Women at Work - Sorry Not Sorry

0:00Amy B. Yes. When was the last time you said sorry at work? That's a really hard one for me because I don't apologize idly, but I'm pretty sure it was when I interrupted someone. It was rude and I needed to acknowledge it. Right. So an apology was in order. Totally in order. Yeah. So and I'm sorry it's a good thing to say at work, especially when you are at fault. You've done something you need to apologize before, but it's also a bad thing and we've all heard the advice that women need to apologize less at work. Yeah, in fact, I just learned about an email plug-in that flags all the minimizing language we've been warned about, the I'm sorry's and I'm just and I'm no expert but kind of language. And it pointed out to you before you hit send. Right, which it's funny we need a plug-in for that because it is a hard habit to break. Oh, yeah, especially an email and especially in the kind of email we have to send. Yeah.

0:58I'm sorry, this is 30 weeks delayed. Maybe you should apologize for that. Fair enough. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. And I'm Nicole Torres. This episode, we're trying to figure out whether apologizing hurts us professionally and whether we should cut, sorry, out of our vocabulary. We started with a study from 2010. It's called Why Women Apologize More Than Men. Here's the study's co-author, Karina Schumann.

1:34an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. I came across this stereotype frequently that women apologize more than men and that women apologize more than men because they're far more willing to apologize, that men are unwilling to apologize to admit wrong, and that it's really about men's egos getting in the way that they just won't admit fault. So she studied the problem. Whether women apologize more than men and why. Her findings?

2:01that women do in fact apologize more often than men. But it's not necessarily for the reason that the stereotype was suggesting. So it's not that men seem to be unwilling to apologize. If they think they've done something wrong, they seem to be just as willing as women are.

2:18but they just don't think that they've done as many things wrong. So they're perceiving fewer offenses than women are, and women rate the exact same offenses as being more severe, and therefore are more willing to apologize for those offenses. This study got a...

2:35fair amount of attention when it came out. And you might think that the main takeaway is women stop apologizing all the time. And at this point, we just really don't have enough scientific evidence to support that kind of conclusion. We wanted to look more closely at this issue of apologizing and talk about other kinds of potentially problematic language. Because it seems like women really have to strike a balance here. Using language that's deemed too masculine can also backfire.

3:05So for advice on this front, we turn to Sally Halgetson. She's a leadership consultant and author of the book How Women Rise. Break the 12 habits holding you back from your next raise, promotion, or job. Hi, Sally. Hi, Amy. How are you? Thank you for joining us today. It's a pleasure to be here.

3:22So I want to start our conversation about Apologies with a story that I of something that happened recently I was at a gender conference last week and there was a presenter who went up She started doing her presentation. It was clear her slides weren't working Yes, and so she had this whole conversation with the IT person who was helping her resolve this issue about what was going on and what wasn't and they finally resolved it and the presenter who is an expert on gender Said I'm so sorry. I must have pressed the wrong button And it was clear to everyone that she had done nothing wrong, that there was clearly a technical issue. And I was just so struck by it. And I was thinking, what do you think about this idea that women apologize more? What kind of impact does that kind of apology that presenter gave have? And is it actually harmful to women in the workplace? I think it is. I notice I do...

4:17multiple programs a week all over the world, mostly women's leadership. So I am exposed to probably 1,000 different women every week. And I've noticed in recent years that the tendency to almost open whatever you're going to say with an apology has spread. And to some degree, I think it's just a habit.

4:43And as a habit, it's rather simple to break. And it's really important to break it because it doesn't send a message of strength. It doesn't send a message of intention. It doesn't send a message that you are fully present. And it's a form of minimizing yourself, your presence, and your contribution.

5:07I mean, I have always wondered if apologizing is really that bad. I think I used to apologize all the time for a bunch of different reasons. But is apologizing bad because it signals that you did something wrong when you didn't? Does it really come across as something bad that can penalize you or make people think that you're not as competent or together as you might be?

5:31Well, I do think the latter. I do think that it does signal that you're not as competent or certainly as confident in your right to be where you are. I wouldn't tag it as bad. And also, it depends on what you want in life. If you want to be seen as a leader, if you want to be seen as someone who can really be trusted and who can exert authority, then it's a good idea to find a way around the habitual apologizing because I do think that it does send a message either that you're not responsible or that you're taking responsibility for everything. So we've been talking about apologizing, but this is bigger than saying I'm sorry, right, Sally?

6:21That's right. I look at it in the context of habitual behaviors by which women Minimize what their contribution is or even minimize their right to be there. It's in a category in my view with such speech habits as saying I just want to add one thing or This will only take one second, you know this may not be important or this may be off the point. So those sort of hedging introductions, which eat up time, send a signal that, well, I don't really have a right to be here or that I'm not confident in what I'm about to say or that.

7:05somebody else's impression of what I'm going to say is more important to me going forward than what I'm actually going to say so I'm not completely invested in it and it also focuses everything on on yourself. You're conveying what your concern that others might perceive you as is, as your first concern. So it may seem like a very nice person behavior, but it puts the focus on you. Can I ask a quick question about this? I'm sorry, Nicole. I'm sorry. Oh, you're sorry? I'm sorry, Nicole. I'm interrupting you, but please. So, Sally, you said this behavior is spreading. Why is it spreading?

7:52I think one of the reasons it's spreading is that we tend to be more distracted these days. because of the technologies we interact with. So it makes us a little bit less intentional in our speech habits. I also think that as with many habits, it's something we hear a lot and so we pick it up when we're in a culture where people routinely are apologizing multiple times for things that they have no control over, we hear that and we just start repeating it. It's kind of like the, you know, that sort of famous up talk that we're...

8:34discussing more these days where people end every sentence going up like this and they sound like they're not really committed to what they're saying. I don't think it's necessarily indicative of some deep psychological state, it's just what you hear and what you pick up. Right, it's contagious. Yes. So I just wanna poke at this idea that women do these things more, that women apologize more than men or that women hedge more than men, like hedging.

9:03is something that I find myself doing all the time. But I don't know if that's because I'm a woman versus, you know, I'm more junior in an organization or something. Kind of going off of what you just said, when the culture is a lot of people apologizing, that's something that anyone can pick up and start doing and then everyone starts apologizing. So I'm just wondering if you see, you know, that this is something women do more than men or Something that women it's something that we notice more when women do it compared to men. Oh, well, that's an interesting question in my observation Women do do this more than men, but that's just anecdotal and don't forget most of the people I'm exposed to are women and I recognize that the Research can be contradictory on this some of the research definitely shows that women apologize far more than men and other seems to suggest which

10:00flies in the face of everything I've witnessed over the last 30 years, that there is, in fact, very little difference. But in my observation, this is very common, whether women actually do it more, which I do believe, or whether we just perceive that women do it more because we don't notice so much. It is nevertheless very, very helpful to women in terms of positioning themselves as someone with confidence, with authority, and who has the potential for leadership and to rise in an organization or in their field to begin to try to address this habit. So if I'm sorry is something we don't expect to hear from a good strong leader, what are some of the words and phrases we do expect to hear? Well I would say that

10:50from a good leader, what we do expect to hear is thank you. And this often substitutes for I'm sorry. I'll see women enter a meeting a minute and a half late and they'll say, I'm sorry, I'm late. So the attention goes to them. They're not really late, a minute and a half is not that big a deal. And they're opening remark then is I'm sorry. Now, when you're a minute and a half late, no acknowledgement is needed. You're 10 minutes late, you walk in and you say, thank you for waiting for me.

11:29a demonstration that you're being gracious to the other people and it's a demonstration that your presence in this meeting is an important one and that your perception is is that people have indeed been been waiting for you so you kind of turn that around. Do you have other examples Sally of of what we could replace I'm sorry with?

11:53Many positive things you can walk in. Oh, I'm so glad to be here or I'm really looking forward to what we're gonna be talking about today just an anticipatory statement So I noticed as you were talking that you weren't saying that we should take a leaf from the guys that we should you know start to speak the way they do That's kind of interesting to me because we we have seen studies that say that Women who negotiate too hard or who sort of adopt a more masculine way of communication or viewed negatively. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I do see that that often happens and they're often viewed negatively by other women by the way So that's a kind of trap to fall into I think that one of the great

12:44things that women can bring is a way of communicating that has some degree of warmth and empathy but that is not a hesitant self-deprecating when it doesn't need to be an apologetic and minimizing. I believe that that one of women's great gifts to leadership and to the workplace is bringing a different style that can also be highly effective. So my concern is how effective is a woman's style and where can she tweak it to better serve what her intentions and objectives are. But effectiveness is tricky, right? Because what is what we expect from leaders is not necessarily what we expect from women. So we're in that double bind. Can you talk a little bit about how to decide what's effective as a woman? You know, I think that there's been a lot of talk about the double bind. It certainly exists and I certainly have witnessed in my own career and the careers of other women unintended consequences from certain behaviors. But one of the things that I think

14:02over focusing on this brings about is it can get us out of being in touch with what we might intuitively know is a positive response because we're trying to parse everything we say in order to meet other people's expectations and not be perceived as to this or to that. One of the things that I think is important, we need to give people time to get used to certain behaviors. I always go back to something that happened a number of years ago in my career.

14:39I was working in corporate communications. And I remember the boss I had after a meeting came up to me and said, boy, you sure speak your mind in the most unhappy tone possible. And I said, yes, I do. And I didn't apologize. I didn't back off. I didn't say, yes, I do. But I didn't go on. I just said, yes, I do. And about a month later, I heard him say to somebody, you know what I like about Sally? She really speaks her mind. So you need to give people a little time to accustom themselves and have faith in your own responses while also testing them out. What are some types of language or speech that you've seen women shy away from because they want to be liked or, you know, seen as

15:33as perfect. Well, one of the things, and it's sort of, you know, I've been talking about minimizing, and the minimizing is behaviors that try to make your contribution or your presence smaller, often in hopes of placating.

15:54The other side of minimizing is too much. That's too many words, too much information, too much background, too many details, and you'll often see... Maximizing.

16:06Yeah, maximizing. Yeah, let's call it that. You'll often see women falling into that trap in a presentation, trying to throw the whole kitchen sink at it in order to justify, rationalize, support, claim a right to be there. And that can be less effective. Women tend to, I've seen numerous studies that say that women in, we're talking about U.S.

16:32use on average 20,000 words a day and men use on average seven. It's amazing. Well, women bond through using words and through that sort of close communication, constant communication with one another. But in a work situation, a lot of background and a lot of detail can undermine you when you're dealing at a leadership level.

17:01Let me tell you how I came up with this idea. If you're dealing with a real bottom-line type of male or female leader who has extremely limited time, they probably don't want to hear that. They just want to hear the idea. Far more effective to say, here's my idea. If you're interested in how I came up with it, let me know.

17:25So what really we're talking about here is being, whether it's minimizing or maximizing, as you say, it's being very intentional about how you communicate in order to achieve what you're trying to achieve. What is my purpose here? Where do I want it to lead? What would be really satisfying, rewarding, and sustainable in terms of where I see myself going? And then work back from there, where and how I communicate. Might I begin to make small tweaks that would improve my likelihood of getting to where I believe I could fulfill my greatest talents?

18:10We've been focusing a lot on speaking, but what about writing like emails, for example? What language do we use, do women use in emails that you see as particularly ineffective? Well, I feel that many people's emails are ineffective, women and men. My own perception of the emails that are most effective is that they're as concise as possible. So you really do want to edit your emails to make sure you don't have extra words, extra phrases, extra sentences. People like to read something that is short and clear. And I think emails are particularly a poor place to issue apologies unless an apology is really, really demanded. Because again, starting off, I'm sorry I didn't respond to your email sooner.

19:05is just kind of a waste of time. And it's usually not really required. And if it is, it's more the acknowledgement that's needed, not the apology, a real apology. So I think we want to be all of us as concise and crisp.

19:25in our emails as we can be which does mean editing out extra words. I myself still find myself every email I edit to take out the word just and I am stunned by how many times I use it even though I've got the awareness on that. So I think that's an important thing to do. The other thing I find useful is The idea that emails should basically have one subject rather than trying to cover a lot of ground I know that myself as someone who's really busy and often has to pick up emails on my phone That when I see an email of any length I tend to put a star on it thinking I'm gonna get back to this and then of course it drops down too far for me to see whereas if I see an email that just said

20:15I want to see if you're going to be available on September 26, 2019. Then I can just say yes or no without much more due. So I think rather than piling up multiple subjects or things to address as if you're never going to have a chance to email the person again, it's much better to do one subject emails. Let's go back to the point you were making about using too many words.

20:43I've noticed that sometimes a woman in speaking will use a lot of, I think of it as sort of throat clearing language. And then also a lot of filler words. And in meetings, I get the feeling sometimes that women do this in order to prevent interruption. What do you think of that? That's interesting.

21:13That's I've never heard that but I could certainly imagine that it's a way of trying to hold the floor because we have had so often experienced being interrupted that we we fear the interruption and we would prefer to sort of stammer on rather than be prepared to deal with the interruption and say, excuse me, I'm still speaking here. The other thing is it can be incomplete preparation. I had an interesting experience. I was working with a big healthcare company and one of the women had come from being in private practice as a physician.

21:56And she had risen very quickly in this organization, was global head of all their diabetes research. And one question I asked her is, what do you think is primarily responsible for your meteoric rise here? And she said, I know what it is. It's that I'm very, very concise. She said, I learned to be concise because as a physician in private practice with the onerous requirements on time that the health insurance industry gives us, I often had to communicate life or death information in very, very brief.

22:32period of time where there was a lot of emotion involved. She said, so I learned to prepare precisely in order to be as concise as I could. One of the things that she noticed, and this was fascinating, she said, you know, that thing that we all know where a woman says something in a meeting and it doesn't really get noticed. And then a little later a guy says, pretty much the same thing and bring, oh, fabulous idea. Jack, that's just great. And the woman's thinking, okay, didn't anybody notice I said it? She said that in her observation, sometimes when that happens, sometimes it's just the guy stepping on the woman. She said, but sometimes it's actually the guy rephrasing it in a more concise way.

23:20that he thinks the other people in the room will be able to understand because they have gotten lost because the woman used a lot of words. What if you decide to change these habits? So you cut out words, you are more concise, more direct, and then you get negative feedback. Someone says, you know, your elbows certainly are sharp or, you know, could you tone the language down a little bit or, you know.

23:49tone your attitude down a little bit. What do you do with that? I think there are a number of responses there that can be really effective. When somebody says, oh, your elbows are certainly sharp. First of all, it's kind of like me with, you know, you really speak your mind. They may get a little bit used to that. Or you could say, my elbows may seem sharp. I'm practicing being clearer, more concise and more direct. And I may not be there.

24:18quite yet, if you have any thoughts about how I could tweak that, that would be helpful. Then you can listen to those, you don't have to take that advice. It may be good advice, it may be poor advice, it may be well intended, it may be ill intended, but just asking, sort of turning it around is very helpful. Right, and I get the need to do that to sort of bring people along as you make change, but I also wonder if that negative feedback, I still go back to the fact that that kind of negative feedback might be based on gender bias or might be meant to undercut you. Well, both those things are true. If it's meant to undercut you, all you can do is, you know,

25:02just sort of acknowledge it and move on. You want to be very aware. I mean, there are always situations where people are out to undercut us, especially if we're moving up into a position and they may perceive it as threatening their own self-interest. They do that to men and they do that to women. That's the political aspect of living in organizations and the real world. Part of our responsibility to ourselves is not let that happen without being very reactive about it? Are you trying to, you know, that sort of stuff, which is never going to, never really going to help? And if it's a result of bias, then I think it's particularly important to kind of stick with it in a way that's non defensive and open. Okay. Well, that's that I'll take your feedback into account. That sort of thing, not defensive about it, but

25:57to recognize that changing people's perceptions is going to take time. But if we back off prematurely because we receive some negative feedback or we fear getting negative feedback or somebody somewhere might be unhappy or it might stir up the bias they feel, then I think we'll never make that progress forward.

26:25Sally, if there's one thing you could tell our listeners about language and how they might change the way they speak or interact with people at work, what would that one tip be? That one tip would be to identify something that you think could make you more effective. One thing.

26:47Not, oh, I do all these things. One thing, and then engage other people to watch you. Start with someone you really trust, but after you get comfortable with it, you can engage a lot of people. But I think bringing other people into the process from the get-go is going to give you more ideas. You're going to get more comfortable with the mistakes, times when you fall short of your own expectations, and you're going to manage perception.

27:17So I think getting other people involved is key. Sally, thank you so much for talking to us today. I've really enjoyed it. It's an important conversation. So Nicole, let me ask you, what did you think of our conversation with Sally? So I got advice like early on in my career or whatever, five years ago from a boss.

27:40to not apologize so much in a meeting. I think we mentioned this on a previous episode, but I was basically presenting at a meeting and I had terrible slides and I kept apologizing for them in the meeting, you know, thinking that that was kind of funny, but also just I was.

27:57awkward and pretty nervous being up there, and it helped to diffuse some of that nervousness, I think. But then afterwards, I thought that presentation went terribly, but my boss said, like, that was great. Just my one advice to you is stop apologizing while you're presenting. There's no need for it. It's not super helpful. And she said it so directly, and I have internalized that, I think, and have thought about why I Apologize the the different reasons for it. I think apologies are really important and super useful and some people should apologize more But then there are also times where you don't need to apologize, you know, they're not serving you well all the things that Sally mentioned I don't know if that's necessarily something that women do more than men like there are a lot of men I see who are also apologizing For things they don't need to be apologizing for

28:48So I've really thought about that personally and now when I see people apologize for things they shouldn't be apologizing for I will just say like please do not apologize for that You do not need to apologize for that So it's advice I've taken to heart But I'm also now kind of like loosening my firm stance against apologizing for things a lot of the time I don't think it's I don't think it's that harmful, you know, if I look back and I'm like, have I become more successful now that I'm not apologizing for, you know, silly small things? I don't know. Um, I think apologizing signals good and.

29:27tent in a lot of cases. And you know, what Sally was saying about apologizing as taking responsibility for things. And if you're apologizing too much, it can seem like you don't know what you should take responsibility for and what you shouldn't. I think that's super insightful because there are some things you don't need to take responsibility for. But there are other things that like just someone taking responsibility for something for the team, I think can be motivating or helpful for a team.

29:56So I don't think it's all that, all that bad. And I'm trying to lighten up when I'm like, you know, don't apologize for something or when I'm telling someone not to apologize to me. But when you're apologizing, I think it's important to ask yourself why you're apologizing. If you're apologizing because something went wrong and it needs to be acknowledged and someone needs to take responsibility, fine, that's a legit apology. But if what you're really looking for is permission to be part of this conversation, and you need to ask yourself what the effect of the apology is. So if you're asking for permission, that's one thing, and don't do that. So there's two questions I asked myself before I apologize, and I usually do this in email, is one, am I genuinely sorry? Because I don't want to apologize for something I actually don't feel, then it's disingenuous, right? And two, is it my fault? And I think, I see this when I feel sick too. I'll often apologize for having to cancel something. I'm like, I didn't choose to get sick right now.

30:54Well, I think sometimes people apologize to call attention to themselves sure or to ask someone to do something for them like there is something There's something that really focuses the attention on yourself But then also ask the other person to say oh, it's okay or no problem like you're sort of asking someone to do to forgive you right exactly but Asking as a manager or a teammate asking someone to forgive you for asking them to do their job Right, right. Is a is a is a weird egotistical bank shot. Mm-hmm, you know, right? Yeah, I mean one of the things that struck me as Sally was talking is that a lot of this language I think for women and then for me is is relational. It's a way of showing the person I'm in this relationship with you and I think

31:47While that's the intention, some of the alternative language she gave us is much more effective at that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for waiting. Yeah, that's also relational. Why wouldn't you say that? Exactly. And it also moves the conversation along. You know, I'm sorry stops a conversation. It just stops it cold. And there has to be this acknowledgement and, you know, then, you know, the, oh my God, don't even go there. Right.

32:17Yeah, the thing that I have to say like was a knife in the heart was when she said sorry the email about emails Don't start emails with sorry for not responding sooner. I do that all the time. Yeah, I do that too. Yes, me too. But I found a way to not do that. What is it? I realized, so instead of saying I'm sorry for the delay or whatever, I mean, maybe this is a cop out and it's not actually better. But I started saying, you know, apologies for this. Like, here are my apologies for replying a little bit late. I recognize that, you know, it's on me for not replying. But like, I'm not so sorry about it. Right. Well, I do exactly the same thing. And I use that language. But I do think that if you just

32:57So when we're late, let's just think about that situation. When we're late in responding, it's because someone is asking something of us. And it's just taken us a while to get to it. And unless you're egregiously late, and only you can really be the judge of that, all people really want is the answer. That's right. So get to the point. I was ready to stand up and cheer when she was talking about being concise.

33:22You are so concise Amy B. I mean I have to say that is as we were listening to her talk I thought Amy is really a model in this your emails are concise your questions are concise You're really good at it. How what have you done to do that? I don't know where it comes from all I know is that I have a short attention span and unless you get to the point I'm looking at my phone right so that may be it it may just be more of an index to my very short attention span. Plus, one thing I've learned is that if you don't say what you're thinking and if you really do know your mind on something, it's not fair not to say it, right? I mean, if I know that if Nicole, you and I are working on something together and we do that from time to time, and I really know what it should look like at the end.

34:19And I don't tell you, Nicole, does that help you? You want to help people thrive in whatever situation you find yourself in. You want to get the project where it needs to go. You want people to feel great about getting it there. Why are we apologizing? Why is it so hard then? Nicole, why is it so hard? Well, I think a lot of the time, like, fault is placed on women like we kind of expect women to take the fault for things are we penalize them way more harshly than men like there is research on that when they make mistakes and so I feel like it has become socialized to take more responsibility like that research that we talked about was really fascinating that men and women apologize

35:06equally proportionally to when they think they need to. But women just think they need to apologize more than men. And I think that should be corrected, like I don't know why that is the case, but I think one reason for that is that society tells women that they need to minimize, take up less space and apologize for things that they might not have control over. I also think with men, sometimes it's intentional and it's a, a tactic to draw attention away from whatever went wrong. So I'm not going to apologize for this thing because I don't want to spend any more time focused on it. I don't want to bring attention to my mistake. Yeah. And that's when I get a little pissed off. If you messed up, then you at least ought to acknowledge it.

36:03But I will say on the concise point, because that is something that I've learned from Amy V, too, and something that we talked about in a previous episode, you know, thinking about what other people really need for...

36:14you in an email in a correspondence has definitely made me more of a concise email writer. I think I'm much more direct. I try to take out just every time I can. And I think that has been more effective. It was kind of uncomfortable at first, you know, not adding all of the bells and whistles of why I'm writing you what I'm thinking. But I think it was really, really good advice that's served me well. Also think about impact.

36:40What's more effective? 5,000 words that say yes or one word that says yes. Well, that's a thing. I have to say sometimes I'm writing these emails and I'm like, I'm an editor. Why can I not say this in one sentence? Yes, because you're afraid that the recipient of your email is going to have an unhappy moment. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Well, it's going to happen one way or the other. Well, but I don't think we can underplay the potential backlash for women. And I think that's, I think we, you know, we got a letter of a email from a listener who talked about being concise and being direct in her organization and that she was told by her male colleagues that she was scary. Right. And I think that that is very real is that I could write the same exact email as our coworker who could sign it with a male name and it would be interpreted differently. I don't think we can underestimate that.

37:39Absolutely true and maybe you deal with it in the moment. How does he mean? I mean if someone says Amy Gallo, you know, you are you are so direct you're kind of scary then I think you know the answer is weird. You're pretty easily scared, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, that's a great way. Can you write all my responses? Yes, I will happily write all your responses, but but you know, it's I totally agree with Sal you can't let people get in your head.

38:08And you have to think about your purpose. The other thing you can say in that situation is, you know what, I know that you are really busy and I'm trying to be thoughtful of your time. So I thought I'd just get to the point. And then there's the other thing you can say, which is nothing at all. Exactly. And let that stupid comment hang in the air. Well, or even I'll take that into consideration, like, you know, noted or noted.

38:34Yeah noted. Yeah, don't say you'll take it into consideration if you have no intention of considering it Yeah, yeah, and then I think it becomes about being strategic Yeah, you know if I think like me and so many other women I know have gotten just endless advice about what to say and what to not say that I think at some point you have to just stop caring about all of the conflicting advice about how to carry yourself and how to present yourself to other people and instead focus on what you want and what you care about and you can be strategic in that way. Like you don't want to apologize for these things but you do want to be seen as whatever kind of leader and you're going to use this type of language because it will help you and help the people that you care about.

39:21Exactly. Yeah. My big takeaway is ask yourself, what do I want in this situation? What's the language that will help me get there? That's our show. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Nicole Torres. Our producer is Amanda Cursey. Special thanks to Mary Dew for producing this episode. Our audio product manager is Adam Buckholz. Maureen Hoek is our supervising editor. We get technical help from Rob Eckhart.

39:49Erica Trexler makes the show's discussion guides, and J.M. Olejars is our copy editor.