Because you know what, my boss isn't a mind reader, And sometimes if I don't make a big of a stink, he'll think I'm happy in this position. Or maybe worse, he's hoping to keep me in this position because I'm serving him, right? And I don't want— he doesn't want to promote me because I'm helping do his job.

And that happens more often than not. And, and a lot of the women— do you come across a lot of women are kind of naive to that idea, you know, that they don't recognize it? And if they recognize it, they don't want to admit it because then they don't want to then get uncomfortable having to, you know, go around that in order to get an advancement or a new position or whatnot.

Yeah, I think that— I don't know if they're naive to it, might be a strong word. I think that they believe, as we all do, right, that if I do a hard— and this is the great American dream, right? If you work hard enough, "Work hard, you will succeed." But that removes context and how the intersectional identities all of us carry actually do play a part in who's getting ahead and who's not. And that's a trickier bit to look at, but it happens all the time in organizations because certain people are really praised for getting ahead for those kinds of behaviors. Same guys that we call as being, you know, taking no prisoners, shooting from the hip, all of that kind of thing. When women do that, you know, we label them so like, you know, just as being feisty or strident or overbearing or emotional. And when Latinx people do it, we describe them as being fiery or spicy. When African American people do it, we describe them as being, you know, angry or difficult when they're using the same behaviors. So I think what's interesting is the work I do with my clients is helping them think, okay, how can you get recognized? And so they start to, we start to brainstorm much more. So it's everything from speaking more readily. And I don't, and I mean in meetings, right? Like branding yourself a little bit further. And I hate the idea of branding because I'm not trying to like get people to be like, oh, I'm going to be an influencer.

Right, right, right.

Because I think that's really hard to do, but What I would say is most of them I work with are technically very skilled. So I'm like, okay, what industry publications are there? What conferences are there? How can you— what conference did you go to last? And they'll say, well, I went to this one, you know, Association for Project Managers. I say, well, write to the organizers and say you really enjoyed the last one, but you're interested in— have they thought about doing an event on this, you know, a single event within the next conference? On your topic.

Right.

If they do, you would love to be a speaker.

Right.

Or tell them about a project that you just delivered that was fantastic and had all these great challenges around project management.

Yep.

And that you can talk through the audience what the challenges were and how you saved the day or whatever. Yeah. Not literally with those words. And then you will say, okay, well, what are the industry publications that you read? And I think this, you know, even you and I doing this as a podcast, There's thousands of podcasts, and you can really look out for podcasts that are in your specialism area, right? And say, hey Bernadette, I do some interesting stuff, would you be interested in having me on as a guest?

Now, do you find, Suzanne, do you find especially corporate women— because that's pretty much what we're talking about, even though there's a lot of female entrepreneurs, you know, building significant businesses, even if they're you know, building a new business, and they should be doing these, these same things. But do you find— what percentage of the corporate women that you work with have even awareness that they could be going out and doing these things? Because I know when I was in corporate, I was so tunnel visioned and just getting the job done. Now granted, podcasts really have stood out more than anything over the last like 20 years as something that anybody and everybody's doing. So that could be skewing it quite a bit. But do you, do you find that the women that you work with or even are potential clients to work with, that they're aware of these opportunities that they have to put their name out there?

I think sometimes, and that goes back to a topic you mentioned in your introduction around imposter syndrome, sometimes they think, oh, Well, would they want to hear from me? And I say, you know what, they're interested in hearing a range of perspectives. You've been doing some really interesting work, and it's not about saying, hey, look at me, world. It's about showing the success of the clients you worked with or the projects or whatever it is. So you are by default talking them through that and giving them value based on the stories you're telling, but it's not that you're saying, hey, look at me, I'm amazing. And I think so there is some uncertain— you know, there's certainly They're certainly new to it. And I'll tell you a funny story. When I wrote the book, one of the first, the first book, one of the women I was working with, she was a consultant for, I think it was PwC at the time. And she was fairly, fairly, fairly junior. She was late 20s, early 30s. And she called me and she was like, oh, I got this big project. It's the biggest one I've ever got. And, you know, it was £120,000 worth. And I said, Fantastic. Then the next session she told me about in the internal publication that the organization put out that she saw that Toby, who was somebody she'd started the program with, he had a recognition in the internal newsletter for a project that he landed that was worth £80,000. And so she was really surprised by that and she said, "How? Why is that happening?" And I said, and, and And what was interesting is we talked her through, and she was laboring under the false assumption that there was like some kind of investigative journalism team in the community looking out for interesting stories. And when she— and because she said, she was— when I went to Toby to congratulate him, and I said, how did they find out about that? He says, well, I just told them.

Right, right. Sometimes it's the simplest thing.

It really is so simple. And I think this is a great opportunity, a great time for women in that there are so many more organizations that are starting to be aware, whether they're doing enough, I would— I'm not 100% sure— aware that they can't keep rolling out expert sessions with a whole bunch of white men anymore.

Right.

Right.

That's no longer— so put your name forward, right? And don't give yourself a hard time about, oh, I only got picked for this. Own that, you know, just be like, you know what, I've been picked, I'm going to give them the best presentation I can, and I'll take it from there. Because every time you do it, your confidence grows.

Absolutely, absolutely. And like you said, and then you're advanced or you're hired or whatever the case might be, because of your competence and not just because of your confidence. It's, you know, both of them start coming together. And yeah, confidence and competence together is like, whoa. Yeah. If you don't have the confidence, then use your confidence is what you're saying.

Completely. Because that is what— and the thing is that I like about that-based approach is that if you hold on to, well, I've done interesting things, and that gives you a really nice foundation That kind of confidence is unshakable because it's based on evidence. And the women I work with, they like evidence, right? So they're smart women. I'm like, okay, so what does your feedback say? Your, you know, your appraisal, what is that? And they're like, well, so a frequent conversation I'll have with a client is they'll say, I don't know if anybody's gonna, like, I don't know if I should say this or that people might think I'm being dumb. And I said, so tell me what happened the last time that you were making a dumb comment. That must have been tough. And they start laughing, and I said, what are you laughing about? And because I know— and they say, well, no one's really said that, right? I said, really? Okay, so the evidence suggests nobody's even said anything. So tell me, so what kind of feedback do you get? And they'll say, well, it's mostly favorable. And I'll say— and this is an interesting thing also, to go back to the feedback, because feedback for women often is better than they will own because we tend to, we tend to get really worked up about the 2% of negative feedback we got.

And we're like, versus the 98%, right?

Rather than the 98% of positive feedback. And the funny thing is, even when that happens, I'm like, okay, well, let's— so people say seek feedback, and I definitely say that as well. But I think for many women, particularly in male-dominated fields, I don't say listen to all of it. And why I say that is because sometimes, and research shows this— okay, here's some interesting research that I've talked about in the most recent book. Women get routinely very high when looking at 360 assessments. They get higher 360 feedback from their bosses and from people below them, but male peers do not give them as high. And what's interesting is that that denotes the fact that a lot of these men will find themselves thinking of these women as competitors. So I will like to think that she's not nearly as good, right? And I want to bring her down. So sometimes I will say, okay, well, who gave you that 2%? And they'll say, if you can tell, and these people, so it's anonymous, but you know as well as I do, a lot of people like, but I reckon it was Toby.

Oh, sure. They, yeah, they can read into their assessments.

Absolutely. And I say, okay, well, if it was Toby, or if you suspect it was Toby, let's just work on the assumption that it was Toby. But if it was, is Toby really someone that you want to change who you are for?

Right.

And they will always say, no, he's a complete idiot.

Exactly, exactly. Oh my God, you're so right.

Oh my God.

Like, okay, so let's own her because I'm not trying to change you. Like, let's own that woman who knows that she's an idiot and that 98% of people think she's amazing.

Yeah, yes. Okay, so, so say, say I am a woman And say it is in a male dominated—

you know what, let's say you are. I would agree, Bernadette. You definitely are.

I just caught myself. I just caught myself. OK, so I'm a, I'm a woman in a male dominated, in a male dominated field. Yeah, I'm sitting in a meeting. I'm not really comfortable, like, you know, speaking up and whatnot. What can I do? What can I do to kind of get noticed in meetings? And another thing too. To ensure that my idea is heard and not necessarily taken? And when it is taken, because that often happens, how do I confidently or confidently take it back so I'm recognized as the contributor, the, you know, the confident one? What can I do?

Okay, two points to what you just said. I want to share some research because again, I'm a bit of a nerd. I do like my research. What's really interesting is women, they— lots of linguistic researchers have looked at this— women talk on average a lot shorter, for shorter pieces within meetings, than men do. However, when you ask men afterwards, men remember women as talking a lot more than they did.

Yeah.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, which is interesting. So I'm saying own all your damn time. Take all the time that you need, lady, because Toby certainly is. He's taken more time. Sometimes he's just talking to hear himself talk. But what's interesting, to the point about stealing credit, when you see that happen, and it happens for all of my clients, I say, you know what, just go back to look around and see if you've got any allies at the table. Give them a bit of a look, or, you know, quizzical look, like, hmm, did you just see that? But if they don't, if nobody says anything, bring it up and say, "I really liked how Toby just built on my idea from a couple minutes ago. Toby, would you want to talk about that later? We can take it further." Because what you're doing in that moment is two important things. One, you are showing the rest of the team that you're not going to take it personally.

Right.

You're a kind lady, you know, you're easygoing, you're not taking it personally, you're collaborative. Which is what everybody expects from women anyway, right? But the second thing you're doing is you are showing Toby, I saw you do that. I saw you. You know what? You're not getting away. Like, I'm seeing you take my idea, right? So you're not letting him off the hook, right? Um, so just say, oh well, you know, when Toby mentioned it, or— and even when you're concerned, if you're outside or thinking, but I think converse of that is also give others credit for their ideas. And when you hear an idea, just say, "I really like Toby's idea. That was, that's really great. It makes me think we should do X," or whatever it is.

Right.

Give credit because then it's also people will ethically maybe feel a little bit less, less concerned, or not less less likely to take your ideas. But it does happen. And in fact, let's go back to the research. Unfortunately, it happens the most for African American women.

We'll get it done.

So we are— and though we need to listen to African American women.

Yes.

So much more than we are in the workplace because research I've looked at for ConJob was interesting. They were the most ambitious. Groups of, of people, even outside of all men. Like, I just thought we need to be, you know, honoring what they can bring, right? Their riches, as you just said yourself, right?

Right. Love that. I absolutely love that. Okay, so one thing that I mentioned during the intro, um, of what we were going to talk about— one is also when there's these difficult conversations and there's these challenging, you know, maybe debates, or I don't want to call them arguments, but at the workplace, how, how can a woman, you know, kind of confront those, be upfront about them without coming off as stereotypical? Oh, she's, you know, emotional, or she's, you know, attacking or overly aggressive. How should one get into kind of that type of conversation appropriately, effectively?

Okay, so I think there's a couple things. One is when you're handling a counter, counter, counter argument or saying, hmm, there's a couple things you can do. Obviously you absorb it, you take it on and say kind of like a version of, I hear you, but what I'm going to say is better. So what you might do is, so when I wrote my book, um, and I did lots of articles around it, because I knew that people would say What is this woman talking about? Confidence is where it's at. That was what I knew people would say. I would write in all of my articles and all the times I was interviewed, I would say, you know what, for sure addressing confidence can seem like a superficial goal, but given how much it underpins who we reward and who gets ahead, then really we need to be— it's vital for us to unpick So, "I'm hearing you," is what I'm saying in that, but my point is more important. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yes. So, "I'm hearing you," acknowledge what it is that they're saying.

Acknowledge it, and then you kind of absorb it, then you swat it away by saying that the thing I'm saying is more important than that. Yeah, you know, it's something we need to address first because it has so many more implications than you're expecting from what you've just said. I think another thing, and this is going back to research again, that I really loved, is that they did a piece of research a few years ago where they gave male and female actors things to say in a kind of mock argument. And what was interesting is, and they were the same literal things, and they would ask, they would say, when a woman or a man, when a man or a woman said, you know what, I want to just share, you know, I want to share my intention, they didn't say this, but that's what they were really doing. When they would say, you know what, I see this, whatever it was, I see this as a matter of honesty and integrity, so it's really important for me to be clear about where I stand, and then going to make their argument. When they added those words, the ones I just said, which is, I see this as a matter of honesty and integrity, so it's important for me to be clear. What was interesting is it reduced the backlash against women by 20%. So the listener gave her more credit than they would have done. I mean, they gave more credit. They reduced the backlash against men as well by more. But what was interesting is that not saying that as your intention meant that people are like, who is she? You know, what are you talking about? So just kind of saying like, this is my intention, I'm owning it, and I want to be clear about where I stand on this issue. And that helps people kind of disarm themselves.

Yeah, disarm their defensiveness. I can see that.

I can just—

from when you said it, I can, you know, I kind of— my whole body relaxed.

Right, right. Yeah, it helped them. It helped people just hear them in a way that they weren't— because people talk often about, oh, women need to use their voice, they need to find their voice. I'm kind of like, well, women have voice, they've been using them for ages, we just need to listen.

Yeah, but isn't also what you're saying too, and, and that example that you provided I speak a lot on words matter. Oh, it was also the, the choice of words that you used and where you place them that also helped to be very effective in disarming anyone.

Yeah.

So do you also find that you do work in helping, you know, your female clients and/or even male, but also choose the appropriate words to be more effective and influential in their communication style?

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's key because you are more than right. Words matter hugely. I'll give you just a very small example around my second book, which was about female breadwinners. So I noticed many years ago— I love that.

I love that.

Yeah, that women were, women I work with were often the main earners for their family, but it was something they kept as a secret. Secret. And I thought, that's a bit weird, and so let's unpick what that's about. And that was what I wrote that book about. But here's the word difference that I think is really interesting, and there's some research around it as well, though I only found the research subsequently. The term breadwinner really denotes, oh, look at me, I'm the big, you know, I'll bring it, bring the money. It's not a a label most women will own. But a more recent addition to the kind of entomology of words, or entomology of labels, bread sharer is actually a really interesting way of thinking about the way men and women— and I'm talking, I'm very heteronormative in this example, right— the way people in a relationship share the earning. Because Bernadette, I'm sure I don't have to tell you or your listeners Most of us have had the ups and downs where maybe one person is earning more than the other.

Right, right.

And so the women I work with, they have a long history of being the main earner for their family. And that's what I found so interesting about them. But even using that term bread sharer has really opened up, like, just been really powerful for many of my clients to— Interesting. Yeah. And it's not a phrase we use in the English vernacular.

Right. No, no, not— well, you know, especially American English, let alone— let alone European English. Yeah, or English, you know, UK English. Yeah, that's fascinating. That is absolutely fascinating. OK, so what would you say would be the most important 3 things if you wanted to leave our listeners and viewers with something? What would those— what would 3 tips be for them to really leverage their competence? Get ahead with their competence and not worry so much about their confidence?

Okay, so for me, I, again, I'm a bit nerdy. I like to go back to the evidence. All my ladies like to work with evidence because they're all kind of STEM or professional services people. And so what I like, and this is very competency-based interview type advice, which is when you're telling stories about yourself and what you've achieved, Nobody gets very far with saying, I did this and I'm amazing on this. What you need to do is use the word when, and I really love it. And what I mean by that is when you're in conversation with people, say things like, well, when I was working on a project like this, what I noticed that could be useful for us was this thing. Or when I was talking to, you name a senior person that you were talking to, and sometimes that gives you more credibility in that moment. And then anything around when. So what you're doing when you're doing when is you're kind of saying, I have experience, I've been in this place before, and I have credibility to contribute to the discussion. And I say this because— here's some really damning research— is that there was a team that gave worked with— they put together teams that were male-dominated, so 4 men, 1 woman. And what they did in the prep— and they were going to do an exercise, I think it was a going to the moon exercise— and what they did is they gave the woman by herself more specific information that was going to help them achieve the goal of getting to the moon. What they didn't do— they didn't tell anybody that they had done that. And what was interesting is then watching people, nobody listened to the woman. And even when she said, "I know these things," or blah, blah, blah, nobody listened to her. What it only took, the only reason any of the men listened to her was when one of the researchers came into the room and said, "Oh, you might want to listen to Bernadette because she has a bit more information, a bit more experience, a bit more education than anybody else in this room." We shared with her. Right. What's interesting is nobody had to question that guy's credibility. Yes. It was enough that he spoke up for the woman that they ostensibly should have been working with before. And the reason this was so powerful for me is that most of my women are really well-educated and often sometimes leading teams, but they can't get the guys to listen to them.

Right, right.

So that's why I talk about the beginning, getting sponsorship, because you kind of need someone to make Listen to Bernadette. Yeah, she knows what she's talking about. Love it.

No, I love that. And I want to remind everyone of the, of the books that she has written because I, I think, you know, pick up a copy for yourself or your team of one or all of them. So the first was Beyond the Boys Club: Achieving Career Success as a Woman Working in a Male-Dominated Field. And the second one, which is fascinating, Female Breadwinners: How They Make Relationships Work and Why They Are the Future of the Modern Workplace. And of course, what we've been talking about today is her latest book, which is— I just lost it— is The Con Job: Getting Ahead for Competence in a World Obsessed with Confidence. Yeah, I am so— I am so happy that I came across you, that Deborah— actually, my team came across you with this subject matter, because I really do think it's very important and it's very vital to get the women to really step up, you know, and I'll use my words of honor their riches, but really focus on their confidence, um, as a, as the means of getting themselves ahead, uh, because we need more women in influential positions and the positions that they've earned and deserve, quite honestly.

Completely, completely. They have the riches, right? We just gotta make sure everybody knows about it, but that will start with them as individuals.

Yeah, you need to say that again. They need to—

they start to— they need to start with themselves by talking more about what they're doing, what they're achieving, getting it in the written word, you know, everything from industry publications all the way through to their internal newsletters, because that's what starts great conversations and people saying Bernadette, she certainly is doing a lot of interesting stuff. Absolutely.

No, you're right. I mean, yes, get out there, ladies, and actually find that sponsor, you know, step in and speak up, uh, choose your words. And, um, and if you want actually more information, obviously I've been sharing, um, her website, inclusiq.com. Very cool. That's I-N-C-L-U-S-I-Q. Inclusiq.com. Uh, this is— obviously we've been talking to Dr. Suzanne Doyle Morris. Um, at the same time, she has a free download for you, Get a Promotion in 7 Steps, and you can find that at her website inclusiq.com. Suzanne, this has been awesome. This has been absolutely awesome. I am so excited to, um, have my viewers and listeners reach out to you and learn more about what they could be doing to get ahead with their confidence.

Definitely. And I swear the next time I show up, I will remember that I was going to be recorded visually.

Oh no, no, don't even go there.

No, no, no, no.

I had no idea. Don't even go there. This has been fabulous. I'm so grateful that you were part of the program. Thank you so much.

No worries. No worries. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're so welcome.

You're so welcome. And for everyone within our Shedding the Bitch community, thank you for being part of the program this week, and we'll look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV. Take care, everybody. Bye.

Thank you for taking part in Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV with Bernadette Boas. We would love to know what your biggest takeaway was. Go to Shedding the Bitch on Facebook or YouTube and leave a comment. You can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts and YouTube so you don't miss a single episode of the show. And with your input, we can help other powerhouse women just like you find the show and decide if it's right for them. Learn more about Bernadette at balloffirecoaching.com. See you next week.