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Manage your Priorities and their Expectations: Just Say No

Just Say NoToday’s post, “Just Say No,” comes from my dear friend and brilliant coach/coach supervisor, Diane Clutterbuck.  Diane writes:

Meet Tom, a senior manager in the Health Service who I have been coaching through a period of transition. In a new role where he still carries much of his former responsibilities, plus new ones, Tom is having to make choices about what he can and cannot do. The choices are not about the core tasks, they are usually about other people’s expectations. Tom’s biggest problem is that he cannot just say no. He says “no” but then he starts explaining why he is saying “no”. When he does this his colleagues see it as a challenge to counter each of Tom’s reasons and wear him down until the “no” becomes, “OK then just this once I’ll……”

How do we just say no? Somehow we think it’s rude just to say “no”. Stop and think for a moment what we are doing when we say a reluctant “yes” but really mean “no”. We have been responsible and given the matter a great deal of thought and decided that we need to say “no”. Once we start explaining why we are saying “no” we are in trouble because our reasons can be challenged until we hear ourselves saying “yes”, as our hearts sink to our boots.

If we are to just say no we need to:

  • Give time to consider what we are being asked to do – try not to say yes or no to an invite in the moment. Ask for time to consider the request.
  • When you are clear that you want to say “no,” just say it – “thank you for asking me to…..but I have to say no.
  • STOP THERE. Any qualification of the “no” could lead to it becoming a reluctant “yes”.

There is a lovely piece of theory to support this approach from Transactional Analysis, the Drama Triangle. The Drama Triangle was first described by Stephen Karpman in 1968. Take a look at Karpman’s very interesting paper which uses fairy tales to illustrate the roles of rescuer, persecutor and victim we take up when we jump in to the Drama Triangle.(www.karpmandramatriangle.comFairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis.”)

When we say a reluctant “yes” we are taking up the rescuing role in the Drama Triangle and we are drawn into a game which will create a dynamic which drives us round the triangle taking up each role in turn. We emerge from the experience emotionally battered and bruised.

If we want to stay in the adult place where our “no” is accepted we just need to say “no”.

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