How To Say ‘No’

Co-Authors: Julie Johnson and Jane Mobille

A few years ago I coached the IT Director at a major retailer. He was particularly frustrated with his counterpart in Operations. The two had been collaborating on an innovative new barcode project.

My coachee had agreed to take charge of a part of the project that normally fell under the responsibility of his colleague. As he told me, “I am responsible for coding, not hardware. That said, if we don’t have the right hardware, then the project will fail.”

He frowned. “My colleague told me that his team doesn’t have expertise in this particular hardware. Well neither does my team. So why did I say ‘yes’ when he asked me to handle it?!”

My response was, “I don’t know, why did you?”

Why is it so hard for so many people to say ‘no’? This is a theme that comes up over and over again in my conversations with coachees. Those with this challenge experience one or more of the following:

• They enjoy doing people favors.
• They enjoy ‘helping’ others and think they are doing so by taking on extra work.
• Tasks pile up, and they never seem to get ‘on top of things’.
• They often deliver top quality, which attracts more requests.
• Others will ask as much as they can get from the person – not giving attention to potential overload, exhaustion, or burnout.
• By continuing to say ‘yes’ and delivering great work, they establish an expectation by others, and a cycle which repeats itself over and over.
• They eventually get resentful, feeling like others don’t appreciate their hard work nor ‘pay back the favor’.

Being able and willing to say ‘no’ is SO important! With too many things on one’s plate, important priorities can get put aside in favor of helping others with less essential tasks, or with things that are not part of one’s job.

In other words, every time your coachee says ‘yes’ to something, they are saying ‘no’ to something else (opportunity cost here).

When I asked this IT Director to articulate what he was saying ‘no’ to, by saying ‘yes’ to his colleague, he didn’t have a clear answer.

It is critical that we help our coachees get very clear on what will not happen if they say ‘yes’ to something. Often, by having that answer top of mind, making the decision to say ‘no’ becomes a lot easier.

The next step is to brainstorm on how to say ‘no’. Here is a collection of possible responses coming from my many conversations on this topic:

• “I’m not able to help you out this time, but how about asking John? This is right up his alley, and I think he has some bandwidth right now.”
• ”I can’t help you out this time, but who else could you ask?”
• “I’ve got a top priority project running that is taking up all of my spare time.”
• “Let me ask you a few questions about this.” – and then shift into a coaching approach, helping the person figure out how to get the task done successfully without you.
• “Tell me more – how high of a priority is this?” – and then you might find out that it is not high priority.
• “I could help you out on this in about four weeks. Would that work?”
• “Taking this on would consume the next 3-4 weekends. I can’t do that to the family right now.”
• “If I took this on, it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to deliver on XYZ project, which would have a huge negative impact on the business right now.”
• “I can’t this time, but I’d be happy to have a few short conversations to support you in getting it done.”

There are several themes in these examples:

• You don’t have to just say no – focus on the solution by helping them figure out alternative ways for getting the task done.
• Sharing the impact that taking on the task would have on you or the organization can help them realize they should look elsewhere.
• Having a short coaching conversation can help them think of other options. And, coaching them through the task might be just enough for them to do it themselves.
• Getting clear on the priority level of the task is important. Maybe you should take it on!
• Offering some background support without getting too involved might be just what they need.
• Offering to help out at a later time when you do have space for it can often result in them looking elsewhere for help.

After our brainstorming on the how to say ‘no’, my coachee said that if he had it to do over again, he would have shifted to a coaching posture and asked questions to help the Operations Director think of his own options for solving the hardware issue.

We cannot remind our coachees often enough that when they say ‘yes’ to one thing, they are saying ‘no’ to something else. We can help them get curious upfront about what is at stake (or not) if they say ‘yes’. This can give them the courage to stand up tall when the right choice is to say: “No!”

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