Say “Yes” at Work for the Right Reasons
Many people will tell you, “In order to fight overcommitment syndrome, people have to learn how to say no.” But remember this: What will lead to more and more people accepting your “no” at face value is when you develop a reputation and build a track record for saying no at the right times, for the right reasons.
A good no, well decided at the right time, is a huge favor to everybody. It saves everybody a lot of time and trouble down the road, when yes is going to turn out to have been a mistake. People will remember.
There’s nothing quite like a no executed at the right time. No is all about opportunity cost, freeing up opportunity for good yeses: shutting down or delaying something to make room for something else.
No Makes Room to Say Yes
Every good no makes room for a better yes.
Yes should mark the beginning of a collaboration—the next steps in a working relationship. Yes should mean that a well-formed ask was made and carefully considered. Yes should mean we are about to embark on a good idea together.
But so often yes is sloppy. It’s handled haphazardly, or comes in an offhand way—“Yes, of course!”—without a full understanding of what’s even been asked.
Sometimes, yes is implied through inaction. Maybe the ask is not clear and so the yes cannot be clear. Or the yes is made to please in the short term or impress or avoid conflict. Or the yes comes after a series of mediocre or bad noes, so yes just finally seems due in the queue.
The Backlash of the Sloppy Yes
When people make sloppy yeses, they get overcommitted. When you are overcommitted, you miss out on better yeses, so the cost of every sloppy yes multiplies in opportunity cost. Plus, you commit not just your time but also resources, and often the time of other people.
It’s likely to take a while before you realize the yes was not good, and you may have wasted a bunch of time, energy, and money. And you’ve likely caused problems that must be fixed.
The sloppy yes can also leave you susceptible to errors and delays, wasted resources, and re-work, not to mention scope creep and role creep. That can happen if the ask was a good idea but unclear and not fully developed. Or if the yes was made with all the available information, but then it was poorly planned. That’s like driving in the wrong direction, with a car full of people, wasting all that time, gas, and wear and tear on the vehicle.
Sometimes you get a flat tire along the way or get into an accident; then, not only do you have to come all the way back, but you still must get wherever you should have been going in the first place.
In addition, sloppy yeses are often highly visible, so they are not great for your reputation. You can point fingers and blame others, but that won’t be good for your relationships or your reputation. It’s certainly no way to build real influence.
Set Up Every Yes for Success
Remember, every good no is there just to set up your great yeses—saying yes to collaboration, saying yes to an opportunity to add value and build a relationship.
Every yes deserves a plan for focused execution. The execution plan is the key to a great yes.
Some yeses are short and sweet, but they still deserve a plan, however short and sweet. Every yes is a commitment, and every commitment deserves to be taken seriously and honored with a good plan and focused execution.
If you have done a really good job tuning in to the ask, doing an intake memo, and framing the ask in terms of the basic elements of a proposal, and seriously considered the no gates, including an ROI analysis, then you should have a pretty good idea of what you are committing to when you say yes. Still, if you are not yet accustomed to working together with the asker—if they are not one of your regular customers—there will be plenty of details to clarify about how you are going to do business together. Don’t take the details for granted or you will likely have one small surprise after another.
Yes is the time to really pin down the commitment with a plan of action, especially for a deliverable of any scope. How do you move the conversation from yes to a plan? By asking the platinum question: “How can I help you help me help you?” In other words, what ground rules might you need to establish for working together? What will be your cadence of communication, where, when, and how? In terms of the work: Who is going to do what, where, why, when, and how? You need to agree on the sequence, timing, and ownership of all the steps.
End every conversation by clarifying who owns which next steps and scheduling your next follow-up conversation. The punch line is always the next steps. Planning is the key to successful execution. Plan the work so you can work your plan.