We learned about this research that had been done by a team of economists led by Linda Babcock at Carnegie Mellon University showing that women really struggle to say no when asked to do what she calls non promotable tasks. So these are things like organizing the office party, taking notes at work, giving a talk at an event, or sitting on a committee that won't be rewarded in any way other than appreciated because it's good citizenship.
Organizing the office Christmas party, taking the minutes at every single meeting, making showing your colleagues get a nice cad signed by the whole team on their birthday. Maybe you don't mind putting your hand up for little jobs like this from time to time, but if it's always your responsibility, you're definitely losing out on time that might be better spent on deep work, on work that truly moves the needle, work that earns you at promotion. Non promotable tasks and
nobody's favorite. But research shows that women have a much harder time saying no when asked to do these little tasks than men do. Add up all these little jobs over the course of a few months, or a few years and those little tasks become a big disadvantage. So how do you get better? It's saying no more often. Well, you don't have to do it alone. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder
of behavioral science consultancy invent Him. And this is how I work a show about how to help you do your best work. Welcome to your Favorite Tips. Across ten bite sized episodes, I'll be sharing tips from some of the world's best thinkers that you, the listeners, have found
the most useful. We're covering everything from creating better to do lists to setting more effective boundaries around your time, and you'll be hearing from people like best selling author Sally Hepworth, Corona Cast host and journalist Norman Swan, and Google's executive productivity advisor Laura may Martin. Today's favorite tip comes from Bianca, and she writes Katie Milkman's No Club
was a game changer for me. After hearing this strategy, I got together with a couple of workmates and started my own I.
Love my no Club. Yes, it is life saving and for so many reasons. Yes. So I have a group of it's three of us, three women at you know, research intensive business schools, all of whom care a lot about doing science, who care a lot about communicating about science and being good teachers and good citizens. We really
are very aligned and similar goals. And we learned about this research that had been done by a team of economists led by Linda Babcock at Carnegie Mellon University showing that women really struggle to say no when asked to do what she calls non promotable tasks. So these are things like organizing the office party, taking notes at work, giving a talk at an event, or sitting on a committee that won't be rewarded in any way other than sort of appreciated because it's good citizenship. And men and
women both get these kinds of asks a lot. It's part of being, you know, in any organization, and women have a lot more trouble saying no than men. They spend a lot of time on these kinds of tasks, and it can take away from doing things that are more valued by their organizations and may prevent them from
rising to the highest levels. So we learned about this work, and we learned that Linda and her collaborators had formed a NO Club of women who would basically reach out to each other for second opinions whenever they got an ask that fit into this category of something that's not part of your job description that they knew wouldn't strictly be rewarded by the organization, but that might be worth doing because you want to be a good citizen, you
want to do the right things. And we thought, this is such a great idea to have this no club because it turns out when we're in an outsider mode, when we're evaluating these kinds of asks to someone else, it's much easier and clearer for us to say objectively, oh no, that's a bad use of time. And when it's insider mode, you're thinking about the feelings you might hurt and the how are you going to handle everything?
So we have this no club. We reach out to each other whenever we get these kinds of asks, and it has been absolutely incredible over the last I think it's going seven years and strong now for a bunch of reasons, but actually not all reasons I anticipated. So I know it would be great to have these incredible women on my size or of offering consulting services and to offer my own on these kinds of challenges, and then I might free up a lot of time and
help me prioritize better. What I didn't fully appreciate when we created this is what an amazing community it would build. Right where these women were already friends, but they've become closer because we see each other's struggles. We're in touch regularly,
and it's become more like a support group. We actually recently added joy Club to No Club so that we can celebrate each other's successes, which I love so like emails go out, they used to just have a tag in front No Club and then people would respond right away. But we added joy Club so we could share good
news with each other and celebrate it. A third thing that I didn't anticipate but that I've researched and now appreciate more thanks to that is that when we give advice to each other, it actually ends up helping us too. So I thought that would just be, you know, it's reciprocity, right, they give me advice, I give them advice. That's just sort of the price you pay for joining this club.
But it's not a price. It turns out to be really valuable to me every time I see a challenge they're struggling with, because first of all, I'm likely to face similar challenge and thinking through in an advance, seeing it with that outsider perspective, I learn and I build my own confidence because it's easy for me to see, oh, this is the right way to think about it when it's someone else's problem, and then when I face the same challenge myself, I feel confident that I can tackle
it because I've seen it before. So that's actually there's research showing that advice giving improves your own confidence and competence, which I got to be a part of, and that sort of opened my eyes to the power of the advice club, not only as a social support group, not only as a way to tap into the wisdom of others, but actually to build your own confidence and competence as well.
Thank you so much for joining me for this mini series. I hope you've enjoyed seeing which teaps other listeners have found most valuable, and now that how I work it's been running for a few years, I also love being reminded of it's a powerful advice that I needed to revisit. If you missed any of the episodes in this series, make sure you go back through the feed and give them a listen. There are some great tips in there from brilliant minds like Calan Newport, Turia Pit, Sally have Worth,
and heaps more. As the listener of How I Work, you've hopefully picked up a few tips on this show to help you work better? But do you want more? And maybe in a book form, because let's face it, books are the most awesome thing on the planet. Well, now you can. In my new book, time Wise, I uncover a wealth of proven strategies that anyone can use
to improve their productivity, work, and lifestyle. Time Wise brings together all of the gems that I've learned from conversations with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant, Dan Pink, Mia Friedman, and Turia Pit and many many others. Time Wise is launching on July five, but you can pre order it now from Amantha dot com and if you
pre order time Wise a couple of bonuses. View First, you'll receive an ebook that details my top twenty favorite apps and software for being time Wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading, cooking ideas and more. You will also get a complementary spot in a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine, where I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise that I use most often, and also some bonus ones that are not in the book that I use and love.
Hop onto Amantha dot com to pre order now. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.