And I said no, no, no, no,no,no. I said no,no. Why is it so much easier this way? Maybe I'll
just sing it... Now I'm not suggesting you start singing to your colleagues, but if you
find it difficult to say no at work, then this video is for you.
Hey there and welcome back to my channel. My name is Eva and I'm a Career Coach and
Customer Success Director on a mission to help people build meaningful careers. Today's
video is about saying no. You might find it easy to say no in your daily life (and if
you don't, I suggest watching my other video on being too nice), but it's particularly
difficult at work because you still want to maintain your relationships and your reputation
of someone who's a team player. And even though we know it's really important to set boundaries
because if you stretch yourself too thinly you'll never be able to be effective, and
make sure that you meet your goals and help your team, but it doesn't make it any easier
to actually say no. So by the end of
this video, I will give you five practical tips on how you can say no in the best way,
at work, let's get to it. Tip number one, don't say no. Simple, right. But obviously
we can't be saying yes to everything so there's more to this, instead of rushing to the no,
trying to think of an alternative. Let's assume your manager assigns you a task that you don't
have time to do, because you've got a lot of other things on. Instead of saying, No,
I'm too busy, you could tell your manager. Well, I have a number of different tasks that
I'm working on this week, could we take a look at them together so that you can help
me prioritise absolutely happy to help with this task, but something else is going to
need to wait. And by the way if you say you're busy, don't get caught faffing around, make
sure you're actually busy and your manager will be very happy to help you prioritise
and choose what's most important, and make something else wait. Tip number two, keep
it light. This is particularly effective when you have to say no to something that someone
has asked that really makes you angry, like how dare they have the audacity to even ask
me that. And that definitely happens at work. I'll give you an example. So a friend of mine
had requested a three days holiday because her parents were coming into town. It was
a month out, and her manager had asked her not to go on holiday on those days, because
they had a deadline. And obviously, she was livid. But instead of becoming argumentative
and potentially damaging that relationship,
If you keep it light hearted and make everything a bit of a joke that makes your life so much
easier. So, When the manager just says, you know, you can't go on holiday on those days,
she can just say, and leave my mom, all by herself, we can't do that. So you're flipping
it around so that what that person is asking you to do is so ridiculous. You can impossibly
forfeit it, and of course you're going to take the days off, but the message is still
no. Now, how different is that to stopping your foot and storming out and saying, This
is ridiculous and I quit. I mean, you probably don't want to deal with the repercussions
of that, but he thinks something light hearted can really work in your favour. If you always
get assigned to the bad projects or the difficult projects are the difficult to count, and not
opportunities, strengthing again, you don't always need to make it this big serious conversation
you can simply say, well I can't always be getting stuck with the difficult clients or
the difficult projects can I see that slightly jokey very light hearted way still get a message
across and it means it doesn't fester and annoy you,
but it still gets the message across and doesn't damage any of your relationships,
or you could also say no, like with you inside press. Tip number three. Find out why someone
wants something, sometimes at work or in life, we just get into ourselves into the situation
where you've got yes on one side, and no on the other side, and we don't think of all
that spectrum of possibilities in between. So it's really important to understand someone's
reasoning when they ask you something before you say yes or no. For example, a client might
say to you, I need to break the contract for a month's time, but then come back on board
in January. So instead of saying, No, you can't do that and this is against our policy
and then fighting to win them back, you know, just pause and ask the question, why do you
need to do that. And it may be that they have funding coming on in January and they'll be
able to pay more, at that point. So, not asking the question is robbing yourself of the opportunity
to again, find an alternative. The same goes for when customers ask you about certain features,
they might ask, do you have this feature and can you do this with your product or service,
instead of just going through to yes or no, which cuts the conversation there, you're
missing a lot of the surrounding context. So actually find out,
you know, what would that impact how would that fit into your current processes. It may
be that you can come up with another creative solution that isn't just saying no and not
actually finding out what the underlying need is, and this goes for everything. Try to understand
the scope of a particular task, how important it is what it's going to impact before you
make a judgement on yes or no. Tip number four, say no when you mean it. Don't try to
be overly polite and offer lots of alternatives to try and sweet and that no, you don't need
that know to be aggressive, but you do need to be firm and polite. So for example, if
your colleagues keep asking you to go to the pub, and maybe the pub is not your thing.
Instead of saying, Oh, I really can't I'd love to, but I really can't because I'm really
busy, maybe next time, when what you really mean is, no, the pub isn't really my thing,
but hope you have a great time. Your colleagues don't keep asking you. Next week will come
along and then they will ask you again do you want to join us at the pub, and instead
of saying no, you keep making up another excuse, all that's gonna do is making you is make
us seem flaky, so just don't bother if something is a no and you simply have other priorities
or there's something else that you need to focus on where you just don't want to do it.
Just say, No, you don't have to give everyone an explanation or an excuse, you're entitled
to say no, particularly when is social things that are outside of work, so make sure that
you're not over covering the know to avoid it coming across too harshly. So practice
telling other people know when what you actually mean is no, you don't have to cover it up,
you don't have to make it easier, you can just say, No, that's not for me but hope you
guys have a great time. And if they still don't get the message, just give them a 10
second dance break of No. Tip number five. Be understanding. Consider
that the other person has gone maybe out on a limb to ask you for help with something,
and sometimes will know is just going to be disappointing to them. So make sure that you're
expressing when you say no, particularly if it's been difficult for someone to ask that
you do understand that the repercussions of you saying no. And the way you can soften
this is by saying, I appreciate that saying no kind of puts the ball back in your court.
And then you can also offer an alternative so offer being able to help in some small
way, so if it's a big project that you're not able to support, can you still be involved
in some brainstorming discussions or send some emails or just be involved in a small
way that can still be helpful, and still support your team, even if you have to say no, you've
got the five tips. Now, think about how many times have you said yes, when you actually
mean no, and then you stretch yourself too thinly and you're not actually able to deliver
on the things that you promised. Well you just end up doing things that you didn't want
to do and are not going to be valuable for you and not going to be valuable for the team.
Hopefully these tips have made it easier for you to say no at work, or maintain your relationships,
and I'd love to hear from you in the comments. Any other situations that you found difficult
to say no to. And we can workshop. Some ways to actually respond to those in the best possible
way. Thanks so much for watching, and best of luck, Saying no!