Transcript

[0:00] Hey everyone! Just a quick thing before we start. I wanted to let you know about Free Productivity Guide I recently wrote called Finding the Sixth Day.
An engineer’s quick Guide to Making More Time. Now the guide provides a five-step process for freeing at eight hours of productive time within the next week. So if you’re feeling crunched for time, you should give it a shot. And best of all, it’s free.
All you have to do is go to engineeringandleadership.com/6thday to get your free copy.
That’s engineeringandleadership.com/6thday.

For engineers from Tokyo to Belfast, This is the engineering and leadership podcast.

[0:47] Music.

[0:56] Welcome everyone to Episode eight of the engineering and Leadership podcast, The show dedicated to helping engineers thrive.
I’m your host, Pat Sweet,
In today’s episode, we talk about the life-changing magic of saying no, the most powerful word in your professional vocabulary.

[1:18] Sometime in the late 19 eighties, a dropout from the University of Waterloo School of Engineering was faced with the opportunity of a lifetime.
Like many engineers, he had dreamed one day of designing spacecraft, and now that chance was staring him in the face.
The opportunity was to assist in the development of the Canadarm two, the next generation of the iconic space robot tasked with catching, manipulating and transporting payloads to help construct the international space station.
The project was set to be one of the most important in the history of the Canadian space program.
So what did our budding young engineer do? He turned it down.

[1:59] Mike Lazaridis, unburdened by the paperwork and developmental timelines of a major government contract, used his time instead to found a company called Research in Motion,
which went on to introduce the first commercially successful smartphone, the BlackBerry, in 2000.
For as a young engineering student myself, I heard Lazaridis tell the story at an engineering conference in Toronto.
He explained that while he would have loved to work on a space project,
he just couldn’t bear the thought of working for a decade to help design something that would likely only be built twice.
He wanted to change the world, so he invented the smartphone instead.

[2:42] In today’s episode, we’re talking about the power of saying no, even when it’s hard so that you can say yes, to what matters.
You’ll hear about how saying No can boost your productivity, how to decide when saying no is best and some practical advice on how to deliver the bad news in a way that makes everyone walk away happy. Let’s get on with the show.

[3:02] Music.

[3:14] As I mentioned in the little story off the top from Mike Lazaridis, saying No is incredibly important for productivity, But what I want to do before I talk about anything else is defining productivity.
In my mind, productivity is a function of three separate but equally important things.
Effectiveness, efficiency, and habit, and saying no has a huge impact on effectiveness.
So efficiency, everyone understands efficiency is doing things quickly.
Doing things without any more energy or time or input than what’s really required habit is also pretty, pretty self-explanatory, but effective.
This is a concept that doesn’t often get the same air time as the other two when it comes to productivity.
So what I mean by effectiveness is doing the right work.
If efficiency is doing the work well, effectiveness is doing the right work in the first place.
So what’s the right work? How do we know you’re working on the right work? Well, the right work supports your goals.
So, for example, one of my goals in 2020 was to get my PMP, my project management professional designation.
So doing work toward that goal, studying, reading, doing test exams, whatever, those would all have been considered effective work because it was bringing me closer to my goals.

[4:43] How does saying no effect effectiveness?
So saying no is incredibly important with respect to being effective, because what it does is it creates space.

[4:55] If you’re able to say no to things, that gives you the opportunity in the future to say yes, toe other things.
So let’s say, for example, you’ve got a goal, a personal goal to spend more time with your kids.
If your schedule is full, you can’t achieve that goal until you say no to some current commitments that you already have and a number of other possible future commitments that come your way.
If you never say no, saying yes to the tasks and projects that support your goals just won’t be possible.
So saying no is central to focus.
So if we know that saying no is super important and we all know the number of things that get thrown at us in the run of the workweek, it’s crazy. Work is work is nuts.
There’s nobody out there, I’m willing to bet, who’s sitting around bored out of their tree as an engineer or someone doing technical work.
So why don’t we say no more often?

[5:54] This is one of these funny things is saying no is incredibly difficult and the people who are most comfortable saying no often do it in a way that is pretty dismissive and,
the world around them is not super big fans of those people generally.

[6:11] But there is a right way to do it. There is a kind way in a professional way to say no, So why don’t we do it? Well, we’re not used to it.
We want to be perceived as team players and team players, we believe, are people who always say yes and I’m gonna get into that in a little bit because I don’t believe that that’s true.
Maybe most importantly, we don’t want to offend or hurt anyone’s feelings, and it’s really weird because we are generally more comfortable with missing a deadline that we’ve set
than we are with turning down taking on that deadline in the first place. We’ll say Yes, I’ll do that even though in your head you know you couldn’t possibly execute on it and then you’ll just apologize for having missed the deadline later.
That pain and discomfort of confessing that you’ve missed a deadline later for whatever reason is more comfortable than saying no now, which is really interesting to me.
We see the way our leaders and our managers work, and we think we need to be able to take on more. Our managers and our leaders are completely overworked.
They’ve got so much on their plate. How could I possibly say no to a new task?

[7:29] Think about the last time you were in a staff meeting and a new task just hung in the air without anyone taking it.
It’s impossibly hard to
leave that alone and not raise your hand if you’re a high achiever and I know I know I have that feeling to still to this day,
something comes up in a staff meeting, and it’s obvious that an action needs to be taken and no one’s jumping at it.
And I know it’s not ultimately part of my scope of work, and it’s just unbearable.
And I still to this day will raise my hand in volunteer to do those tasks when no one else well, even though I know it wouldn’t be effective work. So this is really hard.
This is really hard even for people like me who make a conscious habit of saying no when that really is the most appropriate answer.

[8:22] You trained your whole life to do more, to achieve more, to get more done, to take more responsibility on to say yes, so we don’t say no because it’s unnatural for us.
And like I said, it’s true for me and it’s true for every high performing employee I’ve ever had, So I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch
if I say I’m pretty sure It’s true for you, too.
So we know now that saying no is important for making space for effective work, for that supports our goals.
We know that saying no is hard.
How do we actually go about learning to say no?
This is important. So what do we do? How do we approach this?
Over the years, I’ve developed a number of simple approaches to recognizing the times when I need to say no and be actually delivering that news in a tactful, professional way.
So let me walk you through the steps. Step zero before you actually enter into a situation where you’re faced with whether or not you can take on new work

[9:28] is to know your goals and your bandwidth before you ever need to make a decision whether or not you should take something on. You need to know what your goals are and,
protip: If your goals aren’t written down and in a visible spot, they’re not real.
I mean, I’m sure they’re the real in that you really want to achieve them.
But they need to be that concrete and that present in your life for them to ever get accomplished really and truly.
So if you have goals awesome, make sure they’re written down.
Make sure you know them by heart. This is critical in subsequent steps because if you don’t know your goals by heart.
It’s very hard to make sense of whether or not a particular task or project would support those goals.
So step zero. Know, your goals and know your bandwidth. You also need to understand how much you have on your plate.
You need to have a good sense for what your to-do list looks like, the number of hours a week you may have in terms of capacity, and this is tricky.
But you need to know right away whether or not you’re looking for work or looking to shed work and more often than not, a given engineer has more than their fair share on their plate.
So do be cognizant of that in the next step, which I’m calling Step one is to recognize the situation.

[10:50] The first and most important thing is recognizing the fact that you’re about to be asked to do something.
Often we aren’t mentally prepared for what’s coming, and we say yes to things because we haven’t really thought things through. We weren’t prepared for the moment.
We haven’t called to mind what our goals and bandwdith are. I have the same problem when I meet people for the first time and ask their name.
I go through the motions and I’m automatically shaking hands and asking names, but I’m not
I’m not really mentally there. I’m not listening for the answer. I’m thinking about Okay, what I’m gonna ask you next.
I’m trying to think of how to move the conversation along, given that it’s a brand new, a brand new introduction, brand new person, and often I’m excited. I’m excited to, learn about the person.
To the point where I’m not even really paying attention to it.
So the same thing can happen in meetings where you’re thinking about how to make your next point, or Ted in the corner has been droning on and on and on and on, and you’ve drifted off.
You’re not mentally present. So recognizing the fact that you could be assigned new work right now is super important so that you can be ready to actually give an appropriate answer.
And in this case, probably know the next step when you have the opportunity to take on new work, is to pause and think.

[12:20] I know it sounds crazy, but you don’t need to give an answer right away.
Think about what you’re being asked. Does it support your goals? Does it support your team’s goals? How much effort will it take? When is it due?
Are you really the best person for the job? Do you have that bandwidth?
If you have the answers to questions like these, and you feel everything lines up awesome, fantastic, take it on and grab the bull by the horns and just have at ‘er.
If you don’t have all the answers, it’s 100% okay to ask questions and try and get those answers or wait a little bit,
and think it over so that you can make sense of how a new task might fit on your already likely bulging to-do list.
So pause, think and ask. The next step is to respond, and this is where you have to give your yes or your No,
you can absolutely say yes to a task when it supports your goals or your team’s goals is a good fit with your skills and interests.
If it’s an area of growth for you and can fit within your existing workload,
that’s awesome. If if a new task really does check those boxes, great, do it.

[13:34] But if it doesn’t, here’s the rub. If it doesn’t, this is where you probably need to say no.
Luckily, there are ways of delivering that news in constructive ways other than just saying no,
which would be terribly, terribly awkward in most situations, especially with a manager.
So here are some basic ideas. These aren’t going to cover absolutely every situation.
But what you’ll hear is that the answer is that I would typically deliver when I want to say no are more nuanced than just straight up “No”.
So, for example, if there’s a bandwidth problem for a task that you really are interested in, instead of saying a flat “no”,
maybe you ask to delay the tasks so that you can tackle it later or de-prioritize some other thing that you have on your plate now so that you can focus on this new task So you could say something like “I’d love to.
I just can’t right now. Could we revisit this in a day or a week or a month? Whatever the case may be?”
Or how about “I’d love to do this.

[14:38] Maybe we could take a look at my to-do list together, and we can figure out what could be set aside for now so that I can focus time and attention on this.”
Another situation might be that the task really isn’t part of your skillset or your interests.
You could say something like, “I’m not the very best person for this task. I’d be more than happy to take on this portion of it, because I’m really quite good at that.
But this other part really is Jane’s wheelhouse. I wonder if we could loop her in for this kind of work.”
Or maybe the task really doesn’t support your goals. You could say something like, “I’m sorry, but I’ve made a commitment to deliver this other thing by this particular date.
And honestly, if I’m not completely focused on it, I’m really worried I’m gonna miss the mark on that commitment. Could we revisit this once I’ve tackled that particular task?”
Or there are situations where you know that a task would actually support someone else’s goals. This happens a lot when you talk to your colleagues at the coffeemaker.
It’s not uncommon for people to express interest in “Oh, I’d love to get into whatever – artificial intelligence, underwater basket weaving – there are a ton of things someone could be interested in.”
You could say if you know a task would support someone else’s development, goals, or interests,

[15:48] you could say something like, “I’m not the best person for that right now, But you know what?
Ted really wanted to get into this kind of thing. Let’s see if he could take it on and maybe I can back him up if need be
as as a bit of a mentor.” One of the things you’ll notice is that when I say no, I try to explain why,
along with what I am willing to do to help, often there is something you can do to pitch in that is maybe smaller in scope or different in time.
Generally, when I say no, I’m really saying I can’t do that, but I can do this. Offering up what you can do is a good way to demonstrate that
it’s not that you’re just dismissing the whole thing, and it’s not that you don’t care to support the team’s goals. You do.
But it can’t be necessarily at the expense of just throwing aside everything else that you have on your plate.
Offering to do that little bit of good is a good way to demonstrate that you’re a team player, and that’s why I don’t just say no.
Another perfectly reasonable answer in the moment is “I’m not sure if I could take that on right now. Let me get back to you.”
If you really don’t know, don’t give an answer right away. It’s amazing to me how often people will jump to yes or no without thinking it through.
Very rarely are you obligated to give an answer immediately.

[17:16] Often just stepping back from the situation and thinking for a little bit.
You’ll notice that this is a common theme in a lot of these podcast episodes is the value of thinking.

[17:28] You can say, “Let me get back to you.” That’s okay. So what’s the take-home message?

[17:34] Being productive is all about being efficient, systematic, and effective. And effective means working toward your goals and the things that really are important.
Many engineers find it hard to get everything done that they want to get done in the run of a week, and often that’s because they’re not working effectively.
They’re working on things other than things that support their goals.
They’re not working on the right stuff.
Working on the right stuff means saying no to the wrong stuff, even though that could be a bit awkward at times. Saying no creates space.
Hopefully, the strategies that I presented here can help you to say no in positive and constructive ways that will allow you to improve your focus, get more effective and achieve more of what really matters.
If you have any questions or maybe a story about how saying no really worked well for you. I’d love to hear about it.
Please do leave a comment in the show notes. You can find those at engineeringandleadership.com/episode8.

[18:42] Next up, we’ll tackle the Engineering and Leadership mailbag.

[18:46] Music.

[18:57] This is the part of the show where I read your mail comments, tweets, and messages and answer your questions.
I promise to read everything you send me, and I also promise to share my favorites here in the podcast.
There were a couple of messages I wanted to share and just some shout outs that I wanted to thank people for. Charlie from engineering excel dot com wrote to thank me for the finding The Sixth Day Productivity Guide.
I’ll have a link to that in the show notes as well. I mentioned that off the top of the show, engineering excel dot com is a beautiful, wonderful website.
Charlie provides Excel training specific to engineers, and it’s actually really pretty sophisticated stuff. So if you ever wanted to take Your Excel game to the next level, definitely recommend engineering excel dot com.
Thank you very much, Charlie for that. And Zubin from industrial inside dot com wrote me to thank me for the latest article.
Zubin’s been part of the engineering leadership community for ages now, so thank you so much for coming along for the ride
Zubin. And Industrial inside dot com is a really neat website, and gives a lot of advice on a career advice and getting your next job, so that’s something to look into as well.

[20:11] There’s something I want to start a little bit new here in the mailbag section. I want to start a question of the week. It’s easy. Here’s what we’ll do.
Each week I’ll ask a question related to engineering leadership, management, productivity, something related to the show content, and what I’ll ask is for you all to send me your answers each week.
And I’ll pick a favorite answer each week, and I haven’t decided exactly what is going to be yet. But I’d like to like to come up with some sort of a prize, maybe maybe an engineering leadership coffee mug or something that I can mail out to you.
I’ll figure it out. There’s got to be something cool. So let me know, let me know what you think a good prize would be.
So to get this started, let’s start with a question.
Do you believe you can say no and still advance in your career?
Do you believe that you could be the kind of person to say no and really still climb the corporate ladder? I’d love to know what you think.
I’d love to know what your experience is. Post your answers to the comments section below the show notes at engineering leadership dot com slash episode eight.

[21:17] Music.

[21:23] Sadly, my friends, that is all the time we have for the show today. In the next episode we’ll talk about why you should spend time in the woods.
If you enjoyed the show, it would be awesome if you leave a review for me.
That helps me improve the show and helps others find the show as well. If you want to read what you just heard, go to engineering and leadership dot com slash Episode eight.
There you’ll be able to find the main content and even download a full transcript of the show.
That’s also where I post all the links and resources that I mentioned. So very, very good stuff there.
Engineering and leadership dot com slash Episode eight. Until next time, this is Pat Sweet, reminding you that if you’re going to be anything, be excellent.

[22:04] Music.

[22:13] You’ve been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with Pat Sweet.
If you’d like to learn more, go to engineering and leadership dot com, where you’ll find More free articles, podcasts and downloads to help engineers thrive.
That’s engineering and leadership dot com.

[22:30] Music.