Madeleine Morgan from Growu writes:
I often find that my clients assume that the answer to a request or suggestion will be a polite or aggressive ‘no’. That assumption often stops them from making requests of friends, colleagues, family members, partners, clients, prospects and suppliers out of a fear that they’ll be rejected.
So they don’t, for example:
- Ask for the sale
- Put forward an innovative idea
- Ask someone to go on a date
- Send a connection request on social media
In doing that, they may have denied someone a welcome opportunity to say ‘yes’.
On the other side of the coin, many of my clients will also judge someone for asking something of them that they don’t want to give - mainly because they feel awkward about saying ‘no’. That awkwardness can be so strong that they grudgingly or reluctantly say ‘yes’ when they mean ‘no’ out of fear of seeming rude, unhelpful or incapable. In doing that they may not only take on a bigger burden than they really need to but also deny the requester the opportunity to seek a more willing person.
How can even the most intuitive and sensitive of us know exactly what someone’s response will be unless we ask? Second guessing can make life far more complicated than it need be.
Recently, one of my clients was asked by a prospect if he would be willing to barter his accountancy skills in exchange for her graphic design skills. She put forward her request very tentatively. She wasn’t sure if it was an appropriate suggestion. She was worried that he might be offended.
He was able to reply, ‘It’s okay for you to ask because, in my model of the world, you have a right to ask and I have a right to refuse… and vice versa.’
There may be some situations where a strong command and control structure is appropriate and so this model wouldn’t fit but, for most interactions, wouldn’t life be much simpler if we dealt with each other on those terms?
With the emotion and fear out of the way, we can concentrate on confidently, skilfully and creatively getting to ‘yes’, such as:
- ‘Teaching a person to fish rather than giving them a fish’
- Making better quality business and personal cases for getting what we want
- Finding win-win outcomes
- Being clear about where our boundaries are
Where in your work and personal life do you need to be saying ‘no’ more assertively?
Where do you need to be requesting more?
____________________________________________