Have you ever looked at a task and thought “Why did I ever agree to do that?” Or, whilst swamped with work ended up taking on tasks that you just didn’t have time to do?
The reason why we do this is simple, we aren’t able to assert ourselves to effectively say no.
Why do we not say no?
Guilt
We feel guilty for saying no, however is it better to rush tasks and not do them properly, or indeed to let people down by not completing tasks when realistically you should have turned them down in the first place?
Politics
We feel it isn’t our place to say no to our manager or superiors, or we fear the consequences of being seen as a difficult employee. However we have the right to say no when tasks or workload are unreasonable, ultimately protecting our ability to do the job well and reducing things such as stress that in the long-term can harm ourselves and the organization.
Confidence
We often lack the ability to assert ourselves positively in these situations, leading to an inability to say no.
So what can we do about it?
There are many things, however all of them take practice in order to succeed.
Our five quick hints are:
1. Prepare a clear and concise to do list on a regular basis, that is clearly prioritized with an understanding of how long tasks will take to complete.
2. When asked to do a task that you have to decline, clearly state what you currently have to do, the priorities and how long these will take in order to to complete (thereby indicating that you do not have time to do the task).
3. Stop talking. Give the other person time to process what you have said. They may work out from this that you don’t have time and tell you not to worry. Alternatively, they may move other tasks to allow you time to do the requested task (you may need some additional assertiveness techniques if they are not the owner of the tasks they try to move, we will cover these in one of our blogs next week).
4. If during the silence they do not respond, summarize what you have just said and say either “given the above, what would you like me to not do to achieve the task” or “given the above, I will not be able to achieve this task in the time given”.
5. Where possible/appropriate you could consider offering an alternative such as delaying the completion, only completing part of the task or passing task(s) to colleagues who genuinely will have time to complete them (please ensure that they genuinely have time before you select this option).
But won’t it just be easier to just do it as they’ll just say do it anyway?
They might, and they may use their seniority to state that you have to do the task, however at least you have asserted yourself and can then state this if there are problems. Another technique may be to move to use the Broken Record technique in order to assert yourself in situations where you feel you are able to.
Saying No without saying no is an area explored in detail in our time management and assertiveness training courses, to find out more, contact us at www.freshlearning.eu
Fresh Learning Team
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