Women at Work - Let’s Do Less Dead-End Work

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

Women are expected and asked to do thankless tasks — order lunch, handle less-valued clients — more than men, and research shows that doing those tasks slows down our career advancement and makes us unhappy at work. We talk about why we wind up with so much office drudgery and how to get some of it off our plates. Guests: Lise Vesterlund and Ruchika Tulshyan.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. From time to time, everyone gets asked to do things they weren't explicitly hired to do. You know, it's that bullet point in the job description that says perform other duties as assigned. The problem is women often get more of these other duties and they tend to be thankless, dead-end tasks. Here's what we heard from some of you. Well, we had a meeting where we were talking about some samples that needed to be analyzed, and they just automatically asked me if I would submit the samples to be analyzed. And I'm like, that's not my job. And, you know, they just kind of looked at me funny as if, well, you know, you can do it.

I'm like, well, I'm not going to. You know, it can do it. I'm like, well, I'm not going to. You know, it's not my job. I've never seen taking notes or culling, you know, information and putting it into bite-sized pieces as being what makes the decision. You know, it's the content of the notes that makes the decision. And so I really have always wanted to be more in the content mix and less in the administrative mix. But darn if I don't find myself there over and over again. As soon as I came on here, I realized pretty quickly that I was also going to be expected to do all the jobs that no one else wanted to do. Watering plants, grocery shopping for the office, filling the coffee pot, and I'm a little unsure how to handle it because I don't want to appear

to not be a team player. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. I'm Nicole Torres. And I'm Amy Bernstein. This episode, we're talking about why women, and especially women of color, wind up spending too much time on work that doesn't advance our careers and how we can avoid it. For a long time, I've been sort of concerned about the fact that women, despite their educational and overall improvements in the labor market, that we still struggle to break through the glass ceiling. And I think part of what we've been missing in that discussion is that maybe the reason why they're not leaning in

more is that they're being held back by what we characterize as non-promotable tasks. That's Lisa Westerlund. She's an economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on non-promotable tasks, which she says aren't just routine work like writing a report or planning an event. So a non-promotable task could be a client that doesn't bring in a lot of revenue to the firm or where the requirements for the task are quite limited. Lisa and her colleagues researched why women not only get asked to do more of these tasks than men, but also why we volunteer for them.

They brought men and women to their lab and put them in groups. Then they watched what happened when one person in each group had to volunteer to do something that no one else wanted to do. And what they saw over and over again was that as the clock was ticking down and they were running out of time, someone did generally rush forward to volunteer. And in every case, that was more likely to be a woman. In fact, women volunteered 50 percent more than men did. In the second study, she separated men from women and found that both were equally likely to volunteer.

So her take on that was that the gender gap arose from the fact that everyone expects women to step up first. Then they did a third experiment. They wanted to confirm the idea that people tend to expect women to volunteer more than men. So they basically did the same study, but this time they brought in a fourth person, a manager, and they found that the manager was 40% more likely to ask a woman to volunteer and this happened regardless of whether the manager was a man or a woman. So what that suggests is that the reason why women are volunteering is not because they just are more altruistic and they benefit from feeling like they're the ones who did it.

Lisa is here to talk about why women volunteer for thankless tasks and how doing that gets in our way. Lisa, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today. Thank you for having me on your show. So what are the implications of this? If women are volunteering for these tasks that won't get them promoted, if they're doing these jobs more than men, what does this mean for women? How does this hold them back in their careers? If you look at two candidates and you're trying to figure out who should get promoted,

you're likely to select the ones who have had a set of tasks that have demonstrated their unique skills. If women more than men have a portfolio of tasks that are less promotable, then they're not going to get promoted as quickly. And in fact, they may never get promoted. So in terms of advancement, it is clearly not advantageous for women to end up with these tasks. One of the things we're finding in a lot of places is that women's happiness at work is limited relative to men's. We're seeing that a lot in engineering. One of the things that we've seen in engineering is also that women report that they end up with tasks that are very different from what they thought they were getting trained for. And that includes engineers from the top

engineering schools. So you see these young men and women going to college, getting their degrees, going into the labor market, and women are more likely to report that they are unsatisfied with the tasks that they get at work. So it's not just a question in terms of advancement, but if you're constantly asked to fill in for someone else, or if you're constantly assigned tasks that really don't get to show you potential, then you're not going to be happy at work either, and potentially not perform as well as you could have done if you had had a more challenging and exciting test. So I think it has very serious consequences for women, both in terms of promotability, but also just their overall attachment to the labor market could be influenced

by having a portfolio of tests that are less promotable. Is it advisable, Lisa, to call out the work as non-promotable to say, you know, that particular assignment isn't really going to do much for me? No, I don't think that's advisable because most firms will argue that all work is promotable. I think it's a question of saying many of my tasks have become routine. Can I get tasks that demand more where I can show my skills more? And these tasks change over the course of your career, too. Like something can be non-promotable to a higher ranking senior executive, but it might be promotable to someone more junior.

Absolutely. So if you're a junior partner, taking on a low profile case and showing that you can do a really good job when you're taking it on by yourself is very likely a promotable task. When you become a senior partner, that's probably not a promotable task. Serving on a hiring committee, for example, is extremely important to an organization. And it's probably a good place to start out when you're a junior in a firm. But later on, serving on a hiring committee is not going to get you noticed where people say, who is the next one who is really shown that they're ready for the next step? That's not the kind of work that will help you get there. So it changes across your career. So the simple-minded

way of dealing with this would be to say, no, I won't do this anymore. But you know, the world is not usually welcoming to that kind of response. So how do you deal with the backlash? There is a backlash when you say, no, I'm not going to do this. We're definitely not recommending that people just start saying no. Part of what I think is exciting about this work is that beliefs seem to play such a large role. I've done a lot of work on gender and competition as well, where we find that men are more competitive, they're more overconfident. It's very hard to give recommendations. We don't want to tell women you should be super competitive and overconfident

because those are not necessarily the leaders that we really want. In this case, I think it is much easier to figure out what to do because if it's a question of beliefs, then we can move those around. Go back to your firm and say, who is it who ends up taking these tasks every time? making it clear that women are not signing up to do the holiday party because they have nothing better to do. And then really making clear to the institutions that they are losing out by having these differential task assignment. If I have a bunch of male and females coming out with their MBA, the best way to run my corporation is to figure out who's the most talented in that set. I'm not going to be able to figure that out if I have all my female new hires working on non-promotable tasks. So from the firm's perspective, having these differences

in allocations before I even know what the underlying talent is, is clearly not optimal. I've spoken to some corporations that actually have started coaching women in the sense that when they come into a meeting and they know that a project or a client that is less promotable is getting assigned to tell the women, look at the body language of your male colleagues. As this project comes up and nobody wants to take it, mimic the body language that they have. You know, as they start checking their phones or putting things away, pulling back from the table, just mimic that behavior so that you don't get in a position where you suddenly feel so stressed by the silence that you're the one who says yes.

I like what you've just said about how if you're starting to feel the pressure to volunteer, and it's like a pressure that rises inside, and you're just like, oh, God, I can feel myself about to volunteer for this thing I don't want to do. So look away, look at your phone, mimic the body language. But then, you know, what if the manager calls on you and says, oh, hey, Sarah, or hey, Nicole, can you take this on? Is there a way that you can say no in the moment without incurring that backlash? You don't want to be a naysayer. But I do think that there are ways that you can negotiate it a little bit. If you're in a public meeting saying no in front of a bunch of people, I don't think is very advisable. But going up to the manager

afterwards and saying, you know, these are the projects I've been assigned with recently. They're all of the same character. If I'm taking this on, can I not take on the next one? Or is there some of this other non-promotable work that we could assign to someone else? I remember when I first got my job, I was assigned to be on the website committee. I responded by saying, you know, the website committee is a very nice committee, but I would really like to be on the hiring committee instead, where I would actually have some impact. I also think the first part of what you said is important when you said, that's a very nice committee. I've been in that position before. And I usually say something like,

you know, I'd love to be a good team player and help out with this, or I'd really like to be in a position where I could help. And then I kind of give the reason no. So I sort of try to do a nod to what's expected of me as a female. Oh, I would love to be helpful. You know, but unfortunately, I can't. I know. Yeah. One of the big mistakes we've made is that we've gotten this perception that there should be women on every single committee, which is hard when you only have, you know, 25% female faculty at an institution my kids are a little bit older. It appears that I'm the only one who has little kids right now. So maybe someone who doesn't have little kids could

take on the work for now, and then I will be happy to do it later. If it really is important to have women on every committee, which I don't think it is, but if it is a committee where we believe it's important to have women, then it should not be up to the women who are sort of representing their minority to carry the burden of that. It should be up to the institution. So there are very easy ways to compensate. So at an institution such as the University of Pittsburgh, they can compensate by saying, oh, then you get a reduced teaching load. We can substitute some non-promotable work that we see your representation being very important on for other non-promotable work that we see your representation being very important on for other non-promotable tasks where it's less so. And the same holds in the firm.

There's lots of non-promotable work. If there's some non-promotable work where they really need a female, then put more males on the other non-promotable work. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Hey, listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like,

should I talk about my anxiety at work? Or how do I claim my leadership power? Then you should listen to TED Business, hosted by Columbia Business School professor Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. So going back to your study where you had a manager come in and ask someone to volunteer in the group,

and you found that women were just as likely as men when they were the managers to call on women to volunteer. If women are doing that, you know, if they're also asking other women to volunteer more for these types of tasks, what can we do to be more fair to our colleagues? Well, I mean, for starters, not asking women. I've unfortunately fallen into this trap myself because oftentimes finding volunteers is also a non-promotable task and you want to get it done very quickly. So being aware that this is what we do and that we all do it, we certainly have a responsibility as individuals who are saddled with too much non-promotable work

to try to equalize things a little bit. Unfortunately, it takes more work to find a male to do it. I find that really interesting. So short of asking people in gender-isolated settings to volunteer for tasks at work, is there a way that we can get men to volunteer more or to say yes more when we ask them to do things? Well, I think a lot of men actually don't recognize

that not stepping up to a task means that a woman is likely to do it. And I know that sounds, you know, can that really be true? I don't think that we have been talking enough about the way that we end up finding volunteers for everyone to understand that when people volunteer, it's not because they really want to do the task. Or if you said no to volunteering, it really means that you're basically putting this additional burden on women. So Lisa, you have come up with a really interesting way of kind of coping with this problem. You've formed a group. The whole project actually came out of a no club. We were five women.

We were all finding ourselves in the same situation where the work that we really enjoyed doing was accounting for a small and small share. And actually the work that we really were supposed to be doing and what we were sort of really being paid to be doing was accounting for a small and small share of what we're doing. So what we started doing once a month was that we would meet and talk about all the requests that we had gotten and the things that we had said yes and no to. And one of the things I realized for myself was that I would get requests that I would feel underqualified for. And I would feel like the only time they're ever going to ask me is right now. So if I don't take it now, even if it's going to ask me is right now. So if I don't take it now, even if it's going to kill me, they will never ask me again. To sort of have people say, no, you know, they asked you this time and you've had this, you know, similar request before, just try passing on it. And, you know, lo and behold, things come back. It's not, you know,

so realizing what your triggers are, why is it that you jump in? I think a very common trigger for women is, oh, I can get it turned around really quickly and just get it done. I would often be in the position where I would get a request, and I would feel very selfish for saying no. But I never thought about that that yes meant that I was saying no to something else. What the club helped me become aware of was both saying, your implicit no has always been your family, which was clearly not what I ever intended. You know, if I looked at the person who needed a report written over the weekend, I never, you know, looked at my deserving kids who had been waiting all week to see me to say, yes, I will help you out with that

report. And my poor kids who have been waiting all week will not get to see me. But once I became aware of that trade-off, that made it much easier to say no, because, you know, I already had a bunch of work that I needed to do. I couldn't just say yes to being on an editorial board somewhere if without saying no to something else. So no, the no group sounds really helpful. I feel like that's something I and listeners will probably want to start themselves or consider doing. Can you, can you give us a recent example of something that you brought to your group? And then the advice that they gave you for how to think about it and what to do next time? I do remember a very big note where I actually thought the Note Club was the worst thing I'd ever been part of.

So I had agreed to be on an editorial board for a very good journal on economics, and I was drowning in editorial work. And they had initially told me, don't take the position. And I was advised by senior mentors that this was very prestigious, that I should say yes. And I said yes. And then I just couldn't do it because it was so much work. And I met with them on a Friday night over a glass of wine because that makes it easier to do all of this. And they told me that I, by Monday morning, would have had to resign from the editorial board. And I remember sending the email.

And the minute I had sent it, I felt like I was hanging out with a bunch of, you know, friends when I was a little girl. And they all told me to jump off a roof. And I stupidly did it. So I felt like it was the most horrible thing I had ever done. And at the time, I was horrified of the consequences that it would have for me to have said no. But it was the only right thing to do. You know, sometimes saying no, it's scary. So it's

not just a question of saying no when something gets handed over to you, which certainly is hard, but if you end up with something that is really not good for you, to then say, I don't care if I'm supposed to wait three years. It's three years of my life. I need to get off this now. And that's exactly what I did. So I do think practicing a little bit with no and seeing that sometimes the consequences are not so bad and just explaining why it is that you, we only have so many hours in the day.

I always, I think the big thing is that we all feel guilty to some extent for not helping out and not doing our part. But there's a limit to how many hours you're supposed to be working. Yeah, time is the only finite resource that any of us really has. I mean, everything else is fungible in the end, but we all have the same amount of time in a day. So yeah. Well, Lisa, I want to thank you for saying yes to being on our podcast and saying no to something else in order to do it. Yeah, but this is something that I care deeply about. You know, it's also important to think about what are the things I really want to say yes to. So it's not just the question of saying no, no, no. It's

saying no to things so that you can do the things that you really care about. I care greatly about this topic. If we get the best talent in the right positions, everyone is going to be better off. What is distressing in talking about this is that it's a conversation that you can have with a lot of women. The men appear not to listen so much. It has to be made clear to the corporations and business leaders that if they saddle women with more of this non-promotable work, they're not

going to find the best talent. So it's a corporate responsibility to change the way that we allocate these tasks. And it's not just a responsibility, it's in their interest. It's a strong message, but an actionable one. Yes. Amen to that. Amen to that. Thank you again for your time. Thank you so much. It sounds like step one is just figuring out what the low promotability tasks are. And Amy, I'm curious to know, is there a point in your career when you kind of had an aha moment and started being strategic about figuring out what those tasks were? No, absolutely not. That really opened my eyes. In fact, I still do a lot of low promotability work.

And sometimes I sort of wonder why I'm the one doing it, you know. And I look around and I've never thought about those categories. I know that there's high-profile work and there's low-profile work. And I also know that saying no can make you come off as kind of a jerk. No one wants to come off as self-seeking. And so I'm still grappling with how you say no when you're asked to.

Well, first of all, the whole notion of being asked to volunteer. Right. That's a tricky one. Yeah, that's not a volunteer. That's an ask, you know? Yeah. Well, but I did think about,

it used to be that sometimes our editor-in-chief, who is a man, would send out a mass email to the group and say, does anyone want to get back to this author? Or is anyone interested in this idea? And I just couldn't stand what to me was like the sounds of crickets chirping as you just have the silence of waiting for someone to say something. And he finally noticed, he said, Sarah, you seem to reply to all of these emails. Like what's going on?

And I was just like, I hate the sound of crickets. I hate the tension of waiting and feeling like no one else is responding. And what I've noticed now is that he doesn't really send those emails out anymore. He sends an individual email when he wants me to look at something. Right. And he sends an individual email, you know, to someone else when he wants them to look at something. Yeah, I think he's one of those guys who's sensitive to that sort of thing. Yeah.

And I figured it out. I realized I was like, oh, I need to let much more time elapse before I send or apply. See, I wonder how many women, how many of them are really aware that they're volunteering for work that isn't going to get them anywhere? I never even thought about that. I have thought about that. I had a kind of aha moment when I was assistant editor, I think, at HBR. This was probably eight or nine years ago. And I was asked to be on the lobby redesign committee. And I was so excited because it was like cross silo. I was like, oh, I'll get to meet people

in the other business units. This is really important. And then I told my boss about it and he was like, what is that? How much time is it going to take? And it was he was like what is that how much time is it gonna take and it was kind of like okay well you've said you'll do it but don't spend a lot of time on it and that's kind of weird that was kind of an aha moment for me where I was like oh this kind of thing isn't actually gonna get me anywhere and very kindly he did tell me I said you know what do I need to do to get promoted and he said you need to acquire and edit articles. That is what this organization needs more. I did that and it worked.

I feel like I was lucky to have a manager who clearly told me, do this, not that. I think the manager does bear a lot of responsibility for helping the super volunteers, the women who are more likely to take on the work that isn't going to get them anywhere. I mean, Lisa gave us some good tools, I think, for saying no, but really going to your manager and saying, I've been asked to do this thing, some equivalent of taking notes at the meeting.

I'm really busy. Help me set priorities. Chances are your boss is going to say, you know what, you don't really have time for this, and we'll help you figure out how to deal with it. Another good check that people can do that Lisa mentioned was just documenting. Think about how many times, because we all want to be helpful. We all want to pitch in. That's the kind of team that I want to work on. And so I want to uphold that as a value on the team. But then something you can do is kind of document and think about how many times you're saying yes to something,

how many times you've done this task. And now is the expectation that you'll just do it all the time because then at that point, maybe that's a realization. It's time to talk to your manager and just ask, this is something that has become part of my job. Should it stay that way? Is there anything we can do to change it? And maybe have a more productive conversation.

Or even do it because no one wants to be the one who says, you know what, this is unfair. None of us wants to be that person, even when it is thoroughly unfair. Is to band together with some colleagues and do it. Just start with tomorrow's meeting and document it and then show the manager without embarrassing him or her. You know, you got to be, you got to take care of people when you're, when you're trying to make change happen like that. I think the thing I've struggled with most in thinking about like what is low promotability or what is a non-promotable task

is I think as a more junior person, I was doing a lot of these tasks that most people would consider non-promotable. But early on in your career, those are the tasks that you kind of have to do. Someone in the organization has to do all this routine work to keep things afloat. But then you get promoted and you kind of graduate from those tasks, but you're still very close to it. So if someone needs to fill in and do a lot of that work, you're kind of the first person look to, to take it on. And I also feel like compelled to raise my hand, to volunteer, to do that because I know it would be very easy for me to do quickly as opposed to someone else who would have to learn a lot of those tasks and do them. Lisa was talking about that. I've done that too. I bet you have too, Sarah. Yeah. You

know, I can just knock this thing out. I'll do it. Yeah. But you know, it does come at a cost. You know, you get strung out. That's how I know I'm taking on too much and I have to start figuring out what to pare away. Yeah. One thing though that we didn't talk about is that some of these quote unquote low promotability tasks do have a function. They're not all created equal. Some of them will expose you to people who would be really good for you to know or to parts of the organization you should get to know. I think you have to be nuanced in how you figure that you're creating, especially with your direct managers. Right. Because I think there is nothing more important, especially at a junior level in an organization, than showing initiative. Yeah.

And if you are volunteering for things and you are willing to take on some of these tasks and do it with a smile and do it well and not obsess over it and spend too much time on it, but just get it done. Right. Your boss should remember that and think of you then for the high promotability tasks because you were so helpful on this other thing. Yeah. Reliability and attitude. They count a lot. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I would pride myself on and talk about in performance reviews or whatever is that like I don't say no to things. You know, when people ask me to do something, I feel like I'm a good sport and I want to be helpful and I say yes. But I guess I'm curious, like at what point do you have to learn how to prioritize and figure out what you actually want to say yes to so that you know what's okay for you to say no to or to ask to assign to someone else?

You have to be really strategic about it. I mean, your time is tight and you have to ask yourself whether doing this thing is going to take away from doing that thing that's actually a lot more important all the way around. And you have to make that judgment. That's part of becoming a more mature senior member of the team. You have to manage your own time, right? Something else that struck me was when Lisa was talking about the consequences of doing this. If women are the ones always saying yes to things, you know, if I'm not saying no, what are the consequences here? And then there's one, which is a slower progression, you know, slower career advancement. And I have started to think more about my portfolio of tasks when I've thought about how am I going to get to the next stage in my career,

let me look at what I'm currently doing now is too much of what I'm doing, things that are not promotable, things that maybe I was doing in my last job or in my last role or title that I'm still currently doing. So I thought about career advancement, but then the other consequence was this effect on your happiness and your well-being and career satisfaction. If you show up to work every day and you are not getting to work on things that are intellectually challenging, things that are very tied to what your job says it should be, and you're just doing kind of low promotability routine work that no one else wants to do, that's going to affect how you show up at work. You're hitting on something so important, which is that you have to recognize that you are a valuable part of the team.

And that it is to everyone's benefit for you to feel happy and engaged when you walk through that door. And it is your responsibility to make sure you are. And there are many, many ways that you can deal with it when you're not, including going to your manager. But it does no one any good to have you, Nicole, saddled with a lot of drudgery. That's so true. It's so true. I also think, I mean, I am really bad at saying no to things in general. And the only strategy that has ever worked for me is to think about if I am not able to say no, then I implicitly am saying no to myself or to someone else. The other thing that I think is really important here is not to let someone else's urgency be your urgency. That is

so wise. All right, my work is done here. Your work is done. Your work is done. But that took me a long time to learn. Yeah. And if it's something I want to work on, I'll say, you know, this is interesting.

It's going to take me six weeks to get to it. Yeah. And if it's not interesting, I just give a definite no. The other thing that's just been hard for me and kind of a

career transition is realizing that prioritizing only gets you so far. Yeah. Because earlier in my career, I did say yes to everything and I did get a bunch of it done and I got better and better at prioritizing. And then you get to a point where you're just like, this isn't going to work anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's absolutely true. You know, really, you got to kind of keep taking your temperature when you're not feeling it. When you get it in the morning and you're like, oh, my God.

You know, what fresh hell is this? Then it's time for you to figure out how to make your life better. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free

at netsuite.com slash women at work. That say no to non-promotable work. But that's often the situation we're in. And when you're in that situation, it's helpful to know how to respond. So we wanted to talk more about how to turn down requests to take notes, order lunch, other routine work, especially if you're a woman of color. Because studies show that women of color are the most likely to be asked to do office housework. You know, we definitely see the same hierarchy within our society play out in the workplace. So this doesn't surprise me at all. And in fact, I think this is really an area where we have an opportunity as women to man together. That's Ruchika Toshian. She's a business journalist who worked in technology

before becoming an inclusion strategist. She's the author of the book The Diversity Advantage, Fixing Gender Inequality in the Workplace. And she wrote a piece for HBR about how women of color can turn down low-level tasks without being branded as difficult. Ruchika's here to talk about her own experience of being asked to do office housework and the advice she's heard from other women of color about how to say no. Ruchika, thank you for taking time to talk to us today. Thank you. Tell us some of the stories that you heard from the women you spoke with

about their experience of office housework as women of color. Yeah, it's actually been a really interesting and eye opening experience for me. So I'll give you an example. I'm working on a story for the Seattle Times on the experience of women of color at work. And I went to interview the CEO of a well-known nonprofit in the Seattle area. And I just sort of casually asked her, you know, tell me about experiences of being a woman of color at work. And she brought up an example of office housework. So she was the first ever Latina woman, first ever woman of color to lead one of the nonprofit organizations where she was at prior. And she said on the first board meeting that she ever had, she walked in and the largely white male dominated board asked her to serve coffee, knowing full well that she was CEO.

And she refused, you know, right? I mean, she is the CEO. And then they kind of didn't understand. They were like, no, but we need to have some tea. This is what she told me. It's so ubiquitous that I think that's what's always surprising. But it comes up time and time again, women of color being asked to close the door or order lunch. Again, seemingly very innocuous, no big deal kind of tasks.

So what experience have you yourself had with being asked to do thankless work? One of the main ways that I started actually getting even interested in specifically gender inequity in the workplace was my time in technology. And within the first week that I spent at a company, I noticed that all the women, including me, even though I was hired to do something very different, were kind of being asked to help with events set up. There was a big conference that our company was going to put on. And it was really interesting, again, that women, you know, essentially young women within the company were in charge of doing all the sort of setup and teardown and all of that. And the men were basically just going to come and attend the conference, right?

So that was definitely my first experience with it. And even now, now that I work for myself largely, what's really, really interesting is being asked to work for free, largely asked to do it by women, but also often by men, with this idea that women were very happy, you know, I should on pro bono work, and oh, by the way, also, of course, balancing that time with the other responsibilities I have in my life, that means there's less opportunity for me to get ahead. It's been actually not only in the corporate workplace, but also when I left full-time employment within an office, and I still kind of face that in a different way. I'm wondering if there are signals that white women miss that women of color might be sending out in situations like this, because it sounds as if a lot of what's going on among women is kind of insensitivity more than anything else. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, in the work I've done,

and even in a lot of the research I've read on this, it doesn't seem to be nefarious, right? It's not a case of someone deliberately trying to put someone down. I hope not. You know, I truly believe that's not the case. But we're just so deeply sort of conditioned to have these ideas of the roles that women and men play, you know, again, within the society. And then obviously, we see that play out in the workplace. So again, with white women, and the signals that they should look out for, it's often literally just trying to understand how are the power dynamics within your workplace. We know largely women of color are in not as many leadership roles as white women. We know that generally, women of color are paid less in every single industry out there and are in general doing more of the lower income work. And so in that case,

it's really, really important to kind of pick up on those signals and think about, okay, let me take stock of how the power dynamics are in my workplace. Where do I have power and where do I have the opportunity to disrupt or ensure that I'm not relying on a woman of color to complete the office housework that needs to be done. One of my favorite tips from your article was to ask for more information. So when someone asks you to do something, the tip was to say, why are you asking me to do this particular task? Is that something you've tried? You know, I have not tried that. This tip was actually offered by a woman who's an African American woman and talked to me about the real concerns she faced in being viewed as an angry

Black woman. And this is consistent with anecdotal evidence, with other interviews I've done, with some of the research I've read on this. And she said, I have to walk a really, really, really narrow line because, you know, if I refuse, then it defaults to not just I'm unlikable, you know, as a woman, but I'm also unlikable. And I'm playing to these terrible pervasive stereotypes of being angry and black. I think when she offered that tip, to me, it made so much of sense, you know, and it's just kind of unraveling the bias in a very gentle manner. Okay, I wonder why you need me to do this. But is there someone else who could do that? It's finding these ways to navigate. To me, it really feels like a minefield of being likable, but also obviously, you want to

show that you can be respected and that you have those leadership skills. So are there other risks that women of color face in saying no, other than, you know, if you're an African American being seen as an angry black woman, what other factors should they consider? Sure. So women of color generally tend to face a double jeopardy situation where they not only face bias because of their gender, but also because of their race. So obviously the stereotypes differ. But in my reporting, you know, I talked about African American women told me about having to counter stereotypes of being perceived as angry black women. Latina women talked about having to overcome being seen as too hysterical

or emotional if they speak up or advocate for themselves. For Asian women, Asian American women, and I identify as Asian, had to, we have to counter stereotypes of being submissive and always agreeable, which, you know, it's like if we do the office housework, then that already puts us in a situation where anyway, we're already viewed as being submissive. And then we are actually playing into that stereotype even more. And then we have less of a chance for upward mobility. twice as negative or twice as difficult or twice as much of not a team player, which, you know, we're now all learning this code for creating exclusive organizational cultures. And I will say this, because I grew up in Asia, it's really ironic, because, you know, I'm such a big fan of people never saying things like, that's not my job. I think, I think creating communal environments where everyone feels invested to do, you know, the work that benefits everybody is that's a concept that really appeals to me and everyone should chip in. But honestly, until we're not able to reformat, you know, cultures so that everybody agrees, right?

Everybody says, yes, that's not my job. Not just we default to women and especially women of color having to do that work. We're going to perpetuate this issue. And certainly women of color are at the most disadvantage. When you talk about how these communal values have shaped your thinking and how it's nice to work in an office where people are willing to give to the community, you have a way of kind of flipping around the request for office housework. So tell us about how you recommend people do that. Yeah, I think it's really important for us to, you know, not be seen as always the person saying no, right? So if you're being asked to do something a little more lower status within the office

housework, you know, chain, so to speak, saying, you know, I'm not going to do this, but instead here's something that I can offer, which will also be good for our community. It'll also be good for the work that we need to do. You know, we don't have a podcast about men at work, right? Because men don't have to, they'll either say yes and they'll say no, or they'll say, you know, whatever it is, and nobody will ever judge what that means. But for women having to navigate this, you know, say no to certain things, say yes to certain things, just shows how much of a problem this is in the workplace. What about managers? How can managers help in these situations without getting super awkward?

Yeah, this is tricky. I think the first point is for managers to become aware that this is a problem. A lot of men I've spoken to have no idea what I'm talking about at all. And then my other sort of piece of advice for managers is it can go both ways, right? Either depending on the situation, you either lightly redirect the favor. You know, I think someone else could do this, you know, especially again, if it's a peer and you see a peer asking another peer who's a woman of color to do the office housework, definitely say something, maybe even suggest something like a rotational program. If it's something that needs

to be done routinely, like a monthly or weekly meeting that every week, you know, you need to order lunch. But if you notice as a manager, if you notice someone else who's more senior asking a woman of color or a woman to do the office housework, you know, in my opinion and the way that I am, I would definitely bring it up later. So something like, hey, Steve, I noticed how you asked Ruchika to order lunch again. I know it seems like a small thing, but here are some of the reasons why, you know, it's not a great idea. So when we talked to Lisa, she talked about a group that she and other colleagues had started called a Say No Club, where they help each other say no to some of these non-promotable tasks. Is that the kind of peer support that you recommend women of color should find or start themselves? A hundred percent. We definitely need a tribe. We need that practice in saying no in a way that

feels authentic, and that's going to be different for every woman. We need support and backup, really. And sometimes that backup can come outside the organization, right? And there have been times where I've been asked to do certain things, and I'll send an email over to a friend, and I'll say, hey, what do you think? You know, should I say yes? Should I say no? How could I say no? I also think what's really great about having a tribe is a reminder that women, while we have similar messages, many of us, also, especially for me, a lot of my friends come from all over the world we've been socialized differently in some ways and then the other thing is obviously you know just personality differences so just growing up in in the same sort of family in the same environment in a South Asian

environment my sister and I within the same family she's very much more comfortable with saying no and from a young age has kind of forced me to start saying no to things that don't matter so that I have time to say yes to the things that do. And I think this idea that we can do this alone is a very, again, a very American sort of concept. I don't believe that's true at all. So having a tribe to, you know, help you navigate that, I think, is extremely important. One of the patterns of bias and one of the challenges that women of color face, according to the research I've seen, that white women don't face is isolation in the office. If you were someone who's listening to this and thinking, I would love to find a tribe, but I just don't have one. What advice would you give to someone in that situation?

I think finding online groups for it has actually been pretty helpful for me. And I'm part of quite a few professional networks. And if you're in the Seattle area, please reach out to me. And so I think part of it is looking certainly for people who will understand the unique challenges that you have as a woman of color and often the only person in the workplace. And trust me, I identify. The other part of it is finding allies and advocates who don't look like you. I had quite a few and I built quite a few within the time I was in technology. And I think that definitely helped keep me sane,

sometimes in very, very challenging situations. Really interesting. Ruchika, thank you again for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. Didn't you find yourself, I'm going to look at Sarah here. Didn't you find yourself asking yourself, what have I missed? Oh, all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that I have found interesting in this vein of research is the different experiences of different women. And it's something that really makes me think about what am I missing? What am I not seeing? How can I do a better job of making sure that this problem goes away? Yeah. Because I really like this idea that, you know, we all

want to work in an environment, in a culture where people agree to chip in, to work together. Like we're all going to take turns doing these tasks that need to be done. And I think awareness will help like make sure that those tasks are not disproportionately falling on certain people. You know, I volunteer and do a lot of these tasks like we all do. I don't know if I would say that's because I'm a woman of color, but looking at this research, you know, that makes me think about that now. But how much of that is being a woman? How much of that is being more junior in ranking than colleagues? How much of that is my age? How much of that is my personality?

You know, just wanting to be helpful. Or how much of that is like me trying to be very efficient and do it all myself? You know, there are a lot of things that play together, I think. Yeah. Although one of the things that really, that this conversation heightened for me, one of the ideas is that we all have responsibility.

So you can't be a silent bystander. You have to figure out how to go in and correct a situation. It might, you know, probably won't be some kind of a public denunciation, but taking the offender aside and saying, hey, are you aware that you're doing this thing would probably be a good thing to do, right? Yeah. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Sarah Greenkarmichael.

I'm Nicole Torres. Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Maureen Hoke is our supervising editor. We get production help from Rob Eckhart and Isis Madrid. Something new we're doing this season is publishing discussion guides for each one of our episodes. We hope to help you talk through your own questions and experiences about women and work. Maybe you'll even start your own say no club. To get the discussion guide for this episode, find the link in our show notes.

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