The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-End Work

In this “long overdue manifesto on gender equality in the workplace,” (Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit), The No Club offers a timely call and an action plan to unburden women from work that goes unrewarded.

The No Club started when four women, crushed by endless to-do lists, banded together to get their work lives under control. Working harder than ever, they still trailed behind their male colleagues. And so, they vowed to say no to requests that pulled them away from the work that mattered most to their careers. Their over-a-decade-long journey and subsequent, groundbreaking research reveals that women everywhere are unfairly burdened with “non-promotable work,” a tremendous problem we can—and must—solve.

All organizations have work that no one wants to do: planning the office party, screening interns, attending to that time-consuming client, or simply helping others with their work. A woman, most often, takes on these tasks. In study after study, the original “No Club”—professors Linda Babcock (bestselling author of Women Don’t Ask), Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart—document that women are disproportionately asked and expected to do this work. The imbalance leaves women overcommitted and underutilized as companies forfeit revenue, productivity, and top talent.

The No Club walks through how any woman can rebalance her workload, empowering individuals to make savvy decisions about the work they take on. The authors also illuminate how organizations can reassess how they assign and reward work to level the playing field. With hard data, personal anecdotes from women of all stripes, self- and workplace-assessments for immediate use, and innovative advice from the authors’ consulting with Fortune 500 companies, this book will forever change the conversation about how we advance women’s careers and achieve equity in the 21st century.

Linda Babcock is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the author of Women Don’t Ask and Ask for It. A behavioral economist, she is the founder and director of PROGRESS, which pursues positive social change for women and girls through education, partnerships, and research. Babcock’s media appearances include Good Morning America, ABC’s World News Tonight, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, USA TODAY, and more.

Brenda Peyser has held leadership positions in the corporate world and academia for over thirty years. Most recently, she was a professor of communications at Carnegie Mellon, where she also served as associate dean of the School of Public Policy and Management. She has worked with organizations as a consultant and speaker on women’s workplace issues.

Lise Vesterlund is a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh and founding director of the Behavioral Economic Design Initiative. Her work with Fortune 100 companies addresses issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. Published in leading economic journals, her research has been covered by NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and Forbes.

Laurie R. Weingart is a professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University. She served as CMU’s Interim Provost/Chief Academic Officer, Director of the Accelerate Leadership Center, and a senior associate dean at CMU’s Tepper School of Business. Her award-winning research on team collaboration and conflict has been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider and published in top management and psychology journals.