Vanessa Patrick joined host Brett Hendrie to talk about how we can hone our skills when it comes to saying "no," how we can reject requests more scientifically, and why we all benefit when we learn the art of refusal.
Vanessa Patrick joined host Brett Hendrie to talk about how we can hone our skills when it comes to saying "no," how we can reject requests more scientifically, and why we all benefit when we learn the art of refusal.
Brett Hendrie: Have you ever said yes to someone when your inner voice was actually screaming at you to say no? I remember years ago a superior asking for my help organizing their event. It was ill conceived and last minute, but I said yes and helped anyway, even though it truly wasn't part of my job. And the time I spent on it meant my core responsibilities were less attended to. Why did I say yes? Why do any of us say yes in these situations even when we don't want to? Of course, we value our relationships, and we worry about how we are perceived. None of us want to be labeled as difficult or uncooperative. But there can be great power in the word no, and it's one we should all embrace.
Welcome to Visiting Experts, a Rotman School podcast featuring backstage conversations on business and society with the influential scholars, thinkers and leaders featured in our acclaimed Speaker Series. I'm your host, Brett Hendrie.
I'm joined today by Vanessa Patrick to talk about her new book, The Power Of Saying No: The New Science Of How To Say No, That Puts You In Charge Of Your Life. In it, Vanessa explores the underlying reasons for why we tend to say yes, even when we'd rather not, and how we can all better navigate saying no.
Vanessa is the associate dean of research and a professor of marketing at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. In her research, she investigates strategies to achieve personal mastery, and inspire everyday excellence in oneself and others.
Vanessa, thank you so much for joining us here at Rotman, we really appreciate you being here.
Vanessa Patrick: Thank you so much, Brett. It's so exciting to be at Rotman and in Toronto with you.
BH: Vanessa, I'm curious about what inspired you to research this topic. Was there something that happened in your life where you wish you could have said no?
VP: Absolutely many times, but the story that I'd like to tell is the one that I begin the book with.
It's the story of the day of my 24th birthday. Now, I spent that evening in an empty office staring at a fax machine, instead of being at my own birthday part. Earlier that day, we had had a routine client meeting. And I as the most junior person in the team was tasked with writing the minutes of the meeting. And the process was that I attended the meeting, took the minutes, showed them to my boss, fax the minutes for the client. And then when the client had a chance, they would fax the minutes back to us. And that day, I faxed the minutes off as soon as I could, and was ready to leave. And as I was getting ready to leave, my boss came to my desk and looked at me and said, “Well, have you fax the minutes off?” And I said yes. And then she turned and walked to the elevator. And then she just stopped. And she turned back and looked at me and she said, “Did you receive the receipt from the client saying that they have received the minutes?” And I said no. And she said, “Well, don't leave till you receive the minutes.” I was stunned, completely shell shocked, because she knew very well that I had a party that I needed to attend, which was my own party. And I was here in the office waiting for a fax. And as I did that, I really thought a great deal about the fact that I had no words. I did not feel empowered to push back, to just come up with a reasonable response to her request, something which could have been as simple as “can I come tomorrow morning really early, pick it up on the fax machine and drop it off?” And that feeling of being trapped, that feeling of feeling tongue tied caught in the spotlight when you're asked something you don't want to say yes to was one of the key motivations to write this book.
BH: I really feel for you with that story especially cause it was your birthday and I think we've probably all experienced those moments where we just can't get out of saying yes to somebody. Can you help us understand, why are we like that? Why do so many of us struggle with saying no, even when we prefer not to?
VP: In my own research, I have found that many people have stories similar to the birthday party story. And these reasons for why we say yes, when we want to say no fall into three main buckets.
The first bucket is our concern for relationships. We are social creatures, we like to have friends, we want people to like us. And we believe that saying no will damage the relationship with the asker.
The second bucket is the bucket of the concern for reputation. We want to be seen as competent and capable and able to do whatever is thrown at us without any concerns and of time and energy constraints. And that is really not realistic.
And so, very often we get caught and anxious and conflicted and burned out and stressed because of our concern for coming across as capable and concern for our relationship overwhelms us. And we often say yes to those things, because we think that that's what other people want to hear.
The third thing is we never really practice saying no. We are socialized to say yes, in so many situations. And a lot of research shows that we do a lot to avoid being asked so that we don't have to say no. So if we anticipate someone asking us something, instead of facing it and dealing with it and saying no, we just avoid them completely. So we don't give ourselves the opportunity to practice the nos.
BH: That's such a great insight too because obviously, you know, anything that we practice and really have foresight about prepares us for dealing with things in the moment. The social aspect that you commented on there is really interesting, and I want to zero in on that, and maybe you can share more from your research. I know, in the book, you talk about how the context of when we're being asked to do something who's asking us if there's other people who are watching us during that ask all that impacts how we're likely to respond. Can you share some of the research that you've done on that area?
VP: Absolutely. This is the research that I call the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect is essentially the feeling that you are under scrutiny and that everybody is watching you, and that you don't feel you have any leeway in a situation, and you are trapped in the spotlight. And you have no choice but to say yes. And we can encounter this feeling of being in the spotlight in a variety of different situations. It could be something as simple as being at work and someone asking you to organize, say, the next retirement party. And you have got a whole plate of things that are actually your job to do. And you feel trapped and you feel “what would people think if I said no to organizing this retirement party?” And so you say yes. And we believe that saying yes will take away the problem. But I call it the easy button. The easy button is pressing the button right now to say yes, in the moment, getting out of that spotlight. But then you are actually burdened with doing the work in the long term. And so I caution people to pressing that easy button.
BH: The spotlight effect is so interesting. And I love reading about it in the book, and that you shared what I think is such a perfect ultimate example, which is the idea of a proposal in a stadium full of people. And I know I've been in stadiums where somebody proposes and I think how could the other person possibly say no in this situation with so many people looking on? But one of the other areas that I think was really interesting, too, is the idea of the acquaintance trap, and how that can force us to say yes. Can you explain to us what that acquaintance trap is?
VP: Even though we are concerned with our relationships with others, and this drives our ability to say yes versus no. The ability to say no varies dependent on the actual relationship that you have with people.
So for instance people we are very close to - where we are not concerned about the strength of the relationship or that the relationship ties would break, so we are comfortable with saying no. This could be somebody like your mom or your significant other. If you say no to them, you know that the relationship is not going to be damaged.
And then there's another group of people in the complete opposite bucket, which is the complete strangers, we are not concerned with saying no to complete strangers, because we're never gonna see them again. So saying no to a complete stranger is easy.
It's the whole bunch of people in between, which is pretty much everyone we know, will fall into the bucket of acquaintances with whom we do care what they think, but also with whom we have a somewhat tenuous relationship…it could go either way depending on our responses. And so we have to learn how to say no to those people, in a way that not only communicates a no, but also make sure that the relationship with that asker is secure.
BH: I think that definitely makes sense in terms of acquaintances, but even within the workplace, you think about teams, and it's probably easier for people to say no, within the team structure where they know and trust each other very well. But as you go into concentric rings out to other departments, and folks in different parts of the organization, the desire to be seen as helpful and cooperative can sometimes overwhelm people's preferred judgment.
VP: You're absolutely right.
BH: So for people who are worried about disappointing their co-workers, or their acquaintances, and situations like that, what are some of the strategies that we can adopt so that we feel more empowered to say no.
VP: What I do in the book is identify a set of competencies that we can develop to say what is called an empowered refusal. An empowered refusal is a way of saying no, that stems from your identity, and gives voice to your values, your preferences, your beliefs, and communicates with conviction and determination your stance on a particular matter. And because it's grounded in our identity, it is much easier for us to communicate and know in a persuasive manner, and not do damage to the relationship with the other person. And so what I show in my research is that when you use an empowered refusal, the other person respects you and respects your choices, because you're communicating very clearly, that your no is about you, and not a rejection of them.
So the research really is focused on the power of language, and the use of language to implicate the identity versus not. So let me give you some examples. Let's say somebody asks you to go out for dinner tonight. And you have a policy or a rule that you have made for yourself that on weeknights, you put your kids to bed, and you stay home and get an early night so that you can get up the next morning, and that's your rule. So that is your preferred option. And yet, somebody is persuading you to come out and do stuff. You can communicate, “I'm really sorry, I can't because I’ve got to put my kids to bed and I have to go to sleep early.” And as soon as you say “I can't do it,” and you make attributions to external reasons, you invite pushback, you're attributing it to something else.
You could alternatively just communicate your personal policy, which is “I don't go out on Tuesday nights or Thursday nights,” or whatever it is. By implicating your own identity, by placing your refusal squarely within who you are and how you like to operate, rather than some external reason, you come across as way more empowered. And you can try it with pretty much anything you can say, “I can't eat white bread,” or “I don't eat white bread.” As soon as you say, “I can't eat white bread,” it's almost like you beg the question, why not? And then I have to give you a whole long reason as to why not. Whereas if you say, “I don't eat white bread,” I'm not going to question that because it is my way of operating in the world.
BH: So can a situation like that work, even if you haven't already thought about what your overlying rules are, what your policies are?
VP: You know, that's an interesting thing, because one of the competencies involves setting up rules. In order to effectively communicate and empowered refusal, you need three main sets of competencies or skills that we need to invest in. And I call them the ART of empowered refusal - A R T, an acronym that stands for awareness, rules not decision, and totality of self.
So, the whole process begins with us investing in developing a sense of awareness about who we are, what we care about, what our values are, our beliefs, our preferences, our priorities in any particular domain. And with that deepened self-awareness, set up a set of rules for ourselves. That can be broad rules about what you generally prefer in different situations. There could also be very specific rules, like if you find yourself falling into the same trap again and again, then you can develop very specific personal policies or rules around that particular situation. And then when you need to communicate that empowered refusal. Someone asks you a question, and you know that you have a rule in place, then you need to use both very empowered language, as well as empowered body language to accompany that verbal part of the communication. And so that's the totality of self bit. So it's the three parts that are taken together and practiced over time, make us much, much better.
BH: I was reading about that in your book. And I was thinking about a situation where we had a family friend over to our house, and somebody went in to give this person a hug, and this person stood back, and she said, “I'm not a hugger.” And you make the point in your book about the difference between nouns and verbs. And if this person in my situation had said, “I don't hug,” it's a verb. But “I'm not a hugger” is a noun. And so it's really understanding your ability to have self-awareness and where your boundaries are.
VP: Yes, and communicating that with empowerment. And so one of the cool things about using nouns is that they really implicate the identity, they say, “This is who I am now, five years from now and 10 years from now.”
And when you use excuses, you're leaning on something that is very temporary and external to you. And so in one of my studies, which I think is a really cool study, it contrasted the difference between excuses and personal policies, and showed that, in the short run, the both the excuses and personal policies do equally well. You communicated a no. But in the long run, you left the door open for future asks of this nature when you use an excuse, because an excuse is, by nature temporary. But if you communicate a long-standing stance on a particular matter of your personal policy, you're going to not have to keep repeating your refusal to this person again and again.
BH: So is it true that people might opt for an excuse because it is ready and convenient, and they're asked something that they don't expect to be asked, so they don't have a boundary they don't have a policy in place about it. So when we're put on that spotlight, and have to think quickly, “how am I going to answer this question. I want to say no, but I haven't been able to process what my policy is?” How do we do that and not end up just using a flimsy excuse?
VP: We know that people, people argue their no backwards, we very often start with all the reasons why we can't say no, then we say no. What my first recommendation is, is to never make a decision in the moment - always buy time. So if someone asks for something, always say, “Let me think about that, and get back to you.” Because that gives you the time to truly think about whether this is a good thing for you to do, whether you should do it, and how you can communicate to the asker. So rule number one is always buy time.
Rule number two, is not ask yourself, “can I do it?” Because if you are a reasonably competent and responsible and capable person, you can do a lot of things. You can stay up late, you can get up early, you can drop other things, you can juggle things around. The question is, “must I do it?” So instead of looking at an ask, and asking yourself, “can I do this,” ask yourself, “must I do it?” By just changing the question, you are increasing your likelihood of tending towards a no response. And it's so liberating, to be able to say no to things that you don't want to do, and have things on your calendar that you actually do want to do,
BH: I think all of us welcome the idea of having more space to focus on our own priorities, but also not wanting to be selfish. And so I'm curious in your research and writing the book, how personal priorities, shaped the decisions that we can make or want to make. And I can think of situations where sometimes I've said yes to something, and it's a bit inconvenient for me, but I recognize it's in service of a greater good for the team. And it's it is worth the effort putting in. And what's your guidance to us in terms of how and when we make those value judgments?
VP: This is a question that comes pretty often to me, which is how do I decide what to say yes to and what to say no to. And so I developed a simple framework in the book called, which I call the Decipher the Ask framework. And it's a simple two by two matrix, where the first axis is the cost that saying, yes, will be to you. And the cost in terms of how much time it will take how much energy it will take, how much pain it might cause you, how much stress it might cause you? So that's the cost to you. And that cost is very unique to the individual, because something that's easy for me to do might be pretty hard for someone else to do and vice versa. Right? So evaluating your personal cost.
But what's really nice about this model, is it's not a selfish way of viewing the world. It's a way of viewing a world that allows you to bring the best of yourself to the world, which is where that second axis comes in. The second axis is about how much good can I do if I said yes? How much of a positive impact can I have on this person on the situation If I did say yes? Let's take a simple one; something that's pretty easy for you to do, but can make a huge difference to another person. I call those the pass the salt tasks. So imagine that you're sitting at a dining table and the salt shaker sitting in front of you, and someone says, "Hey, could you pass the salt," and you just lift the salt shaker and pass it along the table, and that's easy for you to do. So the effort that you have to take is very low. But presumably you've really made a difference to that person's meal because they really needed the salt. So there are some tasks that are easy for us to do, but are pretty important for other people. And those asks are the ones that we should try and say yes to because those make a positive difference to the world at very little personal cost to ourselves.
BH: And how about the ones that are difficult for us, but also potentially valuable, for the greater good?
VP: I call those the hero's journey asks, and we need to say no to things that are not important so that we can say yes to Hero's Journey asks. So this book is not about just saying no to everything. It is about choosing things where we can make a positive difference in the world, with the things that we are uniquely good at doing. And those are the hero's journey asks. So, say yes to Hero's Journey asks, they might be difficult, but they make a positive difference.
BH: I love that framing, because it really is about not focusing on the negative or about being selfish. It's really about taking these strategies into our lives in a way that we have the space and time and bandwidth to do those things that are most consequential for ourselves, for our communities for our co-workers as well. I was wondering, when you're talking about the importance of language, if we use these strategies in our inner monologue, can they be helpful in terms of motivating us towards our goals?
VP: Yes, in fact, the initial work that I did was about self-talk and using empowered language to shape our own behaviors. The way we talk to ourselves really matters. In fact, the person we talk to the most is ourselves, and the voice that we use, and the language that we use to ourselves has a great impact on how we behave and how we take on things. So learning to speak to ourselves in a way that empowers us towards the things that we need to do and invest in is a good practice. And so the similar sort of empowered language – using words like I don't, I won't, I never, it's my policy to… having mantras that motivate us having what I call precepts, which are words to live by that that kind of activated us a certain motivation, learning to speak to ourselves in a way that allows us to achieve is very, very powerful.
BH: Does that extend to things like managing our diets and managing our times? So if I start saying to myself, “I don't eat cookies after dinner,” that will be more effective than saying to myself, “I shouldn't eat cookies.”
VP: I shouldn’t, I can't. These are these are these are words and phrases that trigger the provision and signal to others and yourself that you are not allowed to, which takes away that feeling of being in control. Very often I think about these phrases as the way in which you put yourself in the driver's seat of your own life. You’re giving yourself the permission to do what you want to do, and what is right for you. And you need to speak about these things in the language that aligns with being in the driver's seat.
BH: Being in the driver's seat, sounds great. But I know from personal experience, and I'm sure listeners have had this as well, but there are those personalities out there who are incredibly persistent. Or there are people that we deal with in our everyday lives who, because of a power imbalance, it's just really, really hard to say no to them. How do we deal with those people who just are tenacious and try to get their way?
VP: Unfortunately for us, even if we learn the three competencies of empowered refusal and master the art of empowered refusal, we will come across people who will not take no for an answer. And there are strategies to deal with these pushy askers. The first is to recognize how pushy asker asks, because they have become masters of persuasion. They will not leave till they have gotten their way. And so, if you try and – as I suggested earlier – buy time and say, “Hey, I need time to think,” they will insist on an immediate response. They will insist on making a request face to face because we are 34 times more likely to say yes to a face-to-face request. So pushy asker will make sure to come to your office and stand right there and not leave until you've given them a yes.
And in my book, I call them walnut trees, specifically the black American walnut tree is this imposing tree with a luxuriant canopy, and it has a root system that goes out 50 feet. And what it does is it exudes into the soil a chemical called juglone, which is a herbicide. And while the tree itself is thriving, it stunts the growth of everything around it.
When I describe this walnut tree and how it operates, people immediately say, “I know that person, I know a person who behaves like a walnut tree. It's all about them. It's all about what they want. They don't listen.” And those are the pushy askers that we just talked about.
Now, how do you deal with a walnut tree?
First is to recognize how they operate and recognize that they will use different pushback strategies. So, you say no, and they will push back in two main ways. They use either active pushback, someone walnut trees might yell and scream, and say “How dare you say no to me,” and really bargain with you. Those are very active pushback strategies – you know, shouting, bargaining. Other walnut trees, use a more passive pushback, you know, they'll stop talking to you, they'll walk away and look really disappointed, they will make you feel really guilty, or they'll tell you all the things you might miss out on igniting strong sense of FOMO.
BH: Or sometimes they'll bring somebody else to persuade.
VP: Sure, absolutely. So, these are strategies that walnut trees use. Now we need to stand our ground, if this is something that we really care about, we cannot make it a practice to give in to walnut trees. As soon as you recognize the behavior, and attribute it to walnut tree like behavior, you are giving yourself the permission to push back. You're saying, “okay, that's walnut tree behavior, I know how to deal with it.” Dealing with a walnut tree can be tricky. The key is to not lose your cool, to stand your ground and to have the confidence that your personal policy, your stance on the matter is important to you. And sometimes that involves repeating yourself. I know one person who every time the walnut tree yelled, her voice would go slightly lower. She created a vocal contrast, which was really interesting. The other walnut tree, realized that she was barely whispering, and backed off.
BH: That stat that you mentioned before that were 34 times more likely to say yes face to face is really astounding. And I wonder, can we combine the strategies together? So first buy time. And then to disintermediate and say we'll get back to you over email, or over a phone call? And then use that platform to say no?
VP: Absolutely. So changingthe mode of conversation from face to face to email…you know, the same way a walnut tree might bring someone in, you might bring someone in someone else who will take your side and give you some strength in numbers. Sometimes you can delegate your no to somebody else and ask someone else to say no on your behalf. There are lots of practical strategies in the book that I outlined about how to deal with walnut trees.
BP: I'll remember those tips when we want to say no, and also for when we want people to say yes, and that in person is always more likely to succeed. But don't be a walnut tree. We don't want walnut trees. You've spent so much time researching and understanding this area so well. Can you share with us some of your own personal policies and how you went about discovering them and establishing them in your own mind?
VP: So firstly, there are three types of personal policies that I think I have sprinkled in my life, the all three different versions. So the first type are decision rules, which are simple rules that we make for ourselves that shape our decisions. For example, simple things like, I always sit in an aisle seat when I'm flying. I never take a red eye flight. I get up at 5:15 in the morning because I'm a morning person. I do not have meetings in the morning with people, because that's my creative time. My day and my life are full of decision rules. So that's one type of personal policy.
The second type of personal policy is a set of rituals, things that you do on a daily basis that feel good, that gives you a sense of continuity. So writing every day for 30 minutes, at least, that's a personal policy. Waking up in the morning and taking a sip of coffee in the morning with a bit of gratitude. Making sure that my evenings are open to spend time with my family. So those are rituals that I have.
And then, of course, precepts. And precepts are the words that we use to ourselves and talk to ourselves. And, you know, like everyone else, things are busy, and sometimes they get stressful. And especially with the book along with a full-time job, I can tell you, it's been pretty hectic. But, you know, one of the precepts that I've used over the last few months, especially when I'm feeling super stressed about things, is to tell myself, “be in demand, stay in control.” And just simply saying that to myself, makes me feel “wow, yeah, that's nice, because people want me, the fact that I'm pulled in all these different directions, and people are asking me to do all these different things, it's a good thing. Okay, I'm in demand. But I also am in the driver's seat, and I am in control of the situation.”
BH: Those are great. And I think it's clear, you've taken the time to really understand what works for you in your life at home and at work. And people really need to spend that time to understand what is the space and relationships that they need to carve out to be effective day to day, One of the questions that we wanted to ask as we close things out, is, if there's one piece of advice that you wanted to share with our listeners, who are really looking to be more empowered in this space, how would you phrase that? Or how would you synthesize that that piece of advice?
VP: I think the key takeaway is that it is so critical for our personal and our professional well-being to learn to say no, effectively. I believe that no is a super skill; that if you learn to say no, you feel more confident, you feel more empowered. And that spills over into other domains in your life. You might become better at negotiating, you might be better at advocating for yourself and for others. You might be better at pursuing tasks that are more important to you to realizing your dreams. And that is what life is about. And if we learn the simple skill, it might lead us onto a path to bigger and better things.
BH: I love that no as a super skill. I'm going to add that to my LinkedIn profile and, people can take it as they will. Vanessa, we really appreciate you being here. Congratulations on the book. For folks who are interested in finding out more about you and your work. Where can people find you?
VP: I'm on LinkedIn.. My website is Vanessapatrick.net. I'm also on the University of Houston Bauer College of Business website. Google me.
BH: Fantastic. Well, thank you, Vanessa, for all those great insights. We really, really appreciate it.
VP: Thank you so much, Brett.
BH: This has been Rotman Visiting Experts backstage discussions with the world class thinkers and leaders from our acclaimed speaker series. To find out about upcoming speakers and events visiting us here at Canada's leading business school, please visit rotman.utoronto.ca/events.
This episode was produced by Megan Haynes, recorded by Dan Mazzotta and edited by Damian Kearns. For more innovative thinking head over to the Rotman Insights Hub, and please subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Apple or Google podcasts. Thanks for tuning in.