Empowering Women in the Workplace: Navigating Non-Promotable Tasks and Communication Strategies in Meetings- Prof. Brenda Peyser-Former Associate Dean School Of Public Policy And Management Carnegie Mellon University

How to suppor women in the workplace and the challenges they face with non-promotable tasks and communication barriers in meetings.
In this interview with Brenda Peyser, we discuss, 

• What is a non-promotable tasks and how it can limit career advancement opportunities for women
• Tips for identifying non-promotable tasks and how to prioritize tasks that contribute to career growth and development
• Strategies for saying no to non-promotable tasks without jeopardizing career progression
• How to shed non-promotable tasks, benefitting  you and the organization
• Reframing the concept of "no" to benefit the organization and communicate boundaries effectively
• How organizations measure non-promotable tasks and steps they can take to address the issue
• Takeaways for you  on how to communicate effectively in meetings, including strategies for holding the floor, amplifying ideas, and supporting other women
• Importance of allies and support networks for women in the workplace
• Call to action for YOU and organizations to prioritize career growth and development for women.

Brenda Peyser is Former Associate Dean, School Of Public Policy And Management at Carnegie Mellon University. She has  held leadership positions in the academic and corporate worlds for almost 35 years. Brenda is one of the co-authors of The No Club – Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work , with Linda Babcock, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart.

Most recently, Brenda was a Distinguished Service Professor of Professional Communications at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, where she taught classes in professional speaking and acting. 

She is the founding Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon, Australia and one of the founders of the Heinz College’s Institute for Social Innovation. Brenda has taught in the Carnegie Mellon Leadership and Negotiation Academy for Women and consulted with organizations to improve women’s communication skills. 

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(00:47):
minutes to dive into what herbook is around the No Club.
There are a lot of non-propromotable tasks that women do.
We spend over 200 hours a yeardoing.
This gives you a way to thinkabout how you're spending time
at work, how to reframe theconversation when you start to
say no to certain tasks and howto communicate and make sure

(01:07):
you're heard and you have avoice and support each other as
we continue to advance ourcarriers.
Let's dive in.
I have Professor Brenda Pi fromCarnegie Mellon University.
She was the associate dean ofthe School of Public Policy and
Management, and she was also oneof the founding executive
directors of Carnegie MellonAustralia.

(01:28):
And she actually has a veryfascinating, I think we're gonna
dive into this a fascinatingsegue into how she got into
academia, which I think is veryunusual.
But more importantly, what weare going to talk about is the
book that she co-authored withother fellow.
Faculty and academicians on thebook called The No Club, which
is about sort of the work thatwomen do that is not recognized

(01:51):
at work.
I got to hear Brenda Preser andall her colleagues present on
their book launch actually,because I and she are both from
Carnegie Mellon, I'm an alumfrom there, and she's the
faculty there.
So I got to invited to listen tothe book launch and I found the
topic very fascinating becausesitting in corporate leadership
and also.

(02:11):
Co-chairing employee resourcegroups.
I can see the lens that they'relooking through when they're
doing this research and how itimpacts women in corporate
structures.
thank you so much for beinghere.
I wanted to start with what isyour background like?
How did you get into doing thiskind of research into where you
are today?
First of all, thank you so muchfor having me here today.

(02:32):
This is really fun.
So my background is a little bitdifferent than most of the
people that you might talk tothat teach in universities.
I started as an actress and Igot a master's degree in acting
and spent my first career inprofessional theater primarily.
So I did a lot of work from newplays to shake.

(02:53):
And although acting is awonderful and exciting thing to
do, it's a difficult career,which is putting it in a very
nice way.
And so I realized that was notgonna be the best life for me.
And so I made some decisionsabout what I would do next, and
I went into consulting.

(03:13):
And so I worked as a managementconsultant for about 10 years,
and that was great and reallyinteresting and gave me the
opportunity to be exposed to alot of industries.
But ultimately it wasn't, Irealized what I really wanted to
do and I found that the thingthat interested me the most was

(03:34):
working in higher educat.
And so that's the transition Imade there.
And I worked at Carnegie Mellonfor over 20 years.
And I was the associate dean ofthe Public Policy school at
Carnegie Mellon, the HinesCollege.
And then was a professor ofcommunications there.

(03:55):
So I got the best of everypossible career.
Yeah.
I mean there's a wholediscussion around that.
I think I will, I would wannacome back and discuss how you
career pivoted, because as yousaid, I.
first of all, I think you'reprobably the closest that come
to someone who's actually actedon stage and making that pivot
from there into consulting.

(04:15):
First of all, how did you dothat transition and then to
academia is very fascinatingbecause I don't think many
people or if there's anyone elseactually who's even done that
before.
So we will come back to havingthat discussion in a few
minutes.
But I wanted to start with yourbook itself.
Like how did you.
Started on this journey withyour four friends.
I'm sure you're ha you arefriends now because you've been

(04:36):
working together for a long timeas colleagues as well.
So what got you started on this?
Actually it all started 13 yearsago this month we met at a
restaurant in Pittsburgh thatyou probably know, the Union
Grill.
And we got together because wewere all completely overwhelmed
by our jobs and we agreed thatwe needed to find a way to get

(05:00):
our work lives back under.
So we sat around a table at thisrestaurant with a couple bottles
of wine and began talking aboutall the things that we were
doing, and we were a littlesurprised to discover that we
had actually agreed to all ofthem.
When we were complaining abouthow overwhelmed we were, we
realized that we just keptsaying okay.

(05:22):
And so we knew that we needed.
To solve our individualproblems.
So we decided to band togetherand we agreed that we would meet
each month and that we woulddrink a lot of wine, as we went
through this process.
The good part of this story too,is that when I got home that

(05:42):
night, I told my husband aboutour meeting and he laughed and
he said, this is the perfectgroup for you.
I don't know if you know this,but anytime anyone asks you
anything you say, happy to,before they even finish the
question.
Ah I didn't know that I didthat, but I started paying

(06:05):
attention and he was right.
I said yes immediately andoften, and it turns out that so
did all my co-authors.
And so we vowed at that point tosay no to the things that were
getting in our way, and that wasthe birth of the no club.
I love a really good girl'snight out That's the best part

(06:28):
of it, and we were talkingbriefly for those of you who,
who may not hear this on thepodcast I went back to graduate
school, to Carnegie Mellon whenI became a stay-at-home mom and
I had my two kids.
And one of the things that Itell people that I took away
really from that time was reallythe ability to.
Form this very close friendshipand those are the friends I

(06:49):
still have today.
And like we, we call it gn os,we are always looking forward to
that.
That's the time we actuallydecide to dress up and go out
rather than for the other eventsthat we do.
So you talked about a problemthat a lot of us face.
The hard part of saying no.
There's two parts, right?
The hard part of saying no inyour personal life and the hard
part of saying no in yourprofessional life.

(07:11):
And you obviously are talkingalso largely around your
professional life in this book.
So how did you manage to say no,and how did you decide what to
say no to?
And say it in such a way that itdidn't impact you, because
that's always the fear that it'sgoing to backfire.
Let me back up just a little bitto talk.

(07:31):
Saying no and why we said no andwhat we said no to.
So one of the things wediscovered as we met each month
and talked about all these tasksthat we had to do that were just
like killing us was that wediscovered they weren't really
the key elements of our jobs.

(07:51):
So these are things thateveryone, especially every
woman, has done, and they arethings like onboarding new
employees and mentoring andserving on committees, resolving
conflict from, with coworkers.
Editing, proofreading.
And so these are all tasks thatreally need to be done, that the

(08:14):
organization needs to have done,but they don't bring any benefit
to the person that's doing them.
So in other words, there's noreward for your career to
proofread something for somebodyelse, but the organization
benefits because that, Helpsmake things better.
So once we started talking aboutall these tasks, we realized how

(08:37):
many of them there were and wecalled them crappy tasks.
Later on, we actually gave thema better name, which is what you
read about in the book, which isnon-pro promotable tasks because
again, they help theorganization but not the person
that's doing them.
And so those were the things.

(08:57):
That we wanted to stop doing.
So many of, we knew that westill had to do some because
everybody does, but we wantedour work portfolios to look more
like.
Those of the men who spent mostof their time on promotable
work, the work that is what theorganization values in terms of

(09:19):
its, big picture success and thework that helps you as an
individual get ahead.
So those were the things that welooked at and in terms of
identifying which tasks arenon-pro promotable, there are
certain characteristics thatthey have in common that's
really helpful for women tothink about.

(09:42):
The first of these is thatthey're tasks that aren't often
tied to the mission of theorganization.
So if you were to look in on thewebsite or in an annual report
or in PR documents that yourorganization puts out, the
things that they talk about themost are gonna be the things
that are promotable.
So here's an example of that.

(10:04):
When I was in consulting, one ofthe things that I did was
provide training to otherconsultants.
And I was pretty good at it.
And so I got asked to do it alot and I was really happy to do
it.
I found it to be fun, but what Ididn't know at the time was that
work.

(10:24):
Wasn't promotable, it wasn'ttied to the organization's
mission.
The promotable work was bringingin clients and logging billable
hours, so training otherconsultants benefited the firm,
but not me.
The next characteristic is thatthese are things that are often
done behind the scenes, and sothey're not things that other

(10:46):
people might know about.
If you help somebody byproofreading one of their
documents, they're probably theonly person that even knows that
you did that, so it's not gonnabring any benefit to your
career.
And then the finalcharacteristic is That these are
things that many people can do,not just you.
So they're not things that resthat you do because of the

(11:09):
specialized skills you broughtto your job, the things that you
were hired for serving on acommittee.
Doesn't require a lot ofspecialized skills.
Taking notes at a meetingbasically requires a pen and a
pulse, so I think as women thinkabout what to say no to, you
wanna be able to identify thecharacteristics of that work

(11:31):
that won't necessarily get youahead.
So that sort of led us into,okay, when we know that these
are our tasks, how do we not dothem?
And that sort of took us intothe saying no part.
I like that it's very clear.
There's three, like you said thebottom line, the non visibility

(11:53):
and the fact that.
Anyone can do it, right?
Because that becomes thechallenge.
And please if someone islistening, if someone asks you,
just because you're a woman inthe room to take meeting notes,
do not do that.
Ask one of the guys to pick upthe pen and paper and take it
themselves.
You didn't have to do this.
There is no reason for you to bedoing it, but.
I that's always the hard part.

(12:14):
We tend to say yes we tend to doa lot of the things, it, it
could be even the office party,there's nothing wrong with
planning them, but from what Iremember from your research and
from your own personalexperiences, I'm just going to
throw some numbers and they maynot be exactly reflective of
yours.
So say you're working a 40 hourjob, if your male colleague is
spending 38 hours doing the joband his promotable task, you may

(12:35):
end up doing 30.
what you need to be doing thenis looking at, are you doing 30
hours of work or 25 hours andthere's all this other stuff
that you're doing for theorganization.
Maybe training new employees,hiring new employees,
onboarding.
Maybe they're going throughrecruiting or maybe they're
working on D n I efforts.
Whatever it is, it's importantas an organization.

(12:56):
I think those are exactly whatyou call non-pro promotable
because they do not show up onany metric where performance
evaluation comes up.
And when they're looking atperformance evaluation, it
depends.
If the organization is usingthose metrics to measure
performance, then theconversation might be a bit
different, even if it doesn'tshow up in the bottom line.
So how did you go about sayingno?

(13:17):
this is how I would've worked.
I'm just wondering if you didsomething similar.
Sat down and wrote on all thelist of all these activities you
were signing up for and whattime maybe it was taking, and
when, some of them you wouldalready sign up, so you probably
had to finish them.
And when did you start saying,okay, which did you have like a
criteria saying, these are thekind of tasks I might say yes
to.
And if you said no, what is thatway you approach the

(13:38):
conversation?
Because I think that is alsocritical.
Suddenly you're changing.
They're always used to yousaying yes.
And when you start saying no,suddenly, people have to get
used to it.
It's a perception thing.
Just to segue that a little bit,I had this colleague who used to
work, gosh, I think she used towork like nine 11 hours a day.
And the challenge she had whenshe started to back up and work

(14:00):
a normal schedule was sometimespeople can perceive that you're
not working hard enough when youare already overdoing it.
So it's, it's rebuilding thatimage of what they think you are
or how you are doing your job.
your boss says, need to organizean ethics committee.
It's important for ourorganization who will volunteer.

(14:22):
And in that moment, we all knowexactly what happens.
Everybody starts looking at theceiling, they start checking
their phone.
They shuffle through papers infront of them So everyone starts
looking around because nobodywants to be the person to
volunteer, and the weight goeson and on until someone finally

(14:42):
raises.
Her hand and says, I'll do it.
So that's what we were lookingto replicate in our research,
and here's what we found.
Women are 48% more likely to bethe ones to volunteer.
They are 44% more likely to beasked by both men and women, and

(15:08):
they are 50% more likely thanmen are to say yes when they're
asked.
So it turns out, from anorganizational perspective, it's
a good idea to ask women becausethey always say yes, but for the
women, it's not the best idea.
So the thing that drives all ofthis is that we all expect women

(15:35):
to stand up and do this work.
We're waiting for them to be theones to volunteer and women
don't disappoint.
So we can see how this becomes avery vicious cycle for women who
keep getting asked, keep sayingyes, get asked again because
they said yes, and we know wecan count on them.

(15:57):
And so this goes on and on.
So the man that you're talkingabout who's spending all his
time on the promotable work ismoving ahead and his female
colleague isn't.
So one organization that weworked with keeps track of
employee hours very carefully,and we found in our work with

(16:18):
them that the median woman inthe organization worked 200 more
hours per year on non-propromotable tasks than her male
colleague did, than the medianmale colleague.
Now, 200 hours a year is morethan a month's worth of work on

(16:41):
tasks that do not move yourcareer ahead.
so we understand why they'rebeing asked, because we expect
them to.
We understand why they say yes,because we get it.
We un, we've internalized theseexpectations as well, and so we
think when somebody asks us, wehave to say yes.

(17:02):
We don't wanna disappoint, wedon't want them to think badly
of us, and of course we wannaavoid backlash.
So those are all importantthings to keep in mind when it
comes time to say no.
So your question was how do yousay no to these tasks?
The first thing you wanna do asyou pointed out, is you wanna

(17:24):
identify which of your tasks arepromotable and which are not.
And the easiest way to do thatis just by keeping a log of all
the things you do.
So for one week, write downevery single thing you do, and
you can look at your jobdescription and you can talk to
other people, look at yourcalendar, look at your emails,
and then think about all thethings that aren't on there.

(17:47):
you've now put together yourlist of all the tasks you do.
You've thought of as many thingsas you can and put them down.
Now it's time to figure outwhich are promotable and which
aren't.
And the best way to do that isby considering, the things that
we talked about before, are theyvisible?
Are they tied to the mission ofthe organization?

(18:09):
Do they require your specializedskills?
And the truth is that many taskslive on this continuum between
non-pro promotable andpromotable.
And the two polls are very easyto see what is promotable and
what isn't.
And then there are some tasksthat fall in the middle.
So what you wanna do is give ityour best shot, and you wanna
label tasks high, medium, andlow.

(18:33):
Once you get done with that, youwanna calculate what percent of
your time you're spending onpromotable work and.
on non-pro promotable work.
Now you wanna figure out whatother people are doing because
what they do is really importantin terms of what you do.
If you're like most women,you're doing more non-pro

(18:56):
promotable work than your malecolleagues are.
So as you do your checking, youwanna ask other women who hold
the same job as you, who are inthe same, job level as you, but
you also wanna check with menbecause their balance is going
to be different.
And once you've got all theseinputs from other people, then

(19:16):
you can see how close you are towhat they're doing.
If you are, again, like mostwomen, you're doing much more
non-pro promotable work than youshould be.
So now your task is to startshedding.
Some of those non-pro promotabletasks.
So your portfolio of work isbetter balanced.

(19:40):
And so the way you do that is alittle bit different than how
you would just say no to a newtask, which we can talk about in
a minute.
But as rebalancing, you wannafigure out what it is you like
because we know we have to dosome non-pro promotable work.
And what you don't like.

(20:02):
So I mentioned before when I wasin consulting and one of the
things I did was providetraining for people.
That was something that I likeddoing, and so I would probably
be willing to keep that on mylist of non-pro promotable
tasks, recognizing that I wouldwanna control how much time I
was spending on it.

(20:22):
I totally get that.
yeah, there, there will bethings you will dislike that you
will still have to do, but youget a say in it and you're more
intentional about thediscussion, I think is what
you're trying to say.
How long did it take you to shedthose tasks and hit that optimum
level?
So I identified all these tasksthat were non-pro promotable for
me.
I went to my dean and proposedto him that we create a new job

(20:47):
for a staff person that wouldincorporate all these tasks,
which would free me up to do,and I very specifically listed
the things that I would be ableto do if I didn't have to do
these other tasks.
He agreed.
And what that meant was that itwas a promotion for the person
who got the job.

(21:09):
So it was of benefit to her.
Those tasks were promotable andit freed me up to do the other
work that was a better fit formy role.
So that's one way to think aboutgetting rid of some of the tasks
that you.
We realized that we needed help,which is why we have a no club,

(21:30):
that's excellent because we needa support system.
And to your point, I reach outto my mentors that I trust to
ask these questions like, thishappened, what should I do?
That happened because you have away of, I asked the question for
two reasons.
One is how should I think aboutit?
Whether my thought process is agood approach on what I'm
heading towards to the potentialsolution.

(21:51):
And sometimes I'm also asking,how do I phrase.
My response especially if I'msaying no to something, I wanna
figure out how to phrase it sothat there is no repercussions
from it.
Because there's very ways tophrase something right.
And you did it so well.
When you talked about.
How you went to your dean and itcould be in anyone in a similar

(22:13):
position, and you were able tomake it promotable for someone
else.
That they got value out of itand you were able to show that.
This is where I would bring,first of all, it helps you
advance, but it also bringsvalue to the organization
because from an organizationstandpoint, a lot of them are
looking at pay and benefits.
Let's go back to the numbersgame, If you're looking at pay
and benefit, You wanna get themost of the person who's being

(22:35):
paid for what they're there todo, why would you want them to
be doing something else that isnot having the most impact?
So if there is somebody else whogets that benefit, then it's a
win-win for everybody.
The way we like to think aboutthis is that when somebody comes
to us with a request, they havea problem they need to solve.
And so rather than seeing thisas a burden, we can see this as

(22:58):
an opportunity to help thisperson address their problem.
So let's say that Raphael comesand asks me to be on the ethics
committee now, right before heasked me, Somebody else came and
asked if I would lead a taskforce on women's advancement in

(23:19):
the organization.
So when Raphael asks me, what Ican say to him is, this sounds
really important to theorganization.
But I've already been asked tolead another task force, and I
don't think I'm gonna have timeto do both these things well,
and I don't wanna give eitherone short shrift.

(23:40):
So what I would suggest is thatyou ask James.
because he has exactly the rightbackground for the work your
committee is doing.
He's super smart.
He's a really hard worker, andactually working on this group
will benefit him because it willgive him some visibility with

(24:01):
other people in the organizationthat will be helpful to him down
the road.
So I'm gonna have to say no, butI think you've got a good
solution in.
So what happened there is that Ihelped Raphael solve his
problem.
So he's not going to think badlyof me for saying no.
I've avoided backlash, which isone of the reasons that women

(24:24):
often don't say no is because weunderstand what happens when we
upend the expectations thatpeople have of us, and I've
given him.
Somebody who's actually gonnabenefit from doing the job.
So I've given him a solution toa problem that he has that
doesn't include me.

(24:44):
And then now I have to decide,if I am gonna do this Women's
Advancement Task Force, how willI say yes?
to doing that.
So I know how to say no, whichis to come up with an option
that benefits somebody else bybeing a promotable task or by
recommending somebody who coulddo an equally good job at the

(25:08):
task.
but now I have to say yes tosomething as well, which I know
that we need to do and we needto hold on to some of our npt.
So when I say yes, what I coulddo is negotiate.
So I could say, I would love tobe on this task force.
But what would be really helpfulis if we could get a small.

(25:31):
because I think we need to do asurvey throughout the
organization to gather data thatwill be really helpful in the
work this committee is gonna do.
If we can hire an outside firmthat can conduct the survey and
analyze the data and report itback to us, that will save me.
and my committee members a lotof time so that we can continue

(25:52):
to focus on our promotabletasks.
Now obviously your firm needs tohave a budget to be able to do
that, but that's one potentialfor negotiating.
I could also perhaps ask forother resources, like a staff
member to help me write a finalreport for leadership.
Or maybe I could.

(26:12):
Trade off one of my othernon-pro promotable tasks for
this one.
So the idea is that I don'tcontinually add to my plate.
If I say yes to something, thenI need to remove something else
that I have.
Do you know the Lean inpublished this report, which

(26:32):
said 40.
of women have non-pro multipletasks, especially around D N I,
that are not recognized.
Yeah.
And that don't show up anywherethough, like you said, it's
important for organizations, soit comes back to how the
measurement is done, right?
You are talking about from twosides.
One is what you can do to makesure.

(26:55):
you have that balance becausewhen you set 200 hours, that's
like more than 10%, like yousaid, more than a month and a
half.
That's a huge amount of timethat you're doing that, and that
is only the time that you'remeasuring.
It doesn't take into account thetime that you're constantly
switching back and forth and thetrail that you leave behind as
you're performing these tasks.
I'm gonna talk about, from anorganization standpoint at this

(27:17):
point, when you are looking atperformance, when you are
looking at measures, if D N I isimportant to you, I think
organizations need to be clearabout how they measure that.
How are they going to valuethat, and what is that metric?
largely from all your data, itsuggests that women are the ones
taking on the npt.
But if you're not, and if you'restill taking on NPT and from

(27:37):
other organizations, Think abouthow you can like Brenda said,
rephrase that conversationbecause I think what I really
liked about it is when you said,Raphael came to your, you were,
but you gave it to James, you'redoing the.
Best part of two things isyou're giving visibility to
someone else.
You're giving access to someoneelse.
You're giving someone theopportunity to grow, which is

(27:59):
where sort of the fairness andthe balance comes.
Because the other thing thatpeople might not realize as
they're assigning tasks topeople in this case it's npt,
but it also could work forpromotable tasks, is if you keep
handing off the same thing tothe same set of people every
time there's an inequity builtin, it's a perception of
fairness that people feel.
if you're doing all this non-propromotable tasks, you do not

(28:21):
have access to the ladder.
You're not able to climb becauseyou are spending time sort of
spinning your wheels doing thisthing, which you think is
important, which has value.
but does not affect the bottomline.
And organizations are looking atthe dollar count no matter what
we say, even if it's an academicinstitution.
They're looking at researchgrants, they're looking at your
publications, they're looking atoutreach.
They're measuring it in certainvaluable entities that they can

(28:43):
speak to or products they'reproducing.
So how do you get your name intothat?
Maybe the new product needs acommunication expert, and though
it's a non-pro promoted task,how do you make it where you
are?
The one, the voice of theproduct?
Maybe that's your skill, likeyou take your training
background and use itdifferently.
That still enables theorganization because maybe they
don't have the skills most ofthem, but you can blend your

(29:05):
technical and your other side todo it.
thinking a little differently, Ithink is very important, and
finding those advocates.
You need to find it with yourmanager.
You need to be talking tomentors.
I think in some ways you need tobe talking to HR because a lot
of these conversations happen inthe HR space because D N I, a
lot of these tasks can come fromthat avenue as well.
So you need to be having thoseconversations with HR looking at

(29:27):
how they measure the success.
and create a framework.
Organizations need a frameworkno matter what we do as
individual.
they need to be thinking aboutit from a bigger standpoint.
that's an excellent point.
And y we've talked a lot so farabout how this affects women and
what women can do about it, butthis is also a really big
organizational problem.

(29:49):
And ultimately, organizationsare the only ones that can solve
it.
So women can do some things tohelp their own situations.
Every time they get asked, theycan think about how they're
gonna respond to that request.
but as you said, if we keepgoing back and asking the same
people over and over, we're notaddressing the problem.

(30:09):
And so organizations are alsolosing out because of this.
And one is that they're notusing their workforce
efficiently.
so they're not recognizing thetalent that they have in the
organization, that they can bedeploying in proper ways.
Women whose specialized skillsmay be going unnoticed because

(30:33):
they're busy doing non-propromotable work are over time
gonna get disillusioned.
And that disillusionment canlead to a lot of.
Issues for the organization likeabsenteeism and ultimately
turnover because those women aregonna look for better
opportunities in other places.
So now that makes it hard forthe organization to achieve.

(30:55):
Its d e i goals.
and that means it's harder forthem to attract and retain other
women.
And so this goes on and on.
And ultimately it becomes veryexpensive for the organization.
There the cost of replacing anemployer are estimated to be
like six to nine months of thatperson's salary.
And that doesn't take intoaccount some of the other things

(31:18):
you mentioned, which.
Productivity more broadly, themorale of the people that work
in the organization, all thethings that have an effect on
how well the organization canfunction externally and
internally.
And so it's really important fororganizations to be the ones.
To address this issue and it'sactually not hard to do and it's

(31:42):
not expensive to do.
And so there are a couple ofthings that we know for sure.
One is to stop asking forvolunteers.
Because whenever we ask for avolunteer, a woman will be the
one to raise her hand.
And there are many other ways toassign work, non-pro promotable
work, as well as promotable workin ways that are just as

(32:06):
effective.
We had talked about takingmeeting notes before.
If you're going to a standingmeeting, take turns, so whoever
takes it this week doesn't takeit next week.
If you're doing something new,draw names out of a hat.
Use random selection to pickpeople.
If a volunteer is gonna be goodenough to do the job, then

(32:28):
pulling the names of all thosesame people in the room is gonna
have the same result, exceptthat there's a potential that it
won't be a.
there are a number of thingsthat organizations can do, as
well to address this problemlonger term.
One of the key things is, tocreate awareness of the problem,

(32:49):
which is one of the things we'rereally trying hard to do, and
anybody can do that in anorganization.
It, the change doesn't have tostart at the top and work its
way down.
Any single person can help thischange process by creating
awareness of non-pro promotabletasks.
So somebody comes to you andsays, will you be on the

(33:09):
committee to redecorate thelounge?
And then you go to your friendand say, oh my God, like I can't
believe I was asked.
To do this, and you can say tothat person, Ugh, what a
terrible non-pro promotabletask, so that the language
becomes part of what theorganization does, and that way

(33:30):
we can help define what'spromotable and non-pro
promotable.
Now, you had talked about d E Iefforts.
That same McKinsey Lean In Studyfound that 70% of organizations
said that d e i efforts arecritical to the organization,
but only 24% of them rewardedthem.

(33:53):
Now, if that work is soimportant to an organization,
shouldn't it be promotable?
So organizations should thinkabout what.
Defined as a promotable versusnon-pro promotable task.
And consider changing some ofthose things because if they
matter that much, then maybethey should be rewarded if they,

(34:16):
if you want people to spend timeon them, then give them a reason
to spend that time.
So I think that's another thing,that you can think of.
So a supervisor can ask theiremployee, how do you feel about
your mix of work?
Do you feel like you have enoughtime to focus on the work that's
promotable?
What non-pro promotable tasksare you doing?

(34:38):
Because honestly, nobody knowsall the work that we have.
Our supervisor doesn't know allthe things we're doing.
As the employee going into themeeting, you can help enlighten
your supervisor.
So bring in a list of all yourpromotable tasks.
and also all your non-propromotable tasks because your
supervisor might be surprised tosee how much time you're

(34:59):
spending on things that are notnecessarily tied to the
organization's mission.
So those things can help.
And then you can start talkingabout with your supervisor how
to rebalance your workload sothat you can get yourself more
aligned with what you should bedoing compared to what your
peers are.

(35:20):
Very true.
And for those who are listeningthink about all the tasks you're
doing.
like Brenda said, you need towrite a list down of everything
and look at the balance ofpromotable and non-pro
promotable.
So the onus is on both theindividual and the organization,
but you as an individual need todo this so that you can go back
and have a conversation withyour boss.
Don't wait for performance timein your next one-on-one.

(35:41):
I'll schedule some time to talkabout this.
If it's becoming veryburdensome, talk to HR and see
if there's a structure.
and for organizations, I thinkHR and management needs to look,
it doesn't have to come all theway from the top and see if you
have certain efforts.
Because organizations areconstantly evolving, right?
They are have certain tasks theyneed to do to move forward, but
they're not always in that lensof promotability.

(36:02):
So look at, can you make itpromotable?
I think I liked how aboutoutsourcing it or finding the
right person the right fit forit, because it becomes a way for
growing and seeing a developmentgoal for.
Or restructure how you areevaluating performance.
Restructure how it is, almostlike you said in a hat.
I think I thought of the game,the white elephant, when you
were saying that, they playedduring the holiday time, right?

(36:25):
You pull on, you pass a gift,you or put all the tasks on the
table and ask everyone to pickit.
And if they don't like the task,you get to trade it twice,
everyone gets the task.
So it's equally distributed,they're all weighted.
and in all sense of fairness,that is the best way that
everyone's given access andbecause it may not be your fit,
like you said, you don't wannadecorate the lounge, but you're
okay being on the women'scommittee.

(36:46):
trade it out.
And actually it might not be abad thing to try something new
because that's when you're goingto explore and try something
different.
Don't go with your status quo ofthe same tasks you always end up
doing and signing up for, cuzthis is a way for you to expand
your leadership and your scope.
And the flip side, when I look,I think I talked about pay and

(37:06):
benefits or where organizationsare looking at bottom line and
where value they're.
you want the most value from thetalent of your employee.
If they have a certain skill setand you're underutilizing them,
you suffer two ways.
One is you are not getting themost out of it, so well, that's
too bad because we are notmaking, the most benefit out of

(37:27):
it.
And secondly, people are gonnabe very disengaged.
They're gonna quit.
There's always quite quittingand great resignation happening
for a reason because people arerealizing, okay, there are ways
I can do this and how can I doit differently?
And I think organizations needto make clear that they have
expectations for people toperform non-pro promotable
tasks.
Everybody, not just women.
And that, we're gonna talk aboutthat during performance

(37:49):
evaluation time.
And we're gonna look at whatyou're doing and what you should
be doing.
I think one thing that'simportant for organizations as
well is to keep track of allthis.
So if you're gonna take turns,taking meeting.
write it down, keep it in adatabase or a spreadsheet or
whatever it is, yourorganization does to track

(38:10):
information.
If you're pulling names from ahat, write that down too.
Understand what people are doingso that over time you can shift
the burden away so that it'smore equitably distributed
across your population ofemployee.
And as you make that list right,and you go to your manager, you
should put all of the non-promodal task in one bucket and put

(38:32):
5% of your time, 20% of yourtime.
Is it 40% of your time?
Because managers also arelooking at employees and saying
why they're not doing their jobin some ways.
That's right.
They may have no visibility tothis.
They just see you disappearingto do something, but they don't
know what it is that you'redoing, so you need to bring it
to them and put it on paper.
I think everything needs to bewritten down.
Do not have a oral conversationhere.

(38:53):
Write it down, put it on paper.
Send an email, because no one'sgoing to remember, three weeks
down the road, what you talkedabout.
There's just so much flowingthrough constantly.
we in the book, we have a numberof exercises that you can do as
an individual to help youidentify what work you have
that's promotable, what work youhave that's non-pro promotable,
how to calculate how much timeyou're spending on it so that,

(39:16):
we can we walk people throughstep by step the process of
figuring this out.
And then there's advice fororganizations as well to go
through and figure out.
What it's doing and then how todistribute the work.
So there are some solutions thatare pretty straightforward.
So the other part I wanted totouch on was you lead the

(39:37):
Carnegie Mellon University ofLeadership and work with the
Negotiation School for women oncommunication for women.
Yes, I did.
So I wanted to understand, whatdo you see?
Sort of the things that women doreally extremely well from the
communication standpoint, andare there like certain themes
that they really struggle withand what can they do to turn

(39:58):
that around?
I think that we're subject toexpectations in this arena as
well as in the saying Yesproblem.
So people have a lot ofexpectations about how women
should behave.
and that includes how womenshould communicate and women

(40:19):
have internalized thoseexpectations as well.
And so we live up to what peoplehave told us they want us to do.
We also know that women areinterrupted more than men.
and that men are the ones, Imean by everybody, both men and
women, interrupt women.
Men tend to interrupt us alittle more than we interrupt

(40:39):
each other, but it's somethingthat we all do.
And so helping women understandwhat some of these issues are
can help them become better.
at communicating.
when we talk aboutcommunication, we don't just
mean standing up and making aspeech in front of a group of
people.
In a meeting where you have menand women at the table, how is a

(41:01):
woman can you get your pointacross?
And there are a couple of thingsthat we can do.
One is to recognize that we'regonna be interrupted and to find
ways to.
push back on that in, gentleways by saying things like, I'm
almost finished.
Or if you can just hang on onesecond, I'll wrap it up and

(41:23):
then, you can go ahead or tojust outright say, I'm sorry.
I was speaking.
We learned something reallyinteresting when we were working
on the book and that wassomething that happened in the
Obama administration where the.
Saw something that happensfairly commonly to women, which
is you suggest something, nobodyreally reacts to it.

(41:43):
You're laughing because, youknow what I'm gonna say, nobody
really reacts to it.
And a man says the exact samething and then everybody says,
oh my God, what a great idea.
So what the women in the Obamaadministration did was when they
were in meetings with him, andthese were high level women,
They started a process that theycalled amplification, where

(42:04):
somebody would say, oh, Siriajust had the best suggestion.
Or Siria, what a great idea thatis that you just had so that
they preempted somebody fromstealing the idea and they
started vocalizing the fact thatwomen were doing these things.
And so it started to sink in andwhat happened?
Obama started calling on thewomen more than he had done

(42:27):
before.
So as women, it's not just aquestion of addressing the
problem ourselves alone, butserving as allies to each other.
So when you see another womanbeing interrupted in a meeting,
you can say, Hey.
let her finish.
And that takes the pressure offof that one woman who's doing

(42:47):
the talking.
So it's a combination of what Ican do for myself and what I can
do for my fellow women.
I, there was a reason I waslaughing when you were saying
that you're absolutely right.
It happens to everyone.
And obviously at the highesteons of power, right?
Obviously from what you'resaying, if it's happening in the
presidential.

(43:08):
Conferences and meetings, thenit happens everywhere.
And I think there are like threeways, like you said.
One is you speak up for yourselfand say, hold on, I'm not done
yet.
In whatever way you choose toexpress it.
The second one, like you said,is amplifying.
And the third is say there's noone to amplify.
And that's no one in thatmeeting.
You as a female or malecolleague can.

(43:29):
Hey, Brenda had the suggestion.
Patrick speaks up on this topicand then you can just say,
Patrick, that's a good idea.
looks like you're, talking moreabout what Brenda just said, and
you're giving more insight intoit so that someone remembers
that Brenda actually was the onewho suggested it wasn't
Patrick's idea, so that, youcall on it and then I think it
would help for that person whocalled out, you know that Brenda

(43:51):
had the idea to go talk to theperson who's running the meeting
and saying, let's make sure wehear her voice.
So you just you may not realizeit.
So there are ways to call onthat and think about how you
amplify, like you said, amplifythe voice and make sure that
everyone is.
Yeah.
And I think your suggestion is agood one too, which is meeting
leaders should takeresponsibility for naming those

(44:15):
things when they happen andsaying, thank you SIRA for that
suggestion.
That's really a good idea.
And somebody, whoever, Jim,you're taking notes.
Can you write that down?
So that we make sure that we'regetting, we're giving credit to
people who are coming up withidea.
Yeah, because it is quite hardsometimes to speak up in
meetings.
People have to kind of prep andhave people who will speak on

(44:38):
your behalf.
You need to find those alliesand sometimes you need to
cultivate them.
We would like people to step inand help us, but sometimes it
just doesn't work.
So if you can build thosetrusted folks who can come and
speak on your behalf, I think itreally.
as well.
there was this cartoon friendsent me, it had a picture of two
women, who are working on theircomputers and they're just

(45:00):
turning back to look at eachother.
And one of them asks, what isthe difference between assertive
and aggressive?
And the other lady responds,gender Yes.
And I was like, exactly.
I'm like, because you startedyour comment with, how people
are perceived how you interruptand stuff.
And that's exactly the thing.
It's a very fine line.
You walk, no matter what we do,you walk a fine line.

(45:23):
And I, in my mind it's damn, ifyou do a damn, if you're stuck.
You have not recourse.
So you just have to do what youthink is right and, let the
chips fall where they are anddeal with them.
It's.
Yeah, that's right.
And I think as women, we need tobe aware of that.
We need to recognize that weinterrupt other women.
And so we need to monitor ourown behavior in the same way
that my club members and Irealized that we were also

(45:46):
asking women to do thingsbecause it was easier to ask
them than it was to ask a man,because we didn't have to argue
with them.
So we would just, we wanted toget our problem solved and we
would go to somebody who made iteasy to solve the problem, which
was the person that would say,And so when we realized that
with a certain amount of greatshame, I will admit we changed

(46:07):
what we did and we recognizedthat, we were as guilty of the
problem as the men were.
That's good insight actually,because we don't think about it
from that standpoint.
So as we wrap up the interview,this is a question I ask every
Quest.
What advice would you give your21 year old.
think about what you want andrecognize that, that can change

(46:28):
over time.
But if you know what you want,then you can be intentional in
pursuing it.
I think you also wanna keepyourself open to new
possibilities, so you don'twanna have total blinders on as
you move forward, after yourgoal.
I think it's also important torecognize where it is you want

(46:50):
to go and to not feel that youneed to be subject to the whims
of the first job that you knowcomes along, or a bad boss or
something like that.
Think about what it is you wantout of your own career and your
life and pursue those things.
and I think you've clearlydemonstrated that with all the

(47:11):
pivots you have done, going fromacting to, corporate to
academia.
Oh that's a whole differentinteresting discussion.
And what is the one word youwould use to describe yourself?
Enthusiastic.
And obviously when I see yourjourney and how far you've come
and what you've done and segueand meandered along.
You had to be, there was noother way to take on that.

(47:34):
It's fascinating.
So quickly, how did you switchfrom theater?
what kind of drove you to it andwhat was the most hardest thing
to do when you were switching?
So when I was in theater, I wasprimarily an actress.
And then later on in my actingcareer, I got more involved in
the business side of theater.
So I worked as part of a groupthat produced an off-Broadway

(47:55):
play, and I got to see thebusiness side of the theater,
which was very interesting to meand something that I really
didn't know a lot about.
And.
So I found myself moving moreand more in that direction and
farther away from the performingaspects of it.
So that's how that first pivothappened was.

(48:16):
To recognize where I wanted togo.
One of the good things abouthaving a background in theater
is that it makes you a prettygood communicator and you're not
afraid to talk in front of lotsof people.
And so that was, hugelybeneficial in the life of a
consultant because you do a lotof talking, So I felt like I had

(48:37):
some background for it.
Obviously.
meshed all of those differentthings together to drive a lot
of the discussions, for those ofyou who are listening think
about this and actually sendsome comments and put them in
the comments section.
Or send me q and a, through myemail at Women Career in
[e-mail].
So we are talking about non-propromotable.

(48:58):
The book is called The No Club.
And write a list of what tasksyou're doing no matter which
role you are.
You could even be a student,wherever you are, write down
what you're doing and see howmuch time you're spending on
that non-pro promotable task,and have a discussion with
whoever you report into on whatthat means, and maybe it can be
made into a promotable task.
Two things that Brenda cautionedus about is make sure that you,

(49:18):
especially because women tend tohave more of the non-pro
promotable.
make sure you don't pass it onto another woman.
That you look at really who'sthe right fit for it or think
about, maybe you can pass it tosomeone who will make it a
promotable task and you get todo and have a bigger impact as
you're doing your job.
And from an organizationstandpoint, I think like you

(49:39):
used the statistics, they saythey want 70% of this work to be
done, but they only give 25%credit for.
you really need to think aboutthe structure, how you're
equitably distributing the work,and if it's something that still
needs to be done, then you needto be for that year or for that
timeframe.
If it's not a repetitive task,ensure that people are getting

(50:00):
credit for it and are beingconsidered when they're looking
at promotions, pay raises, allthese cycles that impact them
and for the opportunities thatthey're given.
It's not just a performancetime, right?
It's like the access toopportunities so they get where
they want to go so they can growin their career as.
thank you Brenda.
This was a great discussion.
How can people reach you?

(50:20):
how can they find your bookreach out to you and be able to
learn more?
Our website, the no club.com hasa lot of information about
non-pro promotable tasks.
ways you can buy the book.
It's available on Amazon orBarnes and Noble.
Any, book seller you'll be ableto buy it from.

(50:41):
And there's a way to contact usthrough our website, so if
you're interested in doing that,please reach out to us.
And I would say, I thinkeverybody should start a no
club.
And if you do, please take apicture of your club and send it
to us and we will put it on ourwebsite.
one of the best ways to do it islike Brenda and her friends,
hang out in the evening, coup acouple of bottles of wine so you

(51:03):
can work through the process andfigure out how to move forward.
Thank you so much, Brenda.
Thank you very much.
It was a pleasure.
This is an indie podcast, and ifyou really enjoy the content,
you can help me with productionYou can buy me a cup of chai.
I'm not really a coffee drinker.
Or you can enable me bysubscribing for either a monthly

(51:24):
or an annual plan as well.
Thank you for doing this, anddon't forget to share this
episode and put in this reviewswhat you liked, what was your
key takeaway.
That's really what I wanna know.
I wanna know how this isimpacting you and what's
infinitesimal changes you'reseeing in your life.
You can always reach me throughInstagram by sending me a DM at
Women Carrier and Life.

(51:45):
Thank you so much for tuning in.
See you next