Move Beyond Small Talk and Make a Real Connection
by Emily Caulfield and Amy Gallo, cohosts of Women at Work
This book, dedicated to helping you create meaningful professional relationships, is the perfect home for a coauthored introduction. We, Emily Caulfield and Amy Gallo, had worked together at Harvard Business Review for nearly a year before our work paths crossed as cohosts of the Women at Work podcast. When Emily joined the show in September of 2020, we were all in full-fledged pandemic lockdown, working from home and recording the show from our closets and bedrooms. Our first in-real-life conversation, beyond casual “hellos” in the hallway, was socially distanced at a local park when we recorded the season six trailer with the rest of the Women at Work team. We spread out blankets, shared cookies, and talked about how we were coping.
Emily had moved out of her studio apartment and back in with her parents. Amy was drowning in logistics of transitioning her daughter to in-person school. We discussed how unsettling it was to live with constant uncertainty and how exhausted we felt, even as we were excited to be embarking on something new. All of this turned out to be amazing fuel for candid conversations and deeper connections during an especially trying time. Of course, we don’t expect all your work relationships to be born out of global crises, but this experience made something clear to us: Starting new endeavors and facing challenges can be the sparks that ignite real connections.
Starting the show was both exciting and terrifying for Emily, who had done little public speaking at work. Soon after we met, Emily sought out Amy’s advice and feedback, and Amy took on an informal role as a mentor. We talked about insecurities, public speaking, and interviewing and what had gone well or fallen flat in our recording sessions. These conversations were so important to how Emily experienced her new role.
We realize now that had it not been for the show, we could easily have continued simply as work acquaintances in different departments, without an obvious reason to connect. At first glance, we may seem very different. Amy’s an editor, a mom to a teenager, and a white woman who, in addition to working part-time for HBR, runs her own business as a speaker and coach. Emily’s an early-career designer who recently started selling vintage clothing on the side, is a woman of color, and hasn’t decided if she’ll have children of her own. But it didn’t take long for us to identify overlap in how we experience work and life, while also acknowledging the differences.
The relationships we’ve made on the show—with each other, our cohost Amy Bernstein, our producer Amanda Kersey, and others—have been one of the most meaningful aspects of our professional lives. They’ve allowed us to not just keep going when things got hard but to face difficulties with confidence. As we each confronted unexpected challenges at home and work, we found that trust—a key foundation we cover in the first section of this book—was an essential ingredient to bringing our full selves to our many conversations on and off the show.
For Emily, real connections at work help bridge the gap between her professional and personal identities—a way to feel more like herself in the workplace (a balancing act which can feel like a constant struggle, especially as one of the few people of color in her workplace). She thinks of her true identity as the person she is with her closest friends. Supportive colleagues, and even a true friend at work, make the workplace a safer space. Her collaboration with the women on the show has encouraged her to reach new levels of comfort with sharing her experiences and opinions. It’s also given her the opportunity, with support, to experiment with and develop a new skill set, separate from her core job.
For Amy, her colleagues aren’t just colleagues, but sources of support, information, and connection and an important way to stave off loneliness. It’s easy for her, as an introvert, to get heads down in her work and even hide behind a screen. And when she does reach out to others, it often feels most comfortable to do that with people like herself—white working moms. Collaborating with the Women at Work team has been particularly meaningful for her because she’s been able to work with people from different generations, racial backgrounds, and parts of the HBR organization.
While we’ve both found immense value in work relationships, we still have a hard time with many of the career topics covered in this collection. Amy has always dreaded networking. She feels a pit in her stomach when she thinks about walking into a room of near-strangers and having to start conversations. The process of trading business cards and small talk often feels dirty and transactional. And yet she knows that making those connections has helped—and will continue to help—her career.
Emily knows how important it is to seek out sponsorship, but admits it’s incredibly challenging, especially in early career. She knows that vulnerable feeling too well—asking for help from someone who can provide a career boost but who may not see much value in a connection with her. The possibility of rejection or a work relationship with a higher up going sour is cringey, especially when you’re just starting out. And when it comes to workplace friendships, she worries that they can only go so far if she’s struggling to bring her most authentic self to the office.
The articles and conversations in this book have given us new tools to tackle these challenges, and we hope they will also help you as you develop the important relationships that support you as you navigate your career. Let the research-based findings, advice, and stories shared by our team, contributors, expert guests, and listeners aid you in this sometimes awkward or anxiety-ridden journey. We’re sure you’ll agree that the reward of genuine connections at work will be worth it.
You’ve probably picked up this book because, like us, whatever your gender, you want to understand the challenges women at work face, and learn how to lift up yourself and your colleagues. We’ve curated this collection to offer you different perspectives and different things to try. Not every piece of advice will resonate with you. Choose the counsel that stands out to you and experiment with that. Or go deep into a particular aspect of workplace relationships, whether it’s networking or sponsorship, that feels daunting. We’re all working on something, and we believe that this book can help you create, strengthen, or repair your important professional relationships.
Then take what we offer in this book and discuss it with the people in your life. We’ve found on the show that talking through these topics, our anxieties around them, the research that’s been proven to work, and our own experiences helps us understand how to move forward. Offer a piece of advice or perspective you’ve gleaned to a friend who’s starting a new role or who needs a boost before a networking event. Or talk with your peers more about why sponsorship is important for both a junior-level employee and a well-established manager. You can even use the discussion guide as a starting point.
This book is meant to inform, inspire, and make you think about how you approach relationships with colleagues. Ultimately, we hope these bonds come more easily, last longer, withstand challenges, and have a positive impact on your career.
Chances are that there are people who you casually wave hello to in the hallway or who pop up on a video call with whom you could have a stronger connection. Armed with the tools and advice in this book, now is a good a time as any for you to reach out and make those real connections. Happy reading!