There’s this car commercial that I’ve seen recently and something about it has really stuck in my head. Not in a good way, because I couldn’t tell you what the car brand or model being advertised is. It plays during the Sunday NFL games and it features a woman driving an SUV, filled with adults dressed in party attire. They’re all singing loudly to a song playing, clearly on their way to a party. It looks like the sun’s going down so it’s early evening. The driver receives a phone call over her car speaker and the friends in the back seat groan when the song they’re jamming to gets cut off. The driver is able to direct the phone call to just her seat, where there are special speakers, so the passengers can continue enjoying the music while the driver takes the call. That’s the tech being advertised. The part that bothers me is the conversation the driver then has with what I assume to be a male coworker/boss named Frank.
“Hi Goldie, sorry to bother you. I’m looking for those reports from yesterday.”
“They’re already on your desk, Frank,” Goldie responds confidently.
“Of course they are. Got ’em right here.”
“Bye Frank,” she responds and ends the call.
I get it, it’s just a commercial. It’s a made-up dialogue, not a real scenario. Except that the conversation between Frank and Goldie is reminiscent of very real scenarios that I encounter almost daily. And while I felt generally annoyed and uncomfortable with the dialogue in the commercial, I did discover that this isn’t a unique feeling. It’s been classified as “Office Housework” and Gender Bias. It’s most commonly seen as a woman being asked to take meeting notes or a man coming in for a meeting and asking the woman who walks in for coffee, assuming she’s the administrative assistant/secretary, not the person who called for the meeting. I’ve experienced this sort of office housework and gender bias often, as the only female owner in my companies, when it comes to party planning or ordering food for a meeting or scheduling follow-ups after a meeting. Even in external client meetings, since I do take notes for myself, I’m assumed to be the assistant of the male partner that’s in the meeting with me. I’m described as “organized” or “more picky” or my favorite, “you’re just better at this than the rest of us.” I’ve written about my experiences with this largely unconscious gender bias that has a lot to do with generational and cultural differences in my book.
But the fictional car commercial conversation adds another nuance on to office housework and gender bias in the workplace. I don’t know if there’s a technical name for it, but I think of it as The Path of Least Resistance. And I know with 100% certainty that women throughout the workforce experience this almost daily in their jobs, whether they are administrative assistants or CEOs. How? Because they’ve told me.
The Path of Least Resistance is a phenomena that occurs when there is a highly competent, very organized person in the organization/team/department, regardless of gender. This person has been with the organization/team/department for a decent amount of time, knows how things operate, and has probably created his/her own internal structures/processes/checklists on how things are done in their specific job. This person usually has anxiety. Their strategy for managing workplace anxiety is to design processes that are predictable, because predictability combats anxiety. There are spreadsheets, checklists, how-tos that these individuals create, unprompted, and can be a really great resource for the rest of the team. They take the time to write down all the rules, all the exceptions to the rules, and make a custom playbook. They are the person that everyone goes to when they have a question and even if that person doesn’t know the answer, they’ll find it out for you and report back. Why would they do that for you? Because they’re just that nice? Nope, still anxiety.
This one person will easily be identified as an achiever, someone with growth potential, a superstar. This one person will also be your greatest risk for burnout. They’re the person in the group project that takes over when another team member inevitably slacks off because they can’t allow themselves to be represented, even partially, by a less-than adequate work product. Again, thanks to anxiety.
This One Person has created The Path of Least Resistance.
The rest of your team has learned the following from your One Person (and maybe it’s you):
- They don’t have to retain any knowledge from a meeting that your One Person also attended. They know he/she will take notes, give them all their designate tasks, and report back to leadership the progress.
- They don’t have to look up company policies/procedures when they have a question. They’ll just go to your One Person because he/she will know the answer.
- If they want something changed, or need to be advocated for, they’ll go to your One Person, because leadership really likes them so it will be received better coming from your One Person.
- If they are unsure about how to do something, or simply don’t care to take the time to do it, they know they can take it to your One Person and he/she will either tell them exactly the right way to do it, or they will take it over themselves to make sure it’s done correctly.
The Path of Least Resistance is your One Person. The Path of Least Resistance is also laziness. It’s Frank calling Goldie when she’s clearly off work to ask her for YESTERDAY’S reports that were ON HIS DESK THE WHOLE TIME. It was easier to call Goldie then to literally look at the documents on his desk in front of his freaking face. Goldie is your One Person. And the thing that really bothered me was Goldie’s complete lack of surprise at the call or request. Of course Frank would call her on her off time. Because it’s The Path of Least Resistance to what he wants. And he doesn’t care that he’s interrupting Goldie’s personal time. He doesn’t care whether she’s available. He doesn’t care that he’s a day late reviewing the reports because now that it’s his priority, it should also be Goldie’s priority. This Mad Men-era helpless men using office housework and gender bias to provide women professionals with validation of their worth is so very outdated.
Have you identified your One Person, your Goldie? Are you Goldie? Are you freaking out right now wondering how to undo this dependency you’ve unwittingly created by your competence and work ethic? Me too. Here’s what I’ve been doing:
- Don’t answer calls from certain team members immediately, especially if you’re WFH or out of the office. They hate when I do this, but I give them an hour or two, and 80% of the time when I call back, they’ve figured out the answer.
- Don’t give them the answers, give them the resource to find the answer. “Hey Goldie, do we have NYE off this year?” “Hmm Frank, I’m not sure. Did you check the office calendar? I know the employee handbook has the days off listed in there, you should check that out too.”
- Don’t ever, EVER, let someone else sign their name to your work. If you’re working on a collaborative project and you’ve done your part, your team member hasn’t, you can handle it two ways when someone asks for an update: “Attached is my portion of the presentation, please review and provide comments. @Frank is working on the second portion, he will provide you with an update on it.” OR “Attached is the presentation in its entirety. In order to meet the deadline, I completed both portions of the presentation and am waiting on @Frank’s review of his assigned portion. Let me know if you have any questions for either of us.”
Lastly, don’t assume that The Path of Least Resistance is necessarily being used by bad actors. There can definitely be abuse, but in my experience, it’s largely innocent. Your team members don’t realize the cost/burden of being the One Person. Have those conversations when you’re overwhelmed. Offload work, delegate. Sometimes they just need to be empowered to do the thing themselves, and have you review it before submission. Sometimes you need to train them to do the things you don’t want to handle anymore. The Path of Least Resistance involves two actors here, both a Goldie and a Frank.
