Learning to say ‘no’ is good for business
Boundaries need to be part of the company culture
to company policy. Boundaries need to be part of the company culture.
“As an employer you need to give people permission to say what they think – and to say no when necessary.
“One of the things I mention to employers is that in terms of saying no there needs to be three things in place. Firstly, there needs to be company policy. This is especially in terms of the new Health and Safety Act about managing stress. The policy should be that it’s okay to say no in a reasonable fashion and the company would like that no expressed in a particular way.
“The second thing is that the team itself needs to have a culture where ‘no’ is not a personal affront. The word needs to be part of an every day of people being autonomous and authentic within their workplace.
“It needs to be known that if I say no, it’s actually okay. It doesn’t mean that I’m being angry or mean. It’s not that I’m inflexible or selfish. But at the same time, I also need to give a reason for my ‘no’ within the context of the workplace.”
Knight says it’s important to note that most people only say no when they’re angry. “So their no sounds angry, because they’re angry and therefore it sounds unreasonable when they finally do it.
“But what I’m saying is it’s actually possible to say no if there is a team culture that is strengthened and developed around yes and no.
“This means people protecting each other’s territory as well – so for example hopefully a person will think: ‘I’m not going to take advantage of the administration person by asking them to do something that I know is my job’.”
Knight says if there is not a culture of being able to say “no”, employees will be likely to feel that if they do say no they will be regarded as being difficult, angry and even lazy.
“There is pay-off for people who don’t say no — maybe they feel that they’re working harder or are a more valuable employee than anyone else because they’re taking on others’ work.”
However, she says: “We know from research that our brains have nothing for us when we’re over-tired, underfed and bored. So by saying no and taking meaningful breaks, we are hopefully feeding our body, giving our brain the food it needs, so we can do our jobs effectively. Taking on other’s jobs does not serve.”
The third requirement besides policy and team culture is individual skills. “It’s a good idea for individual employees to script ways of saying no. It is much easier to remember a script than it is to go to the part of your brain that has to make up a boundary, work out why you’re allowed to change your emotional thought, translate that to a way of doing that and then use words to communicate that. That’s a much more complicated process than a scripting of an acceptable ‘ no’.”
She says there needs to be a way of saying: “Within my job, my role is to … in my opinion, doing that for you would take me out of that role. If I have time, I’ll come back to you and see if I can help.”
She says the key to this is that it’s work related, it’s not personal. “You’re sticking to your work task, you’re working within your job description but you’re also being caring of your colleague.”
Knight says those people who are constantly running around trying to help other people are actually bad for business – “they’re not an asset to the company”.
They’re possibly making their colleagues feel incompetent, and their fellow workers become complacent. Also, Knight says, the helpers often become the resentful voice in the team because they feel hard done by and exhausted.