Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. His popular blog airs riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread. His post yesterday covered a skill I think we all need to practice.
“If you’ve got talent, people want more of you. They ask you for this or that or the other thing. They ask nicely. They will benefit from the insight you can give them.
The choice: You can dissipate your gift by making the people with the loudest requests temporarily happy, or you can change the world by saying ‘no’ often.
You can say no with respect, you can say no promptly and you can say no with a lead to someone who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.
Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.”
For the sake and sanity of those we lead, learning how and when to say “No” may be one of the most important skills an agile leader needs.
How and when do you say “No”?
