Page 100 - Time Management

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Learning to Say No
• Suggest a trade-off. If you explain that you’re willing to
find some other way to contribute, you’ll underscore your
goodwill. For example, if your boss suggests you do 85
something and you’re convinced that you’re the wrong
person to do it, explain your perceptions and suggest tak-
ing on another task that you know needs to be done.
• Don’t put off your decision. “Let me think it over ...” is
probably the most common way for people to postpone
an inevitable “no.” And it’s utterly unfair. Be courageous.
If you know that you cannot or will not do something, be
decisive and say it, then and there. Delaying a decision is
only justified in intricate situations.

An Exercise
Make a list of current responsibilities to which you probably
should have said no. How might hindsight have made you do
things differently? Does this suggest any resolutions for the
future? One reminder: unfortunately, there are things
you’d probably like to say
no to that, for “political” How Not to Take No
reasons, require a yes. for an Answer
Of course, the opposite problem of
Dealing with Meetings learning how to say no is getting oth-
ers to say yes.The solution is persist-
and Committees
ence.
“A meeting,” said one pun- In sales, the single most common
dit, “is an event at which reason for failure to close the deal is
the minutes are kept and that the salesperson never asks for
the business.The seller tiptoes
the hours are lost.”
around the question, never coming
The average executive
right out and asking the customer to
spends half of his or her
say yes. And, when the first response
week in meetings. Of this, is no, even those salespeople who
about six hours’ worth, bothered to ask tend to give up.
according to several stud- You need to be able to say no and
ies, is rated as totally mean it, but you may have to be per-
unnecessary. Yet, in many sistent enough to get others to say
yes.
businesses, meetings have