Julie Cafley: Gender Partnership in DEI

Lisa Laronde  0:03  
Welcome to the powerhouse project podcast, a podcast celebrating and empowering women and a place for us to share our stories. I'm your host, Lisa live round. Today, I'm very excited to welcome Julie Kathleen, a creative and strategic leader who through catalyst Canada, a nonprofit organization works to build better workplaces for women, while focusing efforts on equality and inclusion. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank

Julie Cafley  0:25  
you, Lisa, congratulations on this podcast. It's really exciting. And I've been following it closely. Thank

Lisa Laronde  0:30  
you so much. It's interesting. I've met now people at random people that have actually stopped me. And I'm so surprised, because I really feel very strongly as I know, you do. I think we have this in common that, you know, we don't do enough to share some of the successful stories or even some of the difficult journeys that we've had, so that women understand that, you know, we're not alone. And, and we do have a community. So I'm very thankful for it. I'm very, very honored that you actually reached out and said, you'd like to join the podcast. So that's very cool for me. Excellent. I actually remember when we met at the orba, AGM it was only last February seems like a lifetime ago for me. And it was my very first panel that I moderated. And I remember that they sat us down, I'm not sure if you remember the planning session, but it was like, no male bashing, we're not gonna have a q&a. And make sure that you, you know, you look at the male perspective, as you're going through this not only the women's perspective, and I remember coming out there saying, like, it's 2023. Like, do we really have all these rules on having a dei plenary session, but then I started to follow some of the work that you've been doing. And I'm just so inspired and, and can't wait to learn a little bit about you today? Absolutely.

Julie Cafley  1:31  
So excited as well. And I think it's interesting, because, you know, when you recount that story, I think back that was probably kind of the beginning of a bit of the backlash that we've been seeing. Right. So that's perhaps not surprising.

Lisa Laronde  1:44  
Yeah, I think I was really taken aback with it. I'd done I think, a Toronto building show prior to that. And we had a very small audience, the Auburn one was much larger, I think there was like, 200 people in attendance. So it was probably one of the first bigger ones that I've done. But I was really surprised that they would think that we would get up there. And you know, this would be, you know, an all male bashing event. And I remember saying to her, no, the whole point of this is, we can talk about our privilege, and how can we as as even allies, how can we be supportive and help? And I think Orbis the like the best place to start, I'm actually on the board now. So hopefully, we can start to make some changes, we'll see. Well,

Julie Cafley  2:16  
it's interesting, because one of the reasons that I came to catalyst was because, you know, as much as I love a roomful of women talking about women in leadership or the importance of women, I really realized that we need to have men in the room to have real change. And that was one of the things that really attracted me to capitalists, because it was both men and women wanting inclusion wanting equity. And it's just it's kind of the only way to go, in my view. As much as I love a roomful of women for fun. I think in terms of change, we really need to have everyone in the room.

Lisa Laronde  2:46  
I 100% agree with you. And I think we can't do it by ourselves. I've done some speaking engagements. And some women have came up to me and said, you know, because I said, We need everybody in the room. We need men, we need allies. And they were like, Why do we need that? And and I said, you know, I think please correct me at any point in time. But I'm, I feel as women, you know, we want to do things on our own. And we want to prove that we can do it on our own. And I'm like, What's the point in that, really, what we want to do is we just want to be included, and we want equity. So that really requires everybody. And I think when I went through some of my equity training, that's kind of what I've learned is, I have my own personal perspective that came from my upbringing and my tragedy and my experiences, which is going to be different than yours. And so we just need to look at different people's perspectives kind of present. So what actually drew you to the DEI world and your advocacy that you're doing, I

Julie Cafley  3:31  
would say the first 10 years of my career, I was really naive. I was very excited. There was so much opportunity, there was room for advancement. And I really at that point would have probably said, we have gender equity. You know, that's not a question. It's not an issue. And I would say it's only after that kind of first 1015 years of my career where I started to be in rooms where it was exclusionary, and where people weren't even aware of the bias that was happening, whether it was selection committees, whether it was just discussions, and there was women in those rooms, but they weren't being listened to in the same sort of way. And what really hit me was actually working on my PhD, and I finished I submitted my PhD and I didn't do anything about equity or inclusivity, in my PhD and one of my supervisors said, Julie, what are you doing? Like this is such an important story. And what I was studying was I was studying the essentially the failed mandates of university presidents. And what you see in that sector is women and racialized leaders are highly underrepresented in terms of the number of leaders and then they're highly over represented in basically those that have unfinished mandate so they don't finish their terms. So basically, I don't actually say the word fired in my thesis but are essentially let go before the end of their term. And so when you see that they're highly over represented there, you say, hey, wait a minute, what's happening? And what you realize and what you know I started to study was things like the glass Cliff Things like the glass ceiling, things like the unconscious bias and moments of crisis where boards might not stick behind that woman leader or that racialized leader in the same sort of way that they might stick behind someone that they just recognize more in terms of leadership, because that's all that they've seen. And you know, I often say myself, you know, most of my career has been with white men leaders. And so, my stereotype and my brain is, is based on that as well, even though it's my greatest passion and my biggest belief in women in leadership. So that was my turning point for me. And so I went back to the drawing table, I did a whole chapter. And it was fascinating because I have the data that backed up the fact that women were actually being let go in moments of crisis. And it was it was textbook.

Lisa Laronde  5:44  
That's so interesting, because women in politics, you're seeing that now, I think you're absolutely right, is that you're not supported, or, you know, in a time when, when that's actually what you need. And they were also talking now about this broken rung, or whatever the terminology is, now that this middle class managers, for women, there's none here, because this is the time that you're trying to have a family. And so you leave the workforce, or you leave that ability to continue to advance your career. So this middle ground, there aren't a lot of women moving up the ladder. So now we don't have representation at the board level, at the executive level. And I think you were saying, there was some stats about if you have women on your executive that you're actually more profitable

Julie Cafley  6:20  
100%, there's a there's a business case, and that's the thing, it's not, you know, yes, it's the right thing to do. But it's the smart thing to do, you know, we have all of the data, we have all of the research, they're more productive, they're more creative, they're more innovative, they see things from different perspectives, when they have that diversity at the boardroom. And at the executive table, it makes a huge difference. And so we know all of that. So how do we get there, and I was actually speaking to a CEO of a construction company recently. And he said, you know, for him in terms of his pipeline, he's got to go down to levels, because they don't have those senior leaders in their organization. He said, But I'm doing it. And I'm going to go down. And I'm going to find those people that are going to be able to lead this organization in a few years. And I'm going to, you know, support them and mentor them and work with them. So there's always a way through. And I remember, you know, when I was young, I remember seeing, at one point, this announcement around a board presenting, you know, six white men to their board. And I remember calling up the board chair and saying, Hey, listen, how can you do this, and I'm like, we'll go back, you know, if these roles are being appointed by other teams will go back to those other teams and, and insist on having diversity in the applicants that you're being asked to choose from. So there's always a way to make it central to strategy and to always just look at this as your reality, if your numbers aren't good, we'll share that your numbers aren't good and create a strategy don't focus on good intentions, because we all know that good intentions, are they sound nice, but they don't work?

Lisa Laronde  7:47  
Yeah, I hear a lot about you know, well, then you're gonna be the token woman, I've said, I'm actually okay. Or, you know, you get a little bit of that feedback that says, you know, I'm hiring the right person for the job as a CEO that you were talking. So I don't have any women that are up and coming that could be in the senior leadership positions. But my point is, you have to start somewhere. So we'll never get to this equitable position. If you continually, you know, say that I know even for us, when we're hiring women, we've changed the wording on our job postings, because women don't actually apply for the job. So it's not like you're hiring the best person, you don't actually know that you're hiring the best person. And we're talking a little bit about women on boards, like, Do you have any advice, that's another problem is that you're not seeing a big representation, I think it's really, really low for Canadian top businesses, to have women on their boards to have any, you know, insight or advice.

Julie Cafley  8:35  
I would just say there's definitely the pipeline, you just have to look a bit harder, you have to be a bit more strategic. And you also have to look at the experience for that woman, or for that racialized person, if they are going to be the token, some are willing, and some aren't. So how do you create that space? How do you grow that trust? You know, and it's same? I've heard a lot of people with board saying, Oh, we want an indigenous person on our board. Well, what are you actually doing to advance reconciliation within your orgonite? What are you actually doing to ensure that these voices are heard at the table? So don't token I you know, if I agree with you, if you have to if that's the the way in if that's the first step, that's okay, but how do you actually have a plan to back it up? And you know, we did a study a couple of years ago, looking at the performative nature of a lot of this work that's being done. And we surveyed 14,000 employees, and essentially 75% of them thought that the DEI work done within their organization was performative. So you know, employees see through this, they know if it's just words, and they, you know, I think about after George Floyd, everybody was talking about it. But you know, it's nearly five years later, how is the experience change inside your organization? You know, maybe you have women at the table, but are they given the same voice that others are? There's a really, really interesting study Lisa out of Australia because they have a requirement. They have actually quotas around their corporate boards. Yeah. What's interesting there and you know, you don't have to support quotas. But what's interesting is, even when they have representation 5050 of men and women, they find that the powerful positions of speaking time the decision making is still held by the men. So don't just put people at the table, you've actually got to listen to these individuals, you've actually got to engage them, you've actually got to seek out their voice if they're not being heard. Because it's not enough, even when we have the proper representation, we're still seeing that women's voices are being kind of covered up.

Lisa Laronde  10:29  
And it's interesting, because that's what I find when you are either the only woman or a few women that are either in a boardroom or on a board, I agree with you, it's like your voice isn't being heard. So at some point in time, you just say, it's not worth it, it's not worth my time and my energy, my effort, at that point, you're a token, they're just you're here to check a box. And sometimes I use that to my advantage. But obviously, I'm in a different place in my life. And you know, my confidence levels much different. So it's hard. But for some of the advice to give to young women, I just say stick with it, and then find your community of, of other women that have been through this and maybe learn some of the strategies that they've used, I was hearing somewhere that takes five generations to actually make some of these changes come through, because as you said, this is all we knew, you know, it was the white male was the dominant player was the decision maker, it takes a long time to start changing that. And I say, you know, it's not like you wake up in the morning and you say, I'm going to, you know, not listen to the woman that's at the boardroom. It's just how it's always been. And the more that we talk about it, the more that I think people start to understand that this is a behavior that happens more often than I think people actually think that it does.

Julie Cafley  11:30  
Well, I think that's interesting. There's something that I heard that I love, and it's called culture carriers. So it's independent people that come into board meetings, or executive team meetings. They're not a part of the discussion, but they simply observe. And at the end, you know, they won't call out names, they won't embarrass people, they won't do anything negative, but they'll say, you know, okay, do you realize that during this meeting, you know, women were cut off when they were speaking 12 different times? Or do you realize that, you know, Lisa said this idea, five minutes into the discussion, it was presented by Joe at 15 minutes, and everybody thought it was a great idea, but it was actually Lisa's it, you know, and kind of just really go through that, because I am a bit of an optimist, I guess. But I think that people don't realize that, you know, as you said, it's so deeply embedded, it's this five generations, it's so deeply embedded, that they don't realize that they might be cutting off, you know, not that it's excusable. But in a sense, it's like, until you're making that awareness happen in the room. That's how you see the change. That's how you see the cultural change. And so even amongst allies and other women, how do you say, Hey, Lisa, is about the idea that you just talked about it? And you know, how do you how do you give that voice to people in the room, and you know, there's all sorts of biases, whether it's older people, younger people, racialized people, women, you know, whatever it might be. There's all sorts of biases for all sorts of reasons, those who identify as LGBTQ, there's all sorts of reasons that this might happen. So how are we just aware of it and thinking about it, and constantly, really just elevating those voices that are not being heard,

Lisa Laronde  13:02  
gives me shivers, because I think that's really what we have to do. It's not that the men wake up in the morning and go, This is what I'm going to do. It's just that we've accepted it for so long, that it's just normal behavior for people. And I think we need to empower women to speak up. And as I said, I have that story. I had an executive coach, and I'm the one who said to the guy, you must like the sound of your own voice, because you just said exactly what I just said. And he was upset with me, I got written up. And I said, but the problem that I have is that everybody in the boardroom then thinks that that behavior is okay. And again, maybe that it's not that you're thinking about it. But now you've heard all of this, I can pull you aside separately and have a conversation with you. But again, everybody else in the room is saying that basically, I'm condoning the behavior, when we we've got to figure out probably a nicer way that get that message across. But I think that's really cool that you would have somebody that would come into an organization and say that even in my US team, we have now a woman who's a GM, and she gets cut off at every single meeting that I'm in. And it's quite interesting. And so I've said to her, just give me a sign, I'll stop it and correct it. But I also want to empower you to ensure that it stops on your behalf. So you need to figure out how you want it to stop, I have no problem standing up for you. But I also understand you need a voice and you need to correct it. And then you need to carry that on for the next women that you empower in your company.

Julie Cafley  14:12  
That's so amazing. We have a program called Mark men advocating for real change. And typically the rooms are 70% men, 30% women. And we actually had one of the sessions this week. And on the final day, it's a two day session. And there was so much energy and so much vulnerability. And you know, we have senior men in organizations who said, you know, I actually didn't fully understand what women experienced by the end of this session. And we do a lot of research around this and we call it gender partnership. It's not about one side winning or one side losing it's really about how we can all be our best selves and whether it means a man feeling comfortable to take paternity leave or whether it's you know, or leave early to go to daycare, whatever that might be, you know, it's winning for both sides. It's not better for men are better for women in a sense. So the research that we He was really interesting. And some of the stats that really hit me were 86% of men, when they were surveyed, want to interrupt sexism when they see it, but they don't know how they don't know what to say they don't know what to do, they don't know how to do it in a way, that's not awkward. And the other stat that I find really interesting because we talk so much about women and the imposter syndrome and things like that, and, you know, 94% of men report having masculine anxiety in the workforce, and that they have to fit into certain norms that are expected of them. And they're not necessarily always comfortable with that. So I think that's why we talk about kind of this gender partnership. It's not about changing things. For women, it's just changing things so that we can all be more ourselves and be happy at work. And then we get the business side of things where this helps with retention, it helps with attracting employees. It's the whole business case, for all this work that we do.

Lisa Laronde  15:52  
And I say the same thing for the construction industry where we have one of the higher suicide rates and I go, we have to look at men, women, what are we doing to ensure that people are psychologically safe at work? And that is truly part of just need to feel like you're included, regardless of what gender you identify with? So you've done some research now on women in the frontline, is that correct? Yeah,

Julie Cafley  16:11  
it's such an interesting area. And I'm so proud of the work because, you know, Catalyst has been around for 62 years, and we focused a lot on women in leadership. And that's still really important. And we're not there yet. But you know, it all starts with the frontline. And you know, I think of people like Michelle Boudreau, who's now the CEO of McDonald's, she's on my board, you know, she started out as a frontline worker at McDonald's and made her way up the organization. And, you know, there's many individuals like that, who lived this experience. So we did a lot of work focusing on women on the front line in manufacturing, and retail and hospitality in particular. And none of this would probably be a surprise to you. But I think it's really important, the findings, and they come out in about four different areas, the importance of physical well being, you know, we talked to organizations who said, you know, what, we still don't have access to bathroom for women's when they're working on the field, and, you know, like, around the whole facilities, policies, safety, you know, physical well being and that exists, how are we able to ensure that women are living a positive experience on the frontline in terms of their physical well being? So that's one. The second one is hard, but it's possible and it's around scheduling. And you know, how can this be more employee centered? How can we reduce instability? How can we ensure that there's a bit of flexibility around things that are happening and that we're avoiding the unpredictability, and that's a good example where it helps both men and women, it's not necessarily just certain groups that are going to go pick up kids from daycare or have to come home and prepare dinner. But I think that's really interesting. And, you know, one of the questions around scheduling that I found amazing was I was talking to an airline who was saying, you know, we have a hard time recruiting a lot of women as pilots. And obviously, that's not a frontline role. But they're saying, you know, for years, everyone had said, it's an issue of scheduling. And all of a sudden, somebody said, Whoa, we've got all the frontline workers that are on the back of the plane serving meals, and they're adjusting to the scheduling. So they're actually looking at creating a program to help to support the finances to help flight attendants become pilots through some of the expensive training, because they realize that the scheduling isn't a problem. We've been telling ourselves that for years, but you know, there's a huge percentage of women on the back of planes that have been, you know, sorting out scheduling for a long time. So don't assume you know, certain things, either. That's awesome. The third one in our research that's come out is around growth opportunities. So how can women be brought in and coached and mentored to advance through in growth opportunities within organizations. And the fourth one is really looking at empathic leadership. You know, empathy is really important in terms of values, feeling connected with the teams, and empathy, you know, increases productivity, it reduces burnout, and it helps with retention. So how can we look at empathic leadership on the frontline? And how will that help to retain more women? So there's a really a lot of great stories that have come out my board chair right now is Linda has in France, the CEO of Linamar. And she said, You know, I need women on these frontline roles now more than ever, you know, how are we attracting them telling the success stories, sharing the positive side of these stories? Because there's enough barriers out there, you know, how can we look at the what if and the possibility around women on the front line, so we're really excited about the work we're doing in that area? That's

Lisa Laronde  19:23  
awesome. I'm part of the global team for the National Women in construction. And childcare is a global issue. I want to form a strategic alliance that we sit down with industry, the union's education, the government and say, Okay, let's actually come together and say, okay, here are some of the barriers that women have getting into some of these fields. And I loved your idea of, okay, it's not scheduling for being a pilot, it's about access to funds. So why can't we now partner with an institution and education institution and offer bursaries or funding or something like that so that we can, you know, start to reach our quotas even And for women in the trades we had this was the OG ca and kaivac did a gala together. And the minister Williams was there. And she asked how many people in the room were actually on the tools. And under the whatever, 400 people that were there was maybe a table of 20. And I was saying, you know, when I look at that now, this is what we're trying to do is we're trying to promote women in trades, but they're not coming to some of these events. And then why is that and then I look at it go, you know, what they're probably union there don't have access to the corporate money or the sponsorship that your tickets getting paid for, or even probably the information flow is not coming because you don't have access to a regular email, work email, maybe as K WIC we can actually at our AGM is sponsor a table for just women that are in the trades and donate that. But it's just so interesting how you assume that you're reaching this population that you're trying to help, and you're not. And even if I look at our board, we've just elected our first woman in the trades since my term. So I shouldn't say first, because the Chase has been around for a number of years. But I'm very excited about that. Because I really feel like that's what we need to do, we need to give those women a voice and understand what issues they're facing. I don't know what it's like to be a woman on the road right now. So we need to hear their stories,

Julie Cafley  21:11  
and love that. And you know, at catalyst we talk a lot about how do we look at fixing systems policies? How do we look at, you know, breaking down the problems, and not trying to fix women, you know, as much as everybody was excited about the kind of leaning movement and the idea that women needed to be more mentored or coach, you know, what women can do it, you know, women have the capacities, they have the education, they lead, we've caught up on all of those sides of things. So how do we actually just fix those systems, and when you actually look at the systems that are broken, there's a lot of possibilities, we tell ourselves certain stories that are just no longer relevant. And I think about support at home, I've always traveled a lot with my job. And you know, my husband's actually, you know, he's been a stay at home dad, and I've had that support. And when you talk about gender partnerships, it's a different reality for someone like me, and it's a huge reason for my success, because I've had that support. So how are we just looking at things a bit differently, and really understanding what the challenges are.

Lisa Laronde  22:04  
And I agree with you, I have a very supportive partner for the exactly the same thing that you know, I can travel it, it works out really well. And I've talked to a number of women that are moving up the ladder, and they're saying the same thing that you need some level of support, because you can't, you just can't do it on your own, you can't manage. If you have children, or some people have elderly parents or pets or whatever, I really believe it's a partnership that we actually have to work together. And I think we need to do a better job of asking for help, saying, This is what I want to do. And I'm not saying everybody has to raise your family and move up the corporate ladder, because maybe you want to, you know, take a few years off and enjoy that. But I think as an industry or as a corporation, we need to empower women to be able to come back, if you want to take five years off, that's great, we should be able to get you back into at least where you were or maybe I'm not sure what the answer is. I don't know if you've done any research around that. But women that leave the workforce for an extended period of time and come back into they come back in at same levels, or is there some kind of upgrading? That's done. So

Julie Cafley  22:58  
we have done specific research around that. But I think it's interesting, and you know, lots of women come back from leave, ready for a new challenge and ready to do things in a new way. And so, you know, there's actually programs that look to support women transitioning back and I know that, you know, I think of myself coming back after to maternity leaves, I was afraid to complete full sentences is an intimidating time, right? And that's kind of at the heart of inclusion, how are you able to have that vulnerability, talk about things like this, and make people feel good and feel safe. And you know, I was speaking with one of our bigger corporation, and they were kind of reacting to a bit of the words around dei and finding a bit polarizing or political within the organization. And I'm like, You know what you can call it kindness, you know, like you can call it, whatever you want to call it. You don't have to use language that you find people react to, you want people to be good to feel good in their workplace. And they'll be more productive, and they'll be better at everything when that happens. So how do you go about doing that?

Lisa Laronde  23:57  
I've loved I'm going to use that. Can you just tell me a little bit about experience? I'm just curious about the United Nations. And you were the Canadian delegate?

Julie Cafley  24:04  
Yeah, absolutely. So that was last year. It was amazing. And I was part of the Canadian delegation. It's such an impressive building to be there. And the United Nations were there for International Women's Day. And it was a really inspiring group of people. It was interesting there. So it was minister II, and that led the delegation, and then the ambassador in New York was Bob ray. So really interesting, and both inclusive leaders as well. Really impressive in terms of meeting I, you know, I think in many ways Canada is is so admired in terms of what we're doing around equity and around gender. And, you know, when we talk about child care, there's so many different things where we're really, really ahead and so many countries admire where we're at. And yet, you know, I think of some of the challenges that we've discussed today and in the international in the global discussions, you know, we have really basic needs of women that are not being matched across the world. So it's hard to kind of look at our challenges and looking How we're pushing forward in Canada. And yet realizing in the global context that we're, we're really quite far ahead. But once again, I think in that discussion, it's like, how are we looking at those systems. And I think of so many examples where we've been able to create opportunities, we know that women give back to their communities back to their villages, you know, when moms are educated kids are more likely to be educated. There's such great research around the power of women to change communities. So that's really exciting. I think within the global discussion, then it was really nice to be there. Of course, Canada is doing a lot. So it was really a point of pride, for sure.

Lisa Laronde  25:35  
Well, that's awesome. Where do you see di going over the next, I don't know, five years or so or the next 10 years, I feel like that we've kind of reached this level, we had all of this momentum going. And I feel now that everyone's like, going, Oh, we're good now. Yeah.

Julie Cafley  25:49  
And you know, we're far from good, there's still lots that needs to be done. I think that when I look at the CEOs who are on my board, they know that we need to double down now more than ever, I think what makes me really proud of the work that catalysts does is that we've been around for 62 years, this is not a passing trend that we've been doing over the past five or 10 years, you know, it was a mom, essentially, who created catalyst 62 years ago, when she had a couple of kids wanted to go back in the workforce and realize there was a ton of barriers in her way. And now, you know, we look at so many issues of intersectionality, and bias that exist on so many different levels. And, you know, there's just so much work to do, I think it's a time for a bit of pragmatic Dei, you know, the business case, I think is more and more important, I think the most important thing is that we just have to keep on having the discussions and this polarization, you know, when you actually have a conversation with someone, you realize that y'all really do kind of want the same thing. I remember, at one point, I used to work at the Public Policy Forum, and we had an event where we honored all former Canadian Prime Ministers. And that evening, I was so inspired by all of them. And there was kind of equal numbers of conservative liberal that were up there. And I thought, you know, if you weren't Canadian, if you didn't know who these people were, when they're former prime ministers, they're much less political. Yeah. And I thought it would be interesting, if you didn't know when these individuals are, if you were even able to place them in terms of right leaning or left leaning, you know, they were all very, for me all represented really, you know, strong Canadian values. And so I think, how do you just have those discussions? And I think with our 62 years of experience, it gives us the confidence because we've got the research, and we're not afraid to have those discussions. And I think we see a lot of division right now on so many topics. And if we're able to just have the conversation, I think we'll realize that we're not as far apart as we might think we are,

Lisa Laronde  27:38  
is access to your information free? Or is there a membership? Or how do you get some of the research that you've been doing? Yeah, so

Julie Cafley  27:45  
catalyst is a global organization. So we have people on the ground and Canada, US and Europe, we have about 500 global organizations that we support. And we have about 200 organizations in Canada, some of our information is public and widely available, but we do have some support or only content. And so we really work with those 200 companies in Canada, on a monthly basis to troubleshoot with them to help to curate resources and information that they can, you know, share internally with their employees. So we're always happy to have conversations and support organizations that and there is a lot of public information research on our website, for sure.

Lisa Laronde  28:22  
So we usually under podcast ask question, if you could go back and give your younger self some advice, what would it be? What

Julie Cafley  28:28  
would it be? I think it's the idea of there's a word in French that I love. And it's Jose OS er, and so it's kind of, to dare you know, and I think about early on in my career, I worked as a as a chief of staff to presidents in the university. And I think what became interesting then was actually having real conversations and speaking truth to authority was really interesting. So I was the person who said, you know, that was a really bad speech, or your tie is crooked, or these people on campus hate you right now. And so I think, you know, being able to say those real things is really important and kind of getting back to what we're talking about in the beginning in terms of authenticity, how are you able to just have those real discussions and say those things with good intention behind it, and really able to, to advance change in a way because you're able to have real conversations and say real things.

Lisa Laronde  29:20  
And I think that's very important. I think, you know, we don't take enough chances. So I like your dare. And it's not that you're asking me to take risks. But I think we need to sometimes put ourselves out there. I always say, what's the worst thing that's going to happen to you? Either you get fired, that's really, you know, that's the worst thing and you're definitely going to get another job. So I think that's awesome. I Julie, I want to thank you so much for spending time with me today. You are an inspiration to me from the first day now you and I started to follow you on LinkedIn and and I'm just so impressed with what you're doing for supporting women. And I love the fact that we're continuing to support one another and continue to share our story. So please continue to do what you're doing. I love your passion and your enthusiasm.

Julie Cafley  29:59  
Dad ratio is totally mutual. Lisa is so delighted and look forward to getting into trouble in the future together.

Lisa Laronde  30:05  
We can't wait. To learn more about today's guests in the show notes enter the powerhouse project.com. And if you know anyone in leadership or in the skilled trades we'd like to be on the show. Please send in a voice note or a message on the website, following subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and thank you so much for listening