8 New Rules of Business

It’s 2022 and the rules have changed.

I talked with Lindsay Kaplan, co-founder of Chief, the private network for women executive leaders, and cohost of The New Rules of Business podcast, about the changing rules in business as exemplified by the guests she’s chatted with. Here are 8 new rules from these guests you can use to navigate the challenging and constantly-changing waters of the business world: 

– Eve Rodsky, author and producer of documentary “Fair Play” 

Have you ever said to yourself, ‘I do more in the home because my job is more flexible?’ Or ‘I do more in the home because my partner makes more money than me?’ Or ‘I do more in the home because I’m a better multitasker, I see things, my partner doesn’t?’

“There’s no way to find time,” says Eve. “But what I realized in the past 10 years of doing this work is that we have very, very different expectations over women on how they’re supposed to spend their time.” 

–  Alicia Menendez, author of “The Likability Trap,” and MSNBC anchor

“What women run up against is this sense that they are either too warm, really well liked and not seen as a leader, or they have what it takes to get it done, they are seen as a leader, but in the process of leading they ruffle feathers. And the vast majority of feedback that women get is critical, subjective feedback, meaning that people love to talk to us about how we use our hands and our voice and like whether or not we ought to cut our hair. And that feedback goes in two directions, either that you’re too much or not enough. And there are a lot of women like myself, who’ve received both sets of feedback in different contexts, which just shows you how subjective and context specific it is.”

– Asahi Pompey, Global Head of Corporate Engagement and President of the Goldman Sachs Foundation

“Companies that are in the top quartile for ethnic diversity are 33% more profitable. Diverse fund managers, the returns on their companies are 20% more. So aside from a DEI perspective that it’s an important thing to do, the proof is in the data in terms of how these companies perform.” 

– Dr. Dambisa Moyo, macroeconomist and author of “How Boards Work”

“As a Black woman I don’t want to be at the board table because I’m a Black woman. I want to be at the board table because people actually think what I have to say and given my background in finance, my background as an economist, that they think I’m adding value. And I believe I’m adding value.” 

 – Debbie Goldstein, Partner and CEO of Triad

“Nice can start to feel like a lie because if it is avoidant and when we have hard things to say to each other at work, they don’t just go underground. What we do is we triangulate. We talk to other people about you instead of having that hard conversation which is explicitly not nice.”

– Samara Bay, voice coach and author of “Permission to Speak” 

“In the same way that there are beauty standards that we have to work to not sort of accidentally compare ourselves to, there are voice standards. And they are so entrenched and we don’t have the language to talk about them.”

Naomi Bagdonas & Jennifer Aaker, Stanford Professors and co-authors of “Humor, Seriously” 

Humor can be great to build relationships with others in the workplace and to make you more approachable as a leader. But the risk, says Bagdonas, is “over-indexing on self-deprecation. When we are not the highest status person in the room, and we self-deprecate, it can sometimes be misinterpreted as a genuine lack of confidence.”

“As managers and leaders, we get to really ask the right questions now. What do we need to be asking our Black women or our brown women, or women who are over 50 or mothers or caretakers, what are the questions that we need to ask to make sure that they feel seen, heard and supported returning back to (the office), or whatever that might mean?” 

Which of these eight ‘new rules of business’ resonate most with you? Anything you would add or subtract?