How To Say No … When Defaulting To Yes!

3 thoughts on “How To Say No … When Defaulting To Yes!”

  1. Hi Suarez,

    Keep up the wonderful blogging!

    The way I see it you actually say yes by making it clear when you can’t help due to time or other constraints.

    Let me elaborate on that:
    First of all you give your full attention to the person who asks you to do something. You take the person and his or her request serious. This in itself is a “yes”-attitude.

    Secondly if you would say “yes” like you mean it, but can’t deliver that’s worse than saying “no” after taking the request seriously. Transparency and honesty are the key-words. 1 bad review has a rather large effect by means of social media nowadays.

    Some last thoughts:
    On a practical level I would say to reserve some time on a daily basis to do at least 1 thing that isn’t part of your job description. In the end you don’t want to get sloppy on your targets, but do want to be a person who’s in the “yes” mode.

    1. Hi Sander! Many thanks for the kind comments and for the feedback input! Greatly appreciated all of these tips! Absolutely! Active listening and with intent is, indeed, a “Yes!” on its own already! And I surely agree with you with how awful it looks to continue moving along with that “Default to yes!” to then find out you can’t deliver and disappoint everyone. Listening is a very good start, but just as much as stating up front whether you can help or not understanding there are limitations as to how much we can all commit to. Understanding and respecting those limitations is what’s key over here. Some times it will work, some other times it won’t and people need to be ok with that.

      “Yes” mode cannot be ignored, but so can’t your daily job, since, after all, that’s the one that keeps paying the bills! 🙂 And surely agree with your tip of every day do something that’s not part of your work duties. It’s about being exposed to a refreshing new perspective that you may not be aware of, but that it could develop into something really cool and worth while!

      Thanks again for the comments and for the great feedback! Glad the post was useful! 🙂

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