The real reason you're finding it hard to say no
It has nothing to do with your motivation
If you’re like most product leaders I know, I’m going to guess that you have too many meetings, and that a portion of these meetings are low value. You struggle to get focus time to work on strategic work. You feel exhausted by back to back meetings. You have a strong motivation to say no to some meetings, but you keep finding yourself saying yes and accepting invites.
Why is it so hard to say no, when the motivation is so strong?
The fact it’s hard to say no has nothing to do with the strength of the motivation. It’s hard to say no because there’s almost always an internal conflict. There's a strong, and less obvious, reason why we want to say yes.
Let's say you place a high value on knowing what's going on around the company, and building as much context as possible. Saying yes to a meeting fuels this commitment to knowing everything.
We’re all driven by these hidden “reasons for saying yes”, yet they’re based on assumptions that we rarely challenge and might not even be true.
In our example we’re assuming that the only way to get key information and context is by going to the meeting yourself.
When you think about that for a second, you can see that there are flaws in that line of reasoning.
You could get that key information from meetings notes, or delegate the meeting. You can say no and still keep your commitment to building context.
We'd have never got to this approach to saying no if we didn't uncover the reason for saying yes, and any hidden assumptions. We’d be stuck wondering why we kept saying yes despite having a clear motivation for saying no.
This is an incredibly simple, yet powerful, approach to figure out why it’s so hard for you to say no to something. Ask yourself:
Reason for saying yes: what benefit do I get from saying yes to this meeting/piece of work/invite?
Hidden assumption: what assumptions am I making?
How to say no: how can I challenge this assumption, and what steps would I need to take?
To help further bring this approach to life, I’ve gone through this approach with three common reasons for saying yes below.
Reason #1: people pleaser
In this situation, you find it exceptionally difficult to say no to a meeting or a favour because you’re worried that by saying no you put someone out or disappoint someone. You’re likely an empathetic person, and feeling like you’ve disappointed someone else hits you hard. You pick up on their feelings.
Your reason for saying yes is that by saying yes people will think you’re helpful and they will like you. It’s important to you to feel appreciated.
Your hidden assumption is that you can’t say no without disappointing people, and then feeling uncomfortable yourself.
Some ways for you to start saying no:
Start by saying no where you have a high level of trust with someone
Start by saying no to something small, don’t start with a huge meeting with multiple key people present
Ask your manager / peers if there are any meetings that you could skip or “trial” skipping
Reason #2: focus time avoider
In this situation, you book your focus time and promise yourself that you’re going to say no, and then accept meetings or work that gets in the way of this quiet time. The strategy work is hard, and you’re not sure how to get started.
Your reason for saying yes is that you get to avoid working on that hard thing - strategy - that you don’t know how to get started with.
Your hidden assumption is that strategy is really hard and you don’t know how to get started.
Some ways for you to start saying no:
Lower the bar and expectations for getting started on strategy - progress over perfection. Start by creating a plan - what needs to be done and when.
Eat the frog - free up time at the start of the day and commit to the most challenging piece of work then.
Have an accountability partner. I used to add focus time as a meeting with someone else in the calendar: (i) it stopped people booking over it and (ii) I had accountability from that other person to commit to the time.
Reason #3: The value adder
In this situation, you enjoy going to meetings and getting involved with the conversation. You like sharing your opinion, information, or feedback. It feels good to know that you’re sharing and you get a buzz because you feel needed and that you’re adding value.
Your reason for saying yes is that you get to share and talk, and feel valuable.
Your hidden assumption is that you can only add value by attending meetings.
Some ways for you to start saying no:
Get clear on how you can add value outside of meetings: maybe this is async feedback, focused strategy and thinking time
Get feedback on how/where you could add more value - I’m guessing some ideas will be outside of meetings
Look at the meetings where you add the least value, and start to drop those first
Closing thoughts
If you’re finding it hard to say no, it’s probably because you’ve got a strong implicit commitment to saying yes. The steps you need to take will look vastly different depending on what your commitment is.
The more detailed and specific you can answer each question, the easier it is to figure out how to start saying no and freeing up time.
I’d love to hear your takeaways from applying this approach.
Working with me
I coach founders and product leaders at early stage tech companies. I partner with you to help you become a more impactful, confident and fulfilled leader. You can read more about how I work and get in touch here.