Mikki Hebl, a professor of psychology at Rice University, discusses strategies for handling interpersonal discrimination in the workplace. She shares how she gives booster shots of self-confidence to the women that she mentors. Mikki will tell you why it is important to identify and pursue the golden chips in your field.
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Episode #3: Finding the golden chips with Mikki Hebl, Ph.D.
Mikki [00:00:00] But I also sometimes think what you need to do is really find out what the golden chips are for you to get ahead in your organization and spend as much time as you can on those golden chips. This was actually advice that was given to me when I got to my first job as I was experiencing a lot of interpersonal discrimination. And I went to this woman who was the first tenured professor in our business school. And I said, this is going on. What do you suggest? And she said something to me, kind of like, Mikki, I know you're good. Get the golden chips and then you can make changes when you're tenured and when you're in a position where you're old enough and you can, like, change it for other women. And that really resonated because she got where she was, you know, not on accident. I felt like her advice was good. And now that's what I've done. Like I really said, OK, in academics, what you need to do is you need to get published and you need to teach. And you need to do these things well. And then once you get tenure, you have this job security and you can be a little more vocal. And so now I'm quite vocal when I see anything against happening that are kind of injustices.
Madeline and Becca [00:01:19] Welcome to The Madeline and Becca Podcast. The mission of our podcast is simple to inspire professional self-confidence in women everywhere. I'm Madeline. And I'm Becca. On our podcast, you will hear stories from real world influencers, women who have experienced tremendous success in their careers, by building self-confidence. Thanks for joining us.
Becca [00:01:57] On today's episode, Madeline will be interviewing Mikki Hebl. Mikki is a full professor of psychology and management at Rice University. She is an applied psychologist whose research focuses on issues related to diversity and discrimination. She has published more than one hundred and twenty-five journal articles, book chapters and edited books. Mikki is a passionate teacher and has been the recipient of 15 major teaching awards, including being the only faculty member nominated by the students to be the commencement speaker at Rice University. Mikki will discuss strategies for handling interpersonal discrimination in the workplace, how she gives booster shots of self-confidence to the woman that she mentors, and the importance of identifying and pursuing the golden chips in your field. Here's Madeline. [Music transition]
Madeline [00:02:50] Let's start with what influenced you to become a professor and specifically your field of research on issues surrounding diversity and discrimination.
Mikki [00:03:01] Sure. So, I am from a really small town in Wisconsin. It's called Pardeeville. It's P-A-R-D-E-E-V-I-L-L-E. It's a town of about thirteen hundred. In case you want to know, it's a watermelon speed city, seed spitting, speed eating championship of the US, second Saturday in September. And from there, I did something that not a lot of other people do. I went far away to college on the East Coast and I went to a place called Smith College. And Smith is an all-women’s college. And for the first year was quite a change from my little town of Pardeeville. I saw so much diversity and so much strength in in women, and it was really eye opening to me. And I think for four years I really saw the empowerment of women. I built, I built some really good female friendship networks that will last me my whole life. And it really made me think about just the things that we were studying, made me think about gender issues. And I have such a great admiration for all of the pioneering women who have come before us. And it really kind of left me with a feeling like I got to do something to continue this legacy and to do something that makes life better for the next generation of women, just as these pioneers that I learned so much about had made life better for me. So, when I was applying to graduate school, I actually kind of did the route that a lot of people did. I was premed, one class away from finishing the pre-reqs. Then I went, I thought I wanted to go clinical psych. And then I got into this field called Social Psychology, which is the study of the way we think about influence and interact with others. It's a lesser known field of psychology. Most people go into psychology, think, oh, you're going to be a clinician and I'm not a clinician. I basically study human behavior and human interactions. So, I started a program there and I finished my Ph.D. At Dartmouth University and focused on stigma, the interactions that people have in the workplace and how those are often more problematic because of the demographic differences that people have. And from there, I came to Rice and I've been here ever since.
Madeline [00:05:31] That's great. And so, let's start a little bit talking about your own career before we get into some of the various research that you've done and some of the questions that we have and advice that you might give to other women. Can you describe for us, career high, something that you're really proud of? A career accomplishment that stands out in your mind.
Mikki [00:05:50] Sure, I'm smiling because it really is a wonderful feeling. I was awarded the Cherry Award for professors. It comes with a two hundred fifty-thousand-dollar award. It's given to a professor, a single professor in the United States. And it's judged on how well you teach. And I really didn't think I was ever going to get that award. And that felt really nice. It felt nice because I love to teach and I'm really passionate about teaching and that felt very, very good.
Madeline [00:06:31] And on the flip side of that, can you tell us, describe for us perhaps a challenge that you faced in your in your career or failure moments? And what lessons did it teach you?
Mikki [00:06:46] I think more than any single moment, I think when it comes to a failure moment, I would say that it's a little bit like my research. It's not one particular thing, but a nagging feeling that continues throughout my career. And that's like, am I good enough? Am I there? Oh. Did I screw this up once? And did I. Am I going to get this wrong? And it's this like nagging feeling of always having to make sure that this isn't the time you fail or that this isn't the time you fall. To me, that's something that isn't necessarily a really negative experience, but one that is with me constantly. And it's something I hear women talk about a lot, which is like, they never feel good enough or they're always insecure. They always like feel like there's these little issues that don't leave them to be confident.
Madeline [00:07:48] It is, I'm going to tell you that is something that we hear from so many high achieving and successful women like yourself. It's incredible. I mean, people who are at your level in all different fields who have felt those feelings. And what do you do in terms of strategy for addressing that and continuing to feel self-assured and push past it?
Mikki [00:08:08] Well, I think I try to talk to myself and say maybe that's the strategy. Maybe that's the reason that I keep achieving because or keep trying to have goals and try to be like this success, you know, and never stop kind of reaching for the next thing is that maybe it is that that little feeling I get that little bite that says, oh, are you good enough or have you done enough or what have you done lately? Maybe that is the reason. Instead of saying, well wow, it's amazing that all these strong women have that, why do they have that? Maybe that is the reason they are strong, because they have this ability, inability to shut off a feeling that they have to do more. So, I try to use it as well, is maybe not a threat, but a challenge for me. Like I feel like even now as we're stuck at home, I thought, well, what can I do? You know, the first the first week or two or three weeks was about, well, shoot. How do I deal with these four teenagers and not kill them? [Laughing] After that, I was like, OK, now I got that down. Now I have to help. I have to do something, and we have to do something where I get my kids helping and we have a focus. And so that's kind of I think it can be strategic. I think it can burn you out. But it can also, you know, if you think about, well, maybe that's your strength. It can help you.
Madeline [00:09:33] I really like that answer a lot. So we want to discuss some of the strategies for addressing various challenges that women face in the workplace, and Becca and I, we watched your TED talk and your discussion on interpersonal discrimination in the workplace, which resonated a lot with both of us, because I think you in in that talk, you gave a label to something that we've both dealt with. And I think many, many women, if not all women, have dealt with at some juncture in their careers. And what advice would you have for women who are working to become leaders in their industries and who are facing interpersonal discrimination in the workplace?
Mikki [00:10:18] It's not one specific answer, but maybe several. The first thing I would say is to trust yourself when you think it's happening. So, what we know about, so just to backup interpersonal discrimination, what I study is often this very subtle type of discrimination. So, I like to tell people, think about somebody you don't like, OK? Like you don't like this person and put them in your mind, like come up with this person. And what happens when you walk down the hall and you see this person? What does your face do? What does your body do? And what we know is, you know, we often try to avoid the interaction. We avert our eyes. We do something called the Duchenne smile. It's kind of a fake smile where we go, oh, hi. It's really accentuated. Or we pretend like we're on a phone call or we orient our bodies that way from the person. And what I try to tell people is that's really what interpersonal discrimination is. That's the types. Those more subtle things are the types of discrimination that aren't overt but that we recognize. And when somebody is negative or you're negative towards somebody, you recognize that you don't have to say something like, I don't like you because you're a woman or I don't think you can do that job in order for you to experience the discrimination. We are very, very smart social animals and we can pick up on those cues quite easily. So, what I like to start by telling women is those cues, if you're recognizing them, they probably are there. They're not, you may be over, over interpreting them. They may sometimes be stronger than they actually are in reality. But if you're seeing them, I wouldn't spend a ton of time trying to say, is it there? Isn't it there? Because really what that's doing is taking cognitive resources away from what you should be doing. So, I talk about attribution ambiguity a lot, which is like I have to exert energy to say, are you just making an ugly face at me? Are you being rude like that to everybody? Or is it because I'm a woman? And if I have to go searching for those cues, it takes me off task on the things I should be doing. So, we know from the research that there is a lot of discrimination, there's a lot of sexism out there. So, the first thing I say is just accept that it does exist. Don't try to spend time going, well is this the case or isn't this a case? It’s there. It's there. It's there, it's strong. Guess what? It's shown by both men and women. So, you know, there's some things that the research shows that are really important and not surprising, especially at this time, is social support, like finding people that are really that have had experiences and that you can talk to. And first of all, just voice. And we know that social support is just a huge predictor of how people experience and recover from discrimination in the workplace and so just have those people that you can go to and say, oh, my God, you'll never guess what happened today. And I got to bitch about something. Sorry if we can't say that, but I got to, I got to complain about something. OK, that's really helpful. So, we know that strategies there. And then I think there's other strategies. You know, some people say well document it. And I kind of say, you know, it's going to be there. And again, documenting it is important. And if it's egregious enough, you should do that. But I also sometimes think what you need to do is really find out what the golden chips are for you to get ahead in your organization and spend as much time as you can on those golden chips. This was actually advice that was given to me when I got to my first job as I was experiencing a lot of interpersonal discrimination. And I went to this woman who was the first tenured professor in our business school. And I said, this is going on. What do you suggest? And she said something to me, kind of like, Mikki, I know you're good. Get the golden chips and then you can make changes when you're tenured and when you're in a position where you're old enough and you can, like, change it for other women. And that really resonated because she got where she was, you know, not on accident. I felt like her advice was good. And now that's what I've done, like I really said, OK, in academics, what you need to do is you need to get published and you need to teach well, you need to do these things well. And then once you get tenure, you have this job security and you can be a little more vocal. And so now I'm quite vocal when I see anything against happening that are kind of injustices. So, I think getting those golden chips, having a social support network, I think there's other strategies that my research shows that you can do if you can't avoid the interpersonal discrimination. You have to figure out a way to get beyond it and if it's somebody doing it repeatedly toward you, sometimes it is important to actually acknowledge it or to acknowledge, you know, this sort of tension that's there. Sometimes you can do it in a funny way. You know, I was just on the phone yesterday and there was a meeting and I was the only woman on this kind of important meeting, and they were talking about who was going to be the stenographer. And I said, right now I'm going to just tell you I'm a woman and I'm not going to be the stenographer. [Laughing] And, you know, there's many a times you can kind of say a little bit of humor and then give a punch. And so, you have to somehow avert the kind of sexism that's going to be prevalent. And sometimes you can do that with a little bit of humor, but always with a little bit of punch, too.
Madeline [00:16:03] I like that a lot. Humor and punch, it's a one two. On the flip side of that, as a company leader, maybe in the private sector outside of, you know, academia. If you are a leader and you want to develop an egalitarian culture and foster an environment where interpersonal discrimination isn't tolerated, what advice would you give to those leaders?
Mikki [00:16:29] Yeah. So, I. OK. So, there's. I need about six hours. I have a class that's just all about that. [Laughing].
Madeline [00:16:45] So in a nutshell, in a nutshell.
Mikki [00:16:46] I feel like I have 52 children who all want a voice right now. And I'm like, oh, which child should I speak on? I mean, I think, OK, so first of all, let's start from the top. OK. Because that's really the most important thing is leader by and in the CEO. So, I can talk about what you can do on an individual level, but that has your, your reach of about seven to 20, year span is about seven to 20 people. If we can somehow design this organization to reduce interpersonal discrimination and the just sexism or whatever that exists, the negative climate. What I'd do is start with the CEO, start at the top because the top down is going to have the biggest span. So ideally, you would have a leader who really believes in that. And we see that there really are leaders who do believe in that and that are living it out. OK. And then from there, you really want to think about, OK, this person is visible. They're really showing their support for anti-discrimination, for inclusion efforts. You want to make sure that your policies are all aligned with that. So, it's not just, oh, we're going to farm this out to H.R., but this is really something that our organization believes in. It's not an H.R. game. We can see it in every single thing from the mission statement of our company to, you know, H.R. to all of the managers, to the training that we have from the get-go. That sorts of messages that you see and what gets reinforced. So, it's really systematic that we can see these differences at. And I think, you know, there's one really close example that I'd say that does a really good job at this. And this is M.D. Anderson is a cancer institute in Houston. And I think they do a fabulous job. They've got a CEO, Peter Pisters, who really believes in it. They've got tons of initiatives that are just go through out the hospital system. So, I think it’s very possible interpersonal discrimination goes hand-in-hand with these other things. So, when we see interpersonal discrimination, we often see the formal discrimination. It's sort of, it gives rise to toxicity. So, it's not just about the interpersonal, but surely the interpersonal does decrease when we have these organizational cultural sorts of things in place. Now, you might be saying, well, what about me? I don't have. I have a crappy CEO, or I don't have access. It's about being in my little department or my division. What can I do to reduce it there? And again, what I would say is that's where you want to get with the local leader, who's ever the manager of your area and make sure they're, they're aligned. Sometimes that's really hard to do. So, what if they're sexist or what if that's where the problem is coming from? We right now are doing some male ally trading with the whole University of Houston system and trying to look at how women can reach out not only to the social supports that they have that may be male or female, but how they can reach out to people who have this power, right? And who can be advocates for them for also making changes. Because when you get enough voices and you get enough voices that of people who have clout and master status, and we often know, unfortunately, that's typically men that we do see changes. And when there's enough pressure within any system, whether it is that small system or whether it's the bigger one, change does happen.
Madeline [00:20:28] That's yeah, that's so great to hear. And its great advice both in terms of the localized leaders or whoever is actually, you know, top down. And I often think it just in my own profession. I mean, being a trial lawyer, it's. I just feel like the importance of women leadership, having women leaders, also just women who, you know have been through the system who have that advice and who also just lead by example.
Mikki [00:20:57] If I can say something about that, I want to.
Madeline [00:20:59] Yes absolutely, please.
Mikki [00:21:01] Which is empowered women empower women, right? We see this on the t-shirts everywhere, and it's, it's actually something that the research shows. So, every once in a while, you'll hear people say, oh, well, that woman did me wrong, or, oh, that's a queen bee. And I want to acknowledge something about that. Because what you said, Madeline, really makes me think of that, which is women do help women. For the most part, there are some women who don't. But it seems like we have this sort of stereotype that sometimes women are the ones that subvert other women. And there was a research study that was published a couple of years ago in this journal called Leadership Quarterly, kind of looking at how do women help other women? And what is this idea of queen bee? And what they showed was, lo and behold, women in management, women in the business world do help other women. And it was really exciting to me because it's something I've really felt, as we all can think, of some woman who didn't help other women. But we can also think of probably one hundred men who didn't help women for every woman that we can. And that doesn't mean that there aren't great men out there helping women, but it means that this is sort of a flawed narrative that sometimes gets passed around is that, oh, no women. It's those catty women doing it to others. What we really see as powerful women, for the most part, are really helping other women. And I think what you said is really true, which is the more women that get into higher leadership positions, the more everybody succeeds. They may, you know, is that shown by the research? What's shown is that women make different sorts of decisions and they tend to be more thoughtful of everybody in the organization. They tend to be more democratic. They tend to be financially sound. And, you know, I think it's really important to think about all the things that we don't see when we put women in charge, which is all of the younger generations see leaders and role models of people that they can become. And that is something that the price, the financial implications of cannot be measured.
Madeline [00:23:27] Absolutely, and I think. When you have a really strong female leader, like I had a mentor when I was first trying cases who I think was the first female in courtrooms in Maine, they're just not a lot of trial lawyers. They're a lot of female lawyers, but not trial lawyers. And she was really trailblazing. And because I could watch her, that helped me develop my own skill set because I felt like well, she's done it and there's footprints behind her were easier to follow. And let me ask, in terms of the importance of mentoring both, you know, in your experience, if you had some really powerful mentors, it sounds like the chair of your department you know at the beginning of your career was really, you know, important, giving you that advice and also the importance of how to pay it forward when you are in a position of power, power. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mikki [00:24:14] Yeah, so I actually had an adviser at one point that I didn't have such a good relationship with, like I didn't feel like it was that great. And I remember thinking I'm going to do things differently. And I think that's really important is that when we have mentors, we can learn what to do and what not to do and to trust ourselves and to say, you know what, I'm going to do things really differently. And I remember thinking that when I go into academics, I am really going to care about what, I'm going to care about all my students. But I am going to look for the people who don't, who have this sort of visible insecurity or this they look like they're really going to get somewhere. But they may be holding themselves back. They may think they can't make it, because I felt like that my whole life. I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm smart enough to go to this East Coast school. Oh, I don't know if I'm going to get into graduate school. When I applied to graduate schools, I only got into one. And I thought, oh, they made a mistake, OK. You know, and then when I got into one graduate school, I transferred to another and I thought, they're never going to accept me. So, I kept having these, like, feelings of I'm not good enough. And so, when I see that in young women and I know that they are good enough, I feel it's partly my mission to say, OK, give me your arm. I'm going to give you the booster shot right now. Let's just give it to you, OK? No more of this. Let's stop with that. Now let's see what we can do, because if we could take all of that and just put it toward actually doing it, it would be great. But again, going back to maybe that's what makes these people good, is they're always feeling so insecure that they have to prove themselves and do more and more and more. But, yeah, I, I think, you know, one of my other mantras is certainly paying it forward. I have that on a rock right on my desk, which is pay it forward. And I just think, you know, probably one of the greatest accomplishments is, is winning that, that award. But that award is just money and an award. If I think about what I'm most proud of in my life, it’s sending people into graduate schools in my area and sending a lot of women and diverse students into getting PhDs. So that I know that tomorrow's workforce is going to look different from yesterdays. And I get to be part of that. And it's partly these women who were just like me and what we're talking about, which is, you know, they need mentoring and they need to be shown and told, you can do this, you can do this, you could do this.
Madeline [00:27:01] And for each one of those booster shots that you give, the exponential ripple effects are just, you know, throughout, you know, throughout the country and probably the world most people that you've mentored. [Music transition]
Madeline [00:27:23] I want to shift to talk a little bit about motherhood, and I know this. is another big topic that you probably have 54 kids that could be screaming at you now and jumping up and down here. But just sort of in a nutshell, we talk with all of our guests about the experience of being pregnant in the workplace, becoming mothers. And they've all had, I think, varying experiences depending on where they're working and, you know, the point in their careers. So for our listeners who are in that situation, who might find themselves facing various workplace challenges, whether that's you know, discrimination or perhaps an assumption that they are no longer up for their job, I know in law we call that, you know, being sidelined to the mommy track. And what advice can you give with respect to handling this?
Mikki [00:28:13] You know, when I got to my job, there were only two. I'm in a psychology department and psychology is I think I might be off by a little, but not much, I think seventy five percent of the PhDs are earned by women, or certainly a majority of them are. And so, when I got to my job, I guess I thought there would be more women. There were two women in my department and neither of them had children. And I was told a couple of different things. Or by told I got the message, one is that you can't be a good researcher and a good teacher, so make, you know kind of make a choice. And two is that if you're going to be in academics and you're gonna make it, you're probably not going to have a lot of kids. And in fact, there weren't a lot of people with a lot of kids, especially women. So, I didn't have a lot of role models. In fact, I didn't really have any role models that I could think about when it came to female professors who had kids, so that had touched me personally, you know. So, I think I felt like at that point in time, I know what my priorities are. I, my father is one of 16, 17 children. He's got 16 brothers and sisters, it's a big Catholic family in Wisconsin. So, think about that, 17 children. And that means I have fifty-five cousins on one side. Fifty-five first cousins. OK, so for me, family's really important, really important. And this job is really important. I mean, Rice University, this a great school. And I really wanted to like, you know, get tenure here. But I also knew myself and I knew that I wanted to be a mom and I didn't want to just be a mom of one child. I wanted to have like a big, big family. Now, big family isn't what 17 children is, but it's certainly a big family for most female and female academicians, and that's three children. So, I just remember thinking, well, if I don't get tenure, I can get another job and get tenure somewhere else. If I don't have kids. What am I going to do? You know, and I didn't want to miss out on that. And so, I just really felt like in this case, I have to be my own role model, like I have to be the change I wish to see. I think that's what Gandhi says be the change you wish to see. And that's really what I did. I just said, well, I'm going to try my hardest at this, but kids are really important to me. And so, you know, the first one came along and it was a lot of work. I had a lot of pregnancy issues and postpartum issues. And I said, you know what? I kind of walked through fire for that one. Let's walk through fire again. And I feel like more than anything when it comes to that, I really take sort of pride in knowing I did it and I did it kind of in a way that that I didn't see other people doing it and that I can model that. Now, I should also tell you, because this is so important, is I had help along the way. I have a husband and I also have always had what I call a wifey. [Laughing] And my wifey, is somebody who comes into my life and helps, helps. We often say this person is, you know, the nanny or the child caretaker or something. But I always think of them as taking care of me because I want to take care of my kids. I just can't do every single thing. And so, you know, they help out whether it's OK, you go do the pickup so that when they get home, I can have more special quality time. OK, maybe you can help me. I'll do the laundry today if you'll get them doing the homework, because right now I'm going to kill them. But tomorrow you get to do the laundry, you know? And so, it's really like a wife who also kept me, kept me sane. And I don't mean to insult the word wife, but I'm saying it's like that's a wonderful thing to have somebody who supports you in that sort of, you know, kind of stereotypical way. Right. Like, they ask me and make me food and bring me sometimes my wifey will bring me coffee, Starbucks to the office. And I'm like, you kidding? So, I think there has been a lot of supports.My parents still live in Wisconsin. My husband's parents are no longer alive. So, we haven't had the benefits of family like other people have. But I can't tell you how much it is really about it takes a village. And when you're doing things that there aren't a lot of role models for, it's about having as many social supports as you can. And I just want to say I'm really sympathetic to the people who are trying to navigate everything I'm navigating, and they don't have the finances or the space or the access to all the supports that I've had. [Music transition]
Madeline [00:33:25] I want to talk a little bit about I think that a timely issue, which is the impact of Coronavirus on women in the workplace. You know, this has been obviously unprecedented times that we're living through. And do you have any advice to organizations about how to support working women who are dealing with it, work, family health, finances? You know, in terms of avoiding burnout and, you know, being able to be successful under these types of circumstances?
Mikki [00:33:51] Yes, I do. The first one is to do exactly what you just said, which is recognize that, you know, to understand exactly what you said. Before all of this crisis hit, I have a helpful husband, but, you know, is it a joint sharing in everything? No. And for most people, it is not. And if you look at the literature, what you know is that women are doing a second shift at home. They come home from their work and they're making dinner and they're cleaning and they're doing everything else that they need to do to keep their houses running. Now, with the Coronavirus, these wonderfully brilliant working women are now have this additional thing called childcare. And we know that the majority of this is also falling on the women. And I think just really recognizing that is so incredibly important. And anything we can do to get men to, we're gonna call it lean in. Right? We're going to have them lean in or maybe we call it lean out of their work to really help support women or I made us heterosexist assumption, so anything that partners can do to help is really successful and effective. But the other thing I think that we can tell leaders is don't make decisions right now about, you know, if you see people stepping up right now, don't make decisions about the people who aren't stepping up because the people who aren't stepping up may not be able to. And we don't know what's going on. Once we leave these computer screens and I would just say that if we know that there is this kind of overall greater pressure, we've certainly seen it at Rice. Some of the women have gotten together and said, jeez, we really need to talk and we're all facing similar issues. Again, I think the social support is important, but I think it's also very important to have dialog with the leaders or people who are making decisions. And that's probably organizational specific in terms of how they can best help. But clearly, I would say don't make any decisions based on performance that's going on online while a lot of women are being strapped by taking care of their kids. Now, I also want to say it's a wonderful time for men, for both partners to share the workload. And I hope that that is something that women do kind of say, hey, enough is enough. You've got to do 50 percent here. And that after this is all over, maybe what we're gonna see is more fathers have bonded with their children's and really children and really meaningful ways. And that may have an impact later on. You know, they may decide, geez, I'm going to continue to do this. This is really fun. I've never seen so much activity in our neighborhood in terms of seeing families out. And if this is all there, you know, there may be some silver linings, too. I like to think positively and maybe there's some silver linings about how much fathers have learned that they can help and how much they enjoy it and how much they're unwilling to go back to long hours. And for women, I think some of them I've heard them say they can't wait to go back to long hours. [Laughing] And I think, you know, I think there's nothing you know, once you're over the breast feeding, I don't think there's anything that says that men can't parent as well as women can, if they, they practice enough. [Laughing]
Madeline [00:37:49] I love that advice. [Music Transition]
Madeline [00:38:03] We talked a little bit earlier about your marathons, and I think it's an incredible accomplishment that you run one in every state. And I think it's just we talk a lot about work life balance and doing things that, you know, are helpful outside of work that support perhaps positive things in your work life. And so, I'm wondering, you know, what is running marathons taught you about the importance of mindset to success or other things in your and your career?
Mikki [00:38:29] Oh, thank you for asking. I just love that question because marathon is a metaphor for me. It's a, it's really a metaphor about life. There's some I mean, this sounds kind of hokey, but there's some really challenging miles and there's some really easy ones. And I think I told you before, I feel like when I run, I'm more of a hamburger. There's some steaks. Some steaks are people who are really good runners. They run sub threes. I am not a steak. I'm a hamburger. I think it's also about getting out there and thinking about what your goals are like you know, there may be there's always gonna be somebody who's better. So, unless you're really that number one, [Laughing] there's always somebody who's worse. I love at the beginning of a race, you know, you look at people and they look so fit and you say, oh, those people are gonna kick my butt. And then you see some people and they look so out of shape and you're like, I got them. And then in the middle of the race or somewhere around mile 20, you pass that one that was so fit and that person who was so not fit passes you and I love it. I love those expectations. And I love the stereotypes of having these expectations and seeing them kind of challenge. I also love for me; I do research on diversity. And for me, running a marathon in every state is really about seeing the diversity of our great United States. So, I'll often say to people, you know, first of all, it's a way to talk to anyone, anyone in the United States. I can say, oh, you know, you're from Oregon. Well, let me tell you about the Portland Marathon. Okay. Or the Sauvie Island, because at this point, I run sometimes multiple marathons in a state. Or also, oh, well, let me tell you about the beautiful cornfields that I saw for twenty-six miles and how the as the sun just glistened off of the top of those tassels and it was actually so beautiful. And you know, I'll say to people like if you had two states that you could pick that you would never want to live in. What are those two states? And if you had to pick two states, you'd want to live in. And I talk about kind of stereotypes with them and I say, oh, really? This is the state you never want to live in. Well, let me tell you about what I saw. This is kind of a nice way to reach people. I also have run a marathon on every continent. And so it's been really fun to see that experience of just the band of running and what a friendly, it's kind of like, I guess some people are into it, like I think of my church, which I'm Catholic, but I'm a Catholic feminist. So, you cannot predict how I feel about anything. If I go to not Notre Dame in Paris, which of course you can't go to right now. But if I go there, I know people are going to be doing this prayer and I know what they're gonna be doing. I know how it's going to go. And that's kind of like marathoning. I know how it's going to go. I know there is these people there that are good people. They're down to earth. They're like, you know, they're not wearing makeup. They're going to try to have these same worries about how's the race going to go, or they know there's going to be some tough miles. They're all helping each other get through it. I can't tell you how many times in a race somebody has said, come on, girl, how I've said to people, OK, you got this one of you know, you're not going to let me pass. And so, it's just been really nice to metaphor for life. And just I'm somebody who likes there's somebody who's some people who just love to run and just love to get out and run. I like running once I'm done with it. [Laughing] But I will tell you, if you tell me there's a marathon, I'm like, oh, well, when is it? So, some people say I go for a twenty-mile run and I'm like, well, why don't you just run six more and call it a marathon? So there really is something fun for me about the marathon. And, you know, it's probably that this silly person came up with this 50 states club and I, you know, and one of these people who's got to do something. And so, I said, well, that sounds like fun. And after that was done, people said, what are you going to do now? And I'm like, wow, I got to do the continents, you know? So, it's just some of us are driven by you know, these carrots, and I guess that's what it was for me, but it really was about getting so much in the process as well. [Music transition]
Madeline [00:43:21] As we sort of head towards the end here, I would love for you to tell our guests about one thing that's in your professional pipeline that you're really excited about.
Mikki [00:43:30] I decided that what I was going to do was not just teach undergraduates and not just teach graduate students. I train graduate since get their PTSD, of course, to but that I needed to reach a new audience. And so, I decided I was going to teach executive MBA is because I was going to teach them about diversity. Because remember, what we talked about was you can teach people with a span or you can go to the top. And so, I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to teach these people at the top about diversity and discrimination. So, I did that for three semesters over the last several years, maybe for four semesters over the last several years. It's a teaching add on for me. And it's been really challenging. It's been eye opening. I'm trying to turn people's awareness dials. And sometimes I change them from, let's say the dial goes up to ten and that's fully enlightened. OK. Some time and I don't think I'm at a ten. Right. None of us are at tens. We're all working to try to get to a ten so sometimes I can move people from six to eight. Right. And other times I'm moving people from a one to two. And they really are fighting that two. [Laughing] And so what we decided to do was when the deans asked me if I'd teach it online and said that they would give me some support to develop this online class. And so, it was very, very fortuitous because while the rest of the world was learning to do this on their own. I had the staff that was helping me do everything. Think about what my course plan was, how my course schedule, how I was going to develop these, how we wouldn't just talk like this because people would get bored. But we needed different types of, you know, media. And I think what I did was make a really nice course with a lot of help. And so, I'm kind of excited to see how that goes. I'm going to launch it first this summer to both executive MBAs and to professional MBAs in a different, two different classes. It's going to be called optimizing the future of the workplace. And I'm excited about that because I think sometimes what I found is that when you teach executive MBA classes, sometimes they want to teach you. [Laughing] And, you know, the thing about psychology is if I were teaching chemistry, right. I could tell you about titrations and about all of these like distillations. And within two minutes, you'd be like, uh oh, I don't know what that means. But when I talk about diversity, it's a topic that all of us have sort of opinions on. Now, whether they're founded in data or in practice, you know, those are two different things. So, what we know about research and practice is really important to put together. But we really want to do best practices that are based on empirical research. And a lot of people forget that based on empirical research part. And so that's been fun to actually record the sessions without having the questions, which they will get to ask the questions and they will get to talk in a synchronous part of the class. But for a little bit, I get to just tell them, here's the facts and that's going to be fun. And then I think my colleague and I will probably write a book on it. So, stay tuned for that.
Madeline [00:47:04] I love it. I love it. So, in closing, we like to ask all of our guests if they have, you know, sort of their best piece of advice for listeners that they can apply to their own careers, specifically with respect to developing professional self-confidence.
Mikki [00:47:25] Yes, the thing that I would say is I would ask people to write down their goals or to think really clearly about what they want to do about what a meaningful life is. If that feels too overwhelming, what a meaningful five year, a 10-year plan, a one-year plan. What is the plan? What do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Unabated by any other thing. Like what is it that you really want? What will make you happy? What does success look like for you? Is success wrapped up in happiness? What is it that you really want to do? And for me, for organizational psychologists, we call that goal setting. And once you know what your goals are, that's the hard work. Getting those goals out, once you know what that is. That's your destination. I think getting there is often a lot easier. So, once you get those goals out, look at those goals and figure out which ones are the ones you want to tackle and then go tackle them. And what I would say along the way is you need support. You need to you know; it's not going to be the same journey for every person. But you can get there. You've got to believe in yourself. You've got to, like just have tenacity, perseverance. You've got to have social support. You have to have a lot of luck. You go through failures, but you get to those goals eventually and you don't stop until you do.
Becca [00:48:57] If you enjoyed listening to our podcast, hit subscribe now. Thank you to Nico Vettese for composing our original music. And thank you always to our home team of friends and family for supporting us in our mission. This episode was produced and edited by Madeline and Becca. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, you are somebody.