EP 34: Linda Babcock On Empowering Women To Embrace The Power of No In The Workplace

Today I sit down with behavioral economist, professor and author, Linda Babcock to discuss the power of saying no for women at work. 

This podcast interview is for any woman in the workplace who feels stretched thin, frustrated by a lack of advancement in their career and afraid to say no. If you are an organizational leader, this podcast will help you understand how to strategically use your greatest resource by shifting how you allocate and reward non-promotical tasks. 

We discuss what an NPT or non-promotable task is, and why women are 50% more likely to volunteer for work that doesn’t advance their career. Linda and her co-authors propose tactical and strategic ways we can empower women in all positions to advocate for their needs by doing an inventory of how they spend their time, understanding the currency their company thrives on and embracing strategies to make sure they spend their time doing work that aligns with their skills and also helps advance their role in the workplace. 

Linda’s work is focused on understanding barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace and developing evidence-based interventions to promote a level playing field. She is the founder and director of the Program for Research and Outreach on Gender Equity in Society (PROGRESS), which pursues positive social change for women and girls through education, partnerships, and research.

Linda is the James M. Walton Professor in Economics at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want and Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide.

“The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead End Work” is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and wherever books are sold. To learn more, visit https://www.thenoclub.com

In this episode, you will learn: 

• What impacts the bottom line is business is how we spend out time 
• Why companies would benefit from developing their people and the core soft skills
• What a non-promotable task (NPT) is and how it drains a woman’s capacity to advance her career 
• Helpful tactics to understand how to say no, or even say “yes, and…”
• The power of the pause before making decisions
• How not staying in our zone of genius or even competencies is an energy drain for the employee and the organization
• 70% of companies believe that DEI initiatives are critical to business success but only 24% of companies formally recognized DEI initiatives as promotable 
• How female leaders can become more aware and strategic about how they handle personal decisions 
• How leaders can begin to pay attention to what a “Yes” feels like and how that is the foundation for being more responsible with human resources and time. 
• How understanding non-promotable tasks and doing an inventory of how we spend out time is very visible and further supports our capacity to direct career advancement. 
• How real change happens when organizations shift how they allocate and reward work 

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Elisa Haggarty is a Conscious Leadership Coach and host of The School of Unlearning Podcast. She coach leaders/executives and teams all over the world to shift their mindset so they can build high performing teams, visit www.elisamaryhaggarty.com

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