 Are you having a hard time saying no to someone? It can be tough, but there are ways you can approach it to make it better. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. All through October we've been talking about things that frighten us and how we can face them to realize our full potential. One last fear that I want to talk about today is the fear of saying no. We all have it. This is one that I have a particularly hard time with. I hate to tell people no, but sometimes we have to in order to get the best outcome for our team. Why is it so hard for us to say no to people? Everyone's reason is different, but it often comes down to we just don't want to hurt someone's feelings or we're afraid they won't like us anymore. Also, saying no to our boss or other authority figure comes with some concern about how it will affect our career. Now the likelihood that someone will stop being our friend just because we said no to them is actually pretty small. Our real friends will understand if we can't say yes to what they're asking for and when we explain our reasons they're usually pretty cool with it. As human beings we have empathy for those around us especially people we care about so we really don't want to hurt others feelings. One of the things we need to consider though is will we be hurting that person more if we don't say no to them in this case and when it comes to saying no to our boss we could actually be hurting our company our department or our boss even more by holding back. Have you ever had one of your peers come up to you and say I think I'm going to do this do you think it's a good idea? Sometimes what they have to say is not a good idea. The extreme cases are actually a little easier to deal with. I'm going to stand in a bucket of water and hold on to these electric cables. Do you think that's a good idea? That's pretty easy to say no to. When the request is a little more nuanced it can be difficult to say no to our peers. We want them to like us. We want them to think we're team players and we want them to like us. When one of our peers asks us to help with an idea that may not be in the best interest of the team how do we say no? For some people it's easy but if it's not so easy for you try to keep in mind the mission your team is trying to accomplish. Does their idea fit into that mission? Is it in the best interest of the team, the customer, or the people you're trying to serve? If the answer is no that can be the basis for how you say no to your teammate and remember you don't have to be limited to just saying no. You can provide some thoughtful feedback to your coworker on how they can get their idea more aligned with the goals of the team. Saying no if you're the boss can be harder than it looks especially if you used to be on the team and then were promoted to being the leader. It can be really challenging to look someone you used to work side by side with in the eye and start telling them what to do. Sometimes the people on your team will take actions or have ideas that you need to say no to. Just like with our peers keeping the mission in mind and thinking about what is in the best interest of the team will help. It's also important if you're in charge to avoid being arbitrary about whose ideas you'll listen to and who's you reject. We want to evaluate suggestions and solutions based on merit not on who brings them forward. Also if you're the boss sometimes you have access to information about the big picture that you should take into account when making your decisions. You may or may not choose to share this information with your team depending on the situation. Also don't forget that one of our key duties as a leader is to develop our team so when you have to say no keep giving that feedback on how that individual can make their idea or suggestion better so you can say yes in the future. If saying no to our peers in our team is hard saying no to our boss can be downright impossible. But sometimes we owe it to our boss to make sure they have complete information about a situation or understanding of the impacts of a decision before they follow through with it. It comes back to what we talked about before is this an alignment with our mission and in the best interest of the team and the others involved. A lot of times the answer is maybe. Sometimes we have to pick our battles and if the decision won't result in catastrophic failure or isn't a clear violation of laws or regulations maybe we let this one go. If there'll be a serious breakdown in accomplishing the mission or a clear conflict of our organizational core values it's time to speak up. A technique we've talked about before is the one challenge rule. The boss makes a decision you speak up once to make sure the boss has all the information. If the boss decides to go forward anyway you said your piece and aired your objection. This may not result in the decision you wanted but at least you tried to help your boss and your team accomplish their mission. These are just a few examples of times you might need to say no to someone but the principles are always the same. One final thought I want to add is that when we do say no to someone whether it's our peers our team or our boss we always want to do it with respect and dignity. Coming from a place of fear or anger can get our message muddled with our tone and break down communication and relationships instead of making them stronger. We should always be striving to build better connection with the people around us even if it means telling them no once in a while. If you found this helpful please share it with a friend or co-worker follow us on Twitter Facebook and LinkedIn and click off on that globe to the right that'll get to subscribe to our email list and that'll bring all of our content direct to your inbox. If you have any leadership or business questions you'd like us to answer reach out to us on social media or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com. Thanks for watching I really appreciate it and remember the future is out there. Lead the way.