Please Don’t Ask Me to Say Yes

Earlier this year, a friend of a friend wanted career advice to transition from a smaller company to a larger one. It was the first time we had ever connected, and I was happy to allow her “to pick my brain” and provide any type of coaching or support she needed. This friend’s friend thanked me for my time and felt she had gotten a lot of valuable advice. Several weeks later, she emailed me to say she had moved onto a great company of her choice and was very thankful. She also had a request.

I quickly wrote back a congratulatory note and didn’t respond to the request.

She wrote back immediately, “So will you talk to my friend?”

I stared at the email, responded to some other emails, clicked on to another Zoom meeting, came back, and the email was still patiently waiting there for me.

Then I did something very hard, something I usually have a really hard time doing. I said no.

She didn’t respond to that email, which led me to start second-guessing my decision. Did I offend her? Was she upset with me? Should I have just said yes instead of saying no?

Saying no is something I have never been good at. More than being a people pleaser, I want to be helpful as I was raised to be helpful, to be accommodating, and to be hospitable. However, I am finding that more and more, there are just not enough hours in the day to say yes.

This is especially challenging at work. For instance, sometimes you have no other choice than saying yes when you are voluntold to do things that you never actually volunteered to do and somehow are now responsible for doing.

For each time I had said yes to something at work when I had wanted to say no, I have reframed the situation for myself. I realized that saying yes multiple times gave me the credibility to say no or if I was saying no, to offer a rationale or a recommendation for the no.

For example, I could offer the following explanation as I say no: "I planned our last two team offsites, and someone else should get that opportunity. I led the initiative last time, and here’s what we learned and so we should put this on pause for now. I don’t have the bandwidth to take on this project right now; would you like me to prioritize this request and stop the other project you had asked me to work on?"

In life outside of Zoom work calls and emails, I am continuing to embrace the power of saying no and utilizing no with a rationale and recommendation. If I could revise my initial response to that friend of the friend, I would still say no, and I would recommend her to share the valuable insights she got from our conversation, directly with her friend.

Earlier this summer, when I was asked if I could join a panel discussion for a conference, I said no, and recommended someone else for the opportunity. When someone on LinkedIn asked if I could spend 30 minutes coaching them on becoming a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practitioner, I said no and sent them articles I had written, which I thought could be helpful. Also, when my son asked me if he could have dessert before his bedtime, I didn’t just say no; I shouted NO and instead handed him a banana. Yes, I am embracing the power of no.

So when I do say yes, I know I can be helpful, I know I can be there, I know I can stick to my yes, and later not have to turn that yes into a no. If there was ever a time to prioritize and learn how to say no, maybe this is one of the many gifts of the pandemic.

So please don’t ask me to say yes. Please let me say no. And let’s, please help each other say no.