Be thoughtful about who is asking, for what purpose, and what’s at stake.
Saying no isn’t always an option, even when we’re feeling overwhelmed or overworked. So here are four more strategies for staying on purpose at work that aren’t quite “no,” but aren’t exactly “yes.”
Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hey, it’s Rachel Cooke, your Modern Mentor. I’m the founder of Lead Above Noise—a firm specializing in helping teams and organizations optimize their working experience. In my last episode (737), I talked about how burnout is on fire these days (pun nearly always intended on my end). And I shared a few of my favorite strategies for refining how we’re getting our work done, to help keep the burn at bay.
Because even when we’re feeling overworked or overwhelmed, saying no just isn’t always an option.
In that episode, some of the strategies I shared included Advising, Repurposing, and Collaborating.
Today I’ve got a few more for you—because who doesn’t love lots of choices!
Remember, not all of these will be appropriate for every situation. Be thoughtful about who is asking, for what purpose, and what’s at stake. Let those answers guide your choosing.
Let’s dive in.
Renegotiate timing. Because here’s a thing that happens on the regular. We claim a priority. Like—a competitor put out a new product, and now we need to refine our product so they don’t nab all our customers. So we generate a bunch of work designed to get our product suite looking all shiny and new. ASAP.
And then something new happens—like a customer spots a security risk in our existing product. So we generate a bunch of work designed to find and close that hole. Also ASAP.
Know what we don’t do, all too often? Question whether both of these are indeed achievable ASAP. Priorities absolutely change. We need to be willing and able to flex accordingly. When our plates are full and something else gets added, we need to have the discipline to renegotiate our timelines.
A security risk doesn’t mean we have to say no to innovating on our existing products. But it may mean we need to postpone it for just a beat while we address the more emergent challenge.
How many things on your plate are competing for top spot right now? What can you seek not to take off, but to push to the side for a minute until you catch your breath?
Reduce perfection. I know. This one’s a little triggering for some. These Refine strategies all come out of a workshop I run called Achieve More Through Purpose, Clarity, and Alignment. And truth be told, some of my clients have asked that I remove this one from the list as they’re afraid their teams will perceive it as permission to be careless.
Of course, I’ll always defer to the client. But the spirit of this strategy—reducing perfection—is not at all a celebration of sloppiness. It’s actually about making smarter investments with our energy relative to the payout.
When I’m emailing a client about an upcoming engagement, I’ll review and revise that note until I’m blue in the fingers. Every interaction with a client feels like an “at bat” and I want to hit a home run every time.
But a note to a collaborator or a vendor? No disrespect—the stakes just aren’t the same. Sure, I would love to believe every email I ever send to anyone is pithy and perfect. But an hour spent revising a vendor email is an hour not spent on business development.
Where are there opportunities in your day not to be careless, but to strip out some of the overwork or overthinking we tend to apply—especially all your perfectionists out there?
How can you start to redefine what “good enough” looks like in every circumstance?
Make a recommendation. In my last episode, I shared the Advise strategy. This approach works when you’re the subject matter expert and your brainpower is needed to fuel the work.
Sometimes, however, you have a different expertise—and that’s the knowledge that you’re not the expert… but luckily, you know who is!
I know. When someone asks for our help it feels good! It’s human nature to want to be the one to deliver it.
But sometimes the greatest value we can offer is the truth about our limits combined with a suggestion on where to look instead.
I’ve gotten requests over the years from organizations looking for help building leadership succession plans or attracting talent from more diverse pools. And while the truth is I’ve done this work in the past, neither is my area of deep expertise.
But luckily, I maintain a network of people I know and trust who have precisely these slices of knowledge. People who can deliver these outcomes faster and more thoughtfully than I ever could.
So I make recommendations and introductions.
And you can do the same.
When a request comes your way and you know it’s gonna be a grind to get it done, remember there are more—and sometimes better—ways to deliver value beyond taking the thing on yourself. Whose name comes to mind? Who can you point this asker toward? And how will you both benefit from your willingness to take a fresh approach?
Offer a helpful start. And we’re finally in the home stretch. My last Refine strategy for now. Offer a helpful start. Here’s how it works.
Next time a request comes your way, ask yourself this: Are “yes” and “no” the only options here? Or is there a middle ground? Sometimes the answer is you build the foundation but hand it off for the build.
Someone’s asking you to develop a client presentation? What if you develop the key talking points and objectives but you hand off to someone else to develop the content?
Someone’s asking you to run a financial analysis? Maybe you build a quick model and pass it along to someone else to run the data and draw the conclusions.
Someone’s asking you to plan an event? Maybe you pull together an initial list of recommended venues and vendors, and someone else makes the calls and the plan.
How can you add some value without feeling obligated to take the thing over the finish line?
Join me next week for another great episode. Until then, visit my website at leadabovenoise.com if your organization is looking to dial up its Employee Experience or deliver some leadership development that activates change. You can follow Modern Mentor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Find and follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for listening and have a successful week.