← HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
Ep 491: The 7 Trust Languages That Will Transform Your Career
00:45:39
Because doing a great job isn't always enough to get ahead.
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- [00:01]
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- [01:01]
Minda Hartz
And so trust is one of those things that it shouldn't be an emotional luxury. And I think it also prohibits us to. If we don't trust our managers or our leaders, then you know the promotions that we are up for, right? The trust that we have in our managers to speak our names in the rooms that we're not in, it costs us so much when trust is not a two way street. And I think, you know, in our personal lives and our professional lives, Jean, we want trust. And so why wouldn't we want that at a place we're going to spend 90,000 hours of our lives at?
- [01:33]
Jean Chatzky
Hey everyone, welcome to Her Money. I'm Jean Chatky. So if you are a regular listener to this show, you know, we talk a lot about how women can make more money, save more money, invest that money smartly and build careers that actually work for us. Especially when we are juggling so many other parts of life. But what happens when you feel like you have checked every box, done everything right at work and still hit a wall? Sometimes what is holding us back is not a lack of effort or talent. You it's a lack of trust. And that goes both ways. We need to trust our employers and they need to trust us. Because trust is not just a nice to have in the workplace. It is the foundation of everything. It is the difference between confidently asking for a raise and quietly sitting in a meeting that you know deep down you should have been the one to lead. Which is why I am so excited to welcome back one of our favorite voices on career equity and workplace wellness, Minda Hartz. Now, you probably know Minda, if not from her appearances right here, well then from her best selling books, the Memo. And right within or from her powerful talks on what it means to be a woman, especially a woman of color, navigating corporate America. Her latest book is called Talk to Me. Nice. The seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace. It's a must read. We're going to take a quick break. Back in a sec. I've had term life insurance since my kids were little. It was one of those decisions I made early on. Not because I wanted to think about those worst case scenarios, but I wanted to know they'd be protected no matter what. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you, it's all online, on your own schedule and can be done right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. Fabric's policies are flexible, high quality and affordable. We're talking a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day. Join the thousands of parents who trust fabric to help protect their families. Apply today in just minutes@meetfabric.com hermoney that's meetfabric.com hermoney M E E T fabric.com hermoney Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. We are back with Minda Hartz. Minda, welcome. Thanks for being here. It's been too long.
- [04:33]
Minda Hartz
Too long. Thank you, Jean. So good to see you. And thank you for always trusting me to, to come back on the show.
- [04:39]
Jean Chatzky
Absolutely thrilled to have you. You kick off this book by sharing a powerful story about your last 9 to 5 job. You were based in NYC. You were working remotely for a company that was based in California. And even though you were one of the top performers, you kept hearing excuse after excuse when it came to getting promoted. Let's start there. What happened?
- [05:07]
Minda Hartz
Yeah, you know, you, I think many of us have fallen into that. You're a rock star. You know, all of the language and the labels that make you feel like you're just unstoppable at work. But I couldn't tangibly see my career moving upward up the ladder. I just felt stuck in place. And every time I was like, well, if I'm this rock star, you know, my pay should be commensurate to that. I should have other opportunities. And I was working from home before it was popular to work from home. So, you know, I think that was the main thing that they just kept like impressing upon me. But I felt like they trusted me to do my job and do it well. But I didn't have that same trust on the other side. And I think that's what really showed me how trust can sometimes be stifled and be one sided.
- [05:52]
Jean Chatzky
What ended up happening in that situation?
- [05:55]
Minda Hartz
Well, eventually they did bring an opportunity to, to me that I thought initially it was like being in the Las Vegas heat. It was a mirage, right? I thought that I was going to get a promotion, a title, change in salary. And the more that we started to unpack the conversation, I wasn't even getting barely any stipend to move from one end of the country to the other. And so it started out with this amazing opportunity. But the more questions and conversations that we had, I realized that it was a lot of smoke and mirrors in my trust that I once had in so many people that I thought saw me in a different way. It was hanging on by a thread.
- [06:33]
Jean Chatzky
You write in the book that trust isn't just important, it actually has a huge impact on well being. And cite a study from the Harvard Business Review that found that people working in high trust organizations report a lot less stress, a lot more energy, much higher productivity, more engagement, less burnout. That is incredible. Actually, I'm wondering, how do we know if we're in a high trust workplace? What are the, what are the hallmarks?
- [07:06]
Minda Hartz
Yeah, that's a great question. To your point, another statistic says that Gallup, they interviewed over 12,000 people and asked them, you know, what were the indicators of well being? And people said, trust, having trust in their organization. And I think that working in a high trust environment would, we wouldn't see favoritism. A lot of office gossip. When there are hard communication topics like layoffs or reorgs, it doesn't just happen like the minute before it's taking place, right? There's transparency, there's clarity, there's no ambiguity. I think that also there's psychological safety in high trust environments where even if we do have a question that we feel safe enough to do it. Another one, Gene, is those moments that I'm sure many of your listeners have experienced. It is when you give an idea in a meeting and then somebody hijacks it or co ops it and makes it their own, right? That kind of workplace plagiarism that we've all experienced. And so those things are happening day in and day out. And that is not an environment that breeds productivity.
- [08:14]
Jean Chatzky
So much of this show is about women earning more, negotiating better, building wealth by investing, making good choices. How does broken trust in the workplace cost us money over the short term and the long term?
- [08:30]
Minda Hartz
In so many ways, I didn't realize how important trust is as a currency.
- [08:36]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [08:37]
Minda Hartz
And that's gonna make me want to stay at a company a little bit longer.
- [08:41]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [08:42]
Minda Hartz
You know, I left my last company right before I hit tenure.
- [08:47]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [08:47]
Minda Hartz
I tried to make it as long as I possibly could to get vested in that company, but it was hard because the trust was hanging on by a thread and I had to choose my sanity and well being and leave before I could benefit from that.
- [09:04]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [09:04]
Minda Hartz
And so trust is one of those things that we shouldn't, it shouldn't be an emotional luxury. And I think it also prohibits us to, to. If we don't trust our managers or our leaders, then you know, the promotions that we are up for, right. The trust that we have in our managers to speak our names in the rooms that we're not in, it costs us so much when trust is not a two way street. And I think, you know, in our personal lives and our professional lives, Jean, we want trust. And so why wouldn't we want that at a place we're going to spend 90,000 hours of our lives at? And that currency is important because it's tied to our well being and our productivity and our livelihood, essentially.
- [09:42]
Jean Chatzky
Which do you find to be the bigger problem? Us not having enough trust in our employers or the reverse, our employers not having enough trust in us?
- [09:53]
Minda Hartz
I think at one point in time, I think trust was solely on the employer. Like if we trust you to do your work, you're not stealing the staplers and the pins.
- [10:01]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [10:01]
Minda Hartz
We trust you in these ways. But now I think trust is kind of broken on both sides. Because one minute it's okay to work from home and now, you know, next week you need to be back.
- [10:12]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [10:12]
Minda Hartz
Or there's a reorg happening. But just last week we. Did the trust fall, right? There's so much. Or you have a manager who doesn't like working from home and so they think every time someone has their camera off that they must be in Tahiti.
- [10:24]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [10:25]
Minda Hartz
So there's all of these misunderstandings, miscommunications that I think are just eroding trust. But I think it's because less about a trust issue and more about a communication crisis. We're just not speaking each other's language in the way that we both can be more trustworthy.
- [10:41]
Jean Chatzky
I want to talk about gender and I also want to talk about race. Specifically, when we are in an office environment or in a workplace environment that is largely shaped by men or largely occupied by men, we often need More male sponsors to navigate upward. Are there specific things that you have found that we need to do across gender lines to maximize trust? And I'm going to ask the same about challenges for women of color.
- [11:17]
Minda Hartz
Yeah, I think so. I think one of the. I know we'll get into it, but one of my trust languages is security, and that's that psychological safety and belonging. And I think if you're the only or one of few, you may not trust that you're on the same career trajectory as your counterparts.
- [11:34]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [11:35]
Minda Hartz
And it's not necessarily a narrative that you've created up in your head, but it's also the demonstration, right? So if we say that inclusivity is important here or that we have an even playing field, but I look at the About Us pages or I look at every time a promotion happens and nobody looks like me in senior leadership, it's hard to trust, right? Trust has to be a noun and a verb. And I think that in a time like now, even where a lot of programs that were geared toward women are no longer there, so what does that signal to the women that work at the company? If we're not having a conversation about the erosion of these programs, it's also eroding trust.
- [12:14]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [12:14]
Minda Hartz
And if I'm a woman or woman of color, what do you think the narrative is in my head? If I'm seeing that you're no longer focused on my career progression.
- [12:25]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [12:26]
Minda Hartz
I'm not going to trust it. And I'm also going to start looking for another job. And this is going to cost the company. It's going to cost the company turnover. And they say that $322 billion is lost a year on employee turnover. So trust isn't just nice to have. It's good for the bottom line and it's good for retention.
- [12:46]
Jean Chatzky
In fact, you write, trust is now more critical than ever, and the cost of not restoring it could lead to the downfall of many companies and leaders. What is it about this moment? We are five years post pandemic. We're in an unusual place, I think, in our trust of the economy and the world around us. Why do you think that this moment is so crucial and why write this book now?
- [13:17]
Minda Hartz
It's funny that you asked that, Gene, because when I pitched this book three years ago, I wouldn't have known the climate both inside and outside the workplace that we'd be in. But what I realized was trust is a global language. People in Tokyo want trust. People in North Dakota want trust. People in Los Angeles want trust.
- [13:36]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [13:36]
Minda Hartz
You may not understand what it's like for me to be a woman or a woman of color, but you do understand what. When that feeling of safety is there, when that feeling of trust is there, and when it's not, that's universal feeling. And so I felt like, okay, maybe we can root the conversation in something that we all understand. And when we don't get clarity and honesty, then that's an erosion of trust. That's a conversation that we can have. And I think there's also this expectation that you're just supposed to know what trust looks like to me. And so how would you know that I need more feedback if I never articulate that to you? And part of me not talking to you about the fact that you're my manager and I need more feedback. I'm not trusting that you care about my career, but you don't know that. And so for me, I'm like, we're just having all these misunderstandings in the workplace, and it's constantly eroding trust. And I thought maybe if we close the expectation gap and we have better conversations, we can get back to the foundation of trust. Because I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning, Gene, and says, how can. I wrote trust with Minda today.
- [14:35]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [14:35]
Minda Hartz
But it's these decisions that we're making that impact that. So I'm asking people to slow down and let's get back to the basics.
- [14:42]
Jean Chatzky
Well, well, let's do that. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to go through the seven workplace trust languages and how to put them into use in your own life. Back in a sec. Here's something scary but true. The average adult unknowingly consumes over 152,000 plastic particles every year. And over 70% of the cookware sold in the US is still coated in PTFE. That's the same toxic chemical used in traditional nonstick pans. Caraway is on a mission to make cookware safer and way more stylish. I've been using my caraway set on repeat. I gotta say, everything moves around the pan so much easier than in traditional cookware. And it's so beautiful that I don't mind just leaving it sit right on top of my stove. Caraway's cookware set is a favorite for a reason. It can save you up to $190 versus buying the items individually. Plus, if you visit carawayhome.community you can take an additional 10% off your next purchase. This deal is exclusively for our listeners, so visit carawayhome.com hermoney or use code hermoney at checkout Caraway Non Toxic Cookware Made Modern. You know that moment you're standing in front of your closet packed with clothes, but somehow you have nothing to wear? Oh, I have been there. Which is why I'm obsessed with Armoire, the clothing rental service that's made getting dressed again actually fun. With Armoire, you take a five minute style quiz and then high end pieces tailored to your taste arrive at your door in as little as two days. Most recently from Armoire, I rented a skirt and a top that I used for a shoot. It elevated my entire week and I got some compliments on Zoom and in person. Right now my listeners can give Armoire a try and get up to 50% off their first month. That's up to $125 off. Just visit Armoire Style Hermoney. That's a R M O I R e style hermoney to get up to 50% off your first month. Never worry about what to wear again. Try Armoire. Today we are back with Minda Hartz, author of Talk to Me.
- [17:17]
Minda Hartz
Nice.
- [17:18]
Jean Chatzky
So let's talk about the seven workplace trust languages. They are sensitivity, transparency, security, demonstration, feedback, acknowledgement, and follow through. We're not going to have time to dig into all of them, but I want to dig into a few and let's start with the first one on the list. You said that sensitivity is the trust language that makes the others possible. What does it mean to be sensitive? What does it mean to be oversensitive?
- [17:48]
Minda Hartz
Yeah, it's funny. Many of us have been accustomed to the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.
- [17:53]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [17:54]
Minda Hartz
And I thought, well, if we have languages for our romantic relationships, then we should have languages at work, right? And so one of those things, I think now when I created these, the framework around the trust languages is I didn't realize how important sensitivity would be. And being sensitive doesn't mean we're crying in the car at work. It could mean that, but that's not what I meant it for. It's the empathy, Right. Being mindful of our impact, being mindful of our behaviors. If you're that person that likes to joke around in the office, maybe that joke is not appropriate for today.
- [18:28]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [18:29]
Minda Hartz
Because we need to be sensitive to that. And I used to have a manager that was a big joker and he would say a lot of jokes that had no business being in the workplace from 8 to 5. And I used to think I don't trust this man because he is not sensitive enough to know that these aren't jokes. You say to the only person in the room that would be about. And I thought, I don't trust him. But part of it was he just needed to learn a language that was important to me because my other colleagues, it didn't hit them the same way.
- [19:01]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [19:01]
Minda Hartz
But it was eroding my trust. And so having the language to be able to have a conversation when someone does fall short, not demonizing them, but saying, hey, how do you think that might have made me feel when you said that about the only fill in the blank at the company? Right. And so again, we can root these conversations to let people know what good looks like to us. And I think we all could benefit from being a little more culturally and emotionally sensitive at work.
- [19:27]
Jean Chatzky
I think there's a big problem with sensitivity, too. When we're talking about the difference between written communications and verbal communication, that things that you sometimes say out loud with nuance, if you put them in an email or you put them in a text or you put them in a slack, they just land wrong. And people don't seem to get that.
- [19:52]
Minda Hartz
Absolutely. And I think this is where understanding that, you know, typically I'm not a big fan gene of assume the best intent, but I think that part of it is wanting to trust people.
- [20:03]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [20:03]
Minda Hartz
I don't want to think that you. You're doing this intentionally. It's just you're unaware of it. So let me give you the benefit of the doubt, right. That when I get this email that maybe it's not the worst of what I think. But let me ask clarifying questions so I understand what your intention was and we can have a better conversation. And so I want people to take things into consideration a little bit more. Maybe we need to have a conversation. Maybe going back and forth on teams is not going to get us to a more trust trusting place. But if I hear you articulate it over the phone or on a zoom, maybe I. Oh, I get it now.
- [20:37]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [20:37]
Minda Hartz
Maybe it wasn't what I thought it was or it confirms that I was, and then we can have a different kind of conversation. But I think that assuming that people just need to understand that this is important to me, and I think as leaders and managers and even colleagues, if I know that you need me to be a little more sensitive about certain subjects, if I knew that, nine times out of 10, I'm gonna provide that for you if I know it.
- [20:59]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right?
- [21:00]
Jean Chatzky
Yep. Absolutely. The second language is Transparency. You talk about a manager that you had earlier in your career, Harold, who had an impact on you because you always knew where you stood with him, for better or for worse. What did that radical transparency do for you, and how do you think we can try to achieve it?
- [21:24]
Minda Hartz
Yeah, I think that transparency is probably one of the hardest for a lot of, I think, leaders in particular, because nobody wants to tell everything from A to Z that's coming down the pipeline. But one thing as an employee that really shined a light, that transparency helped build trust for me in the workplace was people who were clear and honest.
- [21:42]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [21:42]
Minda Hartz
Even when they didn't have all of the answers, they still were saying, hey, this is all the information I have. Trust. When I have more, or if you have questions, feel free to come in. I have an open door. And Harold, he let our team know six months before layoffs were coming. And I know that that was a. A big risk in. In his world, but he remembered what it was like to be on the other side of the table.
- [22:06]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [22:06]
Minda Hartz
And he gave us the breadcrumbs to make some early decisions. And I'll forever be grateful to Harold. Did he excel in other areas? Maybe not. But I realized that for me, transparency was so important in my career, and he was honest. And I think as leaders, and even if we don't have all the information to give, we still can be honest and clear up some ambiguity for people. And I think people need that right now in a climate that we're in.
- [22:33]
Jean Chatzky
Yeah, yeah. I think there's so many people who are worried about layoffs, are worried that this may be a year where raises or bonuses aren't coming as much as they were in the past. If your manager or your supervisor is not forthcoming with that kind of information, is there a good language to use to ask for it?
- [22:54]
Minda Hartz
Yeah. The cool thing about the trust languages is I give a lot of frameworks and scripts inside the book to say, okay, if you don't have a transparent manager or colleague, here are some ways that we do that. And I think we root them in facts.
- [23:06]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right?
- [23:06]
Minda Hartz
And so, for example, if a lot of companies are saying, return to the office, right, we're no longer going to be working five days remote. So instead of saying, get back to the office on Monday and that you give this information on a Wednesday, it doesn't give a lot of people a lot of time to maybe transition to. To come back to the office that fast. So if I value transparency, I might approach my manager and say, I understand we need to get Back to the office. But right now, you know, I live three states away, so can we talk about maybe the reasoning for why we're coming back to the office and ask those clarifying questions?
- [23:42]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [23:43]
Minda Hartz
It doesn't mean you don't have to approach your leader like, you don't want me to have employee well being anymore. That's why you want me back in the office. You want to micromanage, right? There's a way in which my mom used to say, and many of you have heard it, it's not what you say but how you say it.
- [23:55]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right?
- [23:55]
Minda Hartz
And then that opens up the door for that manager to say, you know what, we have a 10 year lease on this building. That's why we need people to get back to work. But maybe we could transfer this information a little bit better to consider that some people might be caretaking right now.
- [24:12]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [24:13]
Minda Hartz
So it doesn't have to be so cut and dry. And I think we as leaders have to remember that people are human first and employee second. And so when we're being transparent, think about the information that you would need to be able to wrap your mind around working from home for the last five years and then having to get ready to be back in the office. And I just think that we could do so much better of a job and keep trust as the main character.
- [24:36]
Jean Chatzky
I think one of the things that people suspect, even if they don't know it these days is that some of the correspondence may be performance reviews that we're getting from our managers are not really from our managers. They're being written by AI. And who knows what is being fed in to have that performance review spit out? How do we parse this period of time when computers and AI are taking on so much of the communication that we're not sure if it's coming from a real human or not?
- [25:15]
Minda Hartz
I love that you brought this up. I was just having a conversation yesterday with someone in a comms department who just read Talk to me Nice. And they said, how can we provide the information that we need and maybe keep trust as the main character? And I said, this is important. I said, think about how you might have communicated a really tough situation to the workforce. Now go back and look at it through a lens of trust and erosion. Right? Enhancing trust and building trust. So even if you're using AI or ChatGPT, think about it from a human perspective. Don't just pop it in and say, okay, well it's done and now I send it out. Think about, am I going to strip somebody of their humanity and their dignity and respect when they read this. Right. Or does it open the floodgates for us to have a conversation where we have a feedback loop?
- [26:03]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [26:03]
Minda Hartz
And so we have to, because we are the human and we are in control of the AI to some degree in our communication, we get to make sure that we don't just hit send just because it looks good. And that's what chatgpt told us. Think about it from the lens of is this enhancing trust or eroding trust? And if I were this person on the other end, how would I receive this information? And. And I think because we're moving at 90,000 miles per hour in the workplace, we don't consider how our words and our behaviors impact people who this is their livelihood.
- [26:33]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [26:33]
Minda Hartz
And we both want to be able to keep trust at the center. And I think we just have to pause and not be so rushed to get whatever the communication is out.
- [26:43]
Jean Chatzky
You mentioned feedback. Feedback is another one of the languages. We're not going to have time to do all of them. We'll do as many as we can. But we want to give people a reason to read the book. You're a feedback expert. You teach a graduate class where you never finish a semester without incorporating how to give and receive feedback. So what's the right way to do it? What's the wrong way to do it?
- [27:06]
Minda Hartz
Well, I think this is important, and I think this came up for me in my own world is that I had a manager, and I was never sure if I could trust that he was speaking my name in the rooms that I'm not in or if I'm doing right on certain projects. I. And the more that I thought about it, my initial thoughts were, oh, I don't trust this man or whatever. But really, I had to get underneath it, and I had to ask myself, if he knew what you needed to build more trust, what would that be?
- [27:34]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [27:34]
Minda Hartz
And feedback was one of them. And we work with people who need feedback from us, and that means that meaningful and consistent insight. But oftentimes, especially in leadership, we're the only one giving the feedback. We don't allow space for the employee to be able to give a response. Right. A thoughtful response, and then let's have a conversation and end on a solution. And I think that a lot of times, again, it's not that we don't trust the people we work with, but there's something that we need from them that they may not be aware of. And I think feedback is one of those things that A lot of people we work with need from us, and we may not just be speaking the language that they need. And that small modification could enhance the workplace relationship.
- [28:16]
Jean Chatzky
You end the book, Minda, with a chapter on how managers and HR folks can rebuild trust when it's been broken. What are the three crucial mistakes that every manager should marinate on?
- [28:31]
Minda Hartz
I love this question and I wish I had the trust languages gene when I was a manager in my early life, you know, But I think a lot of this, again is we all want trust and we all want to be trustworthy. And I think the things that we can control, we should. And so with hr, making sure that the onboarding process is standardized.
- [28:50]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [28:50]
Minda Hartz
That could be helpful. We want to make sure that the employee's first 90 days is important in the last 90 days of someone before they retire. We want to make sure that employee experience is one that they feel like was worth their time and their energy and their tenure.
- [29:05]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [29:05]
Minda Hartz
I think as managers, also being careful, like one of the trust languages is acknowledgement. And that means seeing people in the work. But think about it. Am I only praising one employee, the high potential employee, or are there 10 other people that I don't ever comment or give feedback on their work? And what does that do to the team dynamics?
- [29:25]
Interviewer/Host Assistant
Right.
- [29:25]
Minda Hartz
There's certain things that we can be doing to show, and even the last thing I think number three is regardless if you're in a leadership role or not, asking the people you work with, what do you need from me to doing your best work, and you're going to find out through that question, probably one or two of these trust languages, and if we knew one of them, we would have a better relationship with the people that we work with in our communication would be a lot better than it was maybe an hour ago.
- [29:51]
Jean Chatzky
If you work for a company where you feel like a lot of these things are lacking and you know, you're not in hr, maybe you're not even in a position of power, how do you start suggesting that this becomes part of the culture? Or can you as an employee lead by example and just make these things start to happen?
- [30:18]
Minda Hartz
Yes, I think. Okay, Obviously right now a lot of people, because the book is new, may not know what your trust language is. Right. But what I would do is I'd work through the book because there's assessments on finding out what your trust language is. Maybe it's not that you don't trust your manager or you don't trust hr, but maybe there's something that you need to advocate for more of right. Maybe it's more feedback, maybe it's more follow through. And if you had that and that person knew that, then perhaps trust could be a solve, right? Because I believe if trust can be broken, it can also be rebuilt with the right conversation. And so let's stop assuming people are just difficult to work with and get frustrated and they're not responding to us. And let's think what trust language might they need me to speak, right? Or what trust language could I be speaking? And you'll find that you have a primary, secondary and tertiary. And I'm really good gene at acknowledgement because that's one of my trust languages, right? But I need to figure out if you need more demonstration, more action for me to show you and tell you and be consistent, then if I knew that about you in our relationship, I'd do that. And I think we just gotta give people the opportunity to show us what good looks like when they know the.
- [31:30]
Jean Chatzky
Book is Talk to Me. Nice. The seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace. Minda Hartz, congratulations. Thanks so much for doing this with us and thanks so much for writing it. I think it's gonna help a lot of people.
- [31:42]
Minda Hartz
Thank you so much.
- [31:44]
Jean Chatzky
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- [33:04]
Minda Hartz
Today.
- [33:04]
Jean Chatzky
I want you to picture your closet. Go ahead, close your eyes and mentally open those doors. Now. How many things in there have you actually worn actually in the past Month. How many still have tags on them? Keep going. How many pieces did you buy because you needed to look the part, maybe for a big wedding or a meeting? If you find yourself thinking that I sound scarily accurate right now, it's because, unfortunately I am speaking from years of experience. As I was looking through my closet the other day, I got to thinking, what is the true cost of getting dressed today? I'm not just talking about dollars, although we are definitely going to talk about that. I am talking about time, mental energy, environmental impact. That's why I'm so excited to welcome Ambika Singh to the show. She is the founder and CEO of Armoire, a high end clothing rental company that helps busy women cut down on stress, waste and endless shopping. Ambika, welcome. Thanks so much for being here.
- [34:16]
Ambika Singh
Thank you so much for having me. I loved that picture closet. That is such a good way to think about it. Because yes, the data will tell you and perfectly probably your anecdotal imagination will tell you we all just have too much stuff.
- [34:30]
Jean Chatzky
We have too much stuff. But before we get to our stuff, I want to start with you. You have had this enviable career trajectory, Microsoft, an MBA from mit, Tech leadership. And yet you pivoted to fashion rental. What did you see in the lives of women that convinced you that clothing needed a total rethink? Or were you just doing a little me search?
- [34:59]
Ambika Singh
Such a great question. I came to MIT as a grad student, very curious about starting a business, but I didn't know what it should be. I had been really early at a couple startups and so I had seen the excitement of really building something. But one thing I knew was that I wanted to build something important and important for me felt like it was impactful for my customers lives. I wanted to have that satisfaction of knowing that whatever I was building really positively impacted people. And you know, that is not a new idea. I'm sure many of the founders on your show say that, but it is, it's a simple idea and it is transformative because I've now been doing this for nine years and I ran a fashion rental company through Covid. So you can imagine that like the days have not been smooth sailing but that kind of like deep just satisfaction of saying like at the end of the day I have delivered some joy to some people. So simple, so fulfilling. So that was part of what led me to this is like I had an idea that I wanted to find something that felt impactful to people and people quickly became professional women. For me that I'm sure on this podcast that the audience is well versed in the fact that women are doing more than their fair share in the workplace, in the home, in our communities. And so it felt like for someone that I could kind of stand behind, professional women were right there and obviously close to my heart. So I quickly came to professional women, and then I had the opportunity to spend time with over 500 of them, in many cases walking through their homes, in many cases having these kind of like open ended conversations. And again, maybe not a surprise to this viewership, we very often ended up at the closet. Yeah, the closet dominated the time that she had spent. To your point in the introduction, as you said, many of us spend an inordinate amount of time shopping. 42Tabs is an average open tab experience before buying a dress. Um, so we're, we're looking all over the place. We are price comparing. So tons of time had been spent, tons of money had been spent. And the most repeated word to me after I asked them how they felt standing in front of it was the word guilty. Ooh, guilty that I had spent too much money. Guilty. I'd spent too much time. Guilty. I wanted new things. Guilty. This stuff didn't fit me anymore. Guilty. That why am I such a consumer? So this thing that was dominating our time and our wallets was certainly not making us happy. And that was really what led me to thinking that this was the thing.
- [37:45]
Jean Chatzky
Let's talk numbers. When a woman rents her clothing, what is she actually saving? And is she actually saving when we compare to buying?
- [37:55]
Ambika Singh
Yeah, it's a great question. And it really comes down to what we consider utilization. So what that means is that if you are going to utilize your clothes at 100%, you're going to pay a lot less on a cost per wear basis than if you're only going to wear it once. And so if you think about, like in the average experience, the one you were describing when you encouraged us all to close our eyes, that dress that you wore to the wedding last summer, maybe it gets worn twice, maybe it even gets worn three times. But if we spend $300 on it, it's even at that. Three times of wearing it costs us $100 every time we wear it. I won't name names, but somebody on this call may have only worn some of those dresses one time, which means that I internalized the full cost of that dress in the initial and final wear. And so people say, like, oh, aren't there other ways to solve this problem? There are absolutely Other ways of solving this problem. I love the version of like, you wear the same black turtleneck and the same pair of jeans every day. If that works for you, you will definitely get a cost per wear that looks great and you'll have solved the money problem. However, if that's not you, which I think just looking around the room, that's generally not most of us, then you gotta figure out a different way of getting utilization. And so some other ways that are great, in our opinion is resale. If you can resell it to someone, if you can give it to someone that really wants it. Marie Kondo talks about this, though. Don't give things to people just to get them out of your closet. Even on the donation side, most donations get thrown away. So if you're kind of like computing that in your mind as like, well, I donated, I didn't throw it away. Most of it went in the trash. But sharing or renting is another way to bring that cost per wear down. So to give you some stats, like, most of our inventory is being worn around 30 times. So the $300 dress that we were talking about, that's a $10 cost per wear, which feels like a lot more palatable. But we're doing that by sharing it between many, many people.
- [40:03]
Jean Chatzky
So I'm a big amortizer. Big word. It's a big word. And I'm in favor of amortization. I actually do compute this stuff, right? I, I love it. I bought a, an expensive tote bag right after I got divorced because I needed a little bit of a pick me up. I wore that stupid thing for 20 years. Not a stupid thing. And then I resold it.
- [40:23]
Minda Hartz
I love it.
- [40:24]
Jean Chatzky
Because that's just. That makes sense to me. How do you know if you are a renter or a consigner or a thrifter? Like, how do you, assuming you are drinking this Kool Aid, and I think a lot of our audience is, and I certainly am, how do you know where you fit in the ecosystem?
- [40:44]
Ambika Singh
I think all three of those examples that you just talked about are very kind of. They are versions of the same. And what I mean by that is like what you've agreed to in that way is that the ownership of this item is temporary to me for as long as I want it and for as long as it makes sense from an amortization perspective. So one of the things if you are a buyer and a seller is that you take all of your money and give it to somebody else for that time that you own the item and then you get some of that money back when you sell it. If you're successful in that transaction, there is the float, which I'm sure you guys have talked about, right? So, like, you're out the full 300 bucks and somebody else is getting the float on that. When you buy the thing, by contrast with the rental, you're only paying us that kind of margin on top, where you're paying us about $20 per item when you rent it. So instead of you being out the full $300, you're out the $20. And in theory, you could do something else with that 280 do and make more money on it. If you are successful in it. And you know there's an if when on resale, right? Not all of your purchases are going to be able to be resold. But let's say that you do, you are successful, you lose some amount of money between that $300 and whatever you get the resale on, and you lose all that interest, opportunity cost on that $280 that you could have. So I think from a money perspective, it's like, are you out the full amount or are you out just a little bit when you're renting, there's emotional components there where, like, you actually own the thing, so you might like that more and there's real value to your happiness. So, like, decide which ones of those work better. And the third way I would think about it is your time.
- [42:27]
Minda Hartz
In your.
- [42:28]
Ambika Singh
In the rental example, we are your buyer and seller. Like, we're buying the thing, we're figuring out who to give it to and how to get rid of it. At the end, if you are a consigner or a thrifter, you're taking on that management. So I think of the rental service as a managed version of that. For some people, they get tremendous joy and happiness out of the buying and selling process. So again, like, I think that has real value. If you love the hunt and you love the selling process, like, you might really be a thrifter. Or if you're like, I just want someone to handle this for me, you might be a renter.
- [43:02]
Jean Chatzky
It's such a good description. We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we are going to talk about the impact of all of this on the planet. We are back with Ambakya Singh, CEO of Armoire. Let's shift gears to sustainability fast. Fashion is one of the world's biggest polluters. We've all seen the piles of unworn clothes in our closets. How does rental move the needle not just for our wallets, but for the earth?
- [43:33]
Ambika Singh
Yeah, great question. So very kind of startling statistic is that the average American will throw away 81 pounds of clothing every year. And most of our clothing that's going into the landfill has been worn seven times, so it's being thrown away early. And there's a lot of upfront environmental costs with creating the clothing. So carbon emission is something that I think we're all thinking about, tremendous carbon emission costs to actually create the thing. So back to your amortization conversation. What we want to do is amortize that upfront environmental investment over many wares or many people in the rental case and try to get that down to a smaller number. So that's really what we're talking about, like giant piles of trash. That 80 pounds of trash per human is a big thing that we want to try to reduce. And then on the carbon side, we want to make sure that we are amateurizing the things that we are producing so that we can produce less.
- [44:31]
Jean Chatzky
For anyone listening who is still a little skeptical, maybe she has never rented clothes. Maybe she thinks she's too picky. What's your elevator pitch?
- [44:40]
Ambika Singh
Thank you for that, Leah. My elevator pitch? This is your dream closet. You are welcome and invited to essentially infinite variety, but we curate it just for you. So your experience will be as if you had a boutique on your street run by a woman who loves and cares about you, who knows how to just like push you a little bit, get you into the exciting zone. That Fairy Godmother exists in your Armoire app and she is backed by a gigantic hundreds of thousands of item closet that she will lovingly curate for you so that you can get out there in the world.
- [45:19]
Jean Chatzky
Ambika Singh, CEO of Armoire this was so much fun. Come back and talk fashion with us again, please.
- [45:25]
Ambika Singh
Thanks Jean. I really appreciate it.
- [45:27]
Jean Chatzky
If you love today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a comment. 5 star review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means the world to me. And if you're ready to keep the money conversation going, HerMoney has three amazing programs designed to help you feel more confident and in control of your money. There's Finance Fix. It's our four week coaching program that helps you rethink your spending, find hidden savings and make smarter choices for the future. Our pre retirement program runs for six weeks and walks you through building a retirement strategy that's personalized for your next chapter. Finally, there's Investing Fix. Our Investing Club for Women. It meets every other week on Zoom. It is a supportive space to learn, ask questions, grow your your investing confidence and build your portfolio. And your first month is absolutely free. These programs are truly helping level the playing field for women financially. I'd love for you to join us. Her money is produced by Hayley Pascalides and our music is provided by Video Helper. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk soon.
- [46:47]
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