“One-half the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.”
… Josh Billings (1818-1885) US writer
How many requests do you get each day? Unless you are a hermit, chances are you get a lot.
Requests are the building blocks of promises and promises are the glue holding a society together. If promises are important and requests initiate promises, then it makes sense to know how to effectively respond to a request and the implications of any response.
Although, there are FIVE legitimate responses to a request, I only want to deal with one here – saying “yes”. And not just saying “yes“, but always saying “yes”. Such a response may seem to you to be all well and good. You might believe you are being helpful, and you want to help people, so that means saying “yes”. You might believe people will like you if you agree to help them, so again you say “yes”. You might believe your role to always help others. Once more, a “yes“. However, if you always saying “yes” then you must feel compelled to do so and this is not so good. If you are compelled, you must feel you have to do something and you have no other options. Without options, you are trapped and, by always saying “yes“, you are living life as others want you to live it.
There are many reasons underpinning a need to always agree to requests. Some are situational such as where there is a significant imbalance in authority. It is certainly the norm for people to feel they have to say “yes” to their boss or other senior people in an organisation. Yet, to always acquiesce may not be the best course for the organisation in general and people in positions of authority would do well to remember that.
A predisposition to guilt can also lead to a “yes” rather than “no” even though they do not want to do something or believe they cannot achieve what they are being asked to do. This is a “yes” born of obligation and is often exploited by others prone to emotional blackmail.
Some national cultures instil people with a predisposition to say “yes” to save face or simply not cause upset. Many organisational cultures, particularly more aggressive ones, create this expectation of people always saying “yes” when asked to do something. To do otherwise elicits unpleasant consequences.
Indeed there are many circumstances where people say “yes” when they would prefer to say “no” or negotiate any commitment.
Always saying “yes” can have a significant impact on someone’s well being, performance and relationships. At the very least, when someone always says “yes” they are unlikely to fulfil all their promises.
Think about what this all means. If you make a promise to me, I act as though what you have promised will occur in the agreed time frame. I do not go and ask other people to do the same thing. I assume it will be done by you. Even though you may avoid some unpleasantness now, you will almost certainly have to face a more unpleasant conversation later should it become apparent you not done as promised. If I am conflict averse then I may not speak to you directly about this lapse and and undermine you behind your back. Either way, our relationship and trust will suffer.
By agreeing to every request, you may attempt to do it all and you may even achieve but at the cost of much personal stress. Over time, this leads to very unhealthy and even toxic places.
There is much more to an inappropriate “yes” than may appear at first glance. Next time someone asks you to do something, how about considering your priorities and options before responding. It may just save you some heartache and pain.
Related Concepts
Requests, Offers and Promises
Action Conversations
Responding to a Request
The Basis of Relationships
The Dignity Equilibrium
When reading this post plus the previous and next post, I start to think about the role that “concern” plays. My concerns and your concerns and/or my concerns vs. your concerns. For example, when we have an inappropriate “yes”, whose and what concerns are being taken care of? Or is the shareholder concerns more important than the customer concerns? At an individual level, at one end of a continuum we have people who are almost exclusively only concerned for themselves at the expense of others, and at the other end we have people who are almost only concerned with others to the detriment of themselves.
Pardon my rambling comment, I could almost write a paper on this.
Maybe we could have a conversation about this at some time?
Thanks for your comment Graeme.
There is little doubt in my mind that we are always in the question of balancing our concerns with those of others, albeit more often than not we do this transparently. I like to use David Rock’s SCARF model (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness) when it comes to considering our core concerns. I have always found it interesting to see how people rank these concerns in general and then how this shows up in individual situations.
Would love a more in depth conversation with you about this!