This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 101 / Rejecting The Invisible Workload with Kelli Thompson

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

“We expect women to work like they don’t have children, and raise children like they don’t work.” As a mom, this hits me so hard. How much longer are women going to be willing to carry this invisible load? And did you know it’s not just happening at home, but at work too?! Here today to have this incredibly important conversation is Kelli Thompson - Leadership Coach and Speaker, who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. We are kindred spirits in that we both have books about confidence coming out this Fall. Hers is titled “Closing The Confidence Gap” and it comes out on November 1st. Her thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, Parents Magazine, and her article in HuffPost (on this very topic) is what caught my eye. As Kelli says “The way we lead more, is by doing less.” And all the women said “AMEN!” You may be thinking “But I can’t say no,” Yes you can! You have way more power than you recognize. And recognizing that power…well I’d argue, that’s where woman’s work begins. To learn more about Kelli and her work you can visit www.kelliraethompson.com or follow her on IG @kelliraethompson To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

You know what JJ and I did this summer? We built stump rockets and kites, explored the fascinating science of trees, engineered our own coin-eating robot, because every month brings a new adventure in science and art with KiwiCo, adventures that I'll never forget how her little face lit up with pride. Your child can have fun learning outside of the classroom with these super cool hands-on projects delivered to your door each month. Create a new learning adventure with KiwiCo. Get 50% off your first month plus free shipping on any crate line with code WW30 at KiwiCo.com. That's 50% off your first month at KiwiCo.com, promo code WW30. I saw a meme on Instagram, and you know I love nothing more than sharing funny memes, but this one hurt a little too much with its truth to be funny. It said, we expect women to work like they don't have children and raise children like they don't work. As a mom, I feel this so hard. Now,

Jay and I have made equity an important part of our partnership. He drops off and picks up JJ about the same amount I do. He takes the lead on several of her activities like soccer and swimming, does our grocery shopping and all of our cooking. Thank God, by the way, because all I'm good for are nachos and cheese plates. But what I found most interesting about our lifestyle is how enamored people are with all that he does. You're so lucky to have a spouse that supports your career. It's so sweet that Jay is so engaged with JJ. He cooks. Oh my gosh, where'd you find him? And don't get me wrong. I'm very aware that Jay is a far better than basic man. I am infinitely proud of our relationship and grateful for him beyond measure. But nobody has ever been

enamored with all that I do as far as I know. I've never been congratulated for taking or picking up my kid from school. I doubt people are congratulating Jay for landing such a supportive spouse. In fact, I often feel people think that I make his life and career more difficult with my expectations that he participate in parenting and in the day-to-day of our household. And I certainly have never been hailed as a catch for doing dishes, laundry, or managing our household. I am lucky he's so engaged. And he is a saint for picking up the slack for his too career-motivated slacker of a wife. Oh, and poor JJ, at least that's how it feels. And for the record, Jay is pretty damn lucky too.

And I know he's proud and grateful for me. So what gives? How much longer are women going to be willing to carry this invisible load? I am Nicole Kalil, and on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're going to talk about rejecting that invisible workload, both at home, but also at work. Did you know that we're doing this at work too? Here today to have this incredibly important conversation is Kelly Thompson, leadership coach and speaker who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. We are kindred spirits in that we both have books about confidence coming out this fall. Hers is titled Closing the Confidence Gap and comes out on November 1st. Her thought leadership

has been featured in Forbes, Parents Magazine, and her article and HuffPost on this very topic we'll be discussing today is what caught my eye. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me. This topic is huge. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I love talking about it. All right. So let's define the invisible workload and give some examples.

So I gave some about how it might be happening at home. How are we doing this at work? So the invisible workload at work is things that you do at work that are not necessarily promotable, okay? Or they might not necessarily be rewarded with money. Things that you do that sometimes have been ascribed to gender norms or titled office housework. So let's give some concrete examples. You might, and I actually did this on my social media, like, let's just, how about we play a little invisible workload bingo, shall we? And I want you to, you know, kind of just give yourself a little check mark for how many things you've actually done. So you might be living in the invisible workload. If you're the

one that always takes the meeting notes, if you've organized the office party, if you've run all the office errands, hey, can you mail this? Can you drop this off? Can you go get some snacks? If you said yes to projects for additional exposure, and I'm using quotation marks, exposure, not pay, but exposure. If you've picked up the coffee or the lunch orders, if you're the only person that knows how to change the printer cartridges or restock the break room, maybe you're leading the employee resource groups and there's no bonus or money tied to it. Or finally, maybe you're saying yes all the time or being appointed to non-strategic committees, you know, the little groups that you have at work to solve a problem, but they're not really that strategic. And so if you kind of were nodding along as you're listening to some of those things, you might be living in the invisible workload of women at the office. And these are just these non-strategic things that you're not

going to get paid for. They're not going to show up in your performance review. They're not going to lead to a promotion. And you said a really important word. They lead to a burden. It's an extra burden of work on top of all the other things we're being asked to do. And so it's no wonder sometimes that women get told that they're not strategic. Well, yeah, because I'm taking all the meeting notes and typing the meeting notes and restocking the break room and leading all these non-strategic committees. And I can't actually do my strategic work. I hate to admit how many times I nodded when you went through that bingo at the executive level at a fortune 100 company, I would be in a room with my peers and people who actually reported to me

technically. And I would still freaking take the notes. Oh my gosh. I don't know why, but like I could go on with examples from my coaching clients and my own life. It's just insane. So, okay. How do we distinguish between being a team player or doing the right things to be recognized, promoted, and compensated versus taking on this unpaid work that we really shouldn't be at? How do we tell the difference?

Yeah, absolutely. So I get it. Like I sat there in meetings and I'll just give an example. The organization I worked for, they wanted me to lead their annual fundraising event, right? Every company that many of us have worked for, they get behind the annual fundraiser, right? And every year they need a lead. And I was given that lead with the promise of exposure. And it's really hard in that moment. I just want to honor that feeling that you just said that when we're sitting there, we're like, oh, I should take this. If I don't take this, it's going to be career suicide. I need to be a team

player. If I say no to this, my manager is going to be mad at me. Like, right. Let's just normalize that talk track. And what I want women to start asking themselves is just to kind of notice their current workload and say, what else am I saying yes to right now that's making me a team player? And can I add this one more thing? Because I think lots of times we think that we have to say yes to everything to be a team player instead of taking a step back and reflecting and say, you know what? I've said yes to three other things. I'm currently team playing

right now, and I have some evidence of that. And so then I can have a conversation to say, oh, it just set a boundary, which is, oh, thank you so much for thinking of me. I always like to start with a lot of gratitude. Right now I'm participating on these three committees. And so in order to get my actual work done so that I can contribute to the organization's results, I'm not sure if I'm going to have time to take on this one as well. Can we spend our time talking about who else might enjoy this opportunity? And so I really want us to take a look at our current plate. And before we just say, oh, I have to say yes, I'm a team player. Like let's first actually say, where am I already team playing a little bit? So important. And it leads, I was going to ask as my next question, how do we say no? And you gave a wonderfully worded example of that. But I want to break that down a little bit of the things you can add to your plate right now?

Or where else are you team playing? So is there at least an element of when somebody asks of buying yourself some time to consider that versus defaulting to yes? I think we do that a lot, right? Yeah, 100%. I think sometimes in corporate or in life, we have this really unspoken agreement or thought or story that we owe people an answer right away. Like I have to tell them yes or no right now.

You and I were talking before that you and I are both introverts. And, you know, I think anyone out there, introvert or extrovert can appreciate that lots of times I need to say, or we need to say, this is a really interesting opportunity. Do you mind if I take some time and think about this and get back to you at the end of the day? Like, it's totally fine to say, this is a really interesting opportunity. Do you mind if I take some time and think about this and get back to you at the end of the day? Like, it's totally fine to say that. Now in that moment, let's talk about how to break down whether to say yes or no. So you're presented with an opportunity. I was presented with an opportunity to lead a fundraiser. And for me, I, at first I didn't want to, I was like, Oh gosh, I don't know. This is going to be a lot of work. You know,

I took it back. I took some time to think about it. And when I really thought about it, I thought about what my career goals were and my career goals were to continue to move up in the organization. And this specific opportunity would allow me to meet and interact with people from different divisions, different departments. And so when I looked at my criteria for which I say yes, which is, will I meet new people? Will I learn new skills? Is this going to help me advance to my career goals? Like, how do I feel energetically about this? Like when I think about doing it, does it kind of give you like that good full body? Yes. Energy. Or do you feel kind of like drained and constricted? And, you know, when I really thought about it, I was like, I feel kind of excited about this. And so that was my criteria for saying yes. But if you don't meet that criteria, this isn't aligned to your career goals. It's really not

helping you build new skills that you're going to use in your future. It just feels like the same old, same old. That is when we fall into that, how to say no framework, which was step one, always thank them for thinking of you. Oh, thank you so much for thinking of you. And then step two is just tell them what you value, what you're working on. You know, right now I am expected to deliver this strategic project right now. You know, I'm valuing this. This is really important to me in my life. And so then step three is to tell folks what you can't accommodate. So unfortunately, I just don't see where I can take this on right now and still deliver the work that you're asking me to deliver. And then step four is let's make this a collaborative conversation, right? Like let's spend our time talking about who else we could consider that would love to lead this project. And so that just creates a really good safe boundary setting framework where I can say no, but still feel good and collaborative and not no, you know,

there's all different types of no's. Thank you, Kelly, for walking us through that. I think that was really helpful as a step-by-step. It led to the thought of, you know, I don't, I would imagine most women, we feel like we're working most of the time at capacity, right? Like I I've yet to talk to any professional working woman who's like, you know, I kind of sit around twiddling my thumbs all day. How, if something comes up that is a yes for you, an authentic yes, but your capacity is already at its limit. So I think as we were talking about our book launches, adding the marketing and promotion of the book launch is important. It is a clear yes to me, but then something else had to

come off my plate. A lot of somethings, to be honest, in order to make room for that. So for example, I put a pause on any connection calls. You know, the people who reach out that want to pick your brain. I'm not saying no to that forever for a period of time while I prioritize this other. Yes. So the question is when something is an authentic, yes. And we're at capacity, what do we do to make room for it? Such a good question. I had to do the same thing. I tell women to take a look at their calendar for the next 45 to 60 days and ask themselves three questions. And I had to do the exact same thing. What can I dump? What can I delegate? And what can I outsource? Because you and I both know there are things on our calendar,

tasks that we do in corporate, reports that I was pulling, meetings I was attending because I was invited two years ago. And just by nature of inertia, you just keep showing up. Right. And so I really encourage them, like, what can you honestly dump? Like really ask yourself, where am I still showing up to things that I really don't need to be there? I'm not a decision maker. I'm just an informed person. And you know, I can just dump this activity. Nobody's reading this report. I don't need to do this task. It's no longer serving me. So like, what can we just straight up dump? Then I asked them, what can you delegate? So if you are a leader in corporate, ask yourself, what is no longer

a development opportunity for you? So when I took on that specific task, I had to go to my team and look around and say, okay, who else is sitting with me in meetings? I don't need to be there. They're here. This is a development opportunity for them. So I'm going to tell them I'm no longer coming to this meeting because I need to exert a little extra time here. You have authority to take over this meeting, make decisions, and I'll inform my peers that you now have the authority. And in my own business right now, I've had to delegate. I've had to call up the part-time folks who work for me and say, hey, can you take on a few extra things to assist with my own book launch? And then the last

thing I think is really important in corporate America, and unfortunately, I haven't seen big companies do this well, but the smaller companies I work for, including myself, is what can I outsource? I worked for this technology company, Oversaw HR. They were brilliant outsources, outsourcers. They outsourced people coming in and restocking coffee. They outsourced servicing of like the printers and the cartridges, all that stuff that women typically have to take on in the office as office housework. They outsourced all of it. And we're funding small businesses, right? Often women own small businesses to do these things. And even in my own business and my launching my book, I've had to outsource extra things. I've taken on an extra contractor because of my own book

promotions. I need help. I need to outsource some of these things so that I can continue to do the things in my business that are important, like taking one-on-one clients and doing women's leadership trainings and everything that isn't that right now gets outsourced. And just like you, I had to put one of my public programs on pause just for the season, because it's really important to launch my book. And so you just sometimes have to look and say, what can I dump? What can I delegate? And what can I outsource? And to be honest, if I'm really being vulnerable, there was a time or two before my daughter could drive where I outsourced her an Uber to work. And I am sure she is not damaged from it. So,

you know, I think she had a driver. She was pretty good. And I tracked her the whole way, right? I'm on a call and I've got my phone sitting next to me and I'm tracking her. So thank you for sharing that. And a lot of the organizations I interact with the concept of servant leadership comes up a lot. And I've started recognizing that it, it becomes a way of like, I'm going to do everything so that other people don't have to, because I'm serving them. And I don't think that that's what servant leadership is. So my question is, how do we shift our identity or perspective from being a doer to being a leader? So good. So many leaders struggle. I think especially women leaders, because I think some of the messages we've been taught is to be the doer, be helpful, right?

And not all of us have been taught that many of us have, but let's just be clear. As we grow up in our lives, the first half of our lives is all about individual doing. Oh my gosh, Nicole, you got an A plus. Great job. Gold stars. You did a great job. Here's a little spot bonus. Like here's an award.

Like everything is rewarded on how well we do things. And then all of a sudden when people are promoted to manager, we expect them to just drop that doer's identity and all the ego attachments that come with the gold stars and the personal rewards and the personal accolades. I mean, like just feel in your body how good it feels to do, to check the box, to take over, to save the day. And then all of a sudden as a leader, we're asking them to just undo that overnight with a title change or promotion. And it is really disorienting because all of a sudden as a leader, if you are the one stepping in and saving the day, doing, rescuing, heroing, what you're doing is you now are working two jobs, your old one and your new one. And you are actually preventing the growth and development of the people below you.

Because what they learn, I'll just give an example. Like I remember I told my boss that I wanted a more executive presence. I wanted to executive presence practice at work. And she's like, oh, great. Well, you can come and you can present your business review at the next meeting with the executives. I'm like, all right. So I go and I start to present my business review and the executives start asking me questions. I don't necessarily have the answers for, and my manager just sat and she let me do her thing. It didn't go that well. A lot of people probably have been in that situation where you can see the train wreck happening and like, I'm getting splotchy neck.

It's hard to watch me get splotchy neck. And so what do we do? We jump in and re-rescue and we take over the presentation. But if my manager would have done that that day, I would have learned two things. One, I don't really have to prepare all that well because my manager, she'll just jump in and save me and it's no big deal. And the second thing that I would have learned is I really just don't need to try and prepare that hard. I don't actually need to develop these skills. And so it ruins two people's confidence. When you jump in and you take over, it ruins your confidence as a leader because you have this extra workload now and all this burden and exhaustion, but it ruins the confidence of the person who's trying to practice because they just learn, ah, you know, somebody will save me. And it creates codependency in the workplace.

And so that's why it's so important for us to just allow people safe spaces. I always say, let people make mistakes when the stakes are low so they can get out of that hero mentality. You don't need to jump in. You don't need to save the day because then you're doing two jobs and you're ruining somebody's confidence and future development, you know, for, for future roles. And then you're the one walking around. Why am I always the one that has to do everything around here? Well, cause you're jumping in and saving the day all the time. So you're just perpetuating all this extra workload. Yeah. I had a leader who I admire and appreciate and respect very much come into our organization. And, you know, I did the, let me show you all the things I'm doing. Right. And to make a long story short, the feedback he

gave me at the end of the day is he's like, the way I see it, you have two problems. Number one, you're not leading anybody because you're impeding the professional development of everybody around you because you, you do it all. And number two, you're making leadership look less and less attractive because if leadership looks like how you're doing it, working all hours of the day, being exhausted, handling everything, saving everybody. Like who wants that? And it was like a knife to the gut, but it was the most important and one of the most impactful leadership lessons I've ever learned. So I appreciate you going into that. I think we need to hear that more as women.

Absolutely. And just really coaching people and honoring how difficult that shift is. You didn't wake up the next day and be like, okay, sounds good. And figure it out. Like that's a struggle. And like, let's just honor how hard it is just to be like, Oh, nope. Nevermind. I'm going to hold back. I'm going to let them do that. I'm going to watch them make mistakes. I'm going to coach them. Like it's a whole other set of skills and it just feels different. And it can be a struggle to really make that shift. And I just want to honor that it is okay to struggle with that shift. But once you're on

the other side of it, like all new skills are built in that process. Kelly, can you share some tips on deciding what to delegate? and then also in actually delegating? I know it seems maybe simple, but I know a lot of us struggle with it. Yeah. So I always tell folks, if it's no longer a development opportunity for you, it's a great opportunity to delegate. Like that's just super simple. And I remember as I, you know, got, you know, more comfortable with delegating in my career, like I really just started to notice my energy, like, you know, where are things on my plate, not aligned with my unique talents or even, you know, my genius zone. Like, and I knew that

because these things started to drain my energy or maybe they felt a little repetitive. And so then that would be a clue for me to ask myself, okay, is there someone on my team who would think this is pretty cool? Is there someone on my team who would love to know how to build this spreadsheet? Right. And so oftentimes there, there was, you know, you have, if you're hiring the right people, there's eager people. And so I would start to delegate those things and match out the talent, right? You know, I think Angie would be good at this. I think Rachel would be good at this. And so if it wasn't a development opportunity for me, I would delegate it to my team. And I think tips for delegating is being crystal clear on what the expectations are and being crystal clear is, you know, what does good

look like? What do great results look like? Because I think sometimes we delegate things to people. We say, Hey, complete the spreadsheet, build this report, put together this PowerPoint presentation, but we don't actually tell them what great looks like or what results we want to see, or what's a successful outcome. I always use the example, and I use this in my book is I always have people and imagine an Easter bunny. And for all of you listening, there's going to be, you know, some responses. Most people are going to say, Oh yeah, we, we all know what the Easter bunny is. Some people are going to say, you know, the Easter bunny wasn't in my culture, but I hear a lot of, you know, Christian Americans talk about this, but I kind of know what it is. And some people are going to think of pink bunnies, white

bunnies, gray bunnies, tall bunnies, short bunnies. And when you start to realize it, people, you start to realize you're not as clear as you thought you were. Oh, I thought everybody knew what an Easter bunny was. And that's the example I give when I'm teaching leaders to delegate. You have to be specific. I want a six foot tall pink Easter bunny. That's going to come at this time. And you have to do that when you're delegating. So how are you being clear? Because a lot of people depend on how they were raised, what bosses they've had, what organizations they work for. They have lots of different versions of the truth, or this is brand new to them. It's never been in their culture.

So be crystal clear about the performance, the people involved, the priority, the sets, the process that you want, and the results that you want. And then just give people the authority to do it. So when you delegate, don't not only give them the authority to perform the task, but if their task involves other decision makers, make sure you tell your peers, hey, I'm no longer going to lead this meeting. I'm no longer going to perform this project. I'm giving Rachel full authority to do this. And she has decision-making rights. Make sure you inform others so they have that authority and they're not continuing to come

to you. And the last one is just give them some grace. They will make mistakes. I promise you they will make mistakes. So how are you giving them some grace and some low stakes opportunities to make those mistakes in a learning environment that feels psychologically safe? So all of that is so good. And I would also add having, creating an environment where

they can make the mistakes with you. So they don't have to make it, you know, on a bigger or more global level. So good. Okay. So Kelly, I know you have an acronym around doing less. I did a podcast episode about doing less. I'm all about less is more, less, less, less. So talk to us about this acronym and why doing less is important for women, especially if we want to get elevated and further our careers. Yeah. You know, we live in the, I'll describe the acronym and address your last question first. You know, we live in a world of hustle culture. Like hustle culture has been glamorized. Nobody posts on social media. Okay.

Maybe you about like, um, couch surfed all weekend felt great. Like we just don't do that because let's just be honest for a second. Rest is hard. The physical act of rest isn't hard. It's the mental act of rest. Cause what happens when we sit down on the couch, our brain starts going and that's my first letter. It's less L E S S. And it's losing the limiting beliefs of why you think you need to say yes. When you really want to say no, because what happens when you want to say no, what happens when you sit on the couch, just to get something cold to drink and watch your favorite show. The mind turns on, you shouldn't do this. You have so much to do. Have you even seen your list? People are going to think you're lazy. And so my first question to folks is, you know, really think about what

is that belief that I have lose that limiting belief on why you think you need to say yes, when you really want to say no. And sometimes people tell themselves things like, well, I have to say yes. So I look capable. I have to say yes. So I keep Nicole happy. I have to say yes. So that Nicole knows I support her. I have to say yes. So that Nicole sees me as perfect. And I would really question that. Like if I keep saying yes to all of these things, am I really going to be seen as capable? Probably not. Usually the opposite is true. If I keep saying yes to too many things, I'm probably going to be seen as quite incapable because my plate is overloaded. The example that your leader gave to you is a wonderful example of, no, I will be seen as

incapable. Nobody's going to want this leadership job. So check that limiting belief and question if the opposite is actually more true for you. The next one is the E, and that is to express your expectations and to communicate boundaries. And we talked about that in the beginning of the podcast, really being clear on what your boundaries are. Oh, thank you so much for thinking of me. You know, right now my family and I are really focused on, you know, our family priorities this weekend. So unfortunately I can't say yes, but how about we talk about another time, really owning your priorities, the life that you want to create the amount of

calendar, like you and I talk about our book launch. I have a capacity plan that I, that I work through and I look at, and I stand back and I look at that capacity plan and what's on my calendar. And I asked myself, am I energetically happy with this? Do I like the way my life looks? And if not, it's time for me to say no and set some boundaries. So the next one is to shift your identity from doer to leader. And we talked about that, that shift from doer to leader, right? What does a leader look like? What do they do differently than a doer? What do I want leadership to look like? What do I value as a leader? And the last S is to start delegating with low stakes tasks. And we've talked

through that one too. Don't delegate something when it's super high stakes and you need them to present to the president and they never presented to the president before. Let's start with a low stakes task. And I love your example is let's have this individual present to me first, make mistakes with me first, then we'll present to our team and get some reps in there. So lose the limiting beliefs, express your expectations, shift your identity from doer to leader and start delegating with low stakes tasks. And moms, you can start delegating with low stakes tasks at home too. And I did it with my daughter. As soon as she could reach the knobs on the washer, she was doing her laundry. I love it. Kelly, I found so much value today, but I wish I would have heard you speak in my 20s.

I think you would have saved my life at least a good decade. So if you're listening and you want to learn more about Kelly's work or find and follow her, her website is kellyraythompson.com. You can find her on Instagram and LinkedIn at Kelly Ray Thompson. We'll put all of that in show notes and definitely get your hands on her book, Closing the Confidence Gap, which is available November 1st, but you can pre-order it today by going to her website. Again, we'll put it in show notes. Kelly, thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This is awesome to talk to you. My pleasure. All right. There you have it, friends. We have the opportunity to reject the invisible workload and unpaid tasks, not just at home, but also at work so we can begin to create more reasonable expectations for women. The 40-hour

workweek was created with the assumption that there'd be a stay-at-home parent. Trying to do both well might be killing us. At the very least, we're exhausted and undervalued. As Kelly says, the way we lead more is by doing less. And all the working moms and caretakers said, amen. You may be thinking, but I can't say no. Yes, you can. You have way more power than you recognize. And recognizing that power, well, I'd argue that's where woman's work begins.