HOW TO SAY NO TO YOUR BOSS AND RETAIN HER/HIS RESPECT.
Every executive and technology professional faces this dilemma at some point. You and your team are already pushed to the max and your boss asks you to take on another very important task. How do you refuse without raising their ire or losing your ‘team player’ status?
While each situation requires your boots-on-the-ground assessment, I hope to guide you towards a method that supports your good decisions. The request often comes from your boss or even the CEO as a ‘side project’, or worse, a fire that must be fought.
There is no such thing as a side project if it comes at the request of the CEO, and someone has to douse that fire. That said, you already have a full time job. Here are guidelines to manage this incompatible reality.
First, be very clear on your own priorities based on current expectations in your role. Do a triage and focus YOUR efforts on delivering to those top priorities. Articulate them. One sentence each that includes the challenge, the proposed solution and the expected deliverable:
i.e. Reduce account manager (sales) complaints about services. We are polling our top customers and our top sales executives to learn where they want change. We are retraining, reorganizing, and restructuring our escalation process.
Do this for your top three challenges and make sure they are the same top three your manager sees as your charter. You must get buy-in on these in order for the next step to work.
Understand. You are given more work because they believe you can manage the challenge, not because they think you have the time. They know they can depend on you for a timely and workable solution based on your previous performance. The reality is delegating to you gets whatever it is off their own desk. It becomes a check off if they can give it to you.
Solve for getting it off THEIR desk, not yours. When you are asked to take on a new challenge for which you know you don’t have time or resources and you know there is no one to whom to delegate, you must say no. Your other commitments will suffer and management already told you those were the most important aspects of your role. Simply put, you can’t do what they asked and also do what’s already been asked.
COO, thank you for considering me and my team as the solution for X. Here’s where we are right now. We are 100% consumed with delivering on these three objectives [As rehearsed and articulated previously]. If you’d like to bump one of these in favor of X, we can reorganize to get that done. Or, if you can wait until I can hire contractors or new employees (number of people), we can add that to our list. As an alternative, might I suggest (delegate to other stakeholder? Get a consultant? Give it to the interns? Anything that does not include your team, anything that postpones the job and breaks it up so interns and others not in your department can do it.) Then SHUT UP. No excuses.
NEVER say, I we are already working xxx hours. Never an excuse. Only about the deliverables and priorities already in place.
You asked a question. Which of our agreed upon current priorities do you want to bump in favor of this new challenge?
You will be told ‘just get so and so on it,” or they will flatter you, “I know you have done the impossible before. I have confidence you can do this.” Your answer is always the same. “My folks are fully utilized on our current priorities. More than happy to bring on new staff and train them. That means the solution deadline must be fluid. Is that a realistic solution for you?”
When the house is on fire the Exec team looks to the VPs as fire fighters. And that is cool as long as they know that when you fight a fire, the cooking and cleaning are not getting done. It is your job to remind them.
Respect. Learn to say these things succinctly and with no excuses, only data. Now, to that respect thing. If you can articulate your current priorities and use data instead of emotion (team is already pushed too hard), you will gain the respect of the CEO. Well, in a perfect world, that is.