Picture this scenario: Things have been busy at work, but you’ve managed to keep everything under control. You’re focused on team morale, getting key projects over the line, and (finally) having a quarter where you don’t have to hire anyone new. You’re even making it to a yoga class twice a week instead of working every minute you’re not with the kids.
Then comes the request – your CEO went to a conference and has come back with a bunch of new ideas. Ughhhh, and now he wants you to add a whole new initiative to the list and re-prioritize what the team is doing. You don’t want to do it. You don’t think it’s the right move.
But you say yes, because… he’s the CEO. What else are you supposed to do??
Does that sound familiar?
My people pleasers are all violently nodding their heads. And if you’re a ‘yes’ person, my guess is that this spills into every area of your life:
- Invited to that neighbourhood party when you really just want to stay home… but you said you’d go, so you do,
- In-laws want you to make the trip to visit for Thanksgiving because the rest of the family will be there… you really just want to be home to relax, but you don’t want to let them down,
- A note comes home in your child’s bag asking for baked goods for the bake sale tomorrow… you have so much on your plate already, but you can’t be the only mom not sending something…
You get it. Heck, I get it! I used to be this person. I used to say ‘yes’ if I could possibly do something, not if I wanted to.
And there’s a big distinction.
I used to ask myself, “Can I do this?” meaning:
- Can I make the compromise?
- Can I fit it into my already jammed calendar?
- Can I move things around to accommodate this?
Instead of, “Do I WANT to do this?” or “Is this a great idea for me?”
Friends, this is no way to go through life.
Today I hope to convince you to start saying ‘no’ more.
At the end of the day, when you say ‘yes’ to something, you are saying ‘no’ to something else. I think this is a really important concept to consider for your personal life, but today I’m going to focus on why it matters in your career.
Because in-laws and bake sales aside, this may actually be hurting how you perform and are perceived at work! Don’t believe me? Let’s walk through a couple of different scenarios, including one that I personally experienced:
Ex 1. I had just started a new senior leadership role and wanted to do well and really impress my boss. Not long after I started, he asked me to take over managing a major project that would impact my department. Now, to be clear, I was a sales executive and had ZERO project management experience. I stupidly said yes.
The result: I managed this project poorly because I had no idea what I was doing, and I disappointed my boss in the process.
The lesson: I should have gently pushed back, explained why I was not the right person, and recommended someone more appropriate on my team (or another team) who would be better suited for this. I could have offered to oversee this person and ensure everything got done, but not do the actual project management part.
Ex 2. “Sarah” is the go-to person at work whenever something needs to get done, and everyone knows that if they need a volunteer, she’ll say yes.
There’s a new committee being created and they are looking for someone to head it up. A colleague suggests Sarah, and although her plate is full, she doesn’t want to let anyone down and accepts.
The result: As soon as she starts doing the work, it’s evident that this committee is in no way aligned with her career goals and is not going to provide any benefit to her. On top of that, it’s going to require hours every week that she would much rather devote to deep work or meeting prep.
The lesson: Sarah should have carefully looked into the committee and only accepted if she saw a benefit. Instead of worrying that she was going to let her colleague down, she could have considered it from the perspective that by not volunteering, she could devote more time to her own team and provide that opportunity to someone who was a better fit.
VPs say no… all the time
When you think about the senior leaders you really admire, are they saying yes to every little thing? Are they pivoting their strategy with every new idea brought to the table? Of course they’re not!
And that’s part of the reason we trust them. When you say ‘no’ to the wrong things, you’re demonstrating that you have good judgement, which is one of the key elements of being a great senior leader. You’re demonstrating that you spend your time on only valuable activities.
These things will win you respect.
Not only that, but once you’re an executive, you simply need to say no sometimes – to your colleagues, boss, or team. Learning how to do that effectively is a great skill.
How to say no at work and still be professional
There are three elements of saying no to ensure it’s a positive exchange:
- Thank them for the opportunity / for thinking of you
- Decline and provide a reason
- Offer a recommendation or alternative
The first one is simple – thanks so much for thinking of me! Or, if it’s your CEO bringing you a new idea like the one I opened this newsletter with, perhaps it’s validating the goal they’re trying to achieve, “Thanks for bringing this to me. I agree that increasing new sign-ups is an essential priority for us.”
The second part is where people get stuck. Let’s use the CEO example. The best way to push back is often to relate your priorities back to the company’s strategic objectives, which have already been agreed upon, explaining that you need to prioritize these goals and that there isn’t enough bandwidth to do both well.
I don’t love the idea of just saying, “I’m at capacity” because as a leader, you have the ability to delegate and re-prioritize. It feels a bit like you’re giving away your power. I think this is a perfectly reasonable response if you’re an individual contributor or potentially even a manager, but the higher up you go, the less great it sounds (in my opinion).
Finally, if you can offer an alternative solution or recommendation, this is often helpful. When I’m contacted about coaching and I don’t feel the client is the right fit, I often suggest that I can recommend another coach to them. That way I’m helping to solve their problem in a way that feels good to me.
When to say yes
Now… there are times you should say yes or at least compromise. Boundaries are important, but we also live in the real world. I’ll give you an example:
When I was a VP, my boss came to me with a new initiative he wanted me to prioritize within my team. He felt very strongly that we implement this and as the company President, I knew I had to listen. The problem was, the team had already pivoted a bunch (before I had been hired) and I had spent the last three months stabilizing things and ensuring they had clear marching orders. On top of that, we had already established priorities that conflicted with what he was suggesting.
What was I supposed to do??
I decided to learn from my ‘project management’ mistake and push back. But I also offered a compromise.
I explained that I didn’t feel I should distract the team from what they were doing, given we were finally starting to see results and were prioritizing the most important company metric (which he agreed was #1). Instead, I suggested taking 1-2 people on my team and piloting his suggestion with select customers to see what we could learn. If it was effective, we would scale it across the team.
He agreed.
As I dug into the team’s priorities and these different initiatives over the following months, it hit me that we should restructure the team to have dedicated members for new customer acquisition and growing existing accounts (this did not yet exist at this company). I proposed the new structure to my boss, explaining that the newly formed Account Management team would have a key focus on the initiative he had initially proposed to me.
It was a win-win. I never had to distract my team, and in the end, we all got what we wanted.
Had I agreed with him and changed my team’s priorities, they would not have hit the key goals they were compensated for, and our team would have looked as though we had failed. The thing I was able to recognize (that sometimes others don’t) was that my team’s success depended on hitting the metrics that had been established, regardless of the new ideas my boss suggested. That’s what I was being held accountable for. It was, therefore, up to me to ensure my team was doing the right things.
At the same time, had I shut him down completely, I may have seemed as though I was not a team player, and I may not have come up with the new team structure that ended up making the company tens of millions in additional revenue.
One of my favourite ways to think of this is to ask:
How can I do X (say no, leave this opportunity, etc…) in a way that feels good to me?
There is always a way. It may involve a difficult conversation, a compromise, or a hard boundary. But you will feel better for having done it.
Until next time friends… ✌️💜
Katy
