The No Club

How to Free Women's Careers from Unrewarded Work

Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, Laurie Weingart

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781982152352
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Frauen in Unternehmen

In this "long overdue manifesto on gender equality in the workplace, a practical playbook with tips you can put into action immediately…simply priceless" (Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit ), The No Club offers a timely solution to achieving equity at work: unburden women's careers from work that goes unrewarded. The No Club started when four women, crushed by endless to-do lists, banded together to get their work lives under control. Running faster than ever, they still trailed behind male colleagues. And so, they vowed to say no to requests that pulled them away from the work that mattered most to their careers. This book reveals how their over-a-decade-long journey and subsequent groundbreaking research showing that women everywhere are unfairly burdened with "non-promotable work, " a tremendous problem we can—and must—solve.All organizations have work that no one wants to do: planning the office party, screening interns, attending to that time-consuming client, or simply helping others with their work. A woman, most often, takes on these tasks. In study after study, professors Linda Babcock (bestselling author of Women Don't Ask ), Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart—the original "No Club"—document that women are disproportionately asked and expected to do this work. The imbalance leaves women overcommitted and underutilized as companies forfeit revenue, productivity, and top talent. The No Club walks you through how to change your workload, empowering women to make savvy decisions about the work they take on. The authors also illuminate how organizations can reassess how they assign and reward work to level the playing field. With hard data, personal anecdotes from women of all stripes, self- and workplace-assessments for immediate use, and innovative advice from the authors' consulting Fortune 500 companies, this book will forever change the conversation about how we advance women's careers and achieve equity in the 21st century.

CHAPTER 1 The No Club

Five women sat around the table at a local restaurant with two bottles of wine. We wondered who would be the first to admit her life was out of control. We didn’t know one another well, but we all had one thing in common—we were drowning in our jobs and were suffering both personally and professionally.

Brenda filled our glasses as Linda dove in: “I asked you all here because I need help and I think you might too. I am completely overwhelmed with work. I’ve lost control of my time. I can’t keep up with everything, and more stuff just keeps coming at me. Every time someone asks me to do something, I want to say no, but I feel like I can’t. I’m a mess. Is it just me?” The rest of us simultaneously answered, “No!” We looked at one another and let that sink in. This became the first of many meetings of The No Club.

It all had started two weeks earlier, the day Linda realized that she just couldn’t keep up with her work load. Here’s how she remembers it:

I finally had it. My calendar was filled with back-to-back meetings that left me almost no time for research. I’m a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, so research is not only a key part of my job, it is the primary factor in my performance evaluation. That means the amount of time I spend on research really matters, so it is critical that I schedule “non-teaching” days to focus on my research.

On one of my non-teaching days, the morning started with a rush as I ran to and from meetings. I noticed my across-the-hall colleague, George, sitting at his desk every time I passed by. He didn’t move all day. I couldn’t understand how he managed to spend so much time in his office, and when he joked about how much running around I did, I asked what his schedule for the day was like. He showed me his calendar, and as I compared it to mine, I was shocked.

	LINDA’S DAY	GEORGE’S DAY
8:30–10:30	Institutional review board meeting	Research
10:30–12:00	Curriculum committee meeting	Research
12:00–1:30	Student presentation	Student presentation
1:30–2:00	Interview with reporter	Research
2:00–3:00	Executive education meeting	Research
3:00–4:00	Research	Research
4:00–5:00	Prepare talk for women’s group	Research
5:00–6:00	Faculty meeting	Faculty meeting

Out of the entire day, I had one hour devoted to research, while George had seven. He had only two non-research commitments, where I had seven! How was his schedule so focused on research—a critical part of both of our jobs—when mine wasn’t? I looked at all the things on my calendar and realized that I had agreed to every single one of them. How did this happen? I needed an intervention, so I reached out to four of my friends for help.

February 12, 2010 1:15 PM

Hi Brenda, Lise, Laurie, and MJ:

This email is to invite you to the inaugural meeting of the “I Just Can’t Say No Club.” I’ve decided to start this club so that a group of smart women can have a few drinks and talk about the difficulties we all have in saying no to things that we ought to. This is one of the hardest things I face and I think we can all help each other out a lot on this. Since I know that none of you can say no to my invitation, please fill out the form at the following link that will let me know what days you can come to the inaugural meeting. I thought we’d meet at 5 p.m., say at the Union Grill, but I’m always willing to start drinking early.

I think this will be really helpful and at the very least, all you cool women will get to meet each other.

Thanks!

Linda

Then I got nervous: I was the only one who knew everyone, and I was having second thoughts about whether this could work. I had chosen each woman for a reason: Brenda and I were close, having worked together for years. An associate dean in the public policy school at Carnegie Mellon (CMU), Brenda was always the first person to offer to help, which was great for everyone but her. I noticed she was doing a lot of work that no one else would do, and she wasn’t getting credit for it. I had also asked Lise, a fellow economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh, because we bonded on a plane ride home from a gender conference at Harvard. During that flight, I was surprised to learn how much stress she had managing her workload, since she is a prolific scholar and seemed to have it all together. Laurie, a professor in Carnegie Mellon’s business school, and I shared an interest in negotiation research, and we’d taught a course together. Laurie was another person who seemed to have everything under control—but I suspected that she might not. MJ and I had met doing a project with the Women and Girls Foundation. She was a major contributor to women’s organizations in our region, and people always wanted her expertise for free. Because she ran her own consulting business, she relied on opportunities for visibility, but was spread too thin. Everyone agreed to join.

Brenda was excited. When she told her husband about the club, he laughed. He said, “Perfect group for you. Do you know that any time anyone asks you anything, you say ‘happy to’ before they even put the question mark on the end of the sentence?” She hadn’t realized that she did this and was surprised, because she thought of herself as decisive and, frankly, no pushover. She had spent decades in executive-level positions in the private sector and higher education. She had consulted with Fortune 100 companies, founded Carnegie Mellon’s campus in Australia (the first foreign university in the country), and overseen the creation and growth of a number of master’s programs. With all that experience, you’d think she’d be able to prioritize and manage her workload, but she was overwhelmed with work, and her plate never got emptier. An early riser by nature, she was getting up even earlier, sending emails at four thirty a.m., just to keep from getting even further backlogged. She figured she had nothing to lose by joining the club, and for the next week, paid attention to how she responded to requests. Her husband was right; she said yes immediately and often.

Lise didn’t respond to the email for several days because she was too busy. She was teaching a full load, recruiting new faculty for her own department and for the public policy school, and supervising projects for eight PhD students. Having agreed to serve on the editorial boards of four different academic journals, she was, to put it mildly, struggling. Plus, with a three-year research grant from the National Science Foundation, her pile of work was towering. She spent her days playing whack-a-mole to free up her calendar and sleepless nights compiling to-do lists. She had been juggling too many things for too long. While the club seemed like the right group for her, she wasn’t sure she had the time—and because of that, she knew she needed to join. She emailed Linda letting her know she’d be there.

Laurie was pretty sure she didn’t have a problem saying no. She knew she was doing a lot, but thought her workload was fine. She was organized and capable, managing her time reasonably well. She had a busy research agenda, writing papers and book chapters, while advising doctoral students and teaching three MBA courses. She was also serving as president of a new professional association and leading the design and delivery of a leadership training center for the MBA program, but she felt she could handle it. She kept a detailed set of work, family, and personal calendars to keep track of everything, and if it wasn’t in her calendar, it didn’t get done. She acknowledged that she was stretched thin and wasn’t sure whether that was by choice or happenstance. She didn’t think she needed the help, but since she and Linda were friends, and this would be an opportunity to meet new people, she figured what the hell, why not.

MJ was an attorney who spent the early part of her career as a prosecutor in San Francisco, named one of California’s most effective prosecutors by California Lawyer magazine. She and her family moved east, where she founded Fulcrum Advisors to teach lawyers how to try cases effectively and worked with law firms and corporations to recruit, retain, and promote talented women. MJ was involved with dozens of women’s and community organizations, and she had a reputation for getting things done, which meant she received endless requests for her expertise. She rarely said no because she felt that the stakes were high with the work she was doing. She was very good at calling out BS anytime she saw it—and she saw it plenty with us—but like the rest of us, she decided to join the club because she realized she needed to be called out herself. Most often, this was for agreeing to give yet another talk (for free) to a women’s group. MJ jumped into Linda’s invite with gusto. “I’m in! I never turn anyone down and it’s all too much. An hour ago, I said maybe to someone when I should have said no. Our meeting isn’t soon enough for me!”

During the dreariest time in Pittsburgh, winter, in 2010, we kicked off our inaugural I Just Can’t Say No Club meeting at a cozy restaurant where we could get a meal and $10 bottles of wine (really!). We went around the table sharing, or actually, confessing. We each described the things we had agreed to when we were asked (this turned out to be a lengthy list for all of us), and then contrasted that with what we had said no to (these were very short lists). We asked one another for advice on how to say no, since we found it so hard to do. Wanting to get a better handle on our workload, we knew the extra support from the group would help, so we agreed to meet every few weeks. We left the meeting feeling unburdened and exhilarated. None of us realized what a transformative experience this would become for each of us. This first meeting laid the groundwork for us to grow personally and was the tiny spark that lit our significant research agenda, led us to mentor women and consult with companies—and then, finally, to write this book and share what we learned to help other women address their struggles too.

Our meetings were a high point for us. Well, sort of. We were serious about holding ourselves accountable for taking on too much work, so as we went around the table, each admitting our latest bad choice, we were anxious and embarrassed and, at times, shed tears. Divulging that you had made the same mistake four times in a row was difficult. Worse was when everyone else at the table, except for you, saw what you had done. We first took comfort in the fact that four other women were similarly overwhelmed and were relieved to have each other to try to figure it out. Then we started to question why we found ourselves in this position—and realized that many others did, too; perhaps even you.

We came to every club meeting ready to bare our souls and support one another. We were fully invested in one another’s success. MJ stood out in this regard. She was our heart, the truth teller in the group. She had a way of arching one eyebrow that stopped you midsentence, and you knew right away that you had taken on too much. But we were in for some terrible news. Shortly after we started the club, MJ was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She spent four years undergoing treatment; we cheered at every sign of progress and marveled at her grace and fancy new hairdos. Through her treatment, MJ continued to come to club meetings and contribute to our burgeoning research agenda. She kept up with her professional work, while fully invested in the club. She told us how much our work meant to her and how the club held a piece of her heart. We were devastated to lose her on February 15, 2014. We mourned together, wondering what the club would be like without her. We felt incomplete and unfinished without her smile that lit up the room and her personality that felt as big as the world. For months, we stumbled even more than we had previously. It took time to reestablish ourselves. While we grieved the loss of our friend, we also wanted to do right by her. MJ’s legacy of helping women succeed in the workplace gave our club a greater purpose. In working through our own struggles, we understood why other women were struggling as well, and we began to see how to improve that. Doing right by MJ meant that we had to carry on, for women more broadly and for ourselves. We were still a work in progress, and picturing MJ’s arched eyebrow as we continued to say yes and overcommit kept us moving forward. We began to think of her as a guardian angel, albeit a sardonic one, who still would call us out for bad decisions.

One such moment came when an academic journal offered Lise an editorial position. Professors are expected to accept these types of invitations to pay it back to the profession. Being an editor adds many hours of work per week, on top of your regular job, and offers limited compensation or support. Lise already was serving on several other editorial boards, and the new editorship would take even more time away from her research. At a club meeting, Lise shared how torn she was, offering many reasons why she should take the position. The rest of us could see she was already overloaded, so another editorial position would make her big pile even higher. We were adamant that she had to say no, especially since she already had the visibility and work of several other editorial boards. So what did she do? She said yes, and as expected, the decision haunted her. More than a year went by as she carved out evenings and weekends to review manuscripts, delaying her research, and she struggled to keep up with her teaching and departmental obligations. It was obvious to us all, including her, that she had taken on too much. But how could she reverse the decision? Wouldn’t that be even worse than having said no in the first place? A club meeting made her see the light: While it might be terrifying to resign, saving her sanity was more important. She resigned, and we toasted her at the next club meeting.

Our progress was slow, but we were learning. We realized that we said yes to requests from others far too often. Rather than being strategic about where to focus our attention, we were running around trying to fulfill other people’s needs and expectations. We each made a list of the work we were drowning in. Much of it didn’t seem critical to our jobs—like servin...