Saying no without being a "No person"
This question keeps coming up, with one of my ex-PMs, and in my MondayGirl session. How do you say no to people at work effectively?
Everyone has their own style, so I’ll share what works for me, but I would love to see other people add their own thoughts to this post, because depending on your style & level of confidence your mileage may vary.
Warning! One thing I’ll put out there about is the risk of saying no. If you don’t do it right, and you just say no all the time people will think of you as a no person. Then they will not come to you with questions/asks/ideas because they assume you’ll say no. Do not become this person. This is, to use a dated term, a CLM- Career Limiting Move. The purpose of this post is to give you tools where you can say no, create boundaries, without developing a reputation of being a no person.
I always like to set-up my conversations with the tone that I want to help them, but I have a few questions first so I properly understand the ask:
Seek to Understand- Before you say no- understand the ask. Why is this person asking? What is their motivation? What is their actual problem? Because often what they are asking for you already have, or can get with minor tweaks. Be curious.
Understand the timeline- People will often ask for things in a short window, but the ask is not actually as high priority as their deadline would suggest. Why do they need it so fast? Is it doable a bit later? Maybe you don’t have to say no. Maybe you can say “Happy to help, but I’ll need til X day”
Suggesting alternative solutions- Once you understand, and you know why the deadline is the deadline, try suggesting another way to solve the problem that would be easier to do. Can you trim the scope of the ask to make it easier to get done?
Ask about priority- if things are not movable, and a high priority, clarify if this ask is more important than another important thing that you are working on. Have a prioritization conversation, and make it clear that if you do this ask, the other thing will be de-prioritized*. Caution with this method, if this person is not the person who gave you your original high priority work, you’ll want to include them in this conversation. Having multiple cooks in the prioritization kitchen is going to be trouble for you.
When you have to say no, and you’ve gone through the understanding process there’s a few tips you can use to let that person down in a positive way.
If you might do it one day:
Acknowledge that this is important to them.
Talk about when you can come back to them about this item (if it’s warranted, but just bad timing) and make sure you do!
Document it in a place that they know it won’t be forgotten (like a feature request list etc)
If you’ll never do it, ever:
Acknowledge that this is important to them.
Explain why you won’t be able to do this item for them- does it go against the strategy of the product/company? Is it not as high priority as the other items that you are tackling this year? Give them context on why you’re saying no.
And of course, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. Welcome to life. This is where “disagree and commit” is important once you understand all the context. Be clear with the tradeoffs, and just dive in and get it done. You’ll live to fight another day.