Hear an interview with BILL
JENSEN at the Great Work
Podcast.How to Say No When You Can’t Say No (Part 1)
For most of us, there are two groups of people to whom it is
easiest to say No. Those closest to us—spouses and kids—and those
distant from us—hello, evening telemarketers. It’s much harder to
say No to everyone else. Which, unfortunately, tends to be
everyone we work with. That difficulty is exacerbated by most
corporate cultures, where the default answer is “Yes” or, at the
bare minimum, “Probably.”
Bill “Mr. Simplicity” Jensen taught me
that the secret to saying No was to shift the
focus and learn how to say Yes more
slowly. What gets us into trouble is how
quickly we commit, without fully
understanding what we’re getting
ourselves into or even why we’re being asked.
Saying Yes more slowly means being willing to stay curious
before committing. Which means asking more questions:
Why are you asking me?
Whom else have you asked?
When you say this is urgent, what do you mean?
According to what standard does this need to be completed? By
when?