One of the most difficult things that I had to learn as a new IT manager was how to say no. It literally caused me emotional grief to say no when asked if I could take on a new or ad hoc task. After all, I didn’t get promoted because I couldn’t deliver results. I also like to help people, so it was particularly difficult to say no to someone when I knew that what they were asking was important to them.
I also started to notice that if I was in a meeting with the senior leaders and I said that I couldn’t do something because I either didn’t have resources available or didn’t have a budget, the senior leaders were visibly disappointed. It was at that time my boss taught me how to do what I call “say yes sideways”. He told me that it doesn’t matter what we work on, we just have to let the decision makers know the consequences of one choice versus another.
For example, let’s say that you have several new system installations going on, you are testing a new version of your primary application, and are maintaining your deployed systems. All of your people are occupied and working 45-50 hours per week. Then you are asked to work on a new project that has no known business model with half-baked revenue projections. The evaluation will take six weeks of your best engineer and two junior engineer’s time. This is one third of your manpower.
You may be tempted to say no to such a request. Instead, say “Yes, we can do that but we will have to stop work on one of our other projects. Our installations are contractual and revenue earning, so you might not want to stop work on those. Our software evaluation is required to roll out the new product feature that several customers have requested and which we have promised to deliver by the end of the month. We could extend our response time for customer requests or service interruptions, but that would negatively effect our customer service. It’s a manpower availability problem, so one option might be to borrow engineers from another group, but hiring contractors probably will not be an option due to the time it takes for them to ramp up. ”
Your response indicates that you are trying to find a solution but are also letting them know that each choice has a cost. You might be asked follow up questions about the revenue that you will lose by shifting priorities, so it is a good idea to know the revenue projections for each of the projects you are working on. Frankly, you should know this anyway.
The senior leaders attitude toward me changed once I learned this lesson. I was viewed as a valuable contributor who knew how technology supported our business goals and how what I did affected the bottom line. I was trusted as someone who was making decisions based on business rules rather than being slavishly devoted to “my” project plans.
So next time you are tempted to say no to a request, instead say “Yes, but here are the costs. What choice do you want to make?”
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Good one… one of my earlier boss’s advice don’t say i cant or no; just pause and suggest alternate/someone else.
Ramki, it looks like we were both fortunate to have a boss point us in the right direction. My career would be completely different – much more frustrating and ineffective – if people hadn’t cared enough to set me straight on a couple of things.
That’s why I’m writing this blog. I hope that I can help people who might not have someone who can help them where they work.
I love this article… I could have used these words of wisdom a couple of days ago!!!!!
Glad to hear that you liked it Kristi. I hope it helps you next time you are asked to do more than you can without dropping something else.