negotiation discussion
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reading_2.6.docxStaying with No
Holly Weeks
It’s hard to say no. It’s harder still to stay with the no in the face of your counterpart’s disappointment or anger. Here is how to be heard and respected without damaging relationships.
Roger Fisher, negotiation expert and coauthor of the widely influential book Getting to
Yes, used to tell his law students that sometimes he wished he had written a book about getting to no. He didn’t have trouble saying no, he said, but he had trouble staying with the no: when family members were disappointed or associates pressed him, he would give up, and give in—even to things he didn’t want to do.
Like Fisher, most of us want to be agreeable; we want to accommodate people. For one thing, people generally like us better when we say yes to them than when we say no.
For another, saying no can be unpleasant—sometimes very much so. Particularly when
we are saying no—to someone senior—we feel considerable tension between our desire to stay with no and our desire to stay out of trouble.
The people to whom we say no rarely like hearing it, and it’s no wonder. Our saying no signals rejection—of their ideas, of their wishes, of their priorities. Consequently, most people will try to get us to change the no to a yes. That means we have to work to defuse emotion on both sides: our discomfort at staying with an unpopular no and our counterpart’s irritation, disappointment, or anger at hearing it.
We could, of course, cut the Gordian knot by giving in. But in the end, the consequences of not staying with no can cause much more damage—to our self-confidence, to our relationship with the other person, and to our credibility and effectiveness as a professional.
If we want to reduce the tension around staying with no, we will do better to think not about whether to stay with no, but how.
Many Reasons for the Other’s Resistance
First, however, it helps to recognize why your counterparts want to “yes the no” and readjust your own emotional response to their efforts.
Business Culture
It isn’t inherently insulting to you that the other person wants you to back off your no—it’s part of our business climate to try to yes the no. If you want to keep the emotional temperature cool, don’t read her challenging your no as an affront to your dignity or credibility.
Source: “Staying with No,” by Holly Weeks, from the Harvard Management Communication Letter at the
Harvard Business School 1, October 1, 2004, Vol. 1, No. 4. Used with permission.
Personal Experience and Expectations
Your counterpart’s personal experience and expectations rather than the interpersonal relations between you may be the strongest determinant of how he responds to your no.
He may be argumentative, wheedling, stunned, or angry because that’s how he always handles hearing no. I was staying with no in a conversation with a lawyer until I was eventually persuaded to his view. After I agreed, however, he kept right on hammering me to change my mind. Finally I laughed and said, “But Peter, I’m agreeing with you.” He paused and said, “Mostly people don’t.”
Context
There may be something about your staying with no—maybe something interpersonal, maybe not—that makes your no particularly difficult to accept. It’s not unusual, for example, for someone who might be able to hear a no privately to be embarrassed to consent to it publicly. She may want you to back down so she can save face.
Not all of the friction between the effort to stay with no and the effort to yes the no is bad, but some of it is. Bad friction turns into a contest of wills, with one side winning and the other caving in or backing down. That’s hard on relationships and often leads to payback.
Your Own Resistance
While your counterpart’s resistance to your no can be hard to take, part of the problem may lie on your side, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Far more people are coached to yes the no than to stay with no. Anyone who simply picks up a general interest magazine is instructed never to take no for an answer; in contrast, those of us who are trying to stay with no get very little guidance. So without practiced techniques to fall back on, we respond emotionally. Staying with no puts us in two different predicaments. On the one hand, we don’t like to be negative. On the other, we don’t like to be pushed. If you especially don’t like to be negative, you probably tend to soften your no. It feels natural to you to try to stay with no gently. But this may result in your no not getting heard. If you especially don’t like to be pushed, you likely tend to become combative as you stay with no. For you, the natural thing is to get the conversation over with, not stretch it out. The problem with this strategy is that it may require you to spend a lot of time on after-the-fact damage control. The solution in both cases is to change how you say no—that’s the piece you can control. You need to acquire the skill of saying and staying with no neutrally—to say no simply, clearly, and directly, using arguments that are not easily weakened by your counterpart.
The Neutral No
A neutral no is steady, uninflected, and clear. It’s mostly illustrated by what it’s not. It’s not harsh, it’s not pugnacious or apologetic, it’s not reluctant or heavily buffered, and it’s not overly nice. Neutral and nice are not the same. Even if you’re nice, use neutral to stay with no. By sticking with neutral, you’re concentrating on the business end of no, not the personal. If your first no is tentative, your second is brusque, and your third is caustic, I don’t necessarily hear your intentions, whatever they may be. It’s not my job to read intentions. I hear that first you give me hope and then you lose your temper. That’s hard on relationships and on your reputation. You want a referee’s manner. A ref just says what he says—good news for some, bad news for others—regardless of the strong feelings on both sides that his message may inspire. His job is to give his message neutrally and stay with it neutrally if challenged. A neutral manner doesn’t prevent you from speaking directly about the friction between staying with no and trying to yes the no. “It’s hard for me to tell you no; it must be hard for you to hear” is consistent with neutral. Use your own language here, but check that what you say is neutrally spoken: •If you know or suspect why your counterpart is resisting your no, acknowledge his concern honestly but without giving hope. “You have a lot invested in what you’re asking, and it looks like I’m personally blocking you.” Give a reason or justification for your no. “I see my job as balancing valid, but competing, needs. I’m focusing on that.” Aren’t you just creating an opening for an argument there? Sometimes, yes. But the objective of staying with no is not necessarily to terminate
this conversation with a monosyllable.
• If your reason is well chosen and neutrally spoken, stay with it. Don’t volley different arguments with your counterpart. Changing an argument is not necessarily an improvement over repetition.
• In some cases, you may want to tell your counterpart what you could say yes to.
That’s not a foundation of staying with no, it’s an option and the beginning of a negotiation. If you’re open to that, you don’t have to wait for the counterpart to ask.
Dos and Don’ts
Keep Your Eye on the Issue, Not the Personal
You see your job as staying with no; I see my job as yessing that no. No one is doing anything wrong—we just don’t want the same outcome here. It helps to think of the push–pull between us as an honest disagreement about how the tension should be resolved. It does not help to think of my resistance to your no as disrespect for you.
Know Your Triggers
Your counterpart may be trying out different tactics to get you to yes your no. The tactic the counterpart uses matters only if you’re vulnerable to it. Which arguments are you most susceptible to? Which tactics? Does an ominous suggestion that the union will hear about this roll off or rattle you? Do tears move you to offer a tissue or to fold? Most of us know where we’re vulnerable. If, for example, you are undermined by a counterpart who says she is disappointed in you and personally let down because you stay with no, you have probably been vulnerable to that sense of falling short of expectations before.
Don’t Give Them Too Much to Read
It is very hard to pick out what part of a message to read if, first, the message is mixed and, second, there’s an emotional flare in it. A harsh no that offends or angers people makes them stick to their guns, even if all you wanted to do was get the conversation over with. On the other hand, people who are uncomfortable staying with no often overdo the apologetic nature of their no—they say no, express their regret for it, and ask to be forgiven for staying with no, all at the same time. The message surrounding the no seems to be, “I want to stay with no and yet have you like me.” That’s hard to read, but more important, if I don’t want to hear the no, it’s very easy for me to overlook it.
Don’t Weaken Your No
Curiously, many people do this backward. They start saying no using lightweight reasons, holding back the real, heavyweight reason. And the counterpart swats away the little reasons because they aren’t very persuasive. To limit the frustration on both sides, give reasons with good weight up front.
An executive assistant had been helping out a colleague by taking on work that was not his responsibility. Now he needed to curtail his tendency to say yes all the time because he was swamped. The next time his colleague asked for his customary help with photocopying, he said, “I have to say no, and it’s really my fault because I don’t seem to be managing my time very well.” His colleague disagreed that he wasn’t managing his time well—in fact, she praised how well he managed his time. And, not accepting that the executive assistant had a time-management fault, the colleague also didn’t accept his no. He had offered a self-criticism with his no because he wanted to head off the potential criticism that he wasn’t being very helpful. But he weakened his no by doing so.
Beware Misguided Empathy
Most of us genuinely regret it if our counterpart is disappointed when we stay with no. But be careful and clear about what you can legitimately claim to share. A newly married couple was surprised and upset to have their mortgage application declined by their new bank. The mortgage officer agreed that it was disappointing. She listened to their protests and arguments, making suggestions while staying with no. But as the couple was leaving her office, she said, “Believe me, I feel as bad about this as you do.” The young wife turned to her, stiff with new indignation, and said, “No. You don’t.” The mortgage officer undermined her good no by claiming that her pain was as great as theirs. That will almost never feel right to those who must accept the no.
Avoid a Battlefront Attitude: “I Won’t Give In;You Lose”
Not everyone tries to soften her no. Some of us say no combatively, and treat staying with no as escalating warfare. This could be you if you find a battle of wills stimulating. When staying with no feels like a triumph of the will, good outcomes—and good judgment—are in jeopardy.
Don’t Give False Hope
Staying with no tentatively, or with a show of reluctance, makes it easy for your counterpart to hope you will change your no—and hard for him to accept the no. It sounds like your no is on the edge of tipping over into yes, so your counterpart is encouraged to keep pushing. Try the positive approaches suggested here to break a pattern of giving in, instead of falling back on a manner of saying no that suggests you are about to give in.
Practice Staying with No; Don’t Avoid It
If you want to get better at staying with no in the face of the arguments and tactics that trigger you, it makes sense to practice with someone who will play the part of your worst nightmare in a protected setting. That’s better than waiting until a real situation arises, when a lot is on the line.
