3:51PM: Jenny Choi and Harleen Gambhir here in Sanders Theater. It’s so crowded here that we both would not have been able to get in without Valentina Perez’s help! (Thank you Valentina!)
3:59PM: It’s starting! – Jenny Choi
4:03PM: “The blunt truth is that men still run the world, and I’m not sure if that’s going so well.”
4:06PM: Raise your hand if: You’re not sure you can do the “big jobs” in the world. Almost no hands. – Harleen Gambhir
4:08PM: Taking off earrings upon advice from tech people: “If more women wore these mics, they would come up with better mics!” – Jenny
4:09PM: “Drew! Still with pencils, those little blue books!”: Alumni nostalgia upon finding out that we still write exams in blue books. – Harleen
4:10 PM: Men attribute success to themselves, women will attribute their success to others. Significance: If you attribute success to yourself, you know you can do it again. – Harleen
4:11PM: Sheryl says that even after finishing a whole book on women, she still feels unconfident. “I can’t change how I feel.” – Jenny
4:12PM: “Part of me is still the girl that sat in this auditorium and walked out thinking ‘I don’t belong here’…but that can change.” – Harleen
4:13PM: “Even if you’re not sure, you earned your success.”
4:14PM: “Raise your hand if you didn’t stand up because you think it’s distasteful.” Me! – Jenny
4:13 PM: Sandberg remembers a Phi Beta Kappa speech on feeling like a fraud that she attended as an undergrad; took those lessons to boardrooms and meetings. – Harleen
4:15PM: “We have a leadership ambition gap, and until we fix it, we will not fix the leadership gap.” – Harleen
4:16PM: “They will use the word ‘bossy’ to describe little girls, a word they almost never use for little boys.” This means that there must be change from both sides; women have to step up, and society in general needs to make a conscious effort to change the fixed images. – Jenny
4:17PM: “As men get more successful, they are better liked, by both men and women. And as women get more successful, they are better liked by both men and women.” Followed by anecdote on how she asked not to be listed as Most Likely to Succeed in high school. – Harleen
4:18PM: “You can decide that it’s better to be smart than pretty, and it is.”
4:19PM: Not bossy. Just executive leadership skills. – Jenny
4:19PM: In classrooms across America, women get interrupted more than men. And you can decide to stop and say “let her finish what she was saying.” Because it is a power move, every time. – Harleen
4:19PM: Book rec from Sheryl: Cinderella ate my Daughter by Peggy Orenstein – Harleen
4:19PM: “We have made more progressive in the workplace than in the family.” Women are doing more work in the household regardless of the fact that more and more women are also taking on jobs outside the home. – Jenny
4:20 PM: Sandberg compares career path to a marathon, with supporters cheering men on while asking women whether they’re sure they want to go forward. Points out how men are never asked whether they should be working with kids at home, while women frequently are. – Harleen
4:21PM: “I don’t remember a single conversation in college about work-life balance. My generation assumed we could do it…and we couldn’t. Your generation knows it’s an issue.” – Harleen
4:22PM: Sandberg talks about how women think about balancing family and career from high school. She tells you to lean in. What about also changing the way that men think, so that the norm can be splitting the job? – Jenny
4:22 PM: LEAN IN.
4:23PM: “The most important decision you’re going to make is who your partner is.” “If it’s a woman, you’re in good shape, if it’s a man, be picky.” – Jenny
4:24 PM: If you stay in, you will have more…more experience, more options. And then you can make the hard choices, and they will be hard…but do not leave before you leave. Stay in, keep your foot on that gas pedal.” – Harleen
4:24PM: What the world would be like if more women ran companies. Discussion on Half the Sky. – Harleen
4:25PM: “Date whoever you want….the bad boys, the sexy boys…I did, I met some of them in this hall. By the time you’re my age, what will be sexy about your husband is how often is does the laundry. Believe me, it’s true.” – Harleen
4:26PM: Sandberg thinks that more women here can help out women all around the world. If there were more women running things in America, there would be more women leading things elsewhere, she says. #themakers #butterflyeffect – Jenny
4:28PM: “We get closer to the dream of equality with every single women who leans in…We grew closer with Drew Faust, who is a tireless advocate for women and girls across the world.” – Harleen
4:28PM: Colin Diersing just sent over a good point via text message. She said “women like us.” She’s talking to the audience in a way she normally isn’t? – Jenny
4:29PM: “We get closer to the dream of equality with every single women who leans in…We grew closer with Drew Faust, who is a tireless advocate for women and girls across the world.” – Harleen
4:30PM: Free online 20-minute lessons on the Lean In website, teaching skills like negotiation: “Promise me that you will watch that video before you go in to take your first job. – Jenny
4:30PM: What would you do if you weren’t afraid? – Jenny
4:30PM: Fortune favors the bold. What would you do if you weren’t afraid? <– signs on the wall at Facebook – Harleen
4:31PM: Question time! Our very own Valentina Perez gets the mic first, asks about Sandberg’s views on institutional reforms that can bridge the leadership gap between men and women.
4:32PM: If you want to change policies somewhere, just lead that organization. Sheryl set up pregnancy parking at Google! – Jenny
4:33PM: 40% of women in this country don’t get a single sick day. Answer: “The best thing that you can do is to go run that company.” Example of how she got pregnancy parking at Facebook. -Harleen
4:34PM: Angie, undergrad at the college, gets the second question. Asks about the recent letter from the Princeton alum. She says that she could not disagree with it more. – Jenny
4:35PM: As young women, we should be looking for who we are and what we want. Her message is: don’t get married, be picky. Although, I do think that a real sign of respect for what we as women want is being able to do whatever we want, including just getting married and having kids. – Jenny
4:36PM: Sandberg on dating: “My advice is wait. Be picky. Make sure someone is worthy of your time for a date, much less the rest of your life.” – Harleen
4:36PM: Women don’t negotiate as much. True! – Jenny
4:37PM: Miriam Holly – one of the original authors of Our Bodies, Ourselves, gets the next question! She’s one of the makers! Asks about how her generation (who opened the doors) and Sandberg’s generation can cooperate. – Jenny
4:39PM: Sandberg says that she doesn’t like most of the advice that is given to help women in the workplace, but still thinks that it is useful: “Until then I’m a pragmatist, and you might as well get paid fairly. And so you might as well smile and say ‘we’, and get paid well….and then you can change it. So that when you’re up on this stage you won’t have to worry about it.” – Harleen
4:40PM: Sandberg says “Let’s do real questions.” Executive decisions! – Jenny
4:40PM: 2012 grad gets the next question about women in politics. How do we change the perception of women in politics? How do we remove that barrier to entry? Great question, I wanted to ask that too! – Jenny
4:41PM: The numbers are incredibly similar across all industries [not just politics] in terms of female leadership. –> same answer= We need to encourage women to lead. – Harleen
4:42PM: Just telling women to lead will work systematically in every industry, including politics, she says. – Jenny
4:43PM: Senior from Boston College gets the next question. Why do percentages fall so dramatically as we go higher and higher up on the business pyramid? – Jenny
4:44PM: Drew Faust raised her hand! – Jenny
4:44PM: 1) Success and likability penalty: Asks men in the audience if they’ve ever been called “too aggressive” at work. 2) We’ve misinterpreted our own laws. “It’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of pregnancy, gender, age, etc. It’s not illegal to talk about it…people are afraid that if they say the words ‘pregnancy’ or ‘have children’ in the workforce, they’re going to get sued.” Says bosses should be openly talking to employees, expressing support if they ever decide to have children. – Harleen
4:44PM: To get to leadership roles, you need to be pretty assertive. But assertive women are seen as aggressive. How do we fix this? – Jenny
4:46PM: Sophomore from the college gets the next question. – Jenny
4:47PM: If the current trends continue, in fifteen years, about half of this auditorium will be working full-time and will be working for the guys sitting here. If you want it to be different, you’re going to have to do something different. Even if you end up working for your competitor, you should just go for the better job. (She’s never heard a man question that.) – Jenny
4:48PM: The real way to get a mentor is to build a real relationship with him/her and working together with him/her. “It’s always about mentoring, mentoring, mentoring. If you focus on your jobs, you will get them.” Fresh perspective! I haven’t heard that before. – Jenny
4:48PM: Our messages to women are putting them in the wrong place. You don’t get mentors by focusing on getting mentors, you focus on them by doing your job. A mentor will not come, whisk you off to a corner office, and make you live happily ever after. Our messages to women need to be similar to our messages to men, which is “You can do it!” – Harleen
4:49PM: “If you excel, you’re going to have people lined up to mentor you.”
4:49PM: Her friend, Jenny (not me!), has the next questions. Apparently she’s in the book! Asks Sandberg to explain how she got the women together. – Jenny
4:51PM: “Some of the best mentors I’ve had in my life have been my peers.” Talks about peer support groups. – Harleen
4:51PM: The idea of circles (she talks about how to create a circle of friends) rather than a ladder is refreshing. – Jenny
4:52PM: “If you want equality, get there faster…on dates, don’t do that cute, girlfriend-y, ‘Oh I can do that for you’…three months later, you’ll be back in 1950, and you do not want to live there!” – Harleen
4:53PM: Dating advice: “The guys that didn’t do anything form the beginning didn’t do anything until the end.” – Jenny
4:53PM: Tells story of friend in audience, who took a full-time job soon after having twins. Sandberg says the friend and her husband are happier, because their time is equally valuable. – Harleen
4:54PM: Grad student from Pittsburgh gets the next question. He’s “leaning in” and being the first man with a question! Asks about biological clock pertaining to childbirth and balancing it with career. – Jenny
4:55PM: “We can’t change the biological clock, but we can change everything else around it.” Re: academia, we can change the tenure track! – Jenny
4:56PM: “CEO after CEO, men are jumping into this, and I hope it’s going to change.”
4:57PM: The ability to build consensus is really important. Talks about being Chief to Staff to Summers and how no one wanted to listen to her because she was young; learned that the way to manage is to build consensus. The first question she asked: “How can I help you?” “It’s going to make you a better leader anyway.” – Jenny
4:56 PM: An MPP candidate tells a story of how she has dealt with sexism, and asks for advice. Sandberg points again to online organizing efforts around Lean In. Also says that “feminine” characteristics work, and that you “should lean in to them, and acknowledge them.” A bit disappointing of an answer to end an otherwise inspiring talk. – Harleen
4:58PM: Message she leaves us with: the decisions WE make are important for all of our futures. Jump in! – Jenny
