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Win Win on the Price Writers Podcast Episode 33
21 Plays18 days ago
In this episode, Jeremy and Catrin explore why gender diversity in pricing is more than a pipeline issue and what leaders can do to actively support inclusion. Drawing on insights from a powerful book, they discuss practical steps leaders can take, including a 12-point “cheat sheet” of actions to put into practice straight away. From the way coding skills are described on CVs to the subtle biases that shape retention, rewards, and progression, they highlight how inequality often shows up in small ways that add up to big challenges. Expect a candid, practical conversation on how to build stronger, fairer teams and why the benefits of diversity go far beyond fairness alone. Price Writers transforms pricing professionals into the most respected leaders in insurance.
Find out more at http://www.pricewriters.com
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Transcript
Challenging the Patriarchy
00:00:00
Speaker
So I need to be ready at any time to smash the patriarchy.
Introduction to Price Writer Podcast
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to the Price Writer Podcast with Katrin Townsend and me, Jeremy Keating. Join us as we explore and discuss the world of insurance-related books, offering our insights, recommendations, and crucially, how to apply it to insurance pricing rules.
Gender Diversity in 'Win-Win'
00:00:29
Speaker
Today, we are talking about the book Win-Win by Joanne Littman. The title is a little obscure, but the subtitle gives a hint about what it's about. When business works for women, it works for everyone.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hi, Katrine. Hi, Jeremy. Hello. So we previously talked about diversity in the podcast where we discussed the rebel ideas.
00:00:52
Speaker
What did this book add to the conversation? Well, this is a really practical book.
00:01:00
Speaker
It covers why gender diversity in particular is beneficial, whereas the Rebel Ideas book was more about diversity of thought. This one zones in a bit more on gender diversity.
00:01:13
Speaker
And it talks about why that's beneficial, but also gives you really clear actions
Practical Steps for Gender Diversity
00:01:18
Speaker
you can implement. I really like that about this book. You're not going to go away thinking, okay, well, that's great, but... how you are going to have literally there is a checklist in the back of the book.
00:01:27
Speaker
So if you're that kind of person, this is the book for you. They call it cheat sheet. Cool. i In the back of the book, it says takeaways, tips and takeaways for men and women.
00:01:39
Speaker
yeah And it just gives you basically a rundown 12 things that you can do. So you're not going to read the book and then go, what should I do now? You literally read the book and then it says, so to summarize, here are your 12 things that you go away and do.
Gender Bias in Self-Assessment and CV Writing
00:01:55
Speaker
So I like that about it. It's really practical. And particularly if you've found in the past that some business books are a little confusing, right? yeah ten Yeah, I don't really leave you with actions. I think perin is pretty common.
00:02:11
Speaker
Or it might leave you with exercises, but you don't necessarily have a way doing it usefully at work.
00:02:19
Speaker
So I love that gender diversity is more important now than ever with increased coding in pricing teams. And I've seen this when I've done graduate recruitment is we've often said that Python skills are one of the the things we're looking for. One of the nice to haves.
00:02:38
Speaker
And as I've been looking through CVs, I've compared the CVs of female and male applicants and just looked at what they've said about their own coding ability. Now I learned to code using DataCamp. This video is not sponsored by the way. I just really love DataCamp. It's a really good way to learn to code.
00:02:56
Speaker
They give you a short little video, then you go away and do some coding and then it gives you the next video and so on. And so I've completed lot of courses in DataCamp. And it was really funny when I was doing this graduate recruitment because I saw a lot of candidates saying I've completed this specific course in DataCamp. And one of the courses that a lot of people mentioned was the course called Intermediate Python.
00:03:18
Speaker
Well, lot of ah the male graduates were saying I've completed the data camp intermediate Python course. So therefore I'm intermediate at coding. Okay. There's no better, I think.
00:03:31
Speaker
Okay. The intermediate Python course is four hours. Okay. all right. Yeah. I'm not necessarily intermediate at Python at that point. And the other problem with it is the only prerequisite for that course is the beginner Python course, which is another four hours. Right.
00:03:50
Speaker
For any of those people who are struggling with the maths there, what people are saying, particularly the male candidates were saying, was that they had done eight hours of videos encoding and were therefore calling themselves an intermediate coder.
00:04:03
Speaker
Now, I saw some female candidate CVs, which said that they had done exactly the same two courses. But those candidates generally called themselves as a beginner at Python, even though they'd covered the same material.
00:04:18
Speaker
And so I think this is just one example about how when we're talking about coding, we should be really aware of how different genders not just react to it, but how they talk about their own skills.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah. and think that's a wider thing, though. A lot CVs I've seen, the women naturally don't shout loudly about the things they've done, I suppose, is is kind of nicer way of hitting it. And perhaps men do tend to... i mean not everyone. I don't really generalise overly. But, and yeah, I think there is a general tendency to be maybe a bit more confident about writing, I've done blah, blah, blah, and I'm amazing at things on a CV of a man than perhaps a woman does feel comfortable doing.
00:04:59
Speaker
I think one tip that I would give women who are writing their CV is write what you think and then give it to your most confident friend or a friendly male ally or colleague and say, can you summarize what my achievements are for me? And they're going to give it to you really directly and say, you've done this
Unconscious Bias in CV Reviews
00:05:18
Speaker
and it delivered this much value.
00:05:19
Speaker
And that is exactly the phrasing you should probably use on your CV. Yeah. and we're socialized to go for, we worked as a team and I contributed to the part, the very small part, you know, and all of this, we're trying to minimize, but actually,
00:05:33
Speaker
Your CV really is the time and to to really go for it in terms of competence. Obviously don't lie on your CV. That's not what we want to encourage people to do. But also, say you know, if you have genuinely achieved something, then be direct about it.
00:05:48
Speaker
It is difficult when you have lots of CVs to go through. and in fact, they have talked in some countries about having CVs where you don't know things like people's names to make it harder people.
00:06:02
Speaker
ah People suffer sort of unconscious bias when they read a CV. But a little bit me wondering if that actually makes the problem worse, because as we were talking about, women possibly don't push their achievements as hard as men do.
00:06:15
Speaker
So in fact, not knowing the gender, you actually can't then, in your own mind, do anything about that. Why do you think women don't push harder with their CVs, though?
00:06:28
Speaker
I think it is because of societal narratives that are told about women. That even when kids are little, and I mean little, I mean, I see this with my daughter a lot. She's four.
00:06:43
Speaker
I've heard people call her bossy. hello um I've heard my dad call her bossy and I've had to turn on to my dad and say, don't call her bossy. She's a natural leader or she's being authoritative or whatever it is. But even from when girls are very little, they're told that they are being too bossy. They're talking too much.
00:07:04
Speaker
The BBC did a fantastic show about this. ah can't remember what it's called, but it was about seven year olds and they went into a year one classroom and the scientist took note of how often a teacher asked a boy a question first instead of a girl.
00:07:19
Speaker
And, you know, and these weren't old school teachers. These were modern primary school teachers, a lot of whom were women. And I think there is that natural bias that that a girl who is chatty is is talkative, she's loud, she's too pushy, whereas man doing the same thing is almost taking up the space that he should be. i'm going to say should, you know, in inverted commas. Yeah, I get yeah And so actually I think this this story starts a lot earlier than graduate recruitment.
00:07:49
Speaker
yeah And of course that's that's why the insurance industry alone can't fix
Active Promotion of Diversity
00:07:54
Speaker
it. We're not all expecting that. But I think it does really push us to say once people are in the door in insurance, what can we do given that situation? And given that we know people are coming to us with their own life experience, which is going to be slightly different, obviously, for everyone, not just on gender terms, but like say in class and wealth terms, how can we give people the opportunities
00:08:21
Speaker
to be judged fairly that's what we're really talking about here we're asking for opportunities for men and women to be judged fairly according to the actual merit rather than what we perceive their merit to be based on what they do or don't say or do or don't dress like it's not about the intention it's about the impact And I think it's important because even when I started in insurance, the narrative was that having more gender diversity, um particularly at senior levels, was a pipeline problem.
00:08:55
Speaker
That historically, there had been fewer women working, but 2012, women were starting to join a bit more. And so it all just all sorted itself out in a few years' time.
00:09:10
Speaker
Well, it's been 15 years. And a lot of teams are still not where they want to be in terms of gender split. And not just at the top level, but even at analyst level as well.
00:09:24
Speaker
And what i take from this is that diversity can't just be a pipeline issue. Diversity does need active involvement and active nurturing.
00:09:36
Speaker
The other problem that pricing in particular has is that pricing is a really high churn environment. It's very competitive. And the problem that Joanne talks about in the book is that in high-churn environments, you tend to be quite focused on retaining people, particularly the people that you think might leave.
00:09:56
Speaker
And you might give them extra bonuses or you might give them excellent reviews and or more exciting projects. But do you assess that totally equally?
Bias in Technical Tasks and Language Stereotypes
00:10:07
Speaker
So she mentions that people often perceive that men will have more options elsewhere and therefore are more likely to leave than women who are perceived to have fewer choices. And this this extra i say retention bonus, even if it's not possible,
00:10:27
Speaker
officially a payment, but the these retention bonuses can contribute to the gender pay gap. And i thought it was a really interesting perception in the book because it's something I've never thought about, but high churn is such a problem in insurance pricing right now.
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, it is. And similar, I suppose, is as pricing has gone more coding and technical heavy, Who do you see as being technical in your organization?
00:10:53
Speaker
I think actually this affects almost the lower levels, not just the managers, analysts and senior analysts. But I think subconsciously a lot of us, and I include myself in this too, that I think we perceive women to be less technical, even if they've done the same number of data camp courses as men. or and that i think we perceive...
00:11:14
Speaker
women to be less technical and in a code heavy and tech heavy environment that's a real problem for female progression and it can be things as subtle as if you have a coding task to do and you've got two graduates or two analysts who do you give it to you you say oh dave will be better at this task and uh ella will be better at dealing with the stakeholders you know is that is that actually true or is that just a subtle judgment I mainly really think about it now, but do you think there's a tendency actually to be quite binary where women are concerned? It's like either she's good at the management or she's good at the technical, actually.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think there maybe is a tendency to be like that, actually. Yeah, I think that is that is quite valid, actually. Yeah, that's true. like It's tricky for all of us because we all have these biases. And and one of the things that she talks about in the book is that even women have these biases.
00:12:13
Speaker
I know, yeah, I am guilty of this just as much as the next person, right? And it's not about making anyone feel bad about this. This is what society has led us to expect and led us to believe.
00:12:27
Speaker
So it's not about casting any blame or guilt about it. What it is saying is that you're missing out. You're missing out if you're not giving your female graduate coding opportunities just because you think that, oh, mate, she won't be as good as Dave might be.
00:12:45
Speaker
yeah um You're missing out, your business is missing out if you pigeonhole people into mommy track careers or you don't give women more challenging additional projects because you think they won't want to do it, for example.
00:13:02
Speaker
Do think there's maybe a tendency to notice when women are struggling a bit more than with men? Say you've got a new graduate who's female and she doesn't take the role terribly well.
00:13:14
Speaker
you think there's more of a tendency to note that with women and perhaps even now I say suggest that the the job isn't for them?
00:13:24
Speaker
I don't know. i mean, I've been really lucky to have absolutely fantastic female graduates in my team across the board. I can't think a single one. um Maybe that's because hiring practices tend to be more weighted towards men and therefore women have to be exceptional to be hired. I don't know.
00:13:42
Speaker
But i I really, really strongly rate all the female graduates I've ever worked with. i I do think there is an issue about the words we use to describe women at work.
00:13:54
Speaker
I mean, most people are probably aware we shouldn't use the word bossy anymore because it basically just means assertive and you'd never call a man bossy. You'd call him being ah ah a leader or whatever it is. Yeah, exactly. ah But I think there are other phrases as well that we use. Like I know I've been called team mom because I would remind the team that yes, you have to do your CPD. And if you signed up for an actuarial exam, make sure you stick to your study schedule because you know, that's what you've agreed to.
00:14:19
Speaker
But the problem with that wording is that moms aren't paid. Being a mom is not a paid role. Yeah.
00:14:30
Speaker
And so calling me in that context, a team mum, makes the work seem less important and value adding. the The whole load of stereotypes that go with that phrasing. I was just thinking, and this is this like, just like you were saying, it weirds me out when I encounter encounter my own bias aids, where I think to myself, no, I'm cool, I'm fine, I'm not biased.
00:14:52
Speaker
But team mum... It conjures up a whole load of images in my mind that teen dad does not, actually. a completely different set of images in my mind, just from that. And yeah, yeah, I can totally get with that.
00:15:07
Speaker
Because being described as a teen dad would mean something entirely different. I'm not even sure
Workplace Perceptions of Gender Roles
00:15:13
Speaker
what it would mean. I've never even encountered that phrase, I guess, but... No, I haven't either. Think about it. Team dad, you would be like, I would think of that as someone at sideline, like shouting for everyone to do their work and cheering everyone on.
00:15:26
Speaker
it's like both team mom suggest to me the person that organizes stuff for everyone. and she She does the birthday cards or the leaving cards and make sure that the the team away day has got the right catering or and brought the biscuits for a Monday meeting. and Yeah, I mean, these things like i'm making sure people log their CPD and stick to their study schedule.
00:15:46
Speaker
Whereas I feel like if it was a man doing the same task of that, he would say, wow, he's very supportive of his team. He's a good mentor, maybe. yeah So I think that phrasing, for example, is it's problematic.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, teen dad to me would definitely suggest someone that's motivational, whereas teen mom is someone that's organizing stuff. So odd because I had no idea i had that bias in my brain until we've just talked about it.
00:16:11
Speaker
I remember one teen day i was introduced as my job title, which is fine. That's absolutely fine. And in the intro they noted that I was an excellent example of a working mom.
00:16:23
Speaker
Ten. Ten. Ten. What was funny is I was doing a talk about pricing innovation. Unsurprisingly, I didn't mention my kids once.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah. um And yeah, I thought it was really interesting that even in a totally unrelated context, people still thought it was important to know that, you know, she she's a mom of of two two small children. and Believe it or not, I've never been described as a working dad.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, you know, we we have a totally different picture of what working mom or career woman, you ever say career man? Oh, he's a real career man. A career man. I don't know. But it would mean a different thing. definitely Yeah, I think Jacinda Ardern experienced a similar thing, obviously. i Me and Jacinda Ardern, very close.
00:17:13
Speaker
based said um But I think i think she she mentioned going through a similar thing, even when the context was political or diplomatic. know, if you're meeting with the president, the leader of the free world or the head of the UN and Jacinda Ardern, working mum.
00:17:30
Speaker
As if they just pulled her off the side of the football field. Like, it's it's such a strange thing. and I think there is a difference in language in how we frame men and women.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, we definitely do. And it it's interesting interesting how it comes up so much in politics. And I wonder if that's because politics involves being a leader, that it's an area where people's subconscious and even conscious bias, particularly play a big role in how they perceive things.
00:17:58
Speaker
But yeah, I can't think of a single news article about like what David Cameron wears. um we We recently saw David Cameron giving a talk. I don't remember they even thinking about what he was wearing and I can't remember what he's wearing right now.
00:18:11
Speaker
and No, just the uniform that David Cameron wears, absolutely. But you get these articles about the clothes women were wearing.
00:18:24
Speaker
And you also get articles about how much their bill for clothes cost the taxpayer
Media Scrutiny and Attire
00:18:29
Speaker
and stuff. And it's like criticizing them ah requiring to spend money on clothes because the world expects them to spend money on clothes. They probably don't even want to be doing that anyway.
00:18:42
Speaker
And yeah, just the words we use, like women politicians being too ambitious, Hillary Clinton gets a lot of dick for this exactly, or that she's cold.
00:18:54
Speaker
Like, what female politicians are pretty cold people, actually. Yeah. ah But we don't say, oh he's very cold, you know. Well, Rachel Reeves crying at work happened weeks ago.
00:19:07
Speaker
There was a whole ah whole lot of stuff. Should she resign? And is she really fit to do the job? There are a lot of male politicians who have done probably more surprising things, I think, or things that have led me to question their ability to lead the country. no You may go, the only people I've dealt with crying at work can actually were all women.
00:19:27
Speaker
But women cry when they feel angry. I think that is really underappreciated, that you don't always cry because you're sad. i think that is a misconception that we only cry when we're sad. Actually, women particularly cry for a range of reasons. This has been well documented by a lot of researchers.
00:19:48
Speaker
And, you know, I know that I've in the past cried because I'm feeling cross at myself. or I'm feeling frustrated with myself. I'm feeling angry that someone made some assumptions and I feel angry about that.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I kind of want to do shout at them, but that's not really how it can manifest. So actually it's a lot more complicated than that.
00:20:13
Speaker
Interesting. So I think any times I cry when I'm sad, The occasional film as well. Oh, Up. and I know Up is a difficult one, though. so Everyone cries up.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah, but it's not just the montage at the start. It's the house at the end. Because also symbolised his wife when the house falls to the ground at the end. And hes and he says, he says, it's just a house.
00:20:40
Speaker
And I think of all the... the The angst, I'm going to say, about Theresa May's leopard print shoes. Pushy-ploying leopard print shoes. And what does that mean for what the budget may or may not include? And I was like, oh, you're expecting the two things to be linked.
00:20:57
Speaker
I can't remember, apart from that one time that Rishi Sunak wore, know, was it Sambas or something? i can't remember any reporting on male politicians attire. I think sometimes there was mentioned that the Rishi theme acting is often actually class and wealth related. That's the interesting undertone we've done actually.
00:21:17
Speaker
and Not because of the crazy way that it's pointing out that he's a rich, heeding the rich person, which comes in with its own level of privilege. But no, you have to be right, actually.
00:21:29
Speaker
There's so much in the way particularly politicians are treated. I think generally women's clothing says more than men's. The book mentions Karl Stefanovic, who is an Australian broadcaster, and he wore the same suit on TV for an entire year.
00:21:45
Speaker
And he didn't receive a single comment, single comment, not one, but his co-host received multiple comments because she wore the same outfit twice in a month and people wrote in to comment on that.
Attire and Perceptions
00:22:00
Speaker
And I think this kind of goes back to, you know, a point about David Cameron. Do you judge your colleague differently if she wears a dress rather than trouser suit.
00:22:11
Speaker
If she comes in wearing a trouser suit, you thinking, oh, wow, she's going to be kind of, say, boss boss bitch. We like say that? on I don't know. Do you think that she looks like she's trying too hard if she wears a trouser suit?
00:22:23
Speaker
Whereas ah man in suit trousers and a pale blue shirt, and it always seems to be a pale blue shirt, by the way, um is pretty universal. That's... You could go to any, almost any meeting or any work event in that outfit and it would be totally fine. I don't, I can't think of the an outfit for women that would be the same like that.
00:22:43
Speaker
There is no equivalent. I mean, you see this in other areas. If you imagine with pop stars, actually, like man, jeans and a t-shirt. It's fine wearing that. You can go and give a convict baster in jeans and a t-shirt.
00:22:57
Speaker
Not winning can't. that would That would be in the news. That would be this pop star did not make an attempt. I read. Whereas a man can literally roll up in what everybody was wearing that day, give a concert or a talk or whatever, and no one would comment on
Bias in Insurance and Skill Judgement
00:23:12
Speaker
it.
00:23:12
Speaker
Only makes me worry the fact that own five of these t-shirts and it's the thing I wear for work. Jeans and t-shirt. Yeah. Good enough for price writer. That's good. Absolutely. Should be good enough for everyone. you know, i can remember ah report that was about gender bias in the insurance industry.
00:23:32
Speaker
And it concluded recommending that we all went and did unconscious bias training. So much of this is like under the surface. And often it's not a single thing.
00:23:44
Speaker
It's hundreds, a small thing that add up to a lot of bias. But the interesting thing was that every single time in this report that it had anything to do with men and women, so the chart, the questions, the quote, every time, man, woman, every single time. And I remember just how jarring it was that it ended by recommending something about unconscious bias, because it's absolutely right. it It's often the amalgamation of hundreds of small things that cause these problems.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, anyway, I just thought that was a brilliant example of the exactlyy that that exactly the problem when it was talking about. Even in the book, and and obviously this book is written by someone who studies gender bias for a living, and is a woman herself.
00:24:32
Speaker
Even in the notes, she puts that in one of the sections she was talking about two doctors, and the first draft she referred to the female doctor using just the doctor's first name.
00:24:46
Speaker
Intra. When she referred to the male doctor, she said doctor first name. And she said that was really interesting to her because clearly it is ingrained in everyone.
00:24:57
Speaker
So it's not just about, sayss it's not about saying any one person, this is a societal problem, right? But if we want the best people, we want the best business results.
00:25:09
Speaker
We want to make sure that we're judging people's work fairly and we're giving them opportunities to help
Creating Inclusive Environments
00:25:16
Speaker
and further the business. This book is not about you're doing it wrong.
00:25:20
Speaker
It's really, really about you're missing out, but there's easy things you can do.
00:25:27
Speaker
In my book, actually, I mention a plumber and I call it, I said, I'd say she. And someone actually, I said, oh, this bit's weird. And I was like, why do you think that is? And they said, because you changed the plumber halfway through. And i was like, no, I never said that the plumber was male in the first place.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah. They just read plumber and assumed that the plumber would be male and then were jarred when I said she. i thought that interesting. I didn't change it, by the way. it's still female in the book.
00:25:56
Speaker
And so what can we do to improve things? Cause it's important to lead in our industry and it, it's difficult to keep the male leaders and how do we champion young female graduates? Cause it's very much a similar story to how do we do this in a way that's unawares that doesn't feel like we are kind of pushing.
00:26:18
Speaker
Cause you know, people do struggle to get a good balance with this. So I've seen this in action before where, you know, if the team's going out for drinks, the male grads will quite happily bond with the head of pricing over a pint. They'll quite happily have a pint and talk about that to the west. blow But CEOs or chief prison officer, head of pricing, you know, they're hugely disproportionately male generally.
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah. And the female graduates struggle to find common grounds with them. Yeah. or Or teams that use football or cricket as the openers of team days. Or do you have like Friday takeaway emails type thing that say, what you doing this weekend? I'm going to go watch the cricket. That you know that might be what you're doing.
00:27:07
Speaker
But also in those emails, you're giving people things that they can ask you about next time you meet in the office. They say, oh, great. How was the football? How was the cricket? Did you see? I'm going to embarrass myself here by saying Arsenal beat Tottenham.
00:27:21
Speaker
That kind thing. entirely possible combination in football like that although actually I might be on difficult ground that I think that big in the Premier League aren't they and Well, there you go. So if you're using a lot particularly a lot of men's sport as the openers of those things, then you're not making it easy for women to speak to you or even just
Interruptions and Gender Bias
00:27:43
Speaker
non-sports fans. And let's be honest, pricing actuaries might not be sports fans either. and That goes for men women and women.
00:27:50
Speaker
and And therefore, if you don't have that opener or you're not happily chatting over a pint, it's going to be harder for you to find out about the great work that they're doing. So I would say, be firstly, be aware that those those openers, they're not just fun openers. They are actually acting as asking me about prompts.
00:28:12
Speaker
Or just be explicit and say, ask me about football, baking sourdough, or my recent holiday to Thailand. Give people a couple of different options that they can choose from. Don't just talk to women about their kids and families.
00:28:26
Speaker
True. Yeah, that's fair. that can be really difficult because they might not want to mention it because they want to talk about their work to you, but now they're stuck on the topic. So yeah, don't don't just do that. But it's all about making it easier for people to connect to you.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's not just help from a gender lens, but it's also about people from other countries that might not follow British football. I actually personally, as someone that doesn't drink anymore, I find a bit annoying that such a drinking culture. And I realize now um that there's an awful lot of people in a similar situation that are like, oh, it's a bit annoying. Everyone's going to drink so four five pints and I don't really want to do that.
00:29:06
Speaker
They may end up part the group. And also most of us are introvert in fairness, and some of us are very introverted and we do have quite, quite a few neurodiverse people as well. So what about them?
00:29:22
Speaker
I used to love having meetings with a particular manager who was neurodiverse because whenever he was in a meeting, he would strictly enforce no interrupting.
00:29:34
Speaker
He used to find it really difficult. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense, but I loved being in meeting with him. tempted to keep interrupting, you know. and
00:29:47
Speaker
The book points out that women are more likely to be interrupted. But while there is a gender lens to that, he just found it very stressful. And so while this book focuses on including women and the benefits of that, a lot of it is actually applicable to a lot of different groups.
00:30:09
Speaker
I was rather unaware of this interrupting thing with women, actually. And I read about it in a different book. And from then on, I've been really aware of it.
00:30:20
Speaker
And I will probably admit to my own. And if I read that, I then thought about my own behavior. And actually, I probably was more likely to interrupt a woman than a man. And i notice it a lot now.
00:30:32
Speaker
Katja and we obviously have meetings together quite often with other people. have noticed that you are far more likely to be interrupted than I am. Even when I've been talking for ages.
00:30:43
Speaker
ah fat The book actually points out that women are more likely to interrupt women than men as well. So this isn't just men. Yeah, this isn't just men interrupting women, it's women interrupting women.
00:30:55
Speaker
And so I think that, like i say we all have bias. and And this book is very open that everyone, men and women, have gender bias.
00:31:05
Speaker
But if we want our companies and our teams to be as strong as they possibly be can be, there are easy things that we can all day And definitely not in a guilt-inducing way. it's It's actually a really nice, easy read that is interesting and accessible.
Book Recommendation and Conclusion
00:31:24
Speaker
It looked fairly short as well. Is there is it just nicely, very succinct, So the book is about 240 pages. This is a hardback. I don't really like hardbacks most of the time, i but got it from the library.
00:31:36
Speaker
It's about 240 pages. And then it's got another three or four pages of the tips and takeaways. That's the cheat sheet. And obviously it's got further notes and reading in the back.
00:31:47
Speaker
It reads really quickly. I think I finished this in two days. Two or three days? so a um It's very easy. to It was a weekend. and you It was actually very fun to read.
00:31:59
Speaker
I enjoyed it. And I would recommend this particularly for leaders. mean Like I say, the handy cheat sheet is really helpful. As a good summary, you might even want to pick two or three that you really, really want to implement.
00:32:12
Speaker
And even though I've read quite a bit about this topic before, there were still lots of new things and examples that I took from it. So um really I do recommend this book. Really good.
00:32:23
Speaker
Does it have a lot of anecdotes in it? I always really like when business books and feeds go to anecdotes. It does have a lot of examples. I'm not going to say anecdotes because I don't like anecdotes where the author just says, I spoke to this one person who said this one thing.
00:32:40
Speaker
What it does have is it has a lot of very well-researched examples. So when she talks about the Icelandic financial crash and how that relates to gender,
00:32:53
Speaker
She talks to a variety of Icelanders, ah are all different, some in government, some of the general public. So they are obviously anecdotes, but she's not just relying on one person as her source material. It's really well researched.
00:33:10
Speaker
I think it is very enjoyable, like I say. It's got enough new stuff in there that everyone will take you something away from this. Brilliant. Okay. Well, I will be sure to add that to my reading list then.
00:33:24
Speaker
Next time, we are going to be talking about Seeking Fairness at Work, which is a book about methods and tips and tools in order to address whether we are fair at work between both management and the employee and also say between different employees.
00:33:40
Speaker
So it does follow on quite nicely from this book as well. Thank you for joining us and we will see you next time.
00:33:52
Speaker
PriceWriters transforms pricing professionals into the most respected leaders in insurance. Find out more about our engaging training, graduate scheme and workshops by visiting pricewriter.com.
00:34:03
Speaker
dot com