Kate Eberle Walker, THE GOOD BOSS: 9 Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work

[1:38]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, moms don't have time to read books. I'm also the host of moms don't have time to lose weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy called moms don't have Time To, a Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen vaccine research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time To Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. If all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram ZibbyOwens and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Kate Eberly Walker is the author of The Nine Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work. Kate is the CEO of Presence Learning, the leading provider of online special education services for K-twelve schools. In this role, she leads a majority female employee population whose mission it is not only to serve students with learning needs, but to provide a flexible career path for more than 1,500 special education clinicians, many of whom are working mothers. Kate took on her first CEO role at age 39 at The Princeton Review. Before becoming a CEO, Kate navigated the male dominated world of Wall Street as a Goldman Sachs investment banker for five years and then worked her way up through management roles. She offers straight tell it like it is advice to her fellow managers and is an approachable and relatable mentor to younger women who she regularly supports and advises on career decisions. She is the author of The Good Boss. Enjoy. Welcome, Kate. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss The Good Boss, nine Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited with you. So Kate, tell everybody a little bit about your background and how you sort of escalated quickly up the ranks to becoming, you know, the head of your business and running companies and how you ended up writing this book. Yeah, okay. Okay. So I started

[3:33]Kate Eberle Walker: out working on Wall Street. So, you know, connecting the beginning to the end, a very male dominated first work experience, or even my undergrad experience. I majored in finance and accounting and loved working with numbers, went to work in investment banking at Goldman Sachs. I loved it. I ended up working there five years. And then I went to business school and afterwards continued to work in finance in mergers and acquisitions, but found my way, fortunately, to the education industry through that work. So Washington Post Company, one of my favorite clients, went out in banking, and then I went to work directly for the company, which happened to have bought and was growing Kaplan, which over the years I was there became this very large education business, and I got to be a part of buying and selling and investing in education companies and learned not only how to do deals, but learned about this industry and formed my point of view about what made for a good business in education. And I was lucky at a point in my career where I started to recognize that I wanted something a little different. My opinion about what makes a good business had gotten, you know, perhaps a little too strong to be satisfied with only investing in and buying companies and kind of being behind the scenes. I wanted to do it myself. I thought I could do it myself. And I was really lucky. I met someone who became this really pivotal person for me in my life and my career, a woman named Mandy Ginsberg, who at the time was the CEO of tutor.com, working within IAC, Barry Diller's company. And she met me and she recruited me to come work with her to figure out how to build a big education company within IAC. And that decision, like, had one conversation, we just really connected. And she said, I feel like we should work together. And I felt like she's the one I want to go work for. It was decision. Thanks to her, she kind of gave me this new opportunity. I learned from her. I said at one point, you know, I want to do what you do. I want to be your successor in this company. And an opportunity came up after about a year of working together and having acquired The Princeton Review together, where she was called upon to return to her origins in the world of online dating, and she became the CEO of The Match Group. And I got promoted to CEO of Princeton Review and tutor.com and all of sudden I was the CEO. It was actually that point when I first became a CEO. I'll always remember my first day on the job because I'd been in the company for a while then. I'm the CFO. And, you know, one day I walk in and now I'm the CEO. And people treated me so differently, even though they already knew me. They listened differently. They sort of differed differently. And I just felt a different presence in the room. Started to recognize the power that you really have when you're getting a company, and how much you can then define what kind of company is this going to be? What are our meetings going to be like? Who is going to have success here? Whose voices are going to be heard? And I started thinking really hard, I was feeling the responsibility of what that meant and what I should do with it. And I think especially when you're a woman and you're a female CEO, because there are not that many in the grand scheme of things, right? It's like 5% of Fortune five hundred CEOs are women. So when you're a woman and you're a CEO, you get asked for advice by a lot of other women, younger women who want to get ahead about how did you do it? What did you do? What should I do? And so I heard myself giving advice to these women that I realized at some point I just hated. Like, I personally had gotten ahead by changing, adapting, even hiding certain parts of myself to fit in to these places that were really designed by men for men. And I was telling other younger women, like, this is how you do it. This is how you maneuver. Hands. And it struck me, what if instead I gave all these managers advice on how to adapt themselves to a workforce that is diverse because it's no longer okay to have workplaces that are designed by men for men? So that's the book that I wrote. That's what this book is. It's advice for those managers on what they should do differently, what they should say and do, what they should not say and not do to create more inclusive workplaces to support women. Amazing.

[8:12]Zibby Owens: And you outlined so many great things. And I loved you have like little bullets at the end. So for people who don't have time, which I'm always looking for, excellent finds that you have like all the things at the end of the chapter. I loved your whole well, there were many parts, but like the fact that women are emotional beings is just not something that you can overlook. Right? Like, and I flashback to all the many times I've cried in bathrooms at work when I used to work in an office. And I think that's probably why I didn't like working in an office because I was like, I like crying at home in my bathroom because then nobody really notices. But just that it doesn't mean you're necessarily like any less good of an employee or weak or anything. It's just that like women have different emotional responses to things. And if you're managing women, that's something that you should know. It's just one of those basic things to have some empathy and sensitivity towards.

[9:06]Kate Eberle Walker: Yeah, because it doesn't mean anything. Well, I mean, it's a thing. I mean, I was blown away when I was doing research for this book and found this stat that women are biologically 4.5 times more likely to cry at work. So that is what we're up against as women. And I've cried. I I tell a very small portion of this that I have and heard from other women about times that we've cried, times that I've cried. I also talk a lot about times that I've cried on the subway. I cry everywhere. And it's part of caring about your work and being invested in your work. And sometimes that's the physical reaction you have. And so I think that you know, the woman that I spoke to when I was writing this book was telling a story about, like, worst thing was, you know, she was told that she wasn't getting the emotions she thought she was going to get. And she started tearing up and was like, fighting, fighting, fighting, like, I'm gonna cry. She kind of hit the point where it started. And the guy, her manager who was talking to her did like the worst thing ever. He was like, Are you okay? And it's like, Ah, don't ask, are you okay? Just like, let it be.

[10:15]Zibby Owens: That's how I feel like when I stub my toe or something. And people are like, are you okay? Well, it's obvious I'm not okay. Like, I just you saw me walk into a mall. Now like, like, whole, like, blood pressure is up. And so, you know, Yeah. I'm not That's even worse, which is ridiculous. Okay. So there's so many other things. Oh, even your introductory chapter where you talk about oh, just the way you said this was so good. There was a fatal flaw in my approach. I was stuck in the mindset that women needed to learn how to adapt themselves to their environment to be successful. I was trying to change the way women played the game to find a smarter way for them to spin the wheel so that they could land on the right squares on the board. What I needed to do instead was ask how we could change the game. So great. And then just a couple other even okay. Call her by her name, that whole chapter, which by the way, my name has been mispronounced like more times than I can even tell you, like at least twice a day. So I value that one a lot. And even now you were saying, would you say like someone calling you dear or sweetie? Young lady.

[11:13]Kate Eberle Walker: Lady. That's right, young lady. And so many women. I would venture to say all women have at least one story like that of somebody in a work context calling them sweetie or honey or young lady. And it is so disrespectful. It's also just extremely distracting. Like the story, my young lady story that I tell for me, the thing that I can't forget is just how much it hung over the rest of that meeting that I was in. I mean, it really did keep me being productive. In that case, was in a deal discussion where it was late for my career, I actually did have the power to make a deal happen or not. And it wasn't exactly out of spite for being called young lady, but I know that was a factor that it just impacted focus and my ability to engage

[12:09]Zibby Owens: in trying to get that deal done. It's sort of, you know, you had the scene at the table where the guy was sort of like leaning back arrogantly and not paying you any attention. And I feel like that often happens. I mean, this is so cliche, but like my husband and I went to a car dealer the other day and it was like the same thing again. I'm like, Why don't you look at me? Like, why are you not Who's looking at to say I'm not in charge of this decision? Like,

[12:29]Kate Eberle Walker: you know, what the heck? You know what? My husband and I still we still do this. I'm a professional negotiator. That's what I've done for most of my career. I am not the one who represents us when we're buying a car, buying a house, anything like that. It's like, I'm behind the scenes or like, Bergerac, know, sort of saying like, alright, you're gonna say this, you're gonna do this. But then my husband is the one to say it because we both just learned that it's going be received differently. We're going get a different outcome. Maybe that's why I keep getting in trouble because I insist on being the one who doesn't want to I'm insisting, but, you know, at some point, we've got to flip these things around. So maybe I'm the one I should be forcing and pushing it through. But it's still frustrating. A lot of them do that. I was talking to a woman in my doctor's office the other day. She was you know, all kind of up in arms because her handyman was supposed to fix something and she told all the things needed to be done and he hadn't done them. And her husband repeated it and all of a sudden it was done.

[13:47]Zibby Owens: So crazy. Although I have to say in my house, my husband tells me that same thing. He's like, How come when you ask for the window to be replaced, somebody listens? I'm like, I don't know. Depends on the dynamic. This goes to your next role, like, Don't ask, what does your husband do? Because well, why don't you talk about that one a little bit? Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

[17:28]Kate Eberle Walker: Yeah, so that rule, don't ask what does your husband do? This is interesting because I found in talking about the book and the rules, people get a little thrown out. They're like, but your last rule said that I should relate to people and I should get to know them. But now you're saying don't ask, what does your husband do? And so, okay, to be clear about what does that rule mean? It's not that you shouldn't be interested in a woman's family you know, family life and, you know, what goes on in her household. It's that you shouldn't draw conclusions about her and her career and vision or her income needs based on what her husband And the truth is when that question is asked the way it's asked, it often is not really just because you're interested in getting to know her. It's asked by recruiters, it's asked in interviews, and the person who's asking is making a judgment or trying a conclusion about what that means for your commitment to this job. Or, you know, if your husband is an investment banker, does that mean you'll take a lower salary? It's those kinds of contexts s where you've got to be really careful because what her husband does really doesn't have anything to do with what she wants to do, what she's capable of doing, and what is appropriate to pay her for doing the things right. And I, to this day, get asked for it. The last time I was interviewing for CEO jobs, I was surprised how often people ask that question, or sometimes it was like, Who takes care of your children? Is another question that I got where they're trying to figure out, can you do a job this big in these different ways where I just always remind, trust me, I do have two children. I make sure they are cared for at all times.

[19:19]Zibby Owens: They're aware of my job and my work. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. Oh my gosh. And that also goes to your watch the clock chapter where you so intelligently point out that you can't just keep somebody waiting. You had the one scenario where you were like rushing home to get to your kids and relieve your nanny and somebody just made you wait and he was thirty minutes late and it's like, oh, it's not a big deal. And you're like, well, it wouldn't be a big deal if like, I didn't have to get home and the nanny didn't have to like miss her train or whatever it is she had to do. And like, there are all these things that you line up that everybody should be. Mean, this is like for men or women, honestly, but that you can't take people's, you know, even five minutes, it actually does make a difference sometimes. It makes difference.

[19:59]Kate Eberle Walker: There's like this domino effect. I mean, I think this is a big part of why things got so hard so fast for so many families during COVID is that, you know, all plan our lives and our kids' lives and our schedules to have very little margin for error. And sometimes there really isn't even five minutes of margin for error. And so you're counting on this happens now, and then this, and then this. And so when something is changed or added or moved, it's like, you know, like the heart collapses. And it can create a whole new kind of work to sort that out and to get things back into a balance that works. Mean, I felt that. I know lot of working parents, especially working moms, just felt this pressure in this year, like the school schedule changed or, you know, your kids couldn't be where they normally would be at that time. And you got to figure it all out. You got to, you know, line everything up in a different way. And then your

[21:03]Zibby Owens: last section on seeing her potential and praising her and seeing what she could do and finding new opportunities and building on her skill set and all of that, sort of taking someone's all of their skills and just finding a way to

[21:17]Kate Eberle Walker: unlock them and keep them going within the confines of your organization is so key. Yeah, I love what one of the CEOs that I interviewed for the book, Sam Yeagan, who's most recently CEO of ShopRunner, he talked to me about his philosophy of inventing jobs that fit the person and that he loves to sort of identify here, here are these standout skills, and there's potential in that. So let's figure out like, what's that job for you to make the most of that rather than trying to fit people into rungs and career progressions and all of that, try to figure out how to position people to make the most. And a big part of that, it just starts with really telling people directly, like, you know, I think you do this really well. I think that you have a lot of potential here. Like, if you don't tell people, they won't know it, they won't assume it. Are these huge gaps in sort of perception of, and particularly for women, shows in, you know, their own self reviews, self evaluations, There are real gaps in how women think they're perceived versus how they are. And they really won't know how great you think they are if you don't tell them. I feel like you should team up with have you read The Fifth Trimester

[22:35]Zibby Owens: by Liz Smith Brody? Do you know her? Yes. Maybe I can read. Yeah. Oh, I love introduction. I know how to I want to put you guys in touch because I feel like you guys could put your heads together and come up with some really awesome, you know, even like on the national level or just like reforms or I don't know. I just feel like you have Yeah.

[22:52]Kate Eberle Walker: There's there's that yeah, exactly. Yes, I feel like there's with that philosophy and how you could apply it to just create a better structure.

[23:00]Zibby Owens: Yeah. It's so true. And kind of really, I mean, overdue. I mean, it's crazy you have to even say this in today's day and age, right? But you do. You know, and it's like so and it comes across as like, you know, news, right? Right. No, I mean, to diminish the top of your book, but it's just like, it should be, you know, how can people not understand this, but yet they have to be told? And that's okay, you know? Men are from Mars or whatever. Yeah, and again and again, right? I mean, I think another

[23:31]Kate Eberle Walker: thing is just realizing that, you know, yes, we're still talking about all of these things. Mean, there's, you know, was Me Too started in 2017. And, you know, here we are nearly five years later, we are still having to point out all of the problems, challenges, and equities that exist in the workplace. Like, things exposed, and Andrew Cuomo happens over here, and this and that, right? There's always something. So figuring out how to break the cycle does seem to call for some, I don't know, some formality. Although

[24:09]Zibby Owens: I shouldn't have said that about Men Are From Mars, because plenty of women manage other women. And honestly, some of my most complicated working relationships were women I worked for versus men I worked for in a way. Because they, I found some of them women, not all, I mean, I hope they're not listening, but were not as like direct. Like my male bosses, like they might've made me cry, but they were direct. And if I did something good, I knew it. And if I did something bad, I definitely knew But I thought it was like easier to suss out, right? Like, why did she not invite me to this meeting versus that meeting? And now I'm a woman and I manage other women, which is weird to think about, but it's true. And like, this was still relevant for me. I mean, it's like, obviously I am one, but it is a good reminder all the time of how to, you know, well, yeah, that it's just a good reminder. It's a good refresher for anyone, even if you're a woman yourself. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think it does work. It works both ways. And people do have different experiences. I mean, a lot of people have said that to me, like, you know, it feels like you're writing more to educate the male manager.

[25:08]Kate Eberle Walker: But I had some female bosses that I feel could benefit from this. And I think that's true. I think I do write more with a male manager in mind because two thirds of all managers are met. And so that's the majority of the audience, but it's not the only audience. And a lot of this just comes down to being, you know, the clearer you are in your communication, the more that you listen and pay attention to and adapt yourself as a manager to what's going to work to support the people who work for you, you know, kind of flipping around that dynamic that you don't expect your employees to sort of bend to what you expect of them, but you're responsive to what kind of a person they are and what they need to feel comfortable speaking up is, I think, something that everybody can learn from. I mean, I still learn every day. I I'm still actively managing a lot of people. And I continue to learn about things that I do that I didn't realize were alienating people or were not giving them enough opportunity to speak. I try to just think everybody should really set as a goal for themselves. How can I make people comfortable telling me what they think? Because that's where the value add is for any manager, for any kind of manager of anything, you really will be a better manager if the people who work for you tell you the truth.

[26:31]Zibby Owens: So now in addition to all that you do, you wrote this actual book. So now you have a book, now you're also an author. So what advice would you have on the author side for people who have never written a book before? I loved writing a book. I miss it. It gave me just a totally different kind of

[26:50]Kate Eberle Walker: fulfillment in the day. I mean, for so much of my, really all of my day job work as a CEO involves other people. Like I'm not really being productive if I'm not talking to other people and engaging and, or at least like reading responding to something, right? Like you're always interacting, which for me, as someone who, like Myers Briggs wise tests, like right down the line of introvert and extrovert, I spend a lot of my day extroverted. So having this other side where I would have like a real professional reason to sit by myself and be reflective and, you know, produce something independently, I thought was amazing. And so whether you see yourself as a writer, an author or not, I think everyone can benefit from thinking about that balance that they have in their own and how they spend their time. And if you're not getting that reflective outlet somewhere, try it here. I found that after I had submitted my book manuscript, as you well know, there's a lag between when you finish your book and when the world receives your book. That for me happened during COVID. And I found myself just kind of, you know, it felt out of the blue at the time. I started thinking of these like more short stories and personal stories and memoir type memories in my head. I started writing short stories, you know, not that long after I finished the book manuscript. And that's become this ongoing thing for me that I, you know, I don't know that I would have come to it if I hadn't, you know, created this kind of new working habit of, you know, like to spend time, it's fulfilling for me to spend time reflecting and writing it down and, you know, hoping that somebody else will read it and get something from it too. Awesome. So maybe we'll see a short story collection from you. Who knows? I don't know, maybe they're building out. It started as like a couple and now they keep turning out. If nothing else, my daughters really like reading them because they're like, you know, they're from different parts of my life from before I had, most of them have been from before I had kids. And so, yeah, my daughters really like reading them. They're like, When are you going to do another one?

[28:56]Zibby Owens: That's really cute. Well, Kate, thank you. Thank you for helping everybody else out there become better bosses and thereby improving the quality of work life for everybody else. So it's great that you took the time to write this and educate and clarify.

[29:11]Kate Eberle Walker: And yeah, it was really great to chat with you. Same. Thank you so much. Thanks for reading the book. No problem. All right. Have a great day. You too. Okay. Bye bye.

[29:21]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and momsdonthavetimetoreadbooks. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.