Thread by @lennysan

Finding yourself having to often say no—to your manager, your CEO, your team? Worried about becoming the "no" person?

In this week's post, I share five techniques for saying no effectively. Summary in thread below 🧵
lennysnewsletter.com/p/saying-no

1/ First of all, as a leader on the team (and company), it’s actually OK to be the “no” person. It’s literally your job to create focus and stability for your team and company. I bet your leader (mostly) appreciates you for it, even if it doesn’t feel good.

2/ Still, there’s certainly a skill to saying no, especially when you have to do it often.

Whenever I reflect on a question like this, I flip the script and imagine I’m the other person. As a manager, how would I want my report to deal with my many brilliant ideas I suggest?

3/ Me, I’d want them to:

° Truly listen
° Assume I know what I’m talking about
° Come at it with an attitude of “How could we do this, if we wanted to?” vs. shutting it down
° Be direct and honest about where they see gaps
° Be open-minded to big, radical, scary ideas

4/ Basically, to treat me like an adult.

At the same time, your team has limited resources, and you have limited brain capacity to evaluate every idea. So you’ll be saying no often. It’s important to get good at it.

5/ My advice to you for saying no effectively is to follow this three-step process:

Step 1: Listen, ask questions
Step 2: Form your own point of view
Step 3: Respond constructively

6/ I'll skip over steps 1 and 2 in this thread and jump straight to step 3.

Here are five phrases you can use to say no, effectively.

7/ Option 1: “Yes, but here’s what’ll need to change. Should we move forward?”

Go this route if (1) you actually believe this idea should happen immediately or (2) more to our point, you don’t love the idea and instead want to communicate how painful it’ll be to make it happen.

8/ Option 2: “Yes, but not right now because we should stay focused on X because of XYZ. Do you agree?”

Go this route if you like the idea but it's not worth disrupting work in-flight. The key is to remind your manager of *why* your team is focused on something else right now.

9/ Option 3: “No, but how about we do XYZ instead, which achieves a similar outcome?”

Your manager may have identified a big opportunity but may not have nailed the best way to tackle it. Look for a simpler and even more impactful solution to the opportunity your manager found.

10/ Option 4: “No, but there’s something there. Let’s explore it further. Here’s what I suggest as a next step…”

Use this path sparingly, because it’s the easy way out. Many ideas will be worth exploring, but you have limited time to explore every interesting idea.

11/ Option 5: “No, because it’s a bad idea for reasons XYZ. Do you agree?”

Finally, there are ideas that are just plain bad. They should never be done, and it’s your job to cut them off quickly.

12/ For much more detail on how to execute each of these paths, don't miss the full post lennysnewsletter.com/p/saying-no