The art of saying no

We all know this feeling on a Friday afternoon. We are looking forward to our well-deserved weekend and suddenly it happens. Our manager walks onto our desk and tells us about this last-minute client request that put all our plans in jeopardy. And while everything in us wants to reject the demand, we end up saying “yes of course I will do it” and spend our Friday night in the office, thinking we had no choice but to say yes to our manager, not to diminish our great reputation in the firm. However, there is an alternative as always, if we are willing to pay the price for it.

It is important to reflect on this for a minute. Very often, when in a situation as above described, people say” I had no choice” to justify their action of saying always yes. This is fundamentally wrong, as we ALWAYS have a choice. It might not always be an easy or popular one, but we do have a choice. Even if it seems we don’t.

Once we understood there are always choices for us to make and two sides to choose from, we need to learn how to carefully use our choices to find ways to evaluate our yes and no to demands that work both for us and for our other people. This does not mean saying yes to everything. We have to use our emotional intelligence to get a feeling for when it is fine for us and important to other to say yes, but we also have to learn to sometimes say no when we feel the price for saying no is manageable for us.

So what price are we talking about here? We have to understand that every choice we make comes with a cost or a price tag attached to it. Further, the cost or price has to be split into costs to ourselves and costs to others. The choice we make has an impact on us and our reputation, but it also influences the perceptions other hold against us. As an example, if we say no to our manager on a Friday on a task, the price we pay for us might seem quite low, however the price we pay by having diminished our reputation in the eyes of our manager will have consequences on our career way beyond that Friday afternoon. To spend one Friday evening the office seems therefore reasonable compared to the price to pay, however what if this happens regularly. Then to costs to ourselves, our family by spending less time with them exponentially increases. Therefore, after the third or fourth time when our manager approaches us it is ok to say no in a polite but firm way.

This however, requires a careful evaluation of the situation, a high degree of emotional intelligence as well as the consideration of the consequences of our actions for others around us. From all these different factors, we can then make an informed decision to say no to a demand, without damaging our reputations or paying a very high price for our choices.

Once we master that evaluation, saying no can even benefit us. It can make us seem more confident in the eyes of others and can prevent us from becoming the person everyone always gives their extra work to. It can help us develop a standing and clearly say what we do and don’t like. Very often therefore, it is a paradox that when we learn to say no, our reputation goes up rather than down as many of us fear.

We have to understand, saying no is an art and not easy, but it can be learned and mastered. Fundamentally however, we have to see that we always have a choice and we need to master the evaluation of the consequences for ourselves and others. Then, saying no can suddenly even become sexy and turn into something positive for us but also for others.