Unprofessionalism
What does it really mean to be professional?
For generations, professionalism has been associated with competence, composure and control. But many of the unwritten rules we follow at work were built for a different world, one that asked us to hide uncertainty, suppress emotion and prioritise appearance over connection.
Each week, Dr Myriam Hadnes, behavioural economist, facilitator and founder of workshops.work, sits down with people who've questioned those rules. Their stories start with a professional risk. Few set out to be disruptive. Most simply reached a point where the conventional way of working no longer served them or the people around them.
Together they unpack the risks they took: admitting they didn't know, showing grief at work, challenging authority, asking for help, dressing differently, changing careers, trusting others, leading in ways they'd never seen modelled.
This podcast doesn't ask you to reject professionalism, or treat authenticity as some ideal to reach for. It’s about judgment: Which professional norms help us collaborate, lead and build trust? Which ones create distance between people? And how do we recognise the difference?
If you've ever felt the gap between who you are and who you think work wants you to be, this podcast invites you to look again. Not every professional rule needs breaking. But every one is worth questioning.
Unprofessionalism
031 - Who Do You Actually Work For with Esther Ifrah
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This week's professional risk - inspired by Esther: Choosing your team over the expectations of the organisation.
Description
Many managers start their careers believing leadership means delivering results at any cost. Saying yes, working harder, and asking the same of their teams often feels like the safest path to success. Pushing back on unrealistic expectations can feel professionally risky, especially when your own reputation is on the line.
Looking back on more than seventeen years in the corporate world, Esther realised that her best leadership began when she no longer felt the need to prove herself. An unexpected career pause gave her the distance to see how ambition had shaped her leadership, and why advocating for her team ultimately earned more trust than simply protecting the organisation. This is an episode about becoming the kind of manager your team knows will go to bat for them.
This episode invites you to reflect on:
- What you pass on to your team when the pressure lands on you.
- Which parts of yourself you've muted in order to appear more professional.
- Whose definition of success your career is currently built around.
Over to you!
What did you last agree to on behalf of your team that you could have negotiated?
About the guest
After spending more than seventeen years building consumer brands and leading an $850 million portfolio at Canada’s largest general merchandise retailer, Esther Ifrah found herself questioning many of the unwritten rules that had shaped her career. Today, she is the creator of Work Persona, a weekly newsletter helping experienced professionals stay relevant, visible and ready for what’s next, while exploring what it means to build a career that reflects who you are, not just what you’ve achieved.
Links to learn more about Esther:
What happens if we dare to tear off the mask of professionalism and actually risk showing up for real? I'm your host, Miriam Happy, and this is unprofessionalism.
SPEAKER_02If you are not differentiated and not distinctive as a brand, you are immediately forgettable. You lose your strategic advantage. You lose in the market. The whole the whole work of building a brand is giving people a differentiating factor that they appreciate. And yet we do the opposite. As people, as our own personal brands, we we neutralize and we work to be the average. So we don't want to stand out too much because professional. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Esther, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Miriam. I'm so excited to be part of this most unique podcast and looking forward to chatting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And let's start with a moment when you've been unprofessional.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So it's it's kind of like a uh my era of unprofessionalism right now. I am in a unique position. So I recently relocated from Canada to the US. And the visa that I'm on, and obviously this was planned, does not include a work authorization. So that means I can't actually work right now. It's a weird kind of situation to be in, especially after living in the corporate world for over 17 years and just really being used to busy, busy, busy full day, full calendar, you know, the nine to five grind. It wasn't even nine to five, it was eight to seven grind. And I think my body and my mind just could not wrap itself around this idea of an empty calendar, like literally nothing going on. I'm in a new place. I don't know anybody, so I don't have a full social calendar going on. And I literally spent the first year filling my calendar with self-made projects, learning, research, meeting people, busy days, like full busy days. And I just I created the busy for myself. And it took me a year to realize like, what am I doing? Like, I think I need to stop performing busy. And I decided, you know what? This is probably one of the most unique opportunities I'm gonna ever have. And it's gonna be short, like it's not gonna be much longer, where I simply cannot work. So I don't have, it's not like I was let go from a job and I have this like period of grief that I have to get over it. No, I have a clear head. I have this like financially, I don't have to work yet. And so this is my chance to really reinvent myself. And you have to be super honest with yourself in this moment because you know, Esther five, 10 years ago wanted very different things than Esther today. And it and you really have to kind of sit with yourself and figure out what it is that you actually want. And the things that motivated me then are different from what excites me and motivates me now and what fulfills me, right? And we all go through so many changes in life and the the path I thought my life would take uh back then, it didn't. It went in better ways, you know. And and so who am I now? And that's that's really what I'm dwelling in right now is this reinvention and figuring out what I want to be, what do I really care about? Because when I dive back into the professional world, which I will do soon, I want to do it on my terms. And I don't hide this gap in my resume. I don't hide it. I'm not, you know, people kind of are embarrassed about taking pauses or gaps or whatever. For me, this is like the way my life moved. And if anything, I see it as this wonderful opportunity to meet new people, to volunteer for my community and really accomplish some personally fulfilling things, focus on my fitness and wellness. And I'm just so grateful for it. And so I've recently I write this like weekly article about professional life as a mid-career woman. And I like to talk about the things that people don't like to say out loud, which is probably a little bit unprofessional.
SPEAKER_01And now I'm curious since you you're in this moment where you left the cocked world. So you have the unique opportunity to have the outside view on this machine.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01And I would be curious how you reflect on your own being, having had these heavy work days. So, what made you maybe more machine than human-like while you were still in there, now looking back for the distance?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I definitely reflected on that. I I've I was a very by the book motivated and ambitious type. And I, as a boss, I think I had my machine-like moments for sure. Especially in my earlier managerial career, when I had the pressure of succeeding as a manager and then being new to people leadership and wanting to succeed so badly. So pushing my team really hard and expecting everything out of them. And I was the type to wear myself thin and I would work all long hours and then I expected my team to do the same, whether that was good for them or not. And probably in a lot of cases it wasn't. They weren't all, you know, they didn't all have the shape of life that allowed them to do what I expected of them. And then I think later in my corporate experience and in my managerial experience, I switched to, and maybe it's because I was ready to get out, but I switched to being uh much more human. And I started to push back a lot. So when top-down work, like when work was coming down and being pushed onto my team, when people left and then weren't replaced, and then the team had to do more, I started to push back. I like I I think I had gained enough credibility by then and enough experience and maybe enough bitterness or jadedness that I was in the comfortable position to push back and say, no, we're not actually, we're not gonna do that. And if you want my team to do that, what do we take off our plates to enable them to do that? And it was empowering. And I think ultimately they didn't, they did not love that when I did that, but I think ultimately they respected it. This reminds me, I had a team member that wanted to leave the company. They wanted to do something else. And and they were comfortable enough to tell me, which was a first good sign for me. I was happy that they shared that with me. And I ended up working with them on their resume. I helped them prep for the interview. I think this was probably very unprofessional because I was my heart was in it for them, and it wasn't in it for the company at that point. And yeah, I gave like they had obviously they had my full blessing, and I was like cheering them on and they got the job. So it was an evolution for me, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's interesting this development where you mentally prepared to leave the company, I assume. So you already planned the move, I guess, and knew that the time was over, and then you decided to be more human. So how did you and and you started experimenting, pushing back, protecting your team more? Maybe. So I would be curious, what do you mean by more human? And what was the transformation that you observed with your team and also maybe with your managers and inside yourself? So the three dimensions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think when I say less human or more human, I mean what is ultimately driving our decision and what's motivating us ultimately. And when I say less human, I mean when the bottom line, you know, the result for the shareholder is literally the only thing that matters. Like that's one extreme. That's that's one extreme. And you make all your decisions to serve that end. No matter if you are affecting people personally in their personal life, their family life, their emotional state, right? That sort of cutthroat, black and white, you know, at the end of the day, the bottom line is all that matters. So that's what I consider not human. And the other side of it is bringing in the human element and considering the health and safety, you know, creating psychological safety for the team. And then emboldening them to feel safe and to feel comfortable and balanced in their work so that they just do better work. And when they trust you, you know, when they trust you, they tell you more. They share what they need more, they're less afraid to fail. And you get just real goodness out of them because they start to care. They start to realize that they're seen and they actually care. And that's such a like virtuous cycle because it feeds, it feeds the work, it feeds the people. And then it it reflected better on me because my boss saw that things were happening, people were happy, people are leaving other teams, but they're not leaving my team, let's say. You know, like those kind of signals.
SPEAKER_01So what I hear, and that's very interesting, the moment you let go of something of the ambition or the maybe the fear response or the drive, suddenly you could lean more in and open up and create that safety. And there's something that's coming up, uh came up in a few other conversations, and I wonder whether the professional side, this professionalism is almost like a protection for people in leadership positions not to see the impact of the you not to see the human, because if you did see them, you wouldn't push that hard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that it's almost like okay, there is a soul behind it. And it's more of a protection of ourselves that we keep up this professional appearance.
SPEAKER_02Right.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And from what I hear now, then it hinders building trust, actually, and psychological safety.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I think that's I think that's brilliant. Like I when you say it that way, it almost protects those that maybe are acting, let's call it quote unquote less human. It it protects them because we're giving them sort of a rationalization for why they're doing it, because if they did see it, they'd be hurt, they'd be sad, they'd want to be different about how they're approaching things. But I agree, and there are all these unspoken rules that then feed that. Like, for example, you can't be too emotional at work. You can't overshare at work, right? And what if we did share? What if in our one-on-one with our not our manager, but our manager once removed, we talked about a hardship in our family. What if we did that? And suddenly you're not just Esther, manager of this team, you're Esther that's going through something that's a manager on that team, and despite that, maybe doing a great job, or maybe she had a rough week, you know. So I think all these rules that aren't actually written anywhere serve that purpose of keeping up that front, that sort of shell of, you know, we don't, we don't cross that line of humanity otherwise. Otherwise, it threatens our goals. It could threaten what we're trying to get at.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then when you once you did that, you actually experienced the exact opposite.
SPEAKER_02That's right. And I I can't say I was perfect at it. I always like to drive my team, but I know now that I would go in even more, I would do that even more in my next role, whatever I do next would be people first.
SPEAKER_01And did your team notice were you upfront with them? So how did you build this trust? How did this new Esther come to work?
SPEAKER_02It it happened over time, I think. You know, if you ask some people I report that reported to me, they'd probably be like, oh, Esther's a hard ass. Like, you know, I hope that I hope they learned something. I hope they um appreciated parts of it. But I was definitely a hard ass in my career. I think, I think over time, certain things, maybe I got jaded in certain areas. I became sort of I experienced the harsh side of it. And when I experienced that personally, I was like, oh, they're not in it for me. They're in it for themselves. They're gonna always take care of themselves first. Like the corporation will feed itself first, always, any day of the week. You can be replaced. You are replaceable. You get to the, I don't know, I think one gets to this point of their career where they realize, and maybe it was naivety, like on my part, they realize that you gotta take care of yourself. And you gotta, and if you're a manager, you gotta take care of your team. And you see it for what it is, and you don't want it to happen to the people you care about. And so, yeah, I like I it's almost like there's like a mini rebellion. Like you kind of you feel like, no, we're not gonna put up with that. You still need them because they're paying your your check and they're giving you a job and you're grateful for that, but the terms don't have to be all theirs.
SPEAKER_01Especially when and that's maybe an interesting thing to explore, if the terms are oftentimes not very not written down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what are the where's wiggle room?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01What are we assuming? And there I would be curious in your experience as a woman and now writing this newsletter for women mid-career. What made you this hardest in the first place?
SPEAKER_02I think part of it is my personality. I I wanted to achieve, I wanted to succeed, I wanted to be proud of myself and all that stuff that drives us, you know. Yeah, I think it's mostly that push. It was like also a little bit of a drinking of the Kool-Aid. Like I grew up in the corporate world. My first job, actually, my second job was, and I was quite early in my career. And it was what I learned work was from day, like from day two, you know, like it was the people that I looked up to the most were behaving this way. The the teams that were succeeding, the people that went from analyst to VP in a few years were doing this. And what do you mean by this? We're doing this sort of more cutthroat approach, more black and white, results first, numbers first approach. And there were some, there were some talented leaders that were able to do both. And I always hoped to be that. And it's weird because it happens through osmosis. Like you watch it, the numbers happen, you get rewarded. The numbers don't happen, you get punished. It's just the it's black and white, like that's the corporate world that I was in, right?
SPEAKER_01Sorry, like the Pavlov dog.
SPEAKER_02That's it. That's it. And therefore, you become trained that okay, if I want to succeed, if I want the reward, I have to deliver and deliver at all costs.
SPEAKER_01And the example or the similarity that comes to my mind is um children that grow up with their parents that we these are the only parents we know, usually. Yes. And we assume this is normal. Right. And then I think as we grow up, um it's very difficult to change the behavior that our parents showed, even if we criticize it, because I think at the end, that's just kitchen psychology.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it feels to me like we believe, oh, I turned I didn't turn out so bad. So it cannot be so bad what they did. Right. And I can imagine that in the corporate world, then it's similar. You grow up with these managers and they're maybe hard ass and they cutthroat and they're not caring for you and your emotions. But at the end we're like, oh yeah, I got where I am now because of them. So, and I'm not so bad of a person, so maybe it wasn't that bad.
SPEAKER_02Right. Right. It's kind of like it's all you know, and it's what you've been taught and trained um to be. And and you develop, you know, you develop your your heroes. Your heroes are there. You're you know, there are certain leaders that become your heroes, and you want to emulate them. And some are better than others, I've seen all kinds, but you do that's your normal, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then you need basically a trigger to stimulate the change.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How has your relationship with your team and with your leaders? So with your di um with your managers, changed once you started to poke them a bit to become more unprofessional.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. At first it happened over the course of a few managers, but at first it wasn't received very well. It was I I think they thought I was being difficult. And I tried to do it as gracefully as I could, but I I think I got a few no's. Like I tried to push back and they'd be like, sorry, that's not how that's not how it's gonna go. And then I had to go back to my team and say, I went to bat for you guys, but I got a hard no. But I think over time I learned that it's not like a child complaining to a parent. It's more, it's a negotiation, is what it is. And that there has to be something in it for them, otherwise, I'm gonna get a no. And and so it became more of you know, two adults talking and negotiating what it is that's possible here. And that I had those tools, you know, as I developed in my career, and talking about like, okay, we'll, you know, it's like a yes, but right, you yes, we will do that. But but there's gotta you gotta give us something, even if it's even if it's small. So I got creative around like what to ask for and what to give up in return. So that that was helpful.
SPEAKER_01Would you feel comfortable sharing some of those creative negotiation tools?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like sometimes I knew the the the trick of like, yeah, we'll take on that extra work, but you have to take something off their plate. Sometimes that didn't work. Like, so they said, we actually need everything that's going on. It's all urgent, it's all important, and we can't let up. So I was like, okay, then can we give the team a day off? You know, can they take the afternoon of the Friday off? No calls, no work. They leave early, sign off. Things like that. That small asks that like aren't gonna break the bank. The corporation's still gonna be running the next day, but it's something that actually means a lot to the team. And even though it's like a half day, what's a half day? Honestly, a few hours, but it meant the world to them. Like it it's important.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, and what I hear in this is the gesture sometimes means a lot, that you're not being exploited, but you're you are fighting for you're seeing them and their needs, you're fighting for them, and you're not. I think this means a lot for to a team that to know that their manager has their back and sees that they're giving their best. And yeah.
SPEAKER_02Even when I got a no, it was appreciated. So even when I got a no, they still felt better about it, about it, because at least we tried. At least we said something, at least they know that this is a push for. For us. You know, it I think it was even comforting in that way. Um, it wasn't the most ideal, but it was appreciated for sure.
SPEAKER_01To know that there is someone who speaks on your behalf and has uh yeah yeah your well-being in mind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you think it was more difficult for you to push back speak up as a woman? Because you mentioned that the first response was, oh, you're being difficult. And I've heard that from previous female guests.
SPEAKER_02Uh interestingly, uh so earlier in my career I had mostly male losses, and then later in my career, mostly female. And so I was often negotiating, not all female, but I was often negotiating with female leaders. I think as a woman, we just we have to do a good job. We have to do all the things that all the things the men have to do. We have to do a good job, we have to have good judgment, we have to make good decisions, we have to demonstrate leadership. But then we have this like whole other layer of cognitive load that we also have to balance all the time, every day. It's like down to like your physical appearance, right? Right. Like, I don't want to stand out too much, so I'm not gonna wear that crazy color. I'm not gonna wear my hair big and curly to work. Well, that was a whole other journey for me. Oh, oh yeah. And but then I also don't want to melt into the background, right? I don't want to be too assertive because I'll be seen as aggressive or difficult. I don't want to show too much emotion, but I also want to be likable. It's like, and and the the machinations, like all the thinking that we do before we speak, before we act, is like a whole other cognitive load. Imagine we could let go of that whole thing. How we're already incredible performers, and imagine how much better we could be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, yes, I think there was always a layer as a woman for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Before me we move on, tell me about the hair.
SPEAKER_02I wore my hair straight for most of my career. I don't know why. It was never a conscious decision. It was like a nobody looks like me. And therefore, and then there were other women that had curly hair, I'm sure, but everyone straightened their hair. It was like so I felt that if I wore it curly, it would come across as unprofessional. It would come across as messy and a little disheveled or wild and distracting. And I literally wore it straight for years and years and years, most of my career. And I love my hair. I love my curls. And I on the weekends I would just go crazy because that was like my opportunity, my outlet to express. But I got to a point in my career where I felt like I had enough credibility and people knew who I was beyond what I looked like, you know, like I got past the first impression and that I was like, I don't care. I'm just gonna do my thing. I also dressed more to my personality. I wore my hair curly and it was was bigger at the time. And I got comments. I got comments from people. What kind of so anytime I wore my hair curly, I had a coworker that would walk by my office, male coworker who was a character, and he would say, curly hair, don't care, like that. And I was like, Oh, come on, I do care. Like I would joke back with him, but I got comments. Or I was once in a meeting and I was leaning in to look at the screen because there was something being projected, and someone near me jokingly said, Can you move back like six inches because your hair is in the way? And it was funny, but uh it was also not funny. So yeah, that totally like this layer that I was hiding for so long, just because I thought it was unprofessional, which is so ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then you stop hiding, and apparently there is an issue. Yeah, appearance does matter. Yeah. Um, and these comments sting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a little. And they and it's unnecessary because it draws attention to appearance when really I wanted to draw attention to my work, my value, what I was bringing to the table, the problems I was solving. Like, why are we focusing on this? You know? So in that way, it's like disrespectful. And would they do that? Would they do that to a male who had big curly hair? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01And it's interesting. It sounds to me as if as a woman you have to remove everything that makes you that makes someone doubt your expertise.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01So to fit into a stereotype that would support the assumption or the perception of how expertise looks like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And most women are guessing, and they and as a result, they mute everything. And then you don't, and then you don't get much, right? They don't they're they're so nervous about breaking making a faux pas or breaking a norm that they'll just go safe, go conservative, right? So I'm gonna wear gray, I'm gonna wear dark brown, I'm gonna wear, like, I'm not gonna wear this too tight. I'm gonna wear sort of boxy clothing and like, you know, it's just you lose so much of who the person is. You know, I I I've worked in branding, right? I I led um a branding team and I was responsible for a portfolio of our private label, label brands for the country, like nationally. So I worked for a retailer, but this is the corporation, it was a huge retailer in Canada. And everything we worked so hard to build in our brands, we totally did not take those lessons personally.
SPEAKER_01For example.
SPEAKER_02Like what you're talking about reminded me like if you are not differentiated and not distinctive as a brand, you are immediately forgettable. Immediately, right? You lose your strategic advantage, you lose in the market. The whole, the whole work of building a brand is is giving people a differentiating factor that they appreciate. And yet we do the opposite. Okay. As people, as our own personal brands, we we neutralize and we work to be the average. So we don't want to stand out too much because it's somehow unprofessional. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's scary because if we get if we get the comments, it's clearly us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we cannot blame the world for it. Yeah. And now you're in this situation of a professional vacuum where you suddenly don't have a professional identity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How is that? Or do you did you create because you said that you really struggled to slow down? How has your professional identity evolved over that time and where are you now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I stopped introducing myself as like I'm a marketer, I'm a brander, I'm a brand manager. Like people ask me what my career was, but I don't introduce myself that way anymore. And for me, that was like in the first year, that was the first thing I would say. Cause I was like, I have to explain myself, what am I beyond that, really? And it evolved to like a more human or like more personal focus. And I'm really working on trying to figure out like what am I most passionate about? Because I do want to work again. I just want to make sure that when I do it, the subject matter is not the bottom line. Like, sure, I want to be successful, but I want to have a purpose beyond the bottom line. I've become comfortable with not knowing. Yeah. Yeah. And that was very uncomfortable. It still is some days, but I'm much more like at ease with it's actually a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because really nobody knows. Really nobody knows. Like you think you know and you have a plan and whatever. But when you don't have a plan, you're really just like everyone else. Because anything can change at any moment. And yeah, just like a more of an acceptance of it.
SPEAKER_01The illusion of control.
SPEAKER_02That's it.
SPEAKER_01And maybe that's the benefit of being mid-career woman. Or I don't know when middle-aged woman starts. But middle-aged sounds kind of old, mid-career signs sounds better. I'm in my mid-40s now, and I have the impression that I've become so much calmer, and I've been in so many situations where I didn't know what would happen next. And it has always turned out to somehow work out.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01So I think there's a certain calm around it. And taking less shit and giving less sparks.
SPEAKER_02Oh. Amen to that.
SPEAKER_01I think that's there is a beauty in that, being uh especially a mid-career woman. So what have you learned from because I can also imagine coming to a new country and speaking to these women leading to the newsletter or from the perspective of the newsletter, it's a little bit like an anthropologist or researcher or journalist.
SPEAKER_03Right. Right.
SPEAKER_01So what have you learned about being a mid-career professional woman as an outsider? What have you learned here?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's something comforting. I learned that we have a very common experience. And when I talk about my personal experience with them, or I talk about an issue I'm writing about, I almost don't have to explain it. They just understand there's this like thread of understanding that exists among women, especially, especially corporate, because that's like a very formal kind of work experience. But it was all it's always comforting to me because I feel like there's an understanding. At the same time, it's also sad because we're all going through it. And so the voices that talk about going through it, and then maybe some tips on how to get over it and past it and not let it stifle your career or your journey is always like appreciated. I was once sitting with a woman at it, it was like a not a networking event, it was more like a social event, an opportunity to meet new people kind of thing. And she was, she had a bit of a stutter and she was a little bit shy or a little insecure, you could tell. And someone at the table asked her, What do you do? And she said, Oh, I'm I'm a physical therapist. And she was kind of struggling to present herself and explain. And my heart went out to her because I was just like, Oh, like, be proud of yourself, girl. Like, you know? And I listened and I was like very like active listening. I was like, oh, that's so great. And that's you're really helping people. And I wanted to like boost her as she went as she went on. And and she stuff, she really struggled. And she explained, people were asking her, okay, what do you what do you do specialize in something? Do you work with what kind of people do you work with? And then she's like, oh, you know, I need to work with more people. I need to network and I don't like networking. And and you could tell she was just totally uncomfortable. And I said to her, you know what I learned about networking? I kind of gave her a break from the stage. I said, you know what I learned about networking? I learned that the best thing you can do, and this was from the research I've done, the best thing you can do is actually not ask for anything, but give something, offer something when you network. When you network, and instead of the person thinking, oh, what does this person want from me? It's, I'm about to offer you something. I'm gonna offer you my time, I'm gonna offer you my expertise. I could be a sounding board, you know, like offer them something. And she's like, Oh, that's great, you know? And then the person next to me was like, okay, here's your chance to network. And he said to her, offer me something. So she was like really uncomfortable. And then she's like, Okay, do you mind if I demonstrate on you? And he was like, Okay. So she gets up and she gets right into her mode of like physical therapist. She's like, okay, if you could roll back your shoulders, your posture is a little bit compromised. And if you do this and if you hold this position for this long, she didn't stutter at all. I literally had chills because the whole time that she was talking in her element, she wasn't stuttering. And I was just like, I was like, oh my God, like you need to know how you shine. You need to know how you shine. And I, and so she sat back down and I'm like, do you realize what just happened? Like, and she was like, What? I'm like, you're you're a real pro. You know what you're doing. Like, you gotta show more people. Like you should go and do demos because like it is it is natural for you. And I walked away totally inspired. I was just like, oh my God. If more women could just realize how they shine naturally and like what they're so great at, because I think we lose sight of this, especially if you're in a job that kind of beats it out of you. You know, you need to be reminded. Actually, I am amazing at that. Actually, I'm quite talented and I've been spending all my effort on a skill that I've become good at, but I don't even naturally love doing that. So that was one of my inspirations for sure.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for sharing the story. I think it's this getting up and doing the demo is a beautifully unprofessional example. Because you speak about the work, you speak about all of that. But yeah, but as you said, what do you have to offer? And can you show it to people? It's beautiful. And while I listen to you, there's the thing coming up in my mind that how can it be that there's I will use the hippie word, sisterhood, outside of work where you connect, you mention an issue and everyone is uh understands what you mean because everyone is sharing it. And then why is this missing in the corporate? And what would it take to bring it back that women support each other so that they don't have to suffer? And they yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think it's permission. Um, because the unwritten rule is we don't ruffle feathers, we don't say something that might be perceived as not following, you know, the rule or the line, or becoming too emotional. But I think that there are workplaces where it is safe to do that. And what allows that to happen the fastest is when you have a leader that encourages you to be that way. And when you have leaders that say, guys, we're not gonna do that here. That's not what we're doing here. Like, and we're gonna do it different. And I want you guys to talk about what's going on. I want you to share it with your manager, use your one-on-ones. Let's talk about it. And I promise you, when we have our next quarterly meeting, I'm gonna tell you what's going on with me. You know, I'm gonna talk about what's going on because yes, our work is important, but we're the ones doing this. We're the ones achieving this, right? And we bring our whole selves to work. We don't just bring this to work. We bring our emotional selves, what happened to us last night, the fight we had with our husband, all of that comes to work with us. So I wish we had I wish I had a leader that did that, like that just was so brutally open and honest and just gets rid of all the bullshit of like, you know, perfectly prim and proper, and we're just pretty robots that get the job done, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the leader needs to eat first.
SPEAKER_02It helps. You know, you could do it in your own little microcosm. You can as a leader. I think managers can create that. But to get this the safety across the board, you need the like the permission from the leader, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then I can see that if uh in a big corporate it doesn't feel safe, you don't want to be labeled then maybe as a as the woman who complains or who is emotional. And women can be quite harsh against women and critical.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_01It's yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But uh sadly, I think the situ the system creates that competitive animosity and cattiness or whatever you want to call it. It create the system creates it because leadership roles for women are scarce. And so it's a fight to the top. And who are you up against? You're up against the other woman who probably deserves it just as much as you do, and there isn't room for both of you. And so it creates uh competition and that creates uh behaviors that are just less than elegant, you know, and I've I've experienced that. I've I've experienced some some bullying on that front for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I I was reading this novel and um about comparing the Middle Ages during the witch hunt with today's situation.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, that's great.
SPEAKER_01And would they explain that in the before the start of the witch hunt, women used to collaborate. They had these cooperatives where they would manage big farms together and they would help each other and be masters of the craft. And then the witch hunt started with a few men from church pointing out that some of these successful pretty women who weren't married were witches, and therefore started this kind of distrust, nurturing the distrust amongst women, and that's how it broke off the initial collaboration.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it really made me cry inside. I was like, oh, how can we come back to these times? And then what you describe sounds a little bit similar to this thing that is put the distrust, the artificial competition.
SPEAKER_02Well, you you weaken like, and I don't know if it's as evil as this, but it's like the rules of war, right? If you want if men want women to be in the in a weaker position, you divide them. Yeah. Yeah. And if you divide them and get them fighting against each other rather than against what's going on, then you're then you've won.
SPEAKER_01Little feminist tangent.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Nothing wrong with that, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_01What would be an unprofessional advice that you would still give others?
SPEAKER_02You don't have to listen to everything your manager says. Yeah, don't. Don't. They'll respect you for it. I mean, there's a way to do it. But like I said, like, you know, if you don't feel like what they're telling you to do is what you want to do and it's not going to serve your team and it's not going to serve your objectives, then push back. There's always an opportunity. You you don't have to say yes to everything. And there's always an opportunity to negotiate. And I think you'll be respected for it ultimately. And if you're really not, you're probably not working with a very good manager. So yeah, that would be one thing I would, I would definitely say. Just I'm trying to think I had another one. Yeah, and and don't wait to be distinctive. Don't wait to be distinctive because you could do it on day one. You don't have I waited, right? I waited to really show myself until like once I had, you know, career credibility, everyone knew me, they knew what I brought to the table, they understood they could trust me and that I was professional. And then I came out of my shell a little bit more. I think just be yourself on day one. Like, don't wait for people's permission. They need to learn that they have to look past all of that. Then you don't need to like teach them. Like, like just be yourself. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Esther.
SPEAKER_01Of course. Thank you. This was a conversation without the script. Now it's your turn. I'm Miriam Hapnus, and this has been unprofessionalism.