Empowering “no” to choose “yes”
Empowering “no” is one of the core topics in our new group coaching programme starting on 5 May 2021 for aspiring leaders in higher education marketing and communications. This is an 8-week programme and starts from as little as £599 to join.
If there’s one thing I spend more time than anything else supporting people with - as coach and as content strategist - it’s developing the power to say no.
“I need to start saying no more, but…” are all too common words that I hear from my clients.
Powerfully being able to say no to other people is a trait of successful leaders. And as a content, communications or marketing professional, you can only create the space to do your best work, when you apply some boundaries and filters to the multiple requests that come your way.
Without fail, when I dig into why projects are stalling or creative ideas not progressing, it’s almost always because somewhere along the line the failure to say no to something else has got in the way.
Even more fascinating are the value judgements that we might hold around the act of saying no. Some people hold their capacity to say no to other people as a badge of honour. Others hold pride in their sense of duty, connection, and eagerness to please that comes from saying yes.
But despite our value judgements, saying yes and saying no are both choices of equal weight, merit and power. And yet often saying no to other people has more fear attached to it than saying yes.
Logically this makes no sense. But we humans rarely make logical sense in how we relate to the choices we make. So, let’s embrace our humanity and recognise that logic will probably take a back seat, and that’s okay.
But we might still want to develop the muscle of saying no more often, so how might we do that?
Step 1: Understand the three modes of making a choice
When we’re given the opportunity to make a choice - such as saying no to something - there are typically three ways in which we’re likely to respond:
Choose and empower our choice
Choose and disempower our choice
Don’t choose at all
The first mode - choose and empower - is inherently the most fulfilling state and the one that has momentum and direction. We make a choice and then we act in integrity with - and fulfilment of - that choice. Writing this blog post is an act of me choosing and empowering. I chose to write it, and I got straight to work in writing it.
The second mode - choose and disempower - sneaks in through many guises. We might choose, but then let life’s circumstances get in the way of acting on that choice. We might kick it down the road. We might set conditions around it (“I’ll do it when…”, “I’ll do it after…”). My many attempts at adopting a healthier relationship with food and shedding a few pounds is an example of me choosing and disempowering. “I’ll start the new diet on Monday” is a classic example of choosing and disempowering our choice. How many of us actually then decide to start next Monday… then the next… then the next?
The third mode - don’t choose at all - is inherently disempowering. In this state all of our energy goes towards the act of not choosing (deflecting, over-thinking, processing, avoiding), instead of just choosing something, anything. The belief that “I don’t have a choice in this matter” is also a flavour of this third state. “I don’t have a choice” is more often than not a story that we tell ourselves to protect ourselves from the discomfort of saying no, but it’s rarely the truth no matter how real it might seem.
So when we fail to say no to the thing that we want to say no to, we hold ourselves in modes 2 or 3. Both modes are overwhelmingly disempowering to us.
Start with taking a look for yourself: where in your life, your role or your projects at work are you held in modes 1, 2 or 3?
Step 2: Recognise your “consequence stories”
One of the automatic behaviours that will often hold us in modes 2 and 3 is what I refer to as “consequence stories”.
Consequence stories are the potential outcomes that we play out in our minds that might happen in response to any given choice. Here are some examples of common consequence stories that we tell ourselves:
If I say no this time, they’ll never ask me again
If I say no, I’ll get in trouble
If I say no, they’ll just bypass me and go to my boss and I’ll end up having to do it anyway
If I say no, they’ll hate me
If I say no, they’ll think I’m weak or incapable
If I say no, I won’t get that promotion
If I say no, I might have made the wrong choice.
Any of these sound familiar?
What do they all have in common?
Until they actually happen (which can only occur after a choice has been empowered) then they are all fictional stories.
Consequence stories are thus by their very nature fictional figments of our imagination. Even if evidence of “it happened before” is in your space, it’s still fiction to assume that it will happen again until it actually becomes fact. And without choosing and empowering, you won’t know it to be a fact.
And if all of the consequence stories are fictions, then we get to choose which fiction to go with, as they are all as equally likely and unlikely as the next. When we recognise that, we can diminish the power that consequence stories have over us in holding us still or stuck in saying “yes”.
Step 3: Identify the cost of not saying no
Our consequence stories will often have us look to what the consequence of saying no might be. I invite you to instead take a look at what the cost (or consequence) of not saying no is.
Another way of exploring this is to ask: “What becomes impossible in my life if I don’t say no to this?”
So the cost might be that you don’t get to work on that project that you know is really important, and a high priority. Or the cost might be your health and wellbeing. Or time with your family. Or doing something really creative. Or… or… or…
And the cost might even be that everyone else around you might also think that they can’t or mustn’t say no to things. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my own leadership, is that leaders need to be the clearing - leading by example - in saying no. If you as a leader don’t set an example of it being okay to say no, then your team is unlikely to feel empowered to say no too.
Step 4: Declare what you are really committed to
When you’ve explored what becomes impossible in your life if you don’t say no, you’ve also revealed what you’re not going to be able to say yes to.
Here’s when you check that against the things that are really important to you. And to do that, you look to your higher level commitments.
What are you actually really committed to in your life and in your role?
If you notice that you’re really committed to making changes, creativity and growth, saying yes to the thing over and over that holds you doing the same things the same way is actually out of integrity with your commitments.
This is where having a true sense of clarity of your own purpose - your “why” for doing what you do in life - really comes into its own.
Often we can only confidently and instinctively empower “no”, when we have clarity and commitment to what we’re actually saying “yes” to instead.
A while ago one of my coaching clients came to me with a clear goal to have greater work-life balance. They noticed that work was taking over their life. “So, when you get that balance in place, how do you want to use your new found freedom?” I asked. They couldn’t answer. And therein was the trap that would always have them say yes to the work. Without clarity of commitment outside of work, and a sense of self so closely tied to professional fulfilment, they would forever stay stuck in 90-hour work weeks. The answer to empower “no” was nothing to do with relationships at work or how to say no, and everything to do with knowing what they were committed to doing with the time created by saying no. In other words, knowing why you’re saying no is more important than knowing how to say no.
So, clarity of what you’re really committed to will fuel your ability to empower saying no to the things that are in the way of those commitments.
Step 5: What would saying no make space for? (Or what are you saying yes to?)
So the moral of this story is that in order to empower no, we need clarity in what we’re saying yes to instead. So, if we flip it all on its head you might instead:
Declare what you’re committed to
Create a list of all the things that you want to say yes to that empower your commitments
Then, and only then, take a look at what you need to start saying no to in order to create that empowered space.
Want more support in whatever is in your way?
My work as a coach is all about empowering people and teams to get out of their own way in order to move towards their declared goals. Empowering “no” to choose “yes” is just a small part of that work. If you would like more support in developing your leadership, then the coaching services that we offer may be worthy of a conversation.