When To Say No At Work and How To Say No (to the Boss and Others)
When to say No at work is a critical as how you say no at work.
You don’t want to offend others, or appear to be unreasonable or difficult. Even more important, you don’t want to let others down, be a walk over or overload yourself.
Getting good at how to say no is a key skill to develop as early as possible. If you go into the management ranks without being good at saying no, your problems will only multiply.
So when should we say no in the workplace?
We go through 5 reasons you should say no at work. Then we go through how to say no professionally at work.
Firstly, learn to say no at work when you are maxed out. If you have little or no spare capacity, then you must say no. Letting people down is much worse than saying no up front.
Secondly, say no at work when you are not the right person. Explain you don’t have the right skills, the right experience or enough time or the key reason why you are not the right person. This is key in how to say no without feeling guilty.
Thirdly, Say no at work when doing the work will prevent you from delivering your own goals or objectives. Your formal objectives should be the most important goals to achieve. Say no when additional work conflicts with these or prevents you achieving them.
Fourth, say no at work when you can deliver what is required. This might be due to workload, capability, or any number of reasons. If you are not sure you can deliver, say no and suggest someone who can.
The fifth reason for when to say no at work is when the task or project creates a big conflict with your values. These situations do occur, and you have to balance your personal comfort and happiness with potential negative impacts to your reputation.
How to say no at work is super important. Always provide a reason why you are saying no. Ideally this reason should be one of the five reasons we have covered.
How to say no to boss at work is exactly the same. Explain why you are saying no and say no. If you can explain that doing this extra task/project with endanger the completion of another task/project your boss has asked you to do – even better.
When planning how to say no, be considerate of the other persons situation and feelings. Be diplomatic and be firm.