the challenges of managerial careers and families. and then todd bensman talks about the u.s. government's effort to stop terrorists from coming into the u.s. to the border with mexico. and that is followed by howard wortman's look at the over 400 rabbis who provided opening prayers two sessions of congress. find more information about tv.org. or on your program guide. >> tonight were very excited to be hosting the colwell institute in conversation sites been a long day with joe and lou blinn. hosted by kepler communications. many thanks to our presenting sponsor, women's and her partner books or books of books for a few housekeeping notes that i have been asked to share with all of you. number one the program is being recorded. will also be taking questions from the audience in the last half-hour of the program. so i thank you all probably

know all this by now but just in case on the bottom bar next there is a -- excuse me next the chapters a button q&a, click it if you can read. have it open ticket contract by submitting questions or providing us a quote on a question. and note we will be keeping an eye out for any questions that aren't really germane to the conversation tonight. we will also be monitoring the most uploaded votes to select which questions will will be asking joanne. and don't forget to use the chat function to connect with each other. it is now my deep pleasure to introduce to you, amy, i'm sure i did not do good when on that one amy, shareholder, she will be introducing today's speaker. amy is a business litigation shareholder.

she focuses in professional malpractice but she's also a comedian and improv actor advisor chair of the women's leadership forum. so with that, enjoy the evening. ask your questions, get engage in the conversation part i'm turning it now over too amy, thank you. >> thank you so much freight i don't know how much comedy i will work into these in bios but i absolutely delighted to be here good evening everybody. as she mentioned my name is amy, i am a shareholder in the west palm beach office. today i'm here behalf of gun stores women leadership form i would like to welcome you all to today's virtual discussion. our women's leadership form is a firm initiative with the mission of advancing dynamic female lawyers into leadership roles both inside and outside of the firm. the form and they firm are committed to improving retention of talented women at

every level the respected and valued. focuses on the well-rounded attorney whether it be through dedication to our families or our non- legal passions. that focus continually shaped and promoted by the women's leadership form. today i had the privilege of welcoming our presenters, katie kempner and joann lublin. katie is a founder of the communications a high-end communication consultant specialize in the advertising and media industry. a frequent industry speaker and moderator, cadiz also the creator and host of perspective with katie kempner. a digital series that focuses on working women bouncing lives. work with her pores in the u.s. and abroad until she retired in april 2018. she continues to speak about

leadership, executive women and other management issues. she created the wall street journal career advice column in 1993 and kept writing executive career calm until may of 2020. she shared in 2003 for stories about corporate scandals. joann is a popular 2016 book, hard one lessons for trailblazing limit of the top of the business world. she's here at this today share some insights from her new book power mom. how executive moms navigate life. joann, we thank you so much for taking the time to share this today without further do it like to turn it over now to katie. >> hi welcome. i am so excited to be talking with you today, joann, and to share with everybody. i have a copy of my book right here with my signed nameplate. everyone should get one of these. it is a terrific book. i am so excited to talk with

you about it. so without further ado, not to waste any time let's just start by asking you, why did you decide, white adjoint to write this book? >> this book is an outsource of my first book you heard about which is earning it. and for that book i interviewed 52 high-ranking corporate executive women. most of whom had led a publicly held company. when i look more closely at these women's experience i discovered a majority had children. and among those who had become public company ceos, the percentage was even higher. that got me wondering because i did not really look at their parenting status very intensely for that first book of the chapter, made me wonder if all but one of those 52 women were baby boomers, what is change? what has gotten better? to what extent are women who are in their 30s an early

40s and moving into executive roles with children, finding it easier than the women of my generation, the boomers dead. too that was kind of the basis. i interviewed 86 executive mothers of home almost evenly split between those two generations. and separate from that i talked to 25 adult daughters of those boomers. because again i was curious as to what was it like growing up as the daughter of a really high achieving executive mother. as someone who has a high achieving mother who is the head start director for much of new jersey and also being a mother myself, can you talk a little bit about that dynamic in the tension between working mothers and their daughters? >> while i think there is tension between all mothers

but it's outside the home or not. that's kind of growing up is how to lead the mess and establish our separate identity. i think what was particularly difficult for a number of those daughters that i met is mom wasn't larger-than-life. mom was such a high profile executive. there's one daughter whose mother was very prominent spirit she was invited to be the speaker at her high school graduation. and the daughter was really unhappy about that. because she kinda felt like that was her day. it was all going to be overshadowed by her mom, this high powered publishing executive. and she herself, the daughter was hoping to be recognized for her writing ability. she was doing poetry. as it turned out she did get an award for her writing ability and it happened on a different time than actual

graduation. but the other thing that was interesting as i spoke to these daughters is, it was difficult to come out from under the shadow of being the daughter of a power mom, that power mom ended up being their secret weapon when they enter the workforce. and low and behold, guess what, mom is not only highly successful in her career, but she is well-connected. she knows how to network. she can open doors, she can actually coach you, her adult daughter how to go through a job interview. and then when you get that first job, she is there a time you want her, no matter how busy she is about a work crisis. so what many of those daughters said come as much as they might have struggled as teenagers, they came around, as a lot of us do in her early 20s.

they had a big great role models. >> absolutely. >> mice are tight about working women for my podcast perspective nine years ago, i cannot believe it was so long ago. i thought my big selling point was i was going to talk to working women about balance. and how they balance at all. i was quite shocked and surprised over the years how many working women dislike that word balance. they really achieve. but work life's like tells about that please? >> sure one of my favorite concepts in the book. this notion there is a work life balance when i was writing.

titles written by one of those mothers is an acrobat there's no such thing as balance. like maintaining a yoga pose on one leg for two hours. as a started reporting this book and reached out to some of those younger moms, the millennial's or the gen xers, i was introduced to this new concept that i've never heard about myself. i got so enamored with myself of work life's way i said to my publisher that should be the subtitle of the work. we should call power mom's, secrets of work life's way. the publisher said no one will know what you're talking about. and so when i did my very first interview with one of those younger executive moms, she told me about it. i said okay what is this? and the way she explained it

is that it is this notion there is no such thing as balance. that we recognize that when we have to be 110% there for work, we will do so. but if family needs intrude, we will go with the flow. we will sway and then beat where we need to be for our family. again, i found this a little hard to grasp. so she gave me a great example, this happens to be a woman who was a senior executive in a huge auction house. we are important job. she was at work late one afternoon when suddenly a text popped up on her phone it was a live video from her childcare provider of her son taking his first step. and it did not matter she was at work. because she could sway in the moment to be there and watch her kid, her first child learn

to walk. and it made me wonder, how many of those navy boomers, my generation who thought they saw their kid take his or her first step, perhaps it wasn't. perhaps it happened at the daycare center or the childcare providers home. and they had never been the wiser. [laughter] they had not been there ever since that's important thing. talking about young mothers. this has been obviously, switch right on the questions for you to say this has been an incredibly challenging time sounds trite almost. this has been a really tough time for working parents. i think especially working mothers who are working from home. are there some lessons that you can share this for working mothers, especially with young

children? i think we have not really recognized, only very recently how much impact and also parent from home and educate our children from home. what a huge impact that has had on women in particular. people are winning or leaving the work force they're calling it a she session. i think we should call a mom session it's really the working mothers say it's too much. seems to me that what we are learning from that experience is the importance of having a supportive spouse, of having a supportive employer but more importantly having a supportive immediate supervisor. because you can have the most work friendly company on the

planet but it's the guy or gal you report to doesn't get it, is it understanding what it is you're going through, i think that's another thing is a whole pressure on moms to do too much it's driving so many women from the workforce at may undo some of our gains. the time to be a career killer you should recognize they can come back through social networking to make your professional connections and making sure you keep up to speed on the skills to the extent you can. and i think another thing that mothers of young children perhaps feel like they either have to reduce their hours, is

find out if the company where you are not working has a return ship program. a lot of companies have put these in place in recent years. the idea is to bring back people who left the workforce for a variety of reasons for it some do so for childcare purposes. they have an aging parent. if there's not a return ship program a proposal before you leave. >> great ideas. so, years ago when the book thrived came out, i had the privilege and a interview her now for a book launch events. one of the things she said was you must come a member so clearly you must gently escort all of your digital devices or phones, ipads, your computers out of your bedroom at least two hours before you go to

sleep. pelican incredible luxury that many working women who feel like they have to be always on. which is part of this working from home thing, don't have the opportunity to do. how do you feel about women having to always be on. are there ways they can stay connected to work, take care of what they need to, but not always have this constant pressure of needing to check everything? speak to the always on phenomenon is part of a larger problem. they talked about it being a fact that we are a society that is in love with work -ism. work at all costs. even if it means 24/7 is kind of our shrine at which we worship. there is no one whose ethics

more dearly than working mothers. part of that is this notion we are expected to be always on. and frankly, if those are the expectations think maybe you should not be working somewhere we are expected to be all on. it's going to kill you in terms of the stress. i think what marianna huffington told you was a really smart idea. frankly, when i asked some of the boomer moms about advice to these younger generation women as to what they should be doing differently, that was probably the most common refrain which is do not be always on. back in the dark ages when we did not have easy access to work. when getting on the computer when you got home and dialing up and waiting for an hour for something to happen, it was a lot more difficult to work from home.

but by the same token i met women in my generation had estate later at the office because you couldn't be always on. so there is a two always being available. i was really saddened to meet so many of the younger women, the genxers and the millennial moms who not only kept their phones on the bedside standard they went to bed, some cases they slept with the phone under their pillow. no, that is not where the phone belongs. and i like the stories i would hear about women whose households had a little basket right inside the front door were every member of the family had to leave their gadgets when they got home. especially if it was at dinnertime. and they wanted to have interaction that was face-to-face. not face to screen. and so i think one of the ways

you can make sure you are not always on, and again some of the younger power mom said this as well, if you buy a second smart phone. and when you get off of work, whether you are working from home or in an office, you turn off and put away the work phone. and you turn on the personal one. now, you make sure that one or two key people like your immediate boss or person who reports to you directly, who absolutely has to get a hole of you in a work emergency, has that personal smart phone number. but they know that it is only if the house is a buyer. it literally purred that's when the call. >> that's good advice. having had, my kids are now in the early 20s. but when they were teenagers prior to the pandemic and people could go everywhere, the last thing you could do is

leave my phone and the other room when i did not know were my kids were. that's excellent advice. you mention in your book how you are talking about, you talked to two different baby boomer generation and millennial moms. can we talk about some of the differences in how each of them handles things? >> guest: will handle things in general? or handle parenting? suspect you think the challenges are the same and their handling then the same i know technology is different but it's different now. suspected challenges or difference in part because the technology is different. we can work remotely. we never could have had this nationwide experiment and working remotely if we didn't have the advances in technology. but at the same time there are other things that have changed that are making it easier for

women to be successful as executives and mothers. think the biggest changes he rolled the spouse. they don't have to think about whether it is they are coparenting. because in many cases these younger executive mothers have established that as the given at the outset of entering into a long-term relationship with a partner or a husband. it's been something as coparenting. that it is not a given that mom is in charge of everything. but at the same time, they still deal with what some people call the mental load or the third shift. and that is this notion that at the end of the day, somebody has to keep track of everything. somebody has to know where johnny has to be when. somebody has to make the doctors appointments.

and when it gets too much for these younger power moms they push back and they essentially rewrite the rules of combat. there is this a great story as you may remember in this book of this high-powered lawyer, a woman who was a corporate counsel at a company, married to a high-powered executive. and she felt he was not pulling his weight to the degree they had agreed they would do so when they became parents. and she is like, i do everything in terms of scheduling, make the doctors appointments, sometimes you're there but i take the kids for their checkups and he's like i get it i get it. from now on i will arrange all of the pediatrician visits. i will take the kids for their well children checkups. and she said that's great spirit and then he says, and what is our doctor's name ">>

at least he was willing once he found out where to take the kids. >> let's talk about this bread for all of the employers that are attending this event, other some innovative approaches for how companies can make work more workable for parents? smoking think is a given companies have to acknowledge the fact that parents don't stop being parents at the moment they're working whether it's in the office or at home. by the same token we don't stop being a worker bees only resume wearing our parent hat and go with the flow and works life's way into the other part of our lives. the other thing it seems to me employers often acknowledge when they are trying to attack this issue more broadly is frankly, that the younger generation, the millennial's and the ones coming after them,

they want parent friendly workplaces. and if they don't find they are being treated that well, they're going to vote with their feet. the boomer generation of parents. in particularly of mothers who were the first ones to get into senior level management, they often did not have a choice. because frankly most of the workplaces were not family-friendly. so here in my head are three things that employers could be doing. and this is going to make work more workable for men and for women. we need to show empathy for the fact there are unique demands facing employed parents. especially ones who are continuing to work from home. you need to be checking in with them to find out are we doing everything that is possible?

that may mean for instance having powers during the day and giving individual employees, whether they are parents or not, the flexibility to choose what are those protected hours that are off-limits to zoom calls? two e-mails, to be in text, and less again the house is on fire. secondly, trust these grown-ups to act like grown-ups. don't just say of flexible schedules you are allowed to work between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., know that may not be the time this is ideal for your working parents. so let individuals design their flexible schedules. and also work work makes the most sense to their families needs. this is a success with this work from home national experiment. there are surveys suggesting the vast majority of employers

are going to allow people to continue to work from home at least a couple of days a week as offices reopen. but it seems to me the first thing employers could be doing differently is taking a much deeper involvement and commitment to subsidizing childcare. we are one of the few countries in the world among industrialized nations that does not have a national paid family medical leave policy and does not have federally or nationally subsidized childcare. and so it really falls on our employers to pick up some of that slack. did that answer your question? >> very, very nicely, thank you. but now on the flipside in your book you also discussed the importance of choosing the right employer rate as you say, you have to find one you can flush and a family-friendly organization. we talk without a little bit

please? >> well again, a lot of companies have come to recognize that a happy workforce makes for happy results on the bottom line. and also, the degree to which you have more women, the also benefit. a lot of them are playing he'd to the need, are not really putting their money they at least seem to have on the surface, be doing the right thing. you need to dig deeper. you need to talk to people not only who are working there who are in the same circumstances as you are, that could be through their working parents employee resource group. but i urge you to go out and try and find through linkedin and other sources alumni of

that company or that organization. and the sleigh, do they actually do what they say they're going to do? and then vote with your feet. if you go to work for such a company and it turns out to not be what you are promised, there are plenty of other places. or in the case of many power moms that i interviewed, start your own business. and guess what, when you start your own business you not only get to design this family-friendly benefits you get to set the tone at the top. that is really critical. but to what extent are the mail leaders actually taking parental lead? to what extent are they talking about openly? to what extent are they making that something that is expected behavior. when you interview people who are working there or used to

work there, find out if when people are ready to take parental leave or they asked when are you going out rather than if? especially of the men. spin it that is interesting. if someone is not necessarily changing jobs. the chance to re-examine their life in this pandemic and their career, perhaps with the focus on what they have learned from working from home, how can this become a turning point for them professionally without necessarily changing jobs? >> i think the way it can become a turning point for you professionally without necessarily changing jobs is think about now that you have this experience of working from home, whether you want to continue that arrangement. and how can you do it in a way

they will also advance your career? because the problem again many women have long struggled with is they are not always the best advocates for themselves. they are not always effective networkers. and they are not always good at making sure they have got allies and mentors and sponsors at different times in different points of their careers. and so one of the things i think it's really important if you're going to continue working from home is learning about virtual networking. not only arrange those virtual coffees with people you want to stay connected with, but do them at strategic moments, ahead of that meeting were your budget for your area is going to be discussed for the coming year, pick out the key people who you want to be

speaking up on your behalf. have that virtual coffee early, not later. and at the same time, make sure you are keeping your immediate supervisor well informed about what you are doing to meet your goal. even if it's over communicate on the think you can especially if you're working remotely. i think that's important it's times like this especially all the times like this. : : that we get together almost every monday night still all through the pandemic, and people drop off and they come back but it's so nice. that's the kind of thing also that you can do is find a group

of women that can be very supportive to you. right? >> again, this is another really interesting shift between generations. when you're part of the trail blazer movement, that's really exciting because it's like the women who settled the west. you're a pioneer. you're breaking new ground. it also means they're not hardly anyone ahead of you and there aren't a lot of women behind you and so it's kind of a lonely existence, whereas the women today not only see many, many other peers who they can relate to, there's social media outlets in which you can find answers to every single question, and not only that but there are many companies that have these parents-employee resource groups that in turn can become a bull horn for your individual issue. there's this great example in the book of this younger power

mom who, after she returned from maternity leave, is on the road because she is a management consultant and also still nursing her baby and of course she has to express milk while she is gone, and then bring that milk back with her when she comes back from the business trip, one suitcase in one arm is clothing and the other suitcase is all these bottles of expressed milk and if she is lucky, she won't accidentally knock the suitcase open and lose three days worth of supply of milk. and after doing this for a while she was extremely tired out, as you can imagine, was talking about it with one of her clients, happened to be a law firm, and the law firm compliant said to management consultant, shoot, we pay to ship the breast milk home for our lawyers who

are traveling and nursing moms he. she said what a great idea. report than take this to the parenting group in her company she took it to the executive sponsor who happened to be a senior level woman, a boomer, i suspect, who herself had children, and said, why don't we do this? this like ridiculous that i have to carry two suitcases to a mad dash through the airport. and so executive sponsor with the support of the members of the parenting group, was able to convince the toy start a pilot, they tried it in a couple of cities. it was not only successful, they rolled it out very quickly nationwide and then went one step further and here's another way of judge hogue family friendly the company is. they said to the men in the company, the male management consultants,

if your wife employed elsewhere? is she traveling for work and also a nursing mom? we will pay to ship her milk home, and these are women that do not work for the management consult tap. -- consultant. this ailes covid that goes yesterday and beyond quote-unquote family friendly benefits. >> wow. that is above and beyond. that's amazing. well, you talk about travel and although we're not most of us traveling for work right now, doing things virtually, that was always a big part of my career, a lot of travel. and i did miss things that you talked about, steps. in fact i remember the director of my daughter's preschool called me when i was in a meeting at bmw in new jersey, and i had to -- she called two

times. i stepped out of the room to take the meeting and she said your daughter just bit someone. and i was so mortified. i said, definitely we disapprove of biting and she said to me, maybe if you were home more this wouldn't have happened. >> are you kidding? oh, my gosh. how old was your daughter at the time? >> well, that story reminds me of a story that happened to mary berra who is the ceo of general motors, and when her two children were in middle school, she was already a rising star at gm, not the ceo yet, and she was asked at a social event at their school by some stay-at-home moms who had previously been in the workplace, how do you do it all? and she said, i do it all because i don't do it alone. i do it with a highly supportive

husband and i do it with a wonderful child care provider who happens to be our nanny, and she went home from this event absolutely crushed that her status and able to be a mother had been called into question by these stay-at-home moms, and her husband, to his credit, this is mary berra's husband, leapt to her defense and said, don't accept that guilt trip. you are doing exactly the right thing. and, again to her credit, mary always made sure she was present for her kids' key event whether it was school play or an important game, and to the question you had raised earlier, when she became ceo and was on overseas business trips she did not turn off her phone even athlete was a huge time zone

difference, and she didn't care if the kids forgot it was 12 hours difference in singapore called her at 2:00 in the morning,. >> is this bob lamb. i life your comments about life balance. can you comment on the fact women have been expected to maintain work life balance but men have not. >> i'm very happy to hear from you, bob. we go way back. and the issue of why do women get hung up on work-life balance and the men do not? goes back to our whole society and our social norms, and the fact that while things have gotten better for these younger executives that i met, we still have fairly gendered expectations for how men should operate and how men should function, and in fact when i was interviewing one of those executives from the younger generation she told me that she

didn't like the working title of the book, and i was like, why is that? she said why aren't you talking about power dads? i said i'm talking -- and a lot about power dads. i plan to talk a lot about power dads in this book. these power moms could not be successful if they didn't have spouses who not only were guys and were not only dedicate today their careers and also dedicated to their families, but we have to make it socially acceptable for men to be asked. so, how do you handle work-life issues or the man has to make it be comfortable about leaving work for six months to take that parental leave and the way it's comfortable is when the guys at the top are doing it, and that's what was so impressive with jen

heiman. she is the ceo and cofounder of rent the runway, one of the younger generation women that i interviewed. she not only put in very family friendly benefits initially when the company was started, she send it it to hourly workers in 2018, but more importantly, she made sure that the men knew this was expected behavior of them when they became parents, and she was noticing that relatively few new dads were taking these generous parental leaves, policies she put in place, and so when her male chief technology officer was about to become a father, she said to him you need to take the full leave and let everyone know that you're doing it. and guess what? after he came back, she said there wasn't a single new dad who didn't do the same.

>> yeah. >> this is from ida. you interviewed from -- for the book. when you began to write this book and interviewed all the women we had no idea of the pandemic. what is different from what you wrote, like what are the changes you're seeing because of the pandemic? is it the same and you did touch on this a little but what are the changes you have seen? >> well, i think the most important change is this idea that, guess what, we can be productive and also work from home, but that at the same time we have to be mindful of all these huge pressures that working from home with young children under foot cause stress, and put on parents, and i think the other thing is that the work from home experiment has been a great equalizer. we don't really get so upset

when a toddler wanders into the screen or the dog starts barking or the computer freezes. we understand that this is part of the new reality, and i think we have all become wiser, smarter, and better bosses from this, because we also see that people are going above andon what is expected of them when they were perhaps in the office and maybe not recognizing how much they were being watched. it's a little hard to hide on a zoom call, maybe in-person meeting if it's a really crowded one you can nod off at the back of the room. you can't do that on zoom, and so i think that the work from home experiment has not only been a great plus for making employers more sensitive and more empathetic but i also think it has brought parents closer to

their children as much as sometimes they can be a royal you now what but lot of surveys suggesting that parents like the fact they have been seeing more of their kids. >> well, so, we have one other question that katy was alluding to. you were on the today show, and jenna bush asked but remedies for working mother guilt. what are memories for that? >> -- remedies for that. >> it's interesting because the idea for the working mother guilt remedies chapter actually came from one of the boomer power moms, and she was someone i interviewed for earning it, and used a quote from her in the one chapter in that book about working motherhood and that was this quote in which she said,

manager moms are not acrobats. and so when i then reinterviewed her for this book, she said, you ought to have a chapter about ditching working mother guilt because is it is a complete waste of energy. and i said, okay, if i have ten hacks in that chapter you have to give me at least one. and so one of those is this notion that in her case, she got home from work in time to have dinner with her family, her kids and her husband, who for most of her career was a stay at home dad, and rather than give herself a big hard time about the fact that once again they're sitting down for dinner at 7:00, she said, let celebrate the fact that, guess what? we're sitting down for dinner together. it doesn't matter what time it is. so that's one way to deal with

working mother guilt. another one is also something that was a tip from her. and that is this idea that your children should have a voice in your work life. in her case she would sit down with each of her kids before she went on a business trip, and she traveled a lot, and explain to them why she had to take this trip, why it was important for what she was doing for her company, and when she would be back, and assure each one if they had an important school event coming up she would make sure to schedule the trip in and not miss the play and not miss that sporting event. i also think it's important to find and keep a child care provider whether it's a child care center or a nanny or just an elderly grandparent who is someone that you trust and love

and can regard as a second parent to your children without feeling guilty about that, because we need as many adult role models as we can possibly provide to our kids as they grow up so they understand there is no one perfect way to parent. and i think another good way to ditch the guilt is to streamline your personal priorities. you don't have to be all things to all people, whether it's at work or at home. if you have that involved partner, make sure that you revisit what are the areas in which you are coparenting or sharing the domestic load and do check-ins on a regular basis and use gadgets that save you time. thiswoman interviewed, younger power mom, who found online a special towel the you can dry your hair 70% faster than a

regular towel. it's wonderful. are you back, katy? >> of course. i've been at like 45 zoom calls all dade, totally fine. of course now when i'm talking to you, so i apologize. thank you, lizzy. i holy spirit it doesn't happen again. but talk us about families, there's another thing i'm glad i'm back because i wanted to ask you, you talk about the new orleans your book about raising feminist sons. can we discuss that a little, please. >> absolutely. i hope and i think i did raise a feminist son myself. my son is the hard working dad of three kids, married to an equally hard working mom, and they coparent and they are raising their children to not believe?

gender stereotypes, and in his case, he was unable to take parental paid leave when his nine-year-old first child -- when his now nine shielder child was born. wasn't an option. when his second child, who is seven and a half, came along, he was able to take paid parental leave and he was totally racked with guilt because no guy in the office had ever done so and yet when the now two and a half-year-old came along, it was a piece of cake. and i think only by raising feminist sons as well as feminist daughters will the whole gendered expectations and unconscious boyases that we -- biases we still struggle with and impose on men and women alike will it change. and i love the story that is in the book involving one of those younger power moms, where she

benefited from the fact that a man had been raised as a feminist son. this was a woman who attended her first meeting after being promoted to vice president at the company where she is working, and it's a long meeting and she is the only woman in the room, and one of the older male vice presidents turns to this sole female vice president in the room and says, hey, could you check and see why lunch is taking so long? it's not her job to find out why the lunch hasn't been delivered. and she is not really sure what to say because she is just been promoted to vice president and she is the only woman in the room. but to her surprise, one of the peers, a male vp who was her generation, pipes up and says to this older guy, if you care so much about why lunch is late,

why don't you go find out? and so when she thanks this man afterwards, she discovers there's maybe a reason as to why he spoke up. it turns out his mom always worked outside the home when he was growing up, and she raised him to be a feminist son. >> i hope i'm doing -- i did the same with my son. so i'd love to ask you one more question hopefully my computer stays working and then we have questions from everybody who is attending. >> you got cut off when you were trying to ask me about my marriage contract so i hope that's what you want to ask me about. >> well, i think the important thing definitely reading but a your marriage contract was the way that you had decided on your career, on how you and your husband came to the conclusion that you were really going to be not allowed but you planned on focusing on your career,

correct? >> correct. well, it's because i had a journalism career before i got engaged, i had started work at the "wall street journal" and then we got engaged a year later, and so not only did i feel very committed to my journalism career, i also felt very committed to keeping my name after i got married, and this did not go over very well with my husband to be, and so i said to him, that's fine if you think no one will know we're married, let's hive nate our names and then we -- hive nate our name and we'll be equally recognizable and he push back saying i would have to change my name. duh. at that point i realizes we needed to put something in writing near which he would not only recognize my legal right to keep my name after marriage, but that i in turn would give and

take, and so in our marriage contract, he does accept that, and i said, in turn, that i would accept that if we had children they would have his last name but my names as their middle name. >> there's quiet. so many things that men could do but don't to happen women in their personal lives. what are two oar three pieces of advice you could give to men to make these women's lives better. >> talk to them. whether it's women who work for you or the woman you happen to be married to and talk to them frequently in a informal and nonthreatening mandatory find out where they're at and what it is that is working and not working. and in the case of your spouse, your wife, it wouldn't hurt to

have regular as one couple in this younger generation does, strategic planning sessions, every quarter. they've sit down, they sit side by side, at the kitchen table, and they look at how things are going as if you would in a work situation. what going well and what's not going well in our marriage? what is going well, what's not going well in how we're trying to parent? what's going well and not going well in how we're trying to run this household together? and when i then circle back to a couple of those younger power moms after covid hit, and they were suddenly not only working from home but also educating their children at home and at least one other instance they also were doing the same kind of check-ins and scheduling in the. in the case of one couple they were creating a spread sheet every sunday night in which they mapped out from 7:00 a.m. in the

morning to 8:00 p.m. at night hour by hour what each parent was going to be doing in term of their work zoom calls, who is going to be working on the preschoolers zoom call for his class the kindergarteners' zoom calls for her class, who would do that time, who is making lunch, and. the they realized that planning it a week in advance was like too much because life changes. and so they would have a rapid check-in every night are we okay with tomorrow's schedule? and if you communicate and you show your empathetic listening skills you'll have a great relationship with the women in your life, whether it's a work or at home. >> because as you say, and as you say in your book and you say with your marriage contract that sheryl sandberg said in "lean in" it's so important who your partner is on this journey

of being a parent and especially a working parent. so here's another one. so, thank you for your insight tonight. what was your reaction to the "wall street journal" up --" opd that told the first lady to drop the doctor from her momentum and how does that say to how society treats women leaders. >> i have to say i was deeply disappointed but hugely embarrassed to read that. especially when it turn out that the man who wrote that had no academic decreed del hand sanitizer -- credentials and he wad a batch record's degree and i thing the youth pouring of resentment and criticism that that piece brought upon his head also spoke volumes because it wasn't just women who were objecting to how she was being

treated. there were maybe who also stood up for her. so while i was greatly disappointed to see somebody have the guts to demand that, i also, because i view life as the glass half full, i was greatly encouraged to see it wasn't just women who were taking offense. but it frankly brought back the memories i had when i interviewed to join the "wall street journal," this is 1971, just get out of graduate school at stanford. i had been a summer intern at the journal so i was familiar with the "wall street journal" but i also was familiar with the editorial page and the fact that i did not agree with the editorial page, and i said at the end of my job interview with the hiring manager and i was going to be the first woman hired as a full-time reporter in the san francisco bureau. i said to my hiring manager, will my stories be slanted to

agree with the editorial page? because i don't always agree with what i read there. and he said, joanne, the day that happens, you put on your halt, i'll put on my hat and we'll walk out of this office forever. and my stories were never slanted to agree with the editorial payment and in fact i felt there was a great wall between the editorial page and the news department, except when it came to op-ed pieces i wrote and i wrote many first-person essays about all kind of decisions affecting me as a working woman and affecting me as a working mom. i even wrote an essay long before i ever had a child, about the fact that i really wasn't sure i wanted to be a mother. i could not envision at that

point -- this is late 1970s -- how i could work and also have a child. >> another question from the audience, from your observation, what is an overarching habit and or quality of successful working moms. >> i think the overarching habit or quality of successful working moms is a sense of humor. when the proverbial you know what hits the fan, you can't always cry about it. you have to laugh. when my toddler son decided that his teddy bear needed a bath and put it in the dishwasher and it came out pretty clean, i couldn't yell at the kid. you know. i had to laugh. and i do think that these women have a great sense of their own

self-worth and they also have a great sense of their ability to kind of manage whatever life throws at them, and it's why they have become so successful, but more importantly they're able to foster those traits not only the their children but in the people that work for them. >> are you back, katie? >> no. afraid. no. >> i keep coming in and out -- oh. you should do it. you do it, because this is very disruptive. i apologize so much. but, liby, take over with the questions. >> sure. i have questions from the audience now. ask your questions, audience. this one is from pam reed, chairman of the board here at the commonwealth institute. cove hays driven millions of women out of the work fours, how

do we address that? >> i think we address it by recognizing this is a problem, and we address it on a national level, on a legislative level, and luckily we have president in the white house who is committed to paid family medical leave, who is committed to subsidized childcare on a federal level. now, will he be able to get his rather lengthy legislative agenda through congress and keep those issue opposite the top priority list? i think only time will tell. but i also think as i said in some of my earlier remarks, that women who need to leave the work force for whatever period of time in order to survive from a psychological and physical standpoint, should not worry about the fact this will be a be-all/end are-all career kill and they're should do that by

staying connected whatever way they can, bit perhaps getting involved with a nonprofit, getting a board seat on a nonprofit, where you cannot only show case your skills but perhaps acquire some new ones and more important, do some really powerful networking, and at the same time, form support groups with women who are going through what you're going through, and connect with lots of blogs that are out there that are willing to help as well. >> that actually feeds into the next question from the audience. do you have suggestions -- you touched on this a bit on how to maintain the professional relationships, exposure, when if you have exited the work force? do you have any other tips you might be able to share? >> well, i think another possibility would be to the extent you have a well-committed life partner, or a stay at home

partner, is looking at taking a short-term consulting assignment. it might be as short as a couple weeks but it would be a way to not only get yourself back into the groove of being exposed to the work place, but getting a potential future employer supposed to what you can do. -- exposed to what you can do and at the same timeeye might want to find out if your employer has any kind of alumni organization. many large accounting firms, many management consulting firms have very well-connected alump nye network and try to stay in -- alumni networks and try to stay in touch with beam who have left the company for one rope or another, even those who have gone on to work elsewhere, and at the same time, find out if the company that you're leaving has a returnship program where

you could make a reentry at some point. >> so, another question from the audience, there are sometimes comparisons between women who have children and those who don't in the workplace and this can create competition and tension. do you have any tips how to address these situations and comments such as -- having kids is a personal choice. >> well, having kids is a personal choice. but on the other hand, there are many people in the work force who choose not to have children or cannot have children, and frankly they should not have to bear the burden of the work to accommodate the needs of the working parents and that's why i showcase in the last chapter of the become several companies who i say are making work workable for parents and in some cases they're doing that by

recognizing that we can't expect those who are not taking time off for parenthood to take up all the slack. american express was the best example of this that i talk about in that chapter. what they do is they offer supervisors who are experiencing working parents taking that 20 weeks of paid leave, the opportunity to bring in temporary additional staffing and they give them the money to pay for those short-term replacements to fill in some of the gaps so we don't all -- those who are not parents feel like the burden shifts to us. >> great. so, i guess another question that's related to that. you talked but what companies are doing to get right. anything else that -- what are -- n addition to american

express, companies that are getting it right right now? >> well, i think there are a lot of companies that are doing it right, and in many cases they're ones where the tone at the top of being set by the male ceo. the male ceo is taking new parent leave, the male ceo is promoting women into senior management. the male ceo is showcasing not only those women but showcasing male executives who are imitating the role model that is being set by the ceo and then they're going above and beyond in terms of accommodating the needs of working parents. one of those companies is pwc that i highlight in that chapter. and pwc was a big pace setter in terms of trying to meet the needs of working moms. way back in 2008, they put in a

mentoring moms program it and was the idea of a woman who had come back to work after having kids. the whole idea was to assign senior level women who had had children to be a mentor to women who were thinking of having kids, women about to go out on maternity leave, and who again coached them as long as they needed after they returned from that leave. and when you look at what has pwc done during the pandemic they're pace setters. one of those companies that tell their employees, it's okay to have a protected period of time during the day. it's okay to reduce a very -- reduce york work schedule and we'll continue to pay part of your salary. it's okay to come back to work after parental leave on a reduced schedule and we'll pay

all of your salary. and so there are lot of thing that companies could be doing if they would just ask their employees what it is that we're doing well, what it is we're not doing so well and other things we should be doing differently. >> well, there is a day somewhere in the future where parents are going to return to the office. do you have any -- we don't know when that is but sometime soon. any tip on hour parents can navigate that? >> well, they're going to navigate it the way people who are not parents navigate but with a lot greater difficulty because frankly, if they have to return to the office, 100 percent, and the work from home experiment has been completely ended by their employer, and yet they have gotten used to it and actually like it, it may be time to brush

up -- update their linkin profile and real estate may and think but working somewhere else. think things have changed permanently to a different kind of workplace, where not everyone is going to be expected to be working 100 percent of the time in the office and where we are going to be able to advance our careers working part-time or even full-time remotely, and some of those younger power moms that i met and complete all these interviews long before the pandemic, were already in executive roles and working remotely 100 percent of the time. and they were getting ahead in their careers. >> so, another question, have the women you talked with found being a working mother is actually benefited them or brought in customers work? debra gillman says she thinks

her career as college gist who owns her on practice and a lot of referrals come from other moms and he has colleagues who are lawyers who experience similar things, moms trust moms for intimate relationships. any thoughts on that? >> well, obviously that's very relevant in her practice but more broadly speaking, i believe that parenthood, men and women alike, make us better bosses, and i devote an entire chapter of the book to that issue, and i look at it from both ends of the spectrum. to the extent that we have children and then get promoted into a supervisory role, what have we learned as parents that make us better supervisors? well, we certainly learned how to multitask. we have certainly learned how to delegate. but more importantly, i think we learned patience and more importantly i think we have

learned to be empathetic listeners as parents, and that becomes hugely important once weber into management. if we can't delegate, if we can't multitask, if we can't walk in the shoes of the people that work for us, literally, the way we learned to walk in the shoes of our little kids at home, we're not going to be good bosses, but at the same time we have to be patient that not everybody is going to move at the pace that perhaps you did when you were just an individual contributor, and you have to step back and not micromanage just like we have to let our children grow up and find their own way in the world, as we were talking earlier in the conversation, katie and i, as much as we might want our sons and daughters to beclowns of -- be clones of us they have to be their own true selves.

>> so, an anonymous question, what do you successful power moms do when they feel exhausted and trained from trying to do everything all the time. things they do by and large that are successful? >> well, i think one of those ten hack is talk about in that particular chapter is a really great answer to that question. and this is a power mom from the younger generation who makes sure that she has a special time for herself every sunday. it's a couple of hours, but she has absolutely no guilt attached to it because -- and at the point i spoke with her she had just one child -- that's daddy time for her son, and she gets to do whatever she feels like doing, and of course at the time when i was talking to her that went she could meet here girlfriend for brunch or she

could get on a massage or she could just go to a park and read a book, and she said that she felt so refreshed mentally, emotionally, physically, by knowing that she had that special time that enabled her to be a more effective ceo. i as a boomer power mom never put in place such an arrange. but i remember one moment when our son was a toddler, and i decided i really needed some time alone. he was playing with his dad, everything was totally under control, and so i went and took a bath. and he suddenly discovered that mom wasn't in the living room anymore and comes pounding on the door, bang, bang, bang. mommy, what are you doing? he said. and i said, i'm having some me

time, dan. and he said, well, can i have me time with you? and i said, no. go back and play with dad. but when i'm done with my bath, we can have story time and i will come and read you a book. and so many of these executive mothers understand the importance of self-care. and at the end of the day if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of others, and too many women, women in particular, think self-care means selfish care. caring for ourselves helps us care for those we love. >> well so, with all the inside itches and tricks, what is one bit of advice to share with us that helped get you through your life and career you would have given to your younger self? >> i guess the one piece offed a

vials i wish i could have given to my younger self at the outset of my career was to recognize that not only is your life going to change because, guess what you're going to have children, but your career is going to have ups and downs. you'll be doing different things at different points in your career, and you need not just mentors but you need sponsors at different times and for different reasons. that mentor is the person who gives you good advice and guidance, but the sponsor is going to be the person and for the most part for women it's got to be guys -- who is willing to put their professional reputation on the line and vouch for you and say, she is great at what she dispossess out to get that new assignment-0 go on that corporate task force, and it's doing so because he or she knows

you're good at what you do, plus it's a two-way street. any of these relationships, mentoring or sponsorship, have to be a give and take. >> great. so, going back to a previous question. any recommendations to avoid guilt for that self-care you're talking about my role as a leader makes me responsible to take care of the mental health of my team and so at times i tend to leave myself for last. there are any recommendations how to avoid that guilt of self-care. >> i think the way you do do it by being transplant and honest and open with your team but doing the frequent check-ins we have been talking about and then at the outset to kind of break the ice, sharing how your feeling and sharing about the fact that self-care is important not for everybody -- only

everybody in the group but for me as your leader and i can only be effective as leader to the extent i practice good self-care for myself. >> i think that's grade advice. i go to my last question. now that you have finished your book, how do you feel about the future for working moms? >> i am very optimistic about the future for working moms. and i'm mostly optimistic because we have so many working moms and working dads who are getting high positions of power in many, many companies, and guess what? they've been there, they've lived through it and get it and they understand that happy parents make happy employees. >> agreement thank you again so much for joining us today and thank you to the audience and for going with the flow of it

and, katie, thank you for being here. i'm sorry you had issues. bob lams wand wants to hear the rest of your story so hopefully we can facilitate that when the technology gods are with us, and so with that i want to hand things back over to elizabeth highlier, our executive director. >> thank you very much, lizie, and thank you joann, great conversation. i found myself as usual taking notes. i if pam reed is still on she principle appreciate that and i bet she has the same notes. i want to feed back what i call words of wisdom want to make sure that get reinforced by your conversation tonight. and one -- the first one was you don't always have to be on, and i just love that because i think maybe of us suffer from -- many of out suffer from that. get a grip, take perspective, it's like you don't always to be

on. and be strategic and engaged when you're thinking about how to keep in touch with people and in the virtual networking and three cheers to the sentiments that i do it all because i don't do it alone, and i think that is just so important, goes back to don't always have to be on, it's all beaut being authentic and grant the importance of self-care. we all feel guilty but it's okay to get a manicure, to take a walk, i think. that's what i keep telling myself even though haven't in months and the importance of mentors and sponsors for all of us. it's key to keeping your perspective, keeping your equilibrium, make sure you're not beating yourself up and the -- one of the big things at

the end you talk about working from home has been the great equalizer and we have proven we, work virtually and be very effective and communicate with each other and get to know each other and you can advance your career or in your career in a virtual environment. so there are lot of lessons learned here tonight, and all sorts of great tidbits but i wanted to thank you, and i'm sure there are many others that came out but since i'm the closer i want to just point out what i picked up which was really great. really great. so i did want to also just point out to the group and thanks again for all of you still on the call and we had a great turnout tonight and the first 50 registrants who attended tonight will receive a copy of joann's book, power mom, thanks to -- and you'll be notified in the morning if you're one of the

first 50 and if not, don't float purchase a copy of the book and the link for doing that it will dedropped into the chat. joanne, thank you so much. we really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know you and hear more about your background, your career, and i can't thank you enough and thank you -- i want to make sure it's -- commonwealth institute, we are vary happy to have you part of our community and look forward to speaking with you again. so thank you. go ahead. >> thank you in turn for co-hosting this event tonight. it's been very enriching conversation, and i also would like to extend an offer of autographed personalized book plates to anyone who chooses to buy the hardback version. i have not figured out how to

autograph kindle. >> i do. >> or the audible. >> that's part of virtual world, challenges we all have, right? any case, thank you very much to everyone, and i encourage you all to attend other tci events, many coming up, and check out our website, or contact me or lizie directly. so thanks again, and have a good evening. take care. >> you're watching booktv. created by america's cable television companies. this companies provide booktv to viewers as a public service. >> here's a look at publishing

industry news. hillary clinton is writing a thriller with novelist lewis penny scheduled to be released in october. the book titled state of terror will focus on the efforts of a first-time secretary of state who quote joans the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after four years of american leadership that some rank from the world stage, series of terrorist attacks throws the glowing globalling order into disarray and the secretary is task if with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy. least week the american book sellers association hosted a virtual edition of their winter institution conference for book sellers to discuss business practices. this year's meeting includes insight on e-commerce and book selling during the pandemic as willing a key knost talks boy former president barack obama and best selling author brown, poet and publisher lawrence getty died at the age of 101.

part of the beat literary movement of the 1950 and founded the book store and publisher city lights in 1953 in san francisco. in other news, npb can do scan reports print book sales were up 21 percent for the week ending february 15th and the summer home of the some novelist john steinbeck is up for sale. the house which he called my little fishing place, is located in sag harbor, new york, where the awe to the wrote this last novel, the within ore our discontent. the home is being sold through a trust credited be the late awe honor's wife, elaine steinbeck, list for $17.9 million. booktv will bring you new programs and publishing news and you can watch our past programs anytime at booktv.org. >> here's programs no look out for this weekend. tonight, on our weekly author interview program, "after words," family syndicate it

agreed host air me e -- and then an increase in sexual assault in europe due to mission and best saling author james patterson and retired army ranger matt eversman profile men and women who fought nuss wars going back to vietnam. find full schedule information online at booktv.org or consult your program guide. >> other look at becomes been published. in the soul of a woman, i author offers thoughts on feminism. neil degrass tie sob answers questions about humanity's place in the universe in cosmic queries. and in lucky, nbc news jonathan ellen and the hills amy pardons recalls the 2020 presidential election and joe biden's path to victory. also being published in come fly the world, julie cook retouchdowns lives pan-am steward defenses in the 1960s

and -- stewardesses. and a description of the early dives spacex and a recount of the life of the abolitionist and congressman. find these tight titles this week and watch for authors in near future on booktv on c-span2. >> we're here to discuss a new book entitle "america's covert border war the untold story of the nation's battle to prevent yesterday gist infiltration," i this issue of possible terrorist infiltration across the southern border lend-to-misunderstanding and unhelpful comments. on the one hand there's often exaggeration, a prayer rug was found the arizona desert so that must mean we're in danger. on the other hand, you hear from