We live in a culture of “yes.” We don’t want to disappoint our bosses, colleagues, families, or friends, so we say “yes” as often as we can manage. Oftentimes, we say “yes” when we should say “no.”
Help Your Team Stop Overcommitting by Empowering Them to Say No
We live in a culture of “yes.” We don’t want to disappoint our bosses, colleagues, families, or friends, so we say “yes” as often as we can manage. But when we overcommit ourselves, we spend our time checking things off a list rather than actually creating value. Without the ability to say “no” to low-level tasks in order to say “yes” to groundbreaking ones, people stop innovating. Overcome this problem by instituting a value assessment system: Instead of saying “yes” or “no” to a project on a case-by-case basis, rate all new initiatives on a scale of 1 to 10. Using established criteria to force-rank initiatives will help your team make smarter decisions about which to pursue. After projects are greenlit, watch out for warning signs: When will we know if this doesn’t work, and how will we know? Finally, give people credit and kudos not just for the great ideas they pursued, but also for the middling ideas they passed up. Keep track and celebrate each “no” as a necessary step on the path to finding more world-changing ideas.