Time To Say No!

Some people have under different circumstances difficulties in saying "No" to others. In organizations that is a frequent issue where employees or managers are sent to a training to dominate this competence.

It is possible that problems in organizations are like this: just isolated cases in which one person is not able to defend oneself by saying "No."

It is also possible that such an incident and isolated case is part of a bigger problem. This becomes clear when we ask why someone has to defend itself. OR, what will happen when all employees and managers have been sent to the same assertivity-training and there is no more problem in this area. IS the problem than resolved? And what would have been the problem at all?

Organizational issues always have a business component. If someone doesn't pick-up the phone a client will notice the un-availability of the business service. Inside, this could be because someone just said," I'm busy, I haven't had lunch yet," or some other fair-enough reason.
The other side is that not every element of the business is as interesting as you would like it to be.

Some corporate values highlight the "passion" of the employees for their work, but some jobs are just not interesting, not passionate, but boring and it requires the right amount of organizational discipline to get them done.

The easiest thing than would be to shift the job to someone else. If you are lucky and this person isn't too assertive he will do the job for you. At the end of the month this employees discusses the progression of the activities with the manager and they conclude that the results are below expectations. "Yes, but I have done a lot of other activities for others ... and ..." The manager concluded that this employees should be more assertive and "proscribes" the right training.

The wrong decision. After a few month it becomes clear that clients complain about a lack of service. The real problem didn't get solved and that is in this case the irresponsibility of employees towards part of their activities. There are always people who will solve this on their expense.

Rather than prescribing a simple solution, the busy manager should take a moment to think about a possible relation of this problem with some other. It often starts at the business and with "who is doing what."

Hans Bool
Hans Bool writes articles about management, culture and change. If you are interested to read or experience more about these topics have a look at: Astor White.
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