Things are not always (if ever) what they seem to be. Some of the most amusing books I come across, really classy works of fiction that are often tragically funny, are to be found on the ‘management’ shelves. The management of organizations is frequently the domain of ‘yes men’. A liberal dose of ‘no’ would be a blessing in many places.
With a colleague, I worked on an assignment to support a management team bringing more products to market. The request was to help them be more creative in product innovation. Before developing creativity workshops we looked at their new product development processes. There was absolutely no shortage of promising ideas. In fact, there were too many ideas clamoring for attention and making demands on the available capacity. In a culture that encouraged new ideas, there was not a place for creative “no’s”. As a result, many good ideas failed to make it through the crowd.
Let’s go back to the exercise of saying “no” out loud to ourselves, with a variety of inflections. While there may not actually be fifty shades of ‘no’, I’ll bet it isn’t far short. It’s such a powerful little word:
• ‘No’ demands attention, while ‘yes’ can easily slip by without being noticed.
• “No” is unexpected and usually unwelcome, while “yes” is expected and comfortable.
• ‘No’ is often hidden under euphemisms like, “That’s interesting.., I’ll give it some thought.”
