Lauren Tucker is a longtime advertising executive and, as a Black female, she's rather unusual in that industry The last time we spoke she was finding it tough to land a job in her field in a new city. Today she runs her own successful inclusion management business, where she grapples with everything from cultural blind spots to terrible job descriptions.

Still, Lauren is itching to find out what's around the corner. Looking back, she sees a career that despite her ambitions was largely controlled by others. Her job's demands influenced what she did with her life. Today, she wants her job to be in service of her life - and her perspective on life has changed quite a bit in the last few turbulent years. She still has a lot to do.

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Nearly all our workplace communication is digital. Gone are the days when faxing seemed like efficient new technology (believe me, it did at one point). Emails, team communication programs like Slack, texting, instant messaging - they’re all convenient and speedy. They can also cause a lot of angst.

In this show I sit down with Erica Dhawan, author of the book Digital Body Language, to talk about why digital communication can be so fraught with frustration and anxiety. Is that terse email simply direct, or does a more sinister meaning lurk in those short sentences? Are emojis OK at the office and if so, for whom? I’m also joined by Liz Zelnick, whose experience in a past job made her think again about her use of exclamation points. And we look at the advantages of virtual meetings, where stereotypes can fade into the background.

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Scan the business section of any bookstore and you'll see reams of books written by men, far fewer by women. In this show, which originally aired in 2018, we talk about women as writers and readers of business books. Is it imposter syndrome, fear, or lack of time that stops women from putting fingers to keyboard? Is Lean In a business book or a self-help book? And why are female authors less likely to embrace a publicity blitz when their book is published? My guest is Alison Jones, owner of Practical Inspiration Publishing, host of the Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast and author of This Book Means Business.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Books and articles offer career advice or relationship advice. They rarely consider the link between the two. Yet dual-career couples are everywhere, and anyone who's part of one knows your careers can only run in parallel for so long At some point, life is going to get complicated - and not only if you have kids. So how do you make it work?

INSEAD professor Jennifer Petriglieri, author of Couples That Work, has spent years researching working couples and learning from their experiences. In this episode we talk about the three transitions couples go through over the decades, and what her research (and her own career and home life) have taught her about the roadblocks couples face, and how to navigate them. 

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This show is all about working with neurodiversity - having a condition such as ADHD, or Asperger’s or anything else that means your brain functions a bit differently from a lot of your colleagues'.

Emma Case had always wanted to work in fashion, and she loved it - but at the same time she had trouble with things that seemed totally straightforward to others. It took years to work out why. Emma now runs Women Beyond the Box, a platform that celebrates the successes of neurodiverse women. Michelle Jones and Paige Jeffrey are in this category too. Paige often found the office a confusing environment but didn’t know why until last year. Michelle’s world was rocked when, in her late thirties, she received some shocking news about her brain.

All three women have struggled at times, but they’ve all learned use their particular brains to fuel their success. And each of them wants workplaces to open up, to be more inclusive - to recognize that neurodiversity can be a benefit to a project or a team rather than a hindrance.

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In this show we consider the idea that resilience is overrated. When Omolara Thomas Uwemedimo attended medical school she learned to be stoic and to power through. But during her career as a pediatrician and professor, she powered through so much that her body turned on her. She says too many Black women are supporting their workplaces - and everyone else - to the detriment of their health. She wants to change that.

Therapist Camesha Jones was a student when she experienced a mental health crisis. Today she's bringing mental healthcare to women in Chicago whose needs have too often not been met. Mental health, she says, "is the gateway to having the life that you want."

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A lot of workplaces use alcohol as social glue. When Lisa Smith started out as a lawyer in the '90s she spent multiple late nights out drinking with colleagues. But the pressures of work had her drinking at home too, and by the time she was in her thirties she was an alcoholic. In this show we look at women's relationship with alcohol as it intersects with the workplace.

By being at the bar Lisa got career opportunities she wouldn't have if she'd stayed at her desk. Today she works with law firms on changing their cultures so that alcohol plays less of a central role in people's careers, and to end the stigma around addiction in the legal profession. We also meet Dawn Nickel of She Recovers to talk about the issues women face in seeking treatment for substance use, and how the pandemic has affected women in recovery.

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The income gap between women is widening fast as well paid, educated women outsource traditionally female tasks to women who earn far less, with little job security. In this episode we meet Alison Wolf, a professor and labor market expert and author of The XX Factor. Then we hear from Jennifer Bernard, a Trinidad-born, New York-based nanny. She describes the unequal work environment that is the home, how she began to gain confidence on the job, and what makes her feel successful.

Since this episode was first released life has become harder for domestic workers of all kinds. Many lost their jobs during the early days of the pandemic, and some remain unemployed.

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