Why Saying No Feels So Hard

A friend and I were chatting the other week and we both realized we have the same problem. We both say yes too much and maybe you do too. So that got me thinking, why does this happen and what can we do about it? Hey, I'm Shane Leeling.

Welcome to Education Leaders, the chat-topping international podcast for leaders in schools around the world. I'm an author, an organizational coach, and in this show, I bring you the practical ideas and honest conversations that are going to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is supported by CC and the International Curriculum Association. Stay tuned to learn more.

So this conversation actually came out of a conversation I was having with a brilliant friend of mine and great educator the other week and we were both talking about that classic thing of we've both got so much on at the minute and when we started exploring it we both realized we had the exact same challenge that we'd said yes far too much. I don't know about you but I've had a habit of saying yes too much and it's something that even though both of us in this conversation were experienced leaders, we still haven't been able to fully break that habit. Now I want to be straight with you before we go into the full episode because this is not an episode to say stop saying yes because actually sometimes we just have to say yes and sometimes we have to say yes even though it's going to be hard. So like an example that I'm thinking is when I was writing my book Change Starts Here with the brilliant Efra Amlana, we decided to write this book.

We were both incredibly busy leading our own organizations and leading young organizations too and we could have easily just gone you know what no we've got a lot on at the minute so no or not right now and actually we pushed through it was pretty brutal we were doing all nighters we were exhausted we were writing a lot and then going through the publishing process also exhausting but would I change that now no would I take that back no way because it was important because there was a great relationship there there were too many things that have come from that that was so important that I wouldn't change that and if I'd have said no in that situation that wouldn't have happened right. So this is definitely not an episode I want to totally caveat that that sometimes we say yes and these great things happen this episode is not really about saying yes or saying no but it's about how often we might say yes and how we might do it automatically and how to recognize those automatic patterns of saying yes that might actually help free us up. So when I walked away from that conversation with my friends that I mentioned earlier on I ended up thinking what is it that keeps making us say yes I've done a lot of work on this on the past classic leadership work where you try to even say the mantra you know don't say yes so much this year it's going to be the year where I say no a little bit more often I think that's probably my new year's resolution last year so I want this episode to be a bit of an exploration it's not the usual episode where I'm sharing something that I feel like I've mastered and I've really feel like other people have mastered that I've supported and then I'm sharing the techniques with you instead I've done this a little bit different I've gone digging I've gone looking to some of my favorite people in the space to see what they have to say about this and today I'm going to share with you a little bit of the synthesis that I found in the hope that it will help you but it's also going to help me this is a bit of a shared journey we're going on so are you ready let's go for it so firstly I want to push past an assumption that the reason you would say yes in your situation because you're not psychologically safe I could have done a whole episode and I was thinking a bit about those times where you just don't feel safe to say no and psychological safety can be a huge factor in that and you might work in an organization where you don't feel psychologically safe to say no so that is definitely a thing but I'm more interested in this episode with just the habit of saying yes even with people who we feel we trust who we feel we have a great working relationship but there's something embedded in us that makes us say yes that's what I want to focus on and here's what I've worked out partly through reflection partly through digging I think there are four reasons we say yes so first we want to be liked that's just human nature right we want to be liked and the warm response in a moment is to say yes right it feels warm it feels nice it feels kind we say yes saying no feels cold not friendly not the kind of behavior you want a friend to kind of engage in the no friend this is a yes it's warm it's friendly we want to be liked two I think it's because we want to be also respected as being capable so if we say no we might worry that we're saying no to our head and the head then goes you know they're not really up to the job when actually it's nothing to do with being up to the job it's being realistic about what we've gone on at the time but I think capability comes into it we want to say yes because then we're seen as capable we can do it we even use that term right I can do person we all want to be that person third and this is an interesting one because it's so real is that we want to be asked again it is that classic thing that happens when you say yes this time then you might be asked to do that really cool project that really important thing that you want to be asked if you're a person who says no then in the future you might not be asked because you're not seen as the person who will say yes so you say yes to protect future you to allow you into those opportunities and I think there's a fourth reason which I've been reflecting on I think is really interesting I think we also use yes as a currency you might have done this I'm going to say yes now because I might have an ask later the idea of reciprocity right I've said yes to you I've done something for you I'm saving this up because later I might have something that I need to ask of you so I should say yes now because it's going to be extra currency in my bank for when I need something for myself now there's two pieces of work that have really helped me when putting together this episode I actually went back to a book that is a fair few years old now by someone who I've mentioned on the show many times Adam Grant I love a lot of his work now this is one of his books from a good while ago and I couldn't even find it on my bookshelf and I know why it's because it's one of those books that I've given away so I've already just reordered myself a copy I've got some notes in front of me though here from when I did some work on this a while ago this is the book called give and take and in it there's a chapter called the art of motivation maintenance I wrote notes on this because I did some PD on it because I think this is really important because Adam Grant he talks about how generous people the ones that he would call givers they can either burn out completely or they can thrive depending on whether they're strategic about it this is the interesting thing because he says the ones who burn out are what he calls selfless givers you're just giving giving giving without any limits and the ones he says thrive he calls otherish givers now they are still generous very generous but they keep their own interests just in their rearview mirror right because they know that that's how they're going to be able to give more for longer they know it's sustainable and that reframe between the selfless givers and otherish givers well I think that's been really useful to me because if you're reframing in that way your point is not to be less helpful right but it's to be helpful for longer and on the things that matter this is a very useful reframe can you see when you're starting to think about should I say yes should I say no in a specific situation the second bit of reading I've been doing and this one was a bit new to me again I've got some articles in front of me there's a researcher called Sunita Sa she's a professor at Cornell's Johnson School of Management she was a physician and now she's an organizational psychologist and I heard about her funnily enough through Adam Grant because last year she wrote a book called Defy and it's all about why it's hard to say no it's literally the perfect book for this episode and I've ordered it straight away Adam Grant's endorsed this book and it's just been one on my list and in it it's really interesting because one of her points since she's talked about this a lot online is that compliance is something that we're trained into since childhood so saying yes is rewarded you know that saying no no well that's selfish that's rude and she goes a bit further than that she even talks about how that when we comply our brain releases dopamine as well we're getting a hit of pleasure from going along and when we say no we're not getting that dopamine response and so the muscle training of saying no just gets weak doesn't it because we're not getting that response and over time yes saying yes that pathway gets stronger stronger the more we do it the more easier and the more automatic it is to do and when I was just reading that I just thought ah because this makes so much sense now I've got a lot of coaching experience I've been thinking about leadership for a good while even with all of that time to think all of that reflection that no pathway still isn't developed fully and it's interesting to know that that's not a weakness saying yes to things isn't a weakness but it's a trained response and you know what that gets me thinking how do you train yourself out of it this episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association the ICA have been around for 30 years now championing quality unlocking potential and improving learning in international schools and what I really love is that right at their core is the model for improving learning this is a model focused on the learning experience and they have got tons of great curriculum materials pd resources and even an accreditation pathway for schools just like yours if you're interested head to internationalcurriculum.com tell me if this sounds familiar your board asks for a school-wide report on academic achievement and you've got 24 hours to deliver it so you start digging but elementary data well that is on one system middle school is on another high school data somewhere else and then there's exam boards on top of that well by the time you've tracked down the 10 to 15 places your data lives there is no time left for actual analysis but the thing is that status quo is not normal it is just what we've gotten used to and the good news is cc changes that cc brings every part of your school into one simple platform so you can spend less time compiling reports and more time leading if that sounds familiar you can check out cc.org or s-i-s-i.org so before we look at how we might work on this a little i just want to

look deeply on the costs because you might be going okay yeah i kind of get the cost i say yes too much but in the end it just doesn't feel that important to you actually i think there are huge costs to this so let's look at a few first there's a cost to your team if you're saying yes too much and you manage people then inevitably you're going to not be able to carry all those things and who's going to have to carry it because you said yes it's going to be your team so they end up picking up the slack the team end up paying for that yes that you've said so that's one massive cost and can burn through your trust very quickly but it can also just burn out your team as well so there's a cost to your team keep that in mind the second one is actually the cost with the person who you're saying yes to let's say it's your head teacher and you're saying yes to the head or the person you report to actually there can be a cost in that relationship because the more you keep saying yes the less they fully understand about your situation and the less they learn about you they're just kind of asking and you keep saying yes and that's what happens they don't understand what's working they don't understand your workload your patterns and your yes starts to not mean anything specific your head literally isn't getting data on your work process when you say no you're inviting a conversation about how you work and they're getting a much better insight into your working practice which is going to help you in the future so there's a damage that can be done there in saying yes to with the person you report to there's another area that sa wrote about that i think is really interesting and this is this myth about blame a lot of the time we'll say yes okay yeah i'll do that even if you disagree even if you think it's wrong and you go it was your decision i just did what you said and you think you've got an out because they asked you to do it even if you think it's the wrong thing to do or it's not going to work so you say well i did it but um that was because you asked me to you can think this puts you in a strong position because it protects you in fact as a leader it puts you in a weaker position because this is not how leaders operate leaders need to have a view leaders should have a view and that is your responsibility to show that so you just defaulting to them and saying okay yep you said it if it works or not it's on you is not leadership and you're not going to be recognized as a leader it's not going to help you in your growth and it's certainly not going to help you in your visibility so it's a bit of a myth that that's going to help you in that situation okay so let's think about the reframe then how do we convince ourselves into saying yes a little less often or insane no with something else well we need a reframe and the first thing is to remember that when you push back this isn't necessarily just refusal but it's actually giving that person more information so when your boss gives you something to do they probably don't know everything that's on your plate right so they're making an ask you saying okay thank you for the ask here's what's currently on my plate using this as an opportunity to talk you through of what i'm currently doing and here's where this may or may not fit in and then going from there gives them extra information to then make a better decision right you're not having to refuse you're just giving them more information to make a good decision on whether this will work when you actually withhold that information that's not loyalty to them you're not saying yes and being loyal actually it's really unhelpful isn't it it's unhelpful to not give them the full picture because then when things don't go right you've not given them the information that they could have used to make a good decision so you've got to kind of take that reframe from i'm going to be loyal to you and just say yes to i'm actually going to be really helpful to you and give you the information you need to make sure you're making a good decision here and when you do that the conversation really lands differently because you are not now creating tension you are giving information it's a helpful give rather than a refusal so how do we do this okay well i love to put things in steps so here are four steps that you might follow to respond with a trade-off response so instead of saying yes straight away you respond with a trade-off response so here we go this is how we do it so step one is you need to acknowledge the priority you need to signal to them i see why this is important i understand maybe that's by recasting it back to them and this is what i'm hearing this is why it's important to you you need to make that clear because this then signals that you are on the same team second you need to make your current load really visible so right now i'm focused on these three things and three weeks ago you asked me to focus on this you're going to give them the information of what is on your plate including what they've had a part in that too your boss is probably not going to remember all of this stuff you in this step are going to refresh their memory as to what is currently on then third you're going to name the trade-off you're going to present to them reality okay if i take this thing on a estimate is going to take this amount of time given these other priorities i think something will have to drop either this new thing has to wait all these other things right so you're going to label that reality you're not refusing you're just saying this is the reality of my work at the minute let's just look at this and then fourth you're going to say what would you suggest i prioritize you're going to hand that responsibility back there the decision maker here what would you like me to prioritize or would you like me to suggest how i prioritize this if you want to take it on yourself so you either give it to them what would you like me to prioritize or how would you like me to prioritize this and you in this conversation therefore giving them enough information to help them do their job well and make a decision so i'll give you an example a good few years ago this happened to me when i was working in a school and i was in a project where my leader had actually asked me before to set up this new teaching and learning program and to bring in a vendor to help with that and we had a policy you might have a similar one in your organization where you have to compare three different vendors kind of to get a fair proposal so it was a kind of a big thing to do i had a lot of meetings a lot of proposal writing is that this was the day before i could have even got ai to do it as well right so it was a decent chunk of work and this was something that we had to turn around quite quick because we were getting it ready for the next academic year to put it as a priority as that was going on and as i just started that also the report cycle had started and teachers were writing their reports and then on my desk literally one day literally lasted a pile of 100 reports written by teachers for me to go through check and get feedback on and so i went to my leader at the time and i didn't use those four steps because i've just kind of put those together but i kind of did it in a rough way where i did actually say to them hey you just put these on my desk i would say this is going to take me you know quite a few hours to do on top of my teaching at the time and i've got this other work that you asked me to do that is due was actually due in two weeks time i think either that piece of work has to pause or or i won't be able to do these reports and i basically kind of put it to them like you know what is the decision here that we need to make and that leader at the time said ah shane you're totally right let me take those reports off and he then assigned them to someone else who had more capacity and i continued with this there was not even like a question it didn't feel awkward in the end and he was happy i was happy because the jobs were all getting done and me giving him that extra information and reminding him of what i was currently doing was very helpful in that situation you know what's really powerful about this whole approach and this whole strategy is that it's very empowering for both of you because you're giving them extra information to do something with right you're not saying no you're saying here's context what do we do about that and in reality in most situations stuff will happen just like i said with my boss before where they'll say oh i hadn't thought about that you're totally right let me pack this or let me get someone else to do it or they might say hmm okay yeah let's pause it and do something later for example they might put a time delay now occasionally they might say actually this is the priority this new thing is the priority and that other thing that you've started has to drop now because we reassess the priorities in which case you've had the conversation about it so that conversation whatever the outcome was a useful conversation to have and look i want to be honest about this because it doesn't always work back during covid i was in a position and we had a lot of work on and a lot of big projects i was involved in a very big project at the time in bringing some pd to a load of schools in that time and generating some resources and there was also a school that was having a bit of a challenge in time and my boss at the time said shane i need you to go to school spend some time with them to help them with what they were struggling with and i did say well i've got this big project on that was on our priorities and in that moment they said yep you have got that project and that is still important i need you to go can you fit them both in like even take some time while you're at the school to continue some of this project like we knew they were both important we had a capacity issue and in that moment i just had to lean into both and sometimes you just have to increase your workload a bit sometimes this is not about saying i'm not willing to work extra sometimes you go okay i can see the importance of both of these things you know in my situation one was developing resources to help teach us through this crisis another one was a school that had an acute need both had to be done i didn't have much wiggle room i did delegate a little bit to my team and that kind of helped a little bit in this situation but sometimes you're going to give that context and the answer is going to be like in this particular moment we just have to do it and i think that's okay as long as that's not the norm right like i think we've all accepted just putting in that extra bit of time that extra bit of effort sometimes when things get tough we do that a lot in education this is where you've got to hold that nuance and hold that ability to say this is not a hard and fast rule that every ask i get something else has to be taken away it's a general rule that you're going to look into and you're going to try break that yes response and yet sometimes you're going to still have to do both so i just wanted to also make that clear and give that little example because there's nuance here as always we talk about on this podcast with nuance that i think is useful so here's a summary what we've been saying in this episode so when you are saying yes to most things it's probably because of a couple of things happening in your head one you want to be liked two you want to be respected three you want to be asked again and four you want to gain that currency so you can make an ask in the future one of those four things is probably happening and they are all very good instincts but they're instincts that drive us to saying yes and you know as sunita sa talks about we've been trained into that since childhood we're literally programmed to do that so breaking that feels really hard so what do you do about it well the moves are very simple one we acknowledge the priority then you make the current load visible then you name the trade-off and then you hand the decision back they are the same four steps that i'm trying to use you know with mixed results but i'm trying to so i want you to try it this week pick something small when it comes up put those four steps up somewhere and see if you can use them and then let me know how did it go i'm going to have a go-to i'm going to share online like if you follow me on linkedin you'll know i'm quite active there or blue sky instagram wherever you hang out send me a message let me know how you're getting on i'd love to hear with the promise that i'm going to do exactly the same see if this reframing helps a little bit and if you want to go deeper into these kind of things these kind of strategies this is the exact kind of stuff we explore and we go deep on in my education leaders intensive which is a 10-week online program where we go really deep into practical levers that are gonna allow you to untap your potential by mastering a few core skills like some of the ones we talk about on this podcast if you're interested in that go to shaneleaning.com forward slash intensive there's a link in the show notes too but you don't need a program to help you with this one step i want you to start today and if you think this is useful then please get in touch i've got a next cohort starting in september places are already filling so please get in touch if you're interested in that education leaders is hosted by me shane leaning thanks to the show editor pete mcgill production assistant by scalaro sturman and the original music by gmail silver and thank you so so much for tuning in today if we don't speak before i'll see you here next week if you want to learn more about cc or the international curriculum association check out the links in the show notes