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Priorities

Saying “no” to another project on your plate takes grace and tact. If your boss comes up to you and asks you to work on a new project or task and you’re already working at capacity., what do you do? Ernie Humphrey wrote a blog article called “Saying No to Your Boss”. In the article he gives five approaches an employee can take to say no without coming out and saying no.

Be sure to read the article if you have not done so. What I will be doing is taking each of the approaches and dissecting it a bit and also looking at it from the perspective of the boss (leader).
The first approach as Mr. Humphrey says is “Level set a request into your current set of priorities”. What this means is to compare that request with the other items on your plate and see how it fits in. If it won’t fit, address this issue with your boss. What happens if your boss says “well you will have to make it work”. Then you might have to move on to the second approach to saying no.
From a leadership perspective if you have a person who comes to you with the idea that if they work on this new project the current one you want them to do may suffer. How will you handle that? Will you tell them they will have to make it work? A true leader won’t do that. A true leader will take what the person says and do one or more of the following.
  • Work with them to see how it can fit into their priority schedule.
  • Give them a generous time lines and see if that works for them. If necessary work with them on a timeline.
  • Table the project for a short while until the person is ready to assume the task. Make sure you know when they will be done with their current task.
  • Ask them for ideas on who on the team would be a good person to take ownership of the project and then make sure that person is still involved but to a lesser degree.

A true leader will embrace the fact that this person understands their limitations and doesn’t want any work to suffer. That leader will work with them to make sure everything is done and done successfully.
A leader shouldn’t look at it as a no but look at it as an opportunity, an opportunity to work with your people to strengthen them and bond with them on a project.
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