Liane Davey's Blog, page 14

The Return to Office Fight is About Control not Productivity

I’ve had many conversations about returning to the office lately. In fact, I’m writing this post in a café in Ottawa while waiting to give a speech about it. I’ve spent hours scouring the latest studies and interrogating the perspectives on both sides of the issue.

My conclusion is that we’re:

talking about productivity,while actually fighting for control, andmissing the importance of community.

We need to call BS on the productivity debate, negotiate who controls what, and get real about the stakes of remote work in our communities. Until we do, the return-to-office forces will keep losing to the rebel army of people who don’t want to commute, wear hard pants, or deal with Larry the close talker.

In this post, I’ll address the productivity versus control battle. Then, next week, I’ll get into the argument for community.

“In the return to office debate, we’re talking about productivity while actually fighting for control when we should be thinking about community.” 

The Current Narrative is About Productivity

By far, the most common argument I hear (on both sides of the return to office debate) is about the impact of remote work on productivity.

Those who happily work from home argue that they’ve become much more productive because they no longer spend forty-five minutes on office-worthy grooming, two hours in the car commuting, or 30 minutes trying to escape Andrea, the office gossip, after an ill-timed trip to the coffee machine.  

To put a number on it, a recent survey showed that 42% of remote employees believe they are equally productive working outside the office, and another 40% think they’re MORE productive. They argue that they can get much more done without commuting or distraction.

Of course, those advocating for a return to the office (i.e., managers) argue that remote workers aren’t more productive. A similar 45% of managers feel that employees are equally productive at home, while most of the remainder, about 40%, believe workers are LESS productive.

There are a few studies that define and measure various versions of productivity. They find, for the most part, that productivity is slightly higher for remote or hybrid employees. (It’s worth noting that most of the output gains are likely due to more time spent working.)

If you want to read for yourself, here’s one by Artis Rozentals, where the measure of productivity is reasonably objective. Here’s an excellent overview published in HBR, which shares the results from several remote productivity studies. And if your data standards aren’t as high, here’s a self-report survey where 90% of the respondents say, “trust me, I’m WAY more productive at home…really!”

Ok, so we’re arguing about productivity when there’s probably enough data to suggest that remote work doesn’t hurt productivity and might even bolster it. So, let’s move on, shall we?

The issue isn’t really about productivity.

The Fight is Over Control

In March 2020, when a global pandemic upended almost a century of workplace norms, it radically changed the power balance in the employment relationship. That’s what we’re fighting about now. Managers want to wrest their power back. Employees, relishing the newfound control, are bound and determined not to revert to how it was. Everyone is digging in.

Managers Want Control

As far as I can tell, managers just want to go back to getting results the way they were accustomed to—by walking around and randomly catching people playing solitaire at their desks. Sure, that’s cynical, but I’m not sure why else they’re so frantic about having people back in the office full-time. And when I ask, I get a lot of humming and hawing that essentially amounts to, “I want them back full-time because… it’s better!”

Sure, a few enlightened leaders understand the value of spontaneous collisions at the copier, afternoon brainstorms at the whiteboard, and calibration discussions on the way out of a meeting.

But most managers are stuck at a more fundamental level. They don’t trust that someone wearing joggers and slippers and sitting on their couch could possibly be working as hard for their paycheck as someone wearing a belt and loafers and seated in a desk chair.

I suspect the issue for some is that they have no idea if people are performing because they’ve never figured out what performing looks like. They’ve never defined outcomes. They contented themselves that people were “busy” or “working hard” by gauging how fast their fingers were moving on their keyboards, how frantically they ran into and out of meetings, and how stressed they looked all the time. Now they can’t see any of that, and they’re left with a sinking feeling of somehow being cheated.

Others might have evidence that a person isn’t performing, but now they can’t just walk over to their desk and sneer at them; they have to have an uncomfortable conversation and confront the issue directly. It might even require paperwork. No wonder they want to return to “management by walking around.”

Employees Want Control

Employees are in no better position pretending to be righteously protecting productivity. But, unfortunately, they, too, are in a pitched battle for control.

Control of when they work and how they integrate work and personal responsibilities.Control over who they have to look at, talk to, and smell.Control of the thermostat, coffee strength, and quality of toilet paper.

And those are valid and important considerations. Once you’ve created a working environment that’s ideally suited to you, why would you want to give that up?

You have a sick parent, and with remote work, you only have to shift your work by a couple of hours to handle doctor’s appointments rather than take a day’s vacation. Why would you want to give that up?

You have ADHD, and you’ve finally got a set-up and a work environment that helps you be successful. Why would you want to return to an environment that feels like constant bombardment?

You’re a visible minority, and you’ve enjoyed two years without micro-aggressions, like people mistaking you for an administrative assistant when you’re actually a senior manager. Why would you want to expose yourself to people’s casual cruelty again?  

Managers (and management) need a lot more empathy around the magnitude of the sacrifice they’re asking people to make when they ask them to return to the office. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask them to come back a few days a week; I’m asking you to acknowledge how big of an ask that is for some people.

Decide What’s Negotiable and Non-Negotiable

The path to resolving the conflict over control is for management to decide on a concise list of things that are non-negotiable and leave as much room as possible for employees to control things that will make their lives easier. If you want people in three days a week, don’t hedge; just say it.

Then talk about what’s negotiable. How about:

One mandated team day and two days you can take any time, Monday-Saturday.Four core working hours and flexibility to work the other four hours when you chooseDifferent desk or office configurations to suit diverse people and tasksMandatory participation in a weekly onsite meeting but with new meeting management approaches that integrate what we’ve learned about neurodiversity

The control game is not a tug of war where only one side can win. Instead, it’s about making a few, business-critical things non-negotiable and then opening as many options as possible to give employees a chance to make it work for them.

I’m convinced we are creating unnecessary animosity in the return-to-office conversation because we’re pretending that the fight is about productivity when it’s really about control. The first step is to set the return to office non-negotiables that your business needs to be healthy and then hand over as much control as possible so that employees can make work a more manageable part of their lives.

Do that, and then we can get to the vital conversation we’ve been neglecting—how working remotely is eroding our communities. But that’s for next week.

–

More on This: Return-to-Office Miniseries

We are botching the return-to-office transition. We need to talk less about individual productivity and talk more about the obligation to contribute to healthy teams and organizations. But leaders, the price of admission to that conversation is to give up some control so employees can optimize their experience and to reset how the workweek is used so we have less overflow into personal time.

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Guide: Adapting to a Hybrid Workplace

Reset Your Remote Management Approach

Video: Hybrid Work Strategies – Deciding What’s ‘Office Worthy’

 

Sources Cited:

[1] Research: Where Managers and Employees Disagree About Remote Work – Nicholas Bloom, Jose Maria Barrero, Steven Davis, Brent Meyer & Emil Mihaylov | HBR

[2] In-Office Vs. Remote Vs. Hybrid Work Two Years Later: The Impact On Employee Efficiency – Artis Rozentals | Forbes

[3] Our Work-from-Anywhere Future – Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury | HBR

[4] State of Remote Work 2021 | Owl Labs

[5] Why Many Women of Color Don’t Want to Return to the Office – Joan C. Williams, Olivia Andrews & Mikayla Boginsky | HBR

 

The return to office fight is about control not productivity

I’ve had many conversations about returning to the office lately. In fact, I’m writing this post in a café in Ottawa while waiting to give a speech about it. I’ve spent hours scouring the latest studies and interrogating the perspectives on both sides of the issue.

My conclusion is that we’re:

talking about productivity,while actually fighting for control, andmissing the importance of community.

We need to call BS on the productivity debate, negotiate who controls what, and get real about the stakes of remote work in our communities. Until we do, the return-to-office forces will keep losing to the rebel army of people who don’t want to commute, wear hard pants, or deal with Larry the close talker.

In this post, I’ll address the productivity versus control battle. Then, next week, I’ll get into the argument for community.

“In the return to office debate, we’re talking about productivity while actually fighting for control when we should be thinking about community.” 

The Current Narrative is About Productivity

By far, the most common argument I hear (on both sides of the return to office debate) is about the impact of remote work on productivity.

Those who happily work from home argue that they’ve become much more productive because they no longer spend forty-five minutes on office-worthy grooming, two hours in the car commuting, or 30 minutes trying to escape Andrea, the office gossip, after an ill-timed trip to the coffee machine.  

To put a number on it, a recent survey showed that 42% of remote employees believe they are equally productive working outside the office, and another 40% think they’re MORE productive. They argue that they can get much more done without commuting or distraction.

Of course, those advocating for a return to the office (i.e., managers) argue that remote workers aren’t more productive. A similar 45% of managers feel that employees are equally productive at home, while most of the remainder, about 40%, believe workers are LESS productive.

There are a few studies that define and measure various versions of productivity. They find, for the most part, that productivity is slightly higher for remote or hybrid employees. (It’s worth noting that most of the output gains are likely due to more time spent working.)

If you want to read for yourself, here’s one by Artis Rozentals, where the measure of productivity is reasonably objective. Here’s an excellent overview published in HBR, which shares the results from several remote productivity studies. And if your data standards aren’t as high, here’s a self-report survey where 90% of the respondents say, “trust me, I’m WAY more productive at home…really!”

Ok, so we’re arguing about productivity when there’s probably enough data to suggest that remote work doesn’t hurt productivity and might even bolster it. So, let’s move on, shall we?

The issue isn’t really about productivity.

The Fight is Over Control

In March 2020, when a global pandemic upended almost a century of workplace norms, it radically changed the power balance in the employment relationship. That’s what we’re fighting about now. Managers want to wrest their power back. Employees, relishing the newfound control, are bound and determined not to revert to how it was. Everyone is digging in.

Managers Want Control

As far as I can tell, managers just want to go back to getting results the way they were accustomed to—by walking around and randomly catching people playing solitaire at their desks. Sure, that’s cynical, but I’m not sure why else they’re so frantic about having people back in the office full-time. And when I ask, I get a lot of humming and hawing that essentially amounts to, “I want them back full-time because… it’s better!”

Sure, a few enlightened leaders understand the value of spontaneous collisions at the copier, afternoon brainstorms at the whiteboard, and calibration discussions on the way out of a meeting.

But most managers are stuck at a more fundamental level. They don’t trust that someone wearing joggers and slippers and sitting on their couch could possibly be working as hard for their paycheck as someone wearing a belt and loafers and seated in a desk chair.

I suspect the issue for some is that they have no idea if people are performing because they’ve never figured out what performing looks like. They’ve never defined outcomes. They contented themselves that people were “busy” or “working hard” by gauging how fast their fingers were moving on their keyboards, how frantically they ran into and out of meetings, and how stressed they looked all the time. Now they can’t see any of that, and they’re left with a sinking feeling of somehow being cheated.

Others might have evidence that a person isn’t performing, but now they can’t just walk over to their desk and sneer at them; they have to have an uncomfortable conversation and confront the issue directly. It might even require paperwork. No wonder they want to return to “management by walking around.”

Employees Want Control

Employees are in no better position pretending to be righteously protecting productivity. But, unfortunately, they, too, are in a pitched battle for control.

Control of when they work and how they integrate work and personal responsibilities.Control over who they have to look at, talk to, and smell.Control of the thermostat, coffee strength, and quality of toilet paper.

And those are valid and important considerations. Once you’ve created a working environment that’s ideally suited to you, why would you want to give that up?

You have a sick parent, and with remote work, you only have to shift your work by a couple of hours to handle doctor’s appointments rather than take a day’s vacation. Why would you want to give that up?

You have ADHD, and you’ve finally got a set-up and a work environment that helps you be successful. Why would you want to return to an environment that feels like constant bombardment?

You’re a visible minority, and you’ve enjoyed two years without micro-aggressions, like people mistaking you for an administrative assistant when you’re actually a senior manager. Why would you want to expose yourself to people’s casual cruelty again?  

Managers (and management) need a lot more empathy around the magnitude of the sacrifice they’re asking people to make when they ask them to return to the office. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask them to come back a few days a week; I’m asking you to acknowledge how big of an ask that is for some people.

Decide What’s Negotiable and Non-Negotiable

The path to resolving the conflict over control is for management to decide on a concise list of things that are non-negotiable and leave as much room as possible for employees to control things that will make their lives easier. If you want people in three days a week, don’t hedge; just say it.

Then talk about what’s negotiable. How about:

One mandated team day and two days you can take any time, Monday-Saturday.Four core working hours and flexibility to work the other four hours when you chooseDifferent desk or office configurations to suit diverse people and tasksMandatory participation in a weekly onsite meeting but with new meeting management approaches that integrate what we’ve learned about neurodiversity

The control game is not a tug of war where only one side can win. Instead, it’s about making a few, business-critical things non-negotiable and then opening as many options as possible to give employees a chance to make it work for them.

I’m convinced we are creating unnecessary animosity in the return-to-office conversation because we’re pretending that the fight is about productivity when it’s really about control. The first step is to set the return to office non-negotiables that your business needs to be healthy and then hand over as much control as possible so that employees can make work a more manageable part of their lives.

Do that, and then we can get to the vital conversation we’ve been neglecting—how working remotely is eroding our communities. But that’s for next week.

How to Tell if Your Work Conflict is Healthy

I have been in the throes of helping a client with their strategic planning process. I love this work, but you might be wondering why someone with a Ph.D. in organizational psychology is of any use in facilitating strategy. The answer is that strategy is all about trade-offs, and trade-offs are all about conflict. So my job is to help humans make smart decisions in the face of conflicting interests and priorities. And there’s a LOT of psychology involved in that!

Healthy Conflict

After years of doing this work, it is crystal clear to me that conflict is essential to strategic planning, and the form of conflict you should strive for is tension. But, unfortunately, tension isn’t very common. Instead, your conflict is likely rife with pressure and friction, and those make your decisions less effective and your life more stressful.

Tension

Let’s start with the healthy form of conflict: tension.

I define tension as the dynamic, multivalent interplay between opposing needs, wishes, and demands that helps you to understand the requirements and options and then align around the optimal path forward.

To evaluate whether the conflict on your team qualifies as tension, ask these questions:

Interplay—is the conflict taking place in a conversation where everyone can hear the same information and contribute and respond in the moment? Is everyone in the deliberations given a chance to speak and be heard?Multivalent—are there multiple perspectives being included in the deliberations? Do you have the right people in the conversation to appreciate the different aspects of the issue? Is each of the parties able to present a compelling case for their unique perspective?Dynamic—are the people involved in the discussion shifting and adapting their positions based on the information provided by others? Is new insight and empathy prompting more questions and driving better and better options for how to respond?

Tension is conflict and, therefore, often unpleasant. It can be uncomfortable, contentious, and bruising, but it’s constructive and leaves you with the sense that the process was just, even if you wouldn’t have chosen the same outcome.

Imagine a scenario where you work for a high-tech company, and you’re considering entering a new market. You make a tool manufacturers use to measure aircraft, ships and other large vehicles to ensure they meet all quality standards. You see a huge opportunity to provide your device to engineers building large infrastructure projects. In this case, the idea might start with sales bringing you several lucrative opportunities. However, tension follows when engineering identifies significant changes to the software required to use the tool for construction projects. Manufacturing highlights that this new use would require workers to use the device outdoors, which creates more challenging conditions and requires new materials. Marketing tells you how their entire team is focused on fewer than ten organizations that build ships and planes and that they have zero expertise in construction. The discussion then shifts to weighing the potential revenue against the opportunity cost and generating options for dipping a toe in the water without jumping into the deep end.

All of this is healthy, important, and appropriate.

Pressure

Unfortunately, your team might not set strategy in such a transparent or constructive way—you might forego the conflict. I see many important decisions made without the benefit of productive tension and instead made by applying pressure.

I define pressure as a unidirectional force applied without insight into the downstream impact of the resulting decisions or the opportunity for other parties to influence the deliberations.

To evaluate whether the conflict on your team meets the definition of pressure, consider these questions:

Unidirectional—are the ideas moving in one direction without the forum for the person on the receiving end to have a say? Does the conflict play out as a monologue rather than a dialogue?Force—does the influence come with coercion or some form of power imbalance that makes it difficult for the person on the receiving end to push back?Without insight—does the person on the receiving end decide without the benefit of understanding how that decision will affect other stakeholders or what will be required to implement the decision?

Pressure violates the rules of healthy conflict by reducing (or removing) the opportunity to consider the ramifications of a given decision. Pressure often results in decisions being made in a vacuum, which leaves you open to many unexpected consequences later on.

In our technology company example, imagine if the CEO was exerting significant pressure on the head of sales to grow revenue. The head of sales then starts looking for more deals and ways to grow quickly and naturally lands on the construction market (thinking it’s much better to have a pool of 1,000 businesses than 10). To relieve that pressure, sales signs a contract with a high-profile construction customer without a full review by other departments. Now the pressure gets transferred to engineering and manufacturing, who must find a way to deliver, probably with short timelines. Finally, someone sends an email to customer support telling them to “expect higher volumes” as the new customers, using the product in new ways, come onstream.

This scenario is not healthy or productive. It’s likely to be a disaster.

Friction

Pressure avoids conflict, but it’s not the only failure path in strategic planning. The alternative is that your team has conflict, not with productive tension, but with harmful friction.

I define friction as the invalidating, unyielding, emotional fights that cause wear and tear on those involved and inhibit forward progress.

To evaluate whether the conflict on your team is friction, ask yourself:

Invalidating—are members of your team ignoring, interrupting, and insulting one another? Do people downplay the importance of one another’s expertise or their obligations to stakeholders?Unyielding—do your deliberations become increasingly polarized with the parties retrenching and getting further apart rather than closer together?Emotional—do your discussions become charged with anger, frustration, and disappointment? Are people exasperated by their inability to find a constructive path forward?

Friction violates the rules of healthy conflict by shifting the focus away from the substantive issues involved in the deliberation and onto the personalities of the individuals involved.

In the example, imagine how the relationships between sales, engineering, manufacturing, and customer service evolve after rolling out a product that likely wasn’t ready for the construction market. The salesperson gets angry with engineering that they don’t have the software ready on time, and engineering lashes out, accusing sales of selling them up the creek. When the product is deployed, customer service is inundated with calls from customers who report that the product doesn’t work in freezing temperatures. They pass their anger on to manufacturing. Relations deteriorate, and everyone feels like a victim of the other team’s ineptitude.

This scenario is demoralizing and makes it harder to get a good answer for the customers and the business.

Healthy conflict is essential to making the difficult trade-offs required as part of strategic planning or simply operating your business day-by-day. If you avoid having conflict openly, you end up with pressure being applied in ways that mask the full implications of your decisions. On the other hand, if you allow conflict to slip into friction, you get stuck in a fight.

Productive Conflict Questions

Are we creating opportunities to test our ideas where we can consider competing perspectives and align around the optimal decision? Are we maximizing productive tension?

Or are we forcing one another to make decisions without understanding the implications? Are we avoiding conflict and wimping out by applying pressure?

Or are we digging in and making our conflict personal, so we get stuck without a way forward? Are we missing the point, making it personal, and allowing our conflict to become friction?

Additional Resources

How Team Dynamics Affect Strategic Planning

Different Approaches to Decision-making Cause Friction

From HBR: Amy Gallo, How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker

 

 

How to tell if your work conflict is healthy

I have been in the throes of helping a client with their strategic planning process. I love this work, but you might be wondering why someone with a Ph.D. in organizational psychology is of any use in facilitating strategy. The answer is that strategy is all about trade-offs, and trade-offs are all about conflict. So my job is to help humans make smart decisions in the face of conflicting interests and priorities. And there’s a LOT of psychology involved in that!

Healthy Conflict

After years of doing this work, it is crystal clear to me that conflict is essential to strategic planning, and the form of conflict you should strive for is tension. But, unfortunately, tension isn’t very common. Instead, your conflict is likely rife with pressure and friction, and those make your decisions less effective and your life more stressful.

Tension

Let’s start with the healthy form of conflict: tension.

I define tension as the dynamic, multivalent interplay between opposing needs, wishes, and demands that helps you to understand the requirements and options and then align around the optimal path forward.

To evaluate whether the conflict on your team qualifies as tension, ask these questions:

Interplay—is the conflict taking place in a conversation where everyone can hear the same information and contribute and respond in the moment? Is everyone in the deliberations given a chance to speak and be heard?Multivalent—are there multiple perspectives being included in the deliberations? Do you have the right people in the conversation to appreciate the different aspects of the issue? Is each of the parties able to present a compelling case for their unique perspective?Dynamic—are the people involved in the discussion shifting and adapting their positions based on the information provided by others? Is new insight and empathy prompting more questions and driving better and better options for how to respond?

Tension is conflict and, therefore, often unpleasant. It can be uncomfortable, contentious, and bruising, but it’s constructive and leaves you with the sense that the process was just, even if you wouldn’t have chosen the same outcome.

Imagine a scenario where you work for a high-tech company, and you’re considering entering a new market. You make a tool manufacturers use to measure aircraft, ships and other large vehicles to ensure they meet all quality standards. You see a huge opportunity to provide your device to engineers building large infrastructure projects. In this case, the idea might start with sales bringing you several lucrative opportunities. However, tension follows when engineering identifies significant changes to the software required to use the tool for construction projects. Manufacturing highlights that this new use would require workers to use the device outdoors, which creates more challenging conditions and requires new materials. Marketing tells you how their entire team is focused on fewer than ten organizations that build ships and planes and that they have zero expertise in construction. The discussion then shifts to weighing the potential revenue against the opportunity cost and generating options for dipping a toe in the water without jumping into the deep end.

All of this is healthy, important, and appropriate.

Pressure

Unfortunately, your team might not set strategy in such a transparent or constructive way—you might forego the conflict. I see many important decisions made without the benefit of productive tension and instead made by applying pressure.

I define pressure as a unidirectional force applied without insight into the downstream impact of the resulting decisions or the opportunity for other parties to influence the deliberations.

To evaluate whether the conflict on your team meets the definition of pressure, consider these questions:

Unidirectional—are the ideas moving in one direction without the forum for the person on the receiving end to have a say? Does the conflict play out as a monologue rather than a dialogue?Force—does the influence come with coercion or some form of power imbalance that makes it difficult for the person on the receiving end to push back?Without insight—does the person on the receiving end decide without the benefit of understanding how that decision will affect other stakeholders or what will be required to implement the decision?

Pressure violates the rules of healthy conflict by reducing (or removing) the opportunity to consider the ramifications of a given decision. Pressure often results in decisions being made in a vacuum, which leaves you open to many unexpected consequences later on.

In our technology company example, imagine if the CEO was exerting significant pressure on the head of sales to grow revenue. The head of sales then starts looking for more deals and ways to grow quickly and naturally lands on the construction market (thinking it’s much better to have a pool of 1,000 businesses than 10). To relieve that pressure, sales signs a contract with a high-profile construction customer without a full review by other departments. Now the pressure gets transferred to engineering and manufacturing, who must find a way to deliver, probably with short timelines. Finally, someone sends an email to customer support telling them to “expect higher volumes” as the new customers, using the product in new ways, come onstream.

This scenario is not healthy or productive. It’s likely to be a disaster.

Friction

Pressure avoids conflict, but it’s not the only failure path in strategic planning. The alternative is that your team has conflict, not with productive tension, but with harmful friction.

I define friction as the invalidating, unyielding, emotional fights that cause wear and tear on those involved and inhibit forward progress.

To evaluate whether the conflict on your team is friction, ask yourself:

Invalidating—are members of your team ignoring, interrupting, and insulting one another? Do people downplay the importance of one another’s expertise or their obligations to stakeholders?Unyielding—do your deliberations become increasingly polarized with the parties retrenching and getting further apart rather than closer together?Emotional—do your discussions become charged with anger, frustration, and disappointment? Are people exasperated by their inability to find a constructive path forward?

Friction violates the rules of healthy conflict by shifting the focus away from the substantive issues involved in the deliberation and onto the personalities of the individuals involved.

In the example, imagine how the relationships between sales, engineering, manufacturing, and customer service evolve after rolling out a product that likely wasn’t ready for the construction market. The salesperson gets angry with engineering that they don’t have the software ready on time, and engineering lashes out, accusing sales of selling them up the creek. When the product is deployed, customer service is inundated with calls from customers who report that the product doesn’t work in freezing temperatures. They pass their anger on to manufacturing. Relations deteriorate, and everyone feels like a victim of the other team’s ineptitude.

This scenario is demoralizing and makes it harder to get a good answer for the customers and the business.

Healthy conflict is essential to making the difficult trade-offs required as part of strategic planning or simply operating your business day-by-day. If you avoid having conflict openly, you end up with pressure being applied in ways that mask the full implications of your decisions. On the other hand, if you allow conflict to slip into friction, you get stuck in a fight.

Productive Conflict Questions

Are we creating opportunities to test our ideas where we can consider competing perspectives and align around the optimal decision? Are we maximizing productive tension?

Or are we forcing one another to make decisions without understanding the implications? Are we avoiding conflict and wimping out by applying pressure?

Or are we digging in and making our conflict personal, so we get stuck without a way forward? Are we missing the point, making it personal, and allowing our conflict to become friction?

Additional Resources

How Team Dynamics Affect Strategic Planning

Different Approaches to Decision-making Cause Friction

From HBR: Amy Gallo, How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker

 

 

How to respond to someone venting

Have you been on the receiving end of a lot of venting lately? I’m noticing that folks are overwhelmed, and their emotions are close to the surface. (I get it. I’m feeling the same way.) You might find it difficult to have constructive conversations without first investing time in letting people vent their emotional steam out of the red zone.

The Worst Way to Respond to Venting

When you’re in a hurry or not feeling particularly empathetic, it’s tempting to forego the venting and instead jump straight to “what are we going to do about this?” Unfortunately, when you dive into fixing things, you cause many problems, including:

Making the person feel like you don’t have confidence in themInvalidating their feelings by bypassing them in search of a way forwardReducing their accountability to figure out a solution themselvesCreating dependence on you to rescue them in the futureEroding trust and leaving them feeling you’re not a safe person to whom they can admit their struggles

On the other end of the spectrum, when you let them complain without helping them get to the other side you:

Allow their distress to persistIgnore the work that they need to accomplishIncrease the likelihood that they will use you as an outlet for their feelings in the futureConstructive Ways to Respond to Venting

Instead of being too passive or too active, find the middle ground. Help the person explore their feelings and identify where those emotions are coming from so they can work through them and get traction toward a resolution. These are my favorite questions for helping a stuck person find a path through the fog.

When Someone is Emotional

If the person is grousing about a gazillion grievances and gripes but not getting any closer to a remedy, your greatest value is to help them figure out what’s wrong and what might make it better. These are my go-to’s.

What do you need?What is this about for you?What’s at stake here?What do you wish you could do?When Someone is Stuck in the Past

If the person is venting about all the past injustices they’ve faced, past failures they don’t want to repeat, or glory days they wish they could revisit, you can help them by reorienting them toward the future.

Where from here?What’s the next step?What would it take to change that?How could it be different?When Someone Keeps Poking Holes

You might be on the receiving end of venting that includes a litany of “but…but…buts.” The person might be fearful about the implications of a decision or into the weeds of what it will take to implement it. Help them wrangle those bucking broncos of worry into an organized list of what they need to resolve and what they’ll do about it. What? So What? Now What?

What do we still need to solve?Which of those do we need to decide first?Does that affect whether we do it or just how we do it?What would it take to feel ready to proceed?

If your colleagues keep coming to you to vent, first pat yourself on the back for being someone they trust with their struggles. But don’t make either of the most common mistakes. If you let them wallow in emotions, you erode accountability. If you take control, you transfer the accountability onto you.

Additional Resources

When Your Teammate Needs to Vent

Does a Manager Have to Be a Therapist These Days?

From Harvard Business Review: How to Tell the Difference Between Venting and Office Gossip

 

How to Get Leaders Focused on Growth

I spoke with a successful entrepreneur last week. Her start-up has grown rapidly, and she’s feeling the pressure that success puts on her and her young team. Although each new opportunity is hard-earned and exhilarating, it also comes with things to learn and novel challenges to overcome in R&D, marketing, distribution, and supply chain.

I was impressed by her insight and her mindset. She’s eager to learn and willing to accept help. But as she’s now realizing, not everyone is as comfortable with the humility, vulnerability, and curiosity formula necessary to grow at the pace required.

As a leader, have you come across people who:

Rely on what they already know or have already done instead of adapting?Feel disrespected when you push for more novel answers to problems?Bristle at your recommendation that they seek help from outside?Become defensive when you put tension on their plans?

If you’re struggling with team members who might not be able to keep up with the growth of your business, you’re not alone. Here’s what I suggested to the start-up CEO. Would it work for your business?

Create a Learning Culture

My best advice if your organization is growing rapidly is to become obsessed with creating a learning culture. And the quickest way I can think of to do that is by centering everyone on the most critical questions they need to answer.

Frame the Situation

To kick off this approach, you might introduce the idea by saying…

“Our business is growing at 50%. Our challenge is to each grow 50% this year as leaders to stay ahead.”

The Central Questions

Once you’ve got the team-oriented to the growth mindset you’re trying to instill, you can share the three questions that will become your focus.

What was Yesterday’s Answer?

It’s tempting to start with the first question being “What’s today’s question” but that would be a mistake. When you’re racing to keep up, it’s too easy to rush past successes and fail to celebrate what you’ve accomplished.

Instead, start by asking about Yesterday’s Answer. (Yesterday doesn’t literally mean the day before today… it just means recently.) What did they crack? What insight did they have? What milestone did they reach?

And in that, there’s room for meta-learning. What did it take to solve that? What could help us solve similar problems more efficiently in the future? Now that it’s solved, could you delegate it?

What’s Today’s Question?

The second question is about the most important thing they need to learn or solve or breakthrough on now. Now might be a week, a month, or a quarter, whatever time horizon makes sense. The key is to focus their energy and attention on the single most important thing you’re counting on them to solve as a leader.

Where possible, you want your leaders to generate their own questions. You simply provide the prompt, “What’s your most important question?” If they miss something you think is more critical, draw their attention to it, “What about distribution; what’s the big question there?” If the question feels too big or abstract, help them narrow it down, “That sounds like it’s got a few sub-questions. Where would you start,” or “If you took that up a level, what would be the over-arching question?”

Here are some examples:

(Sales) How do we land Acme as our biggest customer yet?(Product) Which of our legacy products are we going to stop offering?(People) Who from the acquired company will take on management roles?(Marketing) How do we increase the percentage of people who go from landing on our website to purchasing a service?

Once the question is clear, you can coach the person in thinking through how to get good answers. For example, what new knowledge do we need? Who has had experiences similar to what we’re going through? What relationships do we have that could get us access to required information or influence? What paradigm or outdated perspective do we need to let go of if we’re going to solve this one?

What are Tomorrow’s Questions?

The third question, “What’s the Next Big Question,” is designed to encourage people to anticipate what’s coming. It’s not something they need to be actively thinking about every day, but it is helpful to have time to mull it over and watch how things in the internal and external environment evolve. These examples show the same functions as above, but now with longer-term questions.

(Sales) How do we stop fishing with a hook and start fishing with a net (acquire multiple customers at once)?(Product) How would moving to mass distribution require different products and packaging?(People) Who won’t want to be part of our company in one or two years, and how do we make it a positive and effective transition?(Marketing) Where is the market that we want to go after?Forums for Learning

Once you adopt the 3 Questions framework, you can use it everywhere. These are a few obvious spots.

Management by Walking Around

As you’re interacting with your leaders (or any employees if you’ve cascaded the 3 Questions to all team members), throw in one of the three questions. You can have a routine to this, such as asking for the successes of Yesterday’s Answer on Fridays or at the end of a month or asking the Next Big Question at the start of each quarter. Alternatively, you can go with your instinct in any given conversation.

Another important habit is to share your questions. Sharing your questions has a few positive effects:

It shows that you’re committed to learning and growth.It orients people’s attention toward essential things that might otherwise be beyond their prevue.It gives you a chance to collect suggestions and insights from the team.Weekly Huddle

A weekly huddle is a great place to celebrate Yesterday’s Answers and to align on Today’s Questions. For one person to solve their question, it might be necessary to shift someone else’s question. A quick huddle at the start of the week (or even each morning) can help you get everyone focused on the highest-priority questions.

Regular One-on-Ones

One-on-one coaching conversations are the perfect place to talk about Today’s Question and to ask some of those follow-on questions about how the person is working toward an answer.

Development Conversations

Reserving time to talk only about the Next Big Question means you get out of the mindset of immediate performance and delivery and create the time to think about the future. A development conversation is a great time to talk about development opportunities (new experiences, new relationships, new learning) that the person will need to be able to answer the Next Big Question.

Quarterly Future Forums

At least once per quarter, it’s great to hold a half or full day to get your leaders thinking about your long-term goals, the evolving external environment, and the next set of capabilities the organization will need. This is the place to expose your leaders to one another’s Next Big Questions.

Too often, leaders want to boast about what they’ve accomplished without acknowledging how much is still to be solved. If your leaders are going to grow as fast as required, you need to shift their attention and their energy onto today’s challenges and create thinking time and space for tomorrow’s.

Additional Resources

You Aren’t Strategic Enough

How to add value as a leader–Part 2

From Inc. Magazine 5 Tips to Successfully Lead a Rapid Growth Company, by David Finkel

 

What to Do When Your Boss Won’t Take No for an Answer

It’s NOvember, the month where I provide 30 days of things to say NO to if you want to be happier, healthier, and more productive. Join the NOvember crusade by sharing your thoughts on my LinkedIn post or by checking out my daily 60-second video shorts.

We’re nearing the end of NOvember, and I thought I should address something that you might have been thinking all along: what if I try to say “no,” but my boss won’t take “no” for an answer?

Ugh.

There are still so many people who believe that more is better, who think that multitasking gets more done. People who aren’t strategic enough, deliberate enough, or courageous enough to know what to prioritize and what to deprioritize.

There are still so many people who don’t take “no” for an answer. Sad, but true.

When Saying No Doesn’t Work

So, what’s to be done? Do you have recourse? Is there anything you can do to protect yourself from spreading yourself too thin, burning out, and letting people down? There is. None of these is a perfect remedy for a boss who won’t take “no” for an answer, but each one might help a little. And when you’re overwhelmed, a little is a lot.

Step 1: Ask, Which First?

I posted a YouTube video about dealing with a boss who can’t prioritize. I argue that most managers don’t know the difference between priority (which is about order) and importance (which is about value). In the video, I share the trick of avoiding this baffling boss blind spot by shifting your language from saying, “which is a higher priority” or “which is more important” to asking, “which one of these do you need me to complete first?”

It’s easy to imagine your manager responding to “which is more important” with an exasperated cry of, “THEY’RE ALL IMPORTANT!!!” And to be fair to your boss, it’s true that multiple tasks can all be equally important. That’s why asking about importance might not yield anything of value. However, when you ask which task they need to have completed first, it’s much harder for your boss to squirm out of an answer.

Step 2: Take One Thing at a Time

Another strategy for coping with a manager who won’t take no for an answer is to be ruthlessly focused. When you’ve got multiple things on your plate, you tend to fret about them to the point that you don’t accomplish any of them. So instead, go the other way. Become hyper-focused.

If possible, move out of your usual work spot and take only your computer. Heck, if it’s a thinking task, take only a notepad and pen. Either way, leave your phone behind. Leave any clutter. Change the frame. Now, set a timer and get to work. Even if you aren’t feeling it when you start, if you commit to doing something for at least 15 minutes, you’ll likely get on a roll and sail past that into a gloriously productive state of flow.

I’m practicing what I preach. I’m writing this on Friday afternoon, and when I started, I was uninspired. So, I set my trusty Time Timer for 30 minutes, closed my email, moved my phone, and began to type. I’m already on a roll.

When you have too much on your plate, don’t try to swallow everything at once.

Step 3: Set and Enforce Boundaries

A third strategy is to set clear boundaries and work diligently until you reach that boundary and then stop. That doesn’t mean your boundary has to be 5:00 pm or that you make like Fred Flintstone racing out at the end of a shift. It just means that you decide in advance what’s reasonable and then fit as much work in as possible until you reach the boundary.

If you’re doing one thing at a time and being productive, it’s ok to stop at the end of the day unless what you’re doing is so important that someone will die or the lights will go out on the entire eastern seaboard, or your company’s biggest customer will leave, unless it’s actually an emergency, then stop when you said you would.

I know that might terrify you. You might worry that you’ll get sacked if you go home or don’t respond to an email at 11 pm. But I genuinely believe that’s an improbable outcome. If you’re working on things in the order your boss required (Step 1) and working productively on one thing at a time (Step 2), then working within the boundaries you’ve set should be sufficient in all but the most extreme cases.

Step 4: Provide a Heads Up to Others

One final action I believe you need to take when your boss doesn’t take no for an answer is giving your team a heads-up that you are stretched too thin. The bad news is that your manager has overloaded you, and you might drop the ball and let your teammates down. The good news is that the boss is probably doing the same to them, so they’ll get it.

Being transparent and candid with your colleagues about where you’re struggling to keep up will give them a chance to provide some direction and to make up for the lack of leadership from your boss. For example, they might tell you that one piece is urgent, but the rest can wait. Or they might line up someone else to share the load.

You want to avoid having your unmanageable and unfair workload lead to failure to deliver, which results in a big letdown for your teammates.

Step 5: Give Feedback About the Impact

Another approach you might take (which is optional) is to provide your boss with feedback on the impact of having so much on your plate. Here are a few options you can tailor to your situation:

“When you assigned me to generate the foot traffic report while I was working on month-end close, I felt like I wasn’t giving my full attention or doing my best work on either. How could we plan for this month so I can give my full attention to month end?”

“You asked me to be on three of the strategic project committees; their meetings are conflicting, and I feel like I’m not doing a good job representing us on any of them. If there is a conflict, which meeting would you like me to attend?”

“All three of these files you put on my desk are marked urgent. I don’t know how to decide what to do first, and I’m nervous I’ll pick the wrong thing. How do you want me to choose what I do first when I have multiple urgent tasks?”

It takes courage to say “no” to your manager, and when that no is reversed, rejected, or rebuffed, it sucks. That’s when it’s time to go into self-protection mode. Figure out what you need to do first. Put your head down and strive for maximum efficiency. Work your butt off, and then stop at pre-defined boundaries. Do your team the solid of giving them a heads up. And if you’re feeling brave (or just determined not to be in the same position again), give your boss some feedback about what happens when you’ve got too much on your plate.

Additional Resources

Why You’re So Busy and How to Ruthlessly Prioritize

Working for a Toxic Boss? You Have Options

From Harvard Business Review: Polite Ways to Decline a Meeting Invitation

Video: How to Cope When You’re Overwhelmed

 

What to do when your boss won’t take no for an answer

It’s NOvember, the month where I provide 30 days of things to say NO to if you want to be happier, healthier, and more productive. Join the NOvember crusade by sharing your thoughts on my LinkedIn post or by checking out my daily 60-second video shorts.

We’re nearing the end of NOvember, and I thought I should address something that you might have been thinking all along: what if I try to say “no,” but my boss won’t take “no” for an answer?

Ugh.

There are still so many people who believe that more is better, who think that multitasking gets more done. People who aren’t strategic enough, deliberate enough, or courageous enough to know what to prioritize and what to deprioritize.

There are still so many people who don’t take “no” for an answer. Sad, but true.

When Saying No Doesn’t Work

So, what’s to be done? Do you have recourse? Is there anything you can do to protect yourself from spreading yourself too thin, burning out, and letting people down? There is. None of these is a perfect remedy for a boss who won’t take “no” for an answer, but each one might help a little. And when you’re overwhelmed, a little is a lot.

Step 1: Ask, Which First?

I posted a YouTube video about dealing with a boss who can’t prioritize. I argue that most managers don’t know the difference between priority (which is about order) and importance (which is about value). In the video, I share the trick of avoiding this baffling boss blind spot by shifting your language from saying, “which is a higher priority” or “which is more important” to asking, “which one of these do you need me to complete first?”

It’s easy to imagine your manager responding to “which is more important” with an exasperated cry of, “THEY’RE ALL IMPORTANT!!!” And to be fair to your boss, it’s true that multiple tasks can all be equally important. That’s why asking about importance might not yield anything of value. However, when you ask which task they need to have completed first, it’s much harder for your boss to squirm out of an answer.

Step 2: Take One Thing at a Time

Another strategy for coping with a manager who won’t take no for an answer is to be ruthlessly focused. When you’ve got multiple things on your plate, you tend to fret about them to the point that you don’t accomplish any of them. So instead, go the other way. Become hyper-focused.

If possible, move out of your usual work spot and take only your computer. Heck, if it’s a thinking task, take only a notepad and pen. Either way, leave your phone behind. Leave any clutter. Change the frame. Now, set a timer and get to work. Even if you aren’t feeling it when you start, if you commit to doing something for at least 15 minutes, you’ll likely get on a roll and sail past that into a gloriously productive state of flow.

I’m practicing what I preach. I’m writing this on Friday afternoon, and when I started, I was uninspired. So, I set my trusty Time Timer for 30 minutes, closed my email, moved my phone, and began to type. I’m already on a roll.

When you have too much on your plate, don’t try to swallow everything at once.

Step 3: Set and Enforce Boundaries

A third strategy is to set clear boundaries and work diligently until you reach that boundary and then stop. That doesn’t mean your boundary has to be 5:00 pm or that you make like Fred Flintstone racing out at the end of a shift. It just means that you decide in advance what’s reasonable and then fit as much work in as possible until you reach the boundary.

If you’re doing one thing at a time and being productive, it’s ok to stop at the end of the day unless what you’re doing is so important that someone will die or the lights will go out on the entire eastern seaboard, or your company’s biggest customer will leave, unless it’s actually an emergency, then stop when you said you would.

I know that might terrify you. You might worry that you’ll get sacked if you go home or don’t respond to an email at 11 pm. But I genuinely believe that’s an improbable outcome. If you’re working on things in the order your boss required (Step 1) and working productively on one thing at a time (Step 2), then working within the boundaries you’ve set should be sufficient in all but the most extreme cases.

Step 4: Provide a Heads Up to Others

One final action I believe you need to take when your boss doesn’t take no for an answer is giving your team a heads-up that you are stretched too thin. The bad news is that your manager has overloaded you, and you might drop the ball and let your teammates down. The good news is that the boss is probably doing the same to them, so they’ll get it.

Being transparent and candid with your colleagues about where you’re struggling to keep up will give them a chance to provide some direction and to make up for the lack of leadership from your boss. For example, they might tell you that one piece is urgent, but the rest can wait. Or they might line up someone else to share the load.

You want to avoid having your unmanageable and unfair workload lead to failure to deliver, which results in a big letdown for your teammates.

Step 5: Give Feedback About the Impact

Another approach you might take (which is optional) is to provide your boss with feedback on the impact of having so much on your plate. Here are a few options you can tailor to your situation:

“When you assigned me to generate the foot traffic report while I was working on month-end close, I felt like I wasn’t giving my full attention or doing my best work on either. How could we plan for this month so I can give my full attention to month end?”

“You asked me to be on three of the strategic project committees; their meetings are conflicting, and I feel like I’m not doing a good job representing us on any of them. If there is a conflict, which meeting would you like me to attend?”

“All three of these files you put on my desk are marked urgent. I don’t know how to decide what to do first, and I’m nervous I’ll pick the wrong thing. How do you want me to choose what I do first when I have multiple urgent tasks?”

It takes courage to say “no” to your manager, and when that no is reversed, rejected, or rebuffed, it sucks. That’s when it’s time to go into self-protection mode. Figure out what you need to do first. Put your head down and strive for maximum efficiency. Work your butt off, and then stop at pre-defined boundaries. Do your team the solid of giving them a heads up. And if you’re feeling brave (or just determined not to be in the same position again), give your boss some feedback about what happens when you’ve got too much on your plate.

Additional Resources

Why You’re So Busy and How to Ruthlessly Prioritize

Working for a Toxic Boss? You Have Options

From Harvard Business Review: Polite Ways to Decline a Meeting Invitation

Video: How to Cope When You’re Overwhelmed

 

5 Ways to Say No

It’s NOvember, the month where I provide 30 days of things to say NO to if you want to be happier, healthier, and more productive. Join the NOvember crusade by sharing your thoughts on my LinkedIn post or by checking out my daily 60-second video shorts.

Do you love the idea of saying “no” but struggle with getting the word out of your mouth without upsetting someone, triggering an argument, or being labeled as a poor team player? Do you fantasize about some bolder version of yourself that can toss off a “no, nope, no way, not-over-my-dead-body” without breaking a sweat? I can’t promise to get you to that point, but I hope I can give you some tips that will make it easier for you to enforce some boundaries, graciously.

How to Say No

The first thing to consider when saying “no” is that no comes in many different versions. Which one is appropriate depends on the nature of the request and whether what you’re resisting is the idea, the approach, or the timing. Here are a few of the different flavors of “no.”

For the sake of the explanation, let’s take a specific example. Imagine you work for a prepared food company, and you’ve been asked to prepare a presentation on the value of entering a new market—school snacks.

Not Worth It

One possibility is that you believe investing energy into researching and reporting on the school snack market is a bad idea. Your traditional market is microwavable meals, and your core strengths are on reheatable frozen foods. School snacks are a different consumer, a unique manufacturing process, and a different category in the grocery store. If your “no” is a definitive, complete, nuh-uh, not-at-all no, you might want to help the requestor come to the same conclusion.

Approach: Use questions to help them arrive at their own no. “What makes you interested in school snacks? What capabilities do we have in that space? What would it take to win in that category?”

Form of No: I don’t think this is the best place to invest our energy right now.

Assist: If you’re interested in broadening our product mix, what would be segments that match our brand spending, our manufacturing capabilities, and our current distribution relationships?

Not Yet

Another possibility is that you think the idea has merit, but the timing is off. Instead of a definitive “not ever” form of no, this one is more of a “not yet.” Maybe you’ve just acquired a company that makes microwave meals and school snacks, and you’ll have to decide whether to divest or double down.

Approach: Inquire about where the snack research fits with other priorities. “We’ve just made the acquisition and have many pressing questions about the dinners category. Jacinda has asked me to research what to keep from that portfolio. Where does snack food fit relative to the importance of the meals research?

Form of No: I think the meals research takes precedence.

Assist: I would be happy to delve into this as soon as I finish the meals presentation at the end of the month.

Not Me

It’s also possible that the request is legitimate, but you’re not best positioned to do the work. For example, you might know nothing about the snack food category or nothing about market research. In this case, it’s not a “not ever” or even a “not yet,”; it’s a “not me.”

Approach: Probe the requestor’s desired outcomes and the skills required to do the work efficiently and effectively. “Snack is a general grocery, and my whole career has been frozen aisle. How is that category different? What knowledge or experience would be important to understand the school snack opportunity fully?”

Form of No: I don’t have the expertise to do this.

Assist: I would be happy to reach out to a few folks in the acquired company and see who would be great for this.

Not All of It

Some requests contain a mix of things you want to say “yes” to and a few things you need to decline. This is the time for a partial yes in the form of “not all of it.”

Approach: Be clear about what you will do and then switch to the appropriate strategy based on your rationale for saying “no” to the other components of the ask. For example, “I am happy to get right on the market research and come back with a competitive analysis on the school snack market. What’s the decision-making process after sizing the opportunity for whether we move to product development?

Form of No: I will wait to do the product line work until there’s been a review of the competitive analysis.

Assist: Match the assist with the form of “no” you used.

Not Worth it: Offer an alternative solution.Not Yet: Give a date when you could help.Not Me: Source someone else to assist.Not Unless

There’s one final category of nos that is worth mentioning. Sometimes you’re willing to assist with a request only if the person can do something to facilitate it. This is a job for “not unless.”

Approach: Share your interest or desire to assist with the request and then be transparent about what is getting in the way of you saying “yes.” “I would love to dig into the school snack category. At the moment, Jacinda has asked that I look at the dinners product line. If you could help me speak with Jacinda about reassigning that work, I would be excited to join the snack project.”

Form of No: Until we can get Jacinda on board, I have to stay focused on the dinners project.

Assist: Do your part to remove the barrier, and if the barrier can’t be removed, offer up a time when you could help, an alternative resource who could help immediately, or a small section of the project you would be able to do even if you have other priorities.

 

With apologies to my friend JoAnn, who reminds me that “no can be a full sentence,” most of the time, spending a little time and energy on declining work gracefully is well worth it. When someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, can’t do, or can’t prioritize, take the time to frame your “no” in a way that makes you look professional and helps them accomplish their goals.

What are your magic words for saying “no?”

 

Further Reading

What Could You Say No To?

How to get things done when you aren’t motivated

From HBR: How to Politely Decline a Meeting Invitation 

Video: How to Deal with Being Overwhelmed

Are You Saying Yes Too Often?

It’s NOvember, the month where I provide 30 days of things to say NO to if you want to be happier, healthier, and more productive. Join the NOvember crusade on LinkedIn or in daily 60-second video shorts.

Last week, I kicked off this year’s NOvember with twelve categories where obligations might be piling up in your life, obscuring your view of what really matters. They ranged from the mundane (like needing to unsubscribe from low-value emails) to the profound (such as addressing the unequal division of emotional labor in your relationships). So it might help to check out that list first if you didn’t see it.

Now, it’s time to tackle the plaque of obligations making you less happy, healthy, and productive than you could be. The place to start is to understand what made you say “yes” to those responsibilities in the first place.

What Makes You Take on Too Much?

Although you’ve probably met a few people whose default answer to any question is “no,” for most of us, the tendency is to go along, acquiesce, agree, accept, and accommodate. So for most of us, the default answer is “yes.” But there are many different versions of yes, and some are more troubling than others.

The Active Yeses

Some reasons to say “yes” are active because you deliberately choose to go along.

The active yes includes what you need, want, and should do.

I Need To

In my online learning course about productivity called Staying Out of the Weeds, I describe the ideal “yes” as a task that fits the following four criteria: A task that is:

Important: it will impact outcomes that matter, and not doing it would be a lost opportunity and might even create a risk.

Timely: it needs to be done now, and delaying it would lead to worse outcomes.

Suited to You: this task would benefit from you being the one to do it. No one could do it better, faster, or cheaper than you.

Essential: this specific part of the task is critical. It’s central to getting the desired outcome rather than a superfluous nice-to-have add-on or an inefficient, clunky way of doing things.

If we use a plate metaphor, you want most of your plate covered by things that are important, timely, suited to you, and essential. That’s the nourishing stuff.

The good news is that even if you have a hearty serving of need-to-do items, you likely have room to say “yes” to some side dishes. The biggest category of sides should be things you want to do.

I Want To

This category includes activities that might not be right in your sweet spot, but they’re things you’d like to do anyway.

Interest, Excitement, Curiosity: Maybe what’s on offer is exciting to you. For example, you might want to attend the preview of a new technology your IT department is rolling out. These are the opportunities that come across your desk that are cool, intriguing, or fun.

Boredom with Current Tasks: Another category of yeses is the things you say yes to because you are desperate for some variety or a break from a monotonous or vexing task that’s getting you down. You might be tempted to add more to your plate just because you can’t bear to take another bite of what you’ve been chewing on for too long.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t say “yes” to these activities. You need some enjoyable, exciting activities in your week to keep you engaged. However, I do want you to remember a couple of things.

Don’t let saying “yes” to something you want to do compromise your ability to complete the work you need to do effectively.

Don’t take on too long or too varied a list of want-to activities, or they’ll become a burden rather than a benefit.

I Should

The third category of things you might actively say “yes” to includes things you should do. We live in a social world, and doing things for the benefit of others can be a good reason to do them.

Not Wanting to Let Someone Down: In plenty of situations, it’s not that you want to say “yes,” it’s just that you feel you ought to. For example, maybe the requestor is someone you genuinely like, and you want to help them out. Alternatively, perhaps it’s someone with whom you want to curry favor. This “yes” is less about the task you’re taking on and more about the person who asked.

Reciprocity: Another strong compulsion to say “yes” comes in scenarios where you feel you owe it to the person. You asked them to come to your charity fundraiser, and now they’re asking you to go to theirs. Reciprocity has its place in a healthy community as long as you know what is going on and are willing to limit it so that you don’t spend your life feeling you have to keep accounts of who owes what to whom.

Ideally, you want most of the obligations you take on to come from these different forms of active yeses. If this was a Thanksgiving dinner plate, your Need Tos are the turkey, your Want Tos are the stuffing (or the cranberry sauce), and your Shoulds are the broccoli casserole.

The Passive Yes (or the Missing No)

Unfortunately, there is likely a lot on your plate that you don’t want there, it just got served up, and you didn’t know how to say “no” politely. These items aren’t there because you said “yes,” they’re there because you couldn’t muster a “no.”

Busy Culture: There was no inherent value in the activity; you just feel like the busy people are the ones who get rewarded, so you took what came at you.

Fear of Missing Out: Again, nothing about the task made you want to sign up, except for the possibility that not signing up would mean you miss out on something fun or communal. In our strange, perverted world, you might even have FOMO about missing out on something truly terrible because you know that being part of it will be a bonding experience or badge of honor later.

Conflict Aversion: In this case, you know darn well that saying “yes” to this activity is not the way to go, but you don’t know how to stand up for yourself or how to take on someone who might have more power than you (or at least more bluster).

I don’t know what the equivalent is on your Thanksgiving plate, but this is the stuff you choke down and then suffer with the reflux later. This is the first place to start clearing out obligations.

Ask yourself, am I saying “yes” to this because it is the best use of my time and energy? Or, is it that I want to say “yes” for the wrong reasons, I feel obliged to say “yes,” or I just can’t muster a “no?” It will be hard to reclaim your time and attention until you understand what has been robbing you of it in the first place.

Further Reading

5 busy person mistakes to avoid

Why You’re So Busy and How to Ruthlessly Prioritize

How Can I Be More Strategic?

Video: My favorite technique for getting to the right yeses. 1 Yes, and 3 Less

Expert: Four Ways to Break Away from the Busy Culture by Rikki Rogers