Comedian Sarah Cooper shares insights on office etiquette, including email writing, meeting etiquette, and the importance of listening at work. The podcast explores workplace etiquette, digital communication challenges, and rethinking traditional meetings. It also discusses navigating dress codes and taking chances in the office.

This new podcast features real-life coaching sessions with leaders working to overcome professional challenges. In this episode, host Muriel Wilkins speaks with a woman who’s been walking a tightrope between addressing a superior’s microaggressions and making her team feel safe. Wilkins coaches this manager toward the actions she can take to improve the situation and build a healthier culture at her organization. Coaching Real Leaders is part of HBR Presents, a new network of business podcasts curated by HBR editors. For a full lineup of shows, search “HBR” on your favorite podcast app or visit hbr.org/podcasts.

Is it time to do something different in your career? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Bruce Feiler, a researcher and the author of Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age. They talk through what to do when you’ve been out of work and can’t find a job the usual ways, you feel lost in the ambiguity of a new role, or you want to convince your boss to release you to another team. Dear HBR: is taking a break from publishing new episodes. The plan is to return after a hiatus, potentially with an updated format. Please subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date. Find out how to subscribe and listen to more episodes on the Dear HBR: page. And feel free to email your comments and questions to dearhbr@hbr.org. HBS Working Knowledge: Nine Unconventional Strategies For Reinventing Your Career by Herminia Ibarra — “Major career transitions take three to five years. The big ‘turning point,’ if there is one, tends to come late in the story. In the interim, make use of anything as a trigger. Don’t wait for a catalyst. What you make of events is more important than the events themselves. Take advantage of whatever life sends your way to revise, or at least reconsider, your story.” Book: Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler — “Each of us carries around an unspoken set of assumptions that dictate how we expect our lives will unfold. These expectations come from all corners and influence us more than we admit. We’ve been led to believe that our lives will always ascend, for example, and are shocked to discover they oscillate instead. Our society tells us we should be basking in progress, but our experience tells us we are beset by slip-ups. Might this gap help explain the anxiety so many of us feel?” HBR: Disrupt Yourself by Whitney Johnson — “Current stakeholders in your life and career will probably encourage you to avoid disruption. For many of us, though, holding steady really means slipping—as we ignore the threat of competition from younger, more agile innovators, bypass opportunities for greater reward, and sacrifice personal growth.” HBR: Managing Yourself: Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams — “People who switch organizations—whether they’re wide receivers changing football teams or general managers going to new companies—all face similar problems. It’s not just about the learning curve. Moves of all kinds entail significant internal and external challenges and transaction costs: upheaval in your home and social life; potential relocation expenses; adjustments to new cultural and political norms; navigation of unclear expectations; and the need to learn a new canon, skill set, and jargon.”

Is it hard for you to give or get feedback virtually? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Marcus Buckingham, a cohead of the ADP Research Institute and the author of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World. They talk through what to do when you want to tell your boss they’re derailing virtual meetings, you’re starting a new job remotely and getting little guidance, or you want more feedback on your organization’s performance during the pandemic. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: Why Asking for Advice Is More Effective Than Asking for Feedback by Jaewon Yoon, Hayley Blunden, Ariella Kristal, and Ashley Whillans — “Organizations are full of opportunities to learn from peers, colleagues, and clients. Despite its prevalence, asking for feedback is often an ineffective strategy for promoting growth and learning. Our work suggests this is because when givers focus too much on evaluating past actions, they fail to provide tangible recommendations for future ones. How can we overcome this barrier? By asking our peers, clients, colleagues, and bosses for advice instead.” Book: Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall — “What we, as team members, want from you, our team leader, is firstly that you make us feel part of something bigger, that you show us how what we are doing together is important and meaningful; and secondly, that you can make us feel that you can see us, and connect to us, and care about us, and challenge us, in a way that recognizes who we are as individuals.” HBR: Starting a New Job — Remotely by Art Markman — “You should always be proactive in getting acclimated to a new role but when you won’t work side-by-side your new colleagues for the foreseeable future, it’s especially imperative that you take an active approach to getting up to speed.” HBR: How to Manage an Employee Who’s Struggling to Perform Remotely by Ron Carucci — “With many unfamiliar variables introduced by Covid-19, getting to the bottom of a new performance problem is more complicated. Prior to the pandemic, most leaders might have reflexively zeroed in on the underperformer as the primary unit of analysis and presumed the problem was the result of insufficient skills, lack of initiative, commitment, and/or a poor attitude.”

Is the pandemic making you rethink your commute? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Ashley Whillans, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of the new book Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life. They talk through what to do when you want to work remotely but your company is against it, you’re considering a new job closer to home, or you’ve been offered a job that’s a great fit but comes with a longer commute. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: Our Work-from-Anywhere Future by Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury — “Before 2020 a movement was brewing within knowledge-work organizations. Personal technology and digital connectivity had advanced so far and so fast that people had begun to ask, ‘Do we really need to be together, in an office, to do our work?’ We got our answer during the pandemic lockdowns. We learned that a great many of us don’t in fact need to be colocated with colleagues on-site to do our jobs. Individuals, teams, entire workforces, can perform well while being entirely distributed—and they have.” Book: Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life by Ashley Whillans — “It’s not our fault we’ve ended up like this. Culturally, the inherent value of time has been suppressed. Society teaches us that we should hero-worship people who never leave the office. Moreover, rising income inequality makes us feel as if our world could collapse tomorrow if we don’t spend every moment working, or at least appearing to work. These factors create what I call time traps, which lead most of us to feel chronically time-poor.” HBR: Reclaim Your Commute by Francesca Gino, Bradley Staats, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Julia Lee, and Jochen I. Menges — “Most people who have long commutes feel like helpless victims enduring a necessary evil. As a result, they arrive at their jobs and homes depleted, and their performance and well-being suffer. But it is possible to improve your commute by turning it into a more positive experience and, when possible, reducing it.” HBR: Get More Done During Your Commute by Peter Bregman — “Then, during your evening commute, think back through your day hour by hour and glean wisdom and connection from it. How did the day go? What worked? What didn’t? What do you want to do the same – or differently – tomorrow? With whom can you share feedback? Who should you thank? What happened today for which you can feel grateful?”

What will it take for you to feel safe at work again? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Ethan Bernstein, a professor at Harvard Business School. They talk through what to do when your essential employees are staying home despite increased safety measures, you want to redesign your open office to make it work for the new normal, or you’re seeing a growing divide between workers who have to come in and those who can work from home. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: How to Make Sure People Won’t Hate Your New Open Office Plan by Brandi Pearce and Pamela Hinds — “Despite optimistic assertions about the benefits of open office space, outcomes are mixed. In some cases, open-plan office designs are reported to increase collaboration, employee satisfaction, and communication, but in others these new spaces are criticized for creating distractions, reducing privacy and autonomy, and undermining employee motivation and satisfaction.” The New Yorker: The Open-Office Trap by Maria Konnikova — “An open environment may even have a negative impact on our health. In a recent study of more than twenty-four hundred employees in Denmark, Jan Pejtersen and his colleagues found that as the number of people working in a single room went up, the number of employees who took sick leave increased apace. Workers in two-person offices took an average of fifty per cent more sick leave than those in single offices, while those who worked in fully open offices were out an average of sixty-two per cent more.” HBR: 7 Factors of Great Office Design by Peter Bacevice, Liz Burow, and Mat Triebner — “The design and outfitting of workspace is a major capital investment for any organization that can affect a number of business outcomes, including productivity, employee satisfaction, engagement, talent recruitment, and brand impact. Given the myriad ways to design and plan a space, leaders should approach workplace design in a strategic way. Imitating the latest fads start-ups are adopting won’t necessarily get you the results your company desires; asking the right questions — and, above all, listening to employees’ answers — will.” HBR: Why You Should Rotate Office Seating Assignments — “Interestingly, the change to employees’ physical space seemed to boost performance even more than did another switch the company made (which Lee also studied), from individual incentives to fixed wages. In addition, the effect generated by the relocation was quick—the rise in cross-category deals occurred within a month—and it increased throughout the 80 days postmove.”

Are you experiencing gender bias at work? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Katie Coffman, a professor at Harvard Business School. They talk through what to do when you are held to a higher standard as a female manager, you’ve been promoted but a male deputy has been chosen for you, or you join a company that is living in the past. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: Research: Vague Feedback Is Holding Women Back by Shelley J. Correll and Caroline Simard — “Our research shows that women are systematically less likely to receive specific feedback tied to outcomes, both when they receive praise and when the feedback is developmental. In other words, men are offered a clearer picture of what they are doing well and more-specific guidance of what is needed to get to the next level.” HBS Working Knowledge: When Gender Discrimination Is Not About Gender by Katherine B. Coffman, Christine L. Exley, and Muriel Niederle — “Employers are simply less willing to hire a worker from a group that performs worse on average, even when this group is instead defined by a non-stereotypical characteristic. In this way, beliefs about average group differences are the key driver of discrimination against women in our setting.” HBR: 3 Ways to Advance Gender Equity as We Return to the Office by David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson — “Crises are often catalysts for turning points in people’s individual lives, and also for societies. The current pandemic will be another turning point, one that provides an opportunity to rework work in a way that disrupts traditional narratives and beliefs into new norms and values that make ‘work’ work for everyone.” HBR: How Women Manage the Gendered Norms of Leadership by Wei Zheng, Ronit Kark, and Alyson Meister — “A wealth of research shows that female leaders, much more than their male counterparts, face the need to be warm and nice (what society traditionally expects from women), as well as competent or tough (what society traditionally expects from men and leaders). The problem is that these qualities are often seen as opposites. This creates a ‘catch-22’ and ‘double bind’ for women leaders.”

Do you wish you could understand your boss better? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Mimi Nicklin, a business coach and the author of the new book Softening the Edge: Empathy: How humanity’s oldest leadership trait is changing our world. They talk through what to do when you have a boss who is unforgiving, who relies on you to cover their flaws, or who flip-flops between being your warm friend and cold supervisor. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: What to Do When You and Your Boss Aren’t Getting Along by Rebecca Knight — “Even the best office relationships hit a rut, but if it’s your relationship with your boss that’s suffering, work can be especially challenging. Maybe you’ve lost their trust, or you haven’t been seeing eye to eye lately, or maybe you’ve never really gotten along. Whatever the reason, how can you build a connection that’s more than ‘just OK’? What steps can you take to improve your interactions?” Book: Softening the Edge: Empathy: How humanity’s oldest leadership trait is changing our world by Mimi Nicklin — “I recently asked one of our interns what the majority of his friends were doing and what their goals were. He replied that only two of them were going into corporate internships because the feeling today is that they can ‘do it better alone’. They don’t believe that senior players in organisations are able to, or interested in, trying to understand them, so why bother with corporate life?” HBR: What Your Boss Really Wants from You by Robert M. Galford — “Even in these times of feverish attention to performance metrics, it’s not always clear what the boss wants or expects. Why? Maybe there’s a presumption that those expectations are already clear and they’re not. Or, maybe the employee is placing pressure on him- or herself to do better (‘I am a strong performer, but maybe that’s not enough.’). There’s a joint responsibility to ensure that expectations are well-articulated and understood. But that kind of effective give-and-take doesn’t happen with the frequency or the quality we wish it did.” HBR: What to Do When Your Peer Becomes Your Boss by Amy Gallo — “Your colleague just got a promotion. Now, instead of being your peer, she’s your boss. Does your relationship need to change? Should you act differently, or expect her to treat you differently? In other words, how do you manage up to someone who’s just jumped a level above you and who might’ve been a friend?”

Do you have a difficult subordinate who needs coaching? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Melvin Smith, a professor at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and coauthor of the book Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth. They talk through what to do when your new employee is slacking off, a new hire needs to adjust to your organization’s culture and communication style, or you have to coach two direct reports who are in conflict with each other. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach by Monique Valcour — “As a manager, you have a high level of expertise that you’re used to sharing, often in a directive manner. This is fine when you’re clarifying action steps for a project you’re leading or when people come to you asking for advice. But in a coaching conversation, it’s essential to restrain your impulse to provide the answers. Your path is not your employee’s path. Open-ended questions, not answers, are the tools of coaching. You succeed as a coach by helping your team members articulate their goals and challenges and find their own answers.” Book: Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth by Richard E. Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten — “This is what great coaches do. It’s what great managers do and great teachers do and what others do who know how to help people find and do what they love. They engage us in conversations that inspire us. They make us want to develop and change, and they help us do so.” HBR: How to Motivate Your Problem People by Nigel Nicholson — “Yes, it can be time-consuming, difficult, and fraught with risks and setbacks: Although some employees may respond quickly to your approach, others might require time to rebuild positive relationships with you and their work. But at least they will be heading in the right direction, under their own steam. And in the end, you ideally will have not only a rehabilitated employee but also a healthier, more productive organization.” HBR: How to Manage a Stubborn, Defensive, or Defiant Employee by Liz Kislik — “Some of the hardest employees to manage are people who are consistently oppositional. They might actively debate or ignore feedback, refuse to follow instructions they disagree with, or create a constant stream of negative comments about new initiatives. Most often, these behaviors are meant to make the employee look strong and mask a fear of change, an aversion to anticipated conflict, or the worry that they will look stupid or incompetent.”

Are your workplace dilemmas different because you’re in the public sector? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Bernie Banks, a retired U.S. Army general and a professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. They talk through what to do when you want to effect change as a middle manager in the military, you’re battling misperceptions of public-sector work as you switch to the private sector, or you want to boost the morale of your team of government workers. From Alison and Dan’s reading list: HBR: Four Lessons in Adaptive Leadership by Michael Useem — “Military leaders need new tools and techniques to face a fast-changing and unpredictable type of enemy—so the armed services train their officers in ways that build a culture of readiness and commitment. Business leaders need just such a culture to survive and succeed, given that they, too, face unprecedented uncertainty—and new types of competitors.” HBR: Exerting Influence Without Authority by Lauren Keller Johnson — “If you’re like most managers, you’re facing this sort of challenge more often these days because of flatter management structures, outsourcing, and virtual teams. For those reasons, a greater number of managers now need to get things done through peers inside and outside their organizations. In this age of heightened business complexity, moreover, change itself has grown increasingly complicated. A majority of change initiatives now involve multiple functions within and even between companies, and many such efforts encompass an entire firm.” HBR: Which of These People Is Your Future CEO?: The Different Ways Military Experience Prepares Managers for Leadership by Boris Groysberg , Andrew Hill, and Toby Johnson— “Much has been said about the general leadership qualities fostered by military experience and how they apply to business. Less noticed have been the branch-specific skills—process management, for instance—that can have significant implications for the success of military veterans in the corporate world.” HBR: What I Learned from Transforming the U.S. Military’s Approach to Talent by Ash Carter — “At a time of economic, technological, and labor evolutions, organizations have to change to compete for the best talent. As I learned, that meant looking in new places and in new ways, taking care of families more than ever before, and helping those who leave succeed so that they continue to be good examples to those who might join up.”