Managing Leadership^®

Have you ever received an assignment from your boss that you knew just wouldn’t work out, or that was the wrong one for you either generally or at that specific time? Maybe you could even see that it was simply destined for disaster. How do you get out of situations like this?

The key to being able to say “no” is to understand and express the reasons for it in terms that make sense to your boss. Whenever you take any position on any matter, you really should be trying to do two things:

1. Attaining your object in the specific incident, and
2. Establishing credibility for use in future negotiations.

You don’t merely want to spend capital to get your way – in getting your way you want to earn additional capital that you can use, if necessary, later.

How do you do this? The best way is to relate your position to the needs of the firm. Develop a compelling reason why your “no” answer best serves the business, your boss, and the success of the proposal being made. Be sure to do this in positive terms that speak well of the proposal and your boss, but that offer a better alternative than a “yes” answer would have provided.

Be sure to do so without belittling your own capabilities, certainly, but also without downplaying anyone else’s, either. For example, you might suggest that another person’s involvement would be as effective as yours and better serve the firm overall by advancing that person”s career development. Or, offer an altogether different proposal that better addresses the problems your boss is trying to solve via the proposal made to you.

Try to do the following:

1. Keep personalities out of it – yours, your boss’s, your peers’. In particular, in rejecting your boss’s proposal be careful to avoid giving the impression that you think it is a poor idea.
2. Try to go deeper than the immediate proposal to determine what are your boss’s concerns or the pressures that give rise to it. Then tactfully offer an alternative idea that solves these at the same time that it makes your “no” answer make business sense to your boss.
3. If possible, develop a range of alternative proposals all of which incorporate your “no” answer but that still address the need of the proposal. Start with one, and then use the others singly or in combination, as necessary, to negotiate an alternative solution.
4. Try to focus on the superior elements of the alternative solutions you offer. However, if it becomes necessary to specifically defend your “no” answer, do not focus on any negative feelings you have about the project or, certainly, on your own shortcomings – draw attention instead to the cost your “yes” answer would have to other projects you would have to abandon.
5. If all else fails and you are pressed to the limit, be prepared for a qualified “no,” which your boss might see as a qualified “yes,” in which you offer to participate in the proposal in a manner that both makes business sense and that is as palatable to you as possible.

Taking an approach like this – whatever the result – will not only likely lead to a congenial and professional outcome in the current negotiation, but will enhance your standing and credibility in any future ones.

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Today’s tip: Please stop over to visit Steve Roesler‘s superb discussion of leadership, beginning with his examination of who it’s about.

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