Client: Hey Yue, I’ve been taking on a lot of work for my manager and team. I’m regularly being told that I’m doing a great job with all my work. They clearly trust me and my capabilities, but I’m not getting promoted. What’s going on? I’m getting burned out.
One of my favorite concepts is the Non-Promotable Task (NPT). Non-Promotable Tasks are tasks that help the organizations but do nothing to advance careers. Common culprits include running the internship program, onboarding new hires, taking notes or making presentations look better, organizing the next social event, filling in for absent colleagues, or handling that low-revenue and time-consuming project or client that no one else wants to manage.
Even hearing about the concept makes you aware that you may be overly investing in work that falls into this category. In fact, Women are 48% more likely to volunteer for these jobs, and they are disproportionately assigned them. Stereotypically, women end up handling more NPT because they are asked more often, and expected to say yes more often. In contrast, men get a free pass for saying no or would ask for a reciprocal exchange for doing the NPT.
How to Identify a Non-Promotable Task
The first test? Anything that is not directly contributing to a promotion that you and your manager have agreed upon is a non-promotable task. Your manager may ask you to take on NPTs to help out the team. But when you ask “Will this advance my career?”, the answer is typically maybe or not really.
Other sniff tests include whether this task contributes directly to a company objective, is highly visible to others, or requires specialized skills. The less likely a task is to move a company objective, the more likely it is not going to affect your promotion. Does it increase revenue or number of users? Does it improve retention? If you can’t point to a goal or metric the tasks align towards without 3 hops of logic, it’s likely to be a non-promotable task.
Visibility is another good test. If the work and impact can’t be clearly attributed to you, it is likely to be an NPT. For example, if you volunteer to run an internship program, if it is highly visible, and the interns have a positive impact on shipping new features or improving the morale of the team, then it is likely not an NPT. However, if you run the internship program logistics of matching, scheduling, etc, and none of it is attributed back to you, then it becomes an NPT.
Another test is whether anyone can do the task, or it requires specialized skills. The further it is from leveraging your superpower and the skillsets you bring to the company, the more likely it is an NPT. A task that “anyone can do” is likely to be an NPT.
How to Say No to NPTs
Many people, women in particular, feel pressured to accept NPTs. In fact, as mentioned, they are often expected to accept. How do you combat both the internal and external pressures?
First, set expectations appropriately with your manager and leadership, and use it as a test for whether the NPT is a good fit for you to take on. Make it clear that you are excited to be at the company to deliver impact and work towards career growth. As such, you are laser-focused on devoting your time and energy towards projects and tasks that move those two goals. A good reason to say “no” to an NPT is if it doesn’t fall within these goals and takes time you're away from them.
Another way to say no when asked to handle an NPT is to involve the requestor in making the trade-off with your time. Rather than immediately accepting, help the requestor understand what other tasks you have on your plate and why they are priorities. Then, work together to decide where in the prioritization list this request falls, and how much time or energy you should reasonably devote towards it. Often, highlighting the explicit trade-offs rather than simply saying “yes”, gives you a reasonable path to say no to the requestor.
Lastly, it is sometimes okay to “slow roll” the NPT. If you are asked to take it on unwillingly or “in the moment, come back to it after the initial conversation. Set expectations on how much time you can devote to it and under what circumstances. Circumstances will change, more urgent work may come up, and it can be okay to reassess whether you are to do the NPT even after you agree.
For many women and minorities, we need to be internally okay with facing the discomfort and potential conflict that comes with saying no and potentially going against expectations. It can feel easy in the moment to say yes and avoid confrontation or guilt. However, consider the longer-term consequences of taking on the task and the extra hours and trade-offs you’ll need to work to add the NPT to your slate.
It’s important to note that there are situations where you may want to take on an NPT to build an important relationship. Leveraging the law of reciprocity, you could cover for someone during leave or help them take notes if you are working to deepen your relationship with that individual. Alternatively, if you’re looking to practice a certain skill (e.g. facilitation, large group communication) then you may volunteer to facilitate programs and meetings that would otherwise be NPTs to practice.
In short, be conscious of non-promotable tasks as a percentage of your work, and carefully assess what benefit it brings you. If you’re doing a lot of work and taking one for the team often, yet not getting promoted, take a hard look at how much time you’re spending on NPTs, and start to practice saying no to existing and future ones.
This is super important. It took me years to figure out the tasks in differences. I’m curious how do you have a conversation and land agreement with manager on the task assignment ?