A recently published study surveying 31,000 executives across 31 countries found that 66% of all respondents never get around to the things that truly matter in their company.

There are more initiatives, meetings, and firefighting than ever before. Most executive teams no longer even know how many projects are currently running in their organization, and something wildly important and urgent keeps raining down on us. If all these demands came from just one person or one side, we could prioritize together and find solutions. Unfortunately, they come from different people in different departments, often with contradictory content. So in the end we’re left with a decision dilemma, and far too often we simply say yes just to get some peace and quiet and be seen as a good employee.

But after a short while, that quick yes catches up with us again, and suddenly we feel bad or overwhelmed and grow increasingly unhappy with our decisions. Not to mention the health problems that can grow out of dilemmas like these.

That’s why we urgently need to learn to say NO. Normalizing saying no is the first step toward enabling focused productivity. But why is it so hard for us to say no:

1. Because saying yes is always easier in the moment.
2. Whoever says no can end up looking bad compared to others who say yes.
3. Saying no can mean giving up an opportunity – “FOMO,” the fear of missing out.

Those are all good reasons, but instead of letting these arguments win us over, we should also increasingly consider the positive effects of saying no:

1. Whoever says YES is, in truth, simultaneously saying no to something else they’re currently doing!
2. Whoever says no becomes more effective at the things they do.
3. Saying no with good reason signals to others that you have clear priorities and principles. You come across as clearer, more decisive, and more focused.

I’m convinced that if all of us said no more often, and that no was accepted and respected, our companies and employees wouldn’t just be more productive, but healthier and happier too. We’d be able to deliver on our promises again. Delivery times would be more realistic, and timelines would finally be kept. We wouldn’t have to keep pushing back the launch of our cars, phones, and trains by years, and maybe even Berlin’s airport (BER) and Stuttgart 21 would have been finished on time.

This post was published by Wolfgang Jenewein on LinkedIn on 03/18/2024. View the original post