[00:00:00] **Andrew:** Hi, I am Andrew. Welcome to the Work Unravelled podcast. In each episode, we break down a piece of the workplace puzzle, providing practical insights, fresh perspectives, and actionable solutions to help you navigate the ever-changing world of work. 

[00:00:15] **Scott:** And I'm Scott, whether you are a leader, a professional, or simply curious about what makes organizations tick, this show offers strategies to think smarter, work better, and lead boldly join us as we turn workplace complexity into clarity.

One episode at a time.

Let me ask you, when was the last time you said yes to something at work and immediately felt the dread setting when you kind of thought, I really shouldn't have said that, but you felt that you had to? Today's episode is about something I'm actually quite passionate about 'cause it has been transformational and it's probably a little bit controversial for some people listening is actually saying no.

In a way that will show you can be done in a way that's respectful

[00:00:58] **Andrew:** Mm.

[00:00:59] **Scott:** and is honest and frankly is essential. I think in the modern workplace,

[00:01:04] **Andrew:** Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, Scott. I think this is a really big topic and it's probably a topic that's not explored enough, because if you are that yes person, I. And we do know a few. Maybe you are one of those Yes. People statistically and in,

[00:01:20] **Scott:** I.

[00:01:20] **Andrew:** to the research, you are far more likely to be the person that burns out you can't let your standards drop. You can never say no, and you can end up resenting other people, resenting your job, hating your job. So yeah, it's a really, really important skill to say no. In, in a sort of intelligent, mature way. so I think what we're trying to do in this show is we'll give listeners some tools, some sort of suggested frameworks, some approaches and ways to say no, that assert yourself, um, respect other people's boundaries, but doesn't make you out to be the bad guy. So I think that's what, what, what we're gonna try and do on this episode. So if we get into it, then Scott. Let's start by, I, I would suggest start thinking about what we actually mean by being assertive. Do you have a sort of, I certainly have a sort of perspective on what we mean by, by being assertive, but do you have a sort of take on what it means to be assertive?

[00:02:16] **Scott:** So I think assertiveness is about a, a balance, a middle ground between being. Aggressive and passive. And for some people that might be challenging. And again, it will depend on the circumstances, how people are wired, who, who, what your boss is, like if they're the one asking for you to do something.

All those things that we'll touch upon. But what it isn't is being manipulative. , Being passive aggressive, putting people on a guilt trip or just rolling over to avoid conflict and actually saying, oh, I'll just say yes 'cause that's the easiest thing to do. 'cause as you said, that will lead to burnout being stressed and all the stuff that we've talked about in other episodes.

So I often say , the things you say no to are often more important than the things you say yes to.

[00:03:00] **Andrew:** Yes. I

[00:03:01] **Scott:** And people need that confidence to be assertive and to protect their time, as I've talked about on other episodes. 'cause that's vital. That protection, your time is linked to your wellbeing.

It's linked to your effectiveness of work. It's linked to happiness. It's linked to how you feel when you finish work at the end of the day.

[00:03:22] **Andrew:** I

[00:03:22] **Scott:** So I think assertiveness is a vital skill to have, but it's, again, understanding it isn't aggressive and it isn't passive. It's that middle line.

[00:03:30] **Andrew:** Uh, I, I, I agree. And, and I think it's, it's interesting you touched upon that idea of passive aggressive, said on a few episodes now there are phrases that we sort of throw around to each other now, and one of them is he or she was being passive aggressive. That's something that I don't, I don't remember in the workplace people would even talk about maybe 20 years ago.

I dunno if you've, you've sort of would agree that's something that people now talk about, passive aggressiveness. We need to be clear what is being assertive and what's being aggressive slash passive aggressive. One person's assertiveness could be seen by somebody else as being passive aggressive. So there is a definite a confusion. But I think what we are talking about here, and this is what's really important for us to clarify, first of all, is. Being assertive is knowing your own boundaries. knowing what you need and what you want, and negotiating with the other person in a team between their needs and their wants and their boundaries. And there's this constant interplay from a, if you like, from a psychological perspective about what I want and what I need you want, and what you need. And in a mature setting, whether that's at home or in the workplace, we negotiate that. Now, obviously in the workplace there are, in fact in the home as well, there are power dynamics. People have more power, whether that's because of their position, their experience, their age, their wealth, or whatever it is. So there's always a power dynamic in play, but as I say, assertiveness is about in a mature way, negotiating that space between us. What do I need? What do I want? Whether that's emotional needs, physical needs, resource needs. Um, and, and what I, what I'm trying to achieve, if you like, my objectives and you having those as well, your, your resources and your objectives, and that is so difficult. Now, most of the time, most of us get that, right? But what we are talking about here, I think is those type of people who. Tend to say yes, and we can we'll dig into to why people do tend to say yes, but they say yes too often and they're not asking for what they need. They're not protecting what they need, and they're not maybe clear about what they're trying to achieve. I think for me, that's what that assertiveness is. It's about owning your own space. It's being aware of your own space without, if you like, violating and abusing. Somebody else's space to use that term. the research suggests that people who are more assertive, have lower levels of anxiety. And that's probably quite obvious because if you are getting what you need, you're getting the support, you're getting the help, you are achieving your goals, you, you're gonna feel less anxious. Don't you think? so people who are more assertive tend to have low anxiety, they have more confidence, they're more successful. So yeah, going back to your point, being assertive is such an important skill and it has an impact throughout your life. And can I give you a a an example from, from my sort of working life? I, I, I, I used to have a colleague. And she's still in the same organization. She could literally not turn down being involved in any project, any piece of work. She would always say yes, and she was the most overwhelmed, anxious, stressed person I think I've ever worked with. was lovely and everybody loved her, but underneath you scratched the surface and she was just a psychological mess.

Partly because she just kept on saying Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes, I can do that. I can take that on. Have you ever worked with anybody like that? Is that

[00:07:16] **Scott:** Yeah. Um.

[00:07:17] **Andrew:** worked with? You, you haven't been that type of person?

[00:07:20] **Scott:** Thankfully, but it is hard. Um, and I think some people do take advantage of that with people. As you said, the problem is on the surface. They're just, they're just a yes person. They're just, they'll always help you, but they're carrying then that enormous burden of trying to please everybody, trying to keep everybody happy, spinning so many plates and dropping plates fundamentally.

[00:07:45] **Andrew:** Yes.

[00:07:45] **Scott:** And that, that leads me onto the leadership aspect of this, which is a, a firm believer that the leader's job is to protect their team from saying yes to everything. And actually. Saying no is a strength, , and saying no respectfully and for the right reasons is vital really to protect the teams from burnout and doing the wrong things.

And I would find myself certainly in tech, in the tech space doing that a lot because I would get requests coming in. So for background, for the listeners, I was running a a web team and. It seemed like many people in the organization had an idea of what the website should do and what it should look like, and we were getting people giving us, oh, I've got a new idea for the website that I've just designed in Word, and I've, I'll email it to you and please, can you put this on the internet?

And I was like, the public aren't looking for this. This was a police website. So the public aren't bored at home thinking, what shall I do? I'll go and read the police website about this topic. So my job was actually. And I've said this in other shows, protect the customer from the organization. So you would get ego-driven projects because it was the cool thing to do, or you would get something that was based on an assumption because they think they know or because someone else is doing it, we must do it.

I would always try and then use the techniques that we're gonna talk about today around actually how do we manage those challenges. Frankly, that could take us down completely the wrong path, and some of those requests would come from more senior people, and I'd see this play out particularly in the IT space where IT departments see themselves as a supplier.

Not a partner in the business. And I think that's caused by the way that they're perceived by leaders, but also the way that people in it tend to behave. It's like, well, we'll just wait for you to tell us what to do and then we'll do it. And they don't feel that they can say no or they can challenge,

[00:09:46] **Andrew:** Yes.

[00:09:46] **Scott:** and I've seen play out in the organization, I've worked in parts of IT were just so overloaded, and they had a reputation of never delivering.

And the reason was they were saying yes and the edict from leadership was, "we must be a department that says yes. 'cause we want to be liked". We don't want people to think IT are being unhelpful. The problem, of course, is then IT takes on too much work. I had somebody who was quite proud, it was a badge of honor that, "oh, we're juggling over 150 projects at the moment".

Uh, my view is that was a failure of leadership, frankly, because what's gonna happen is most of those projects are gonna fail. Because you've taken too much on, and they're not based on evidence, they're based on the wrong background, the wrong request.

[00:10:31] **Andrew:** Mm.

[00:10:31] **Scott:** So yes, this is something I'm really passionate about, is actually leaders and individuals need to develop the ability to say no for the right reasons, with the right backing in the most respectful way.

Because saying yes to everything is a recipe for disaster on a personal level and an organizational level.

[00:10:50] **Andrew:** Yeah, I agree. I, I think there is definitely something in our culture. Now, we talked about throwing around the term passive aggressive. I think there's also a badge of honor about being busy.

[00:10:59] **Scott:** Mm-hmm.

[00:11:00] **Andrew:** I sometimes when I, if I do any training, any workshops, I'll, I'll, I'll say sometimes to the group, put your hand up if you are not busy. people look at me quite puzzled I can guarantee, I don't think I've ever had anybody put their hand up. So there is definitely a a culture of I need to look busy. I need to be busy. Now, clearly, and I know this is your thing, people are inefficient. Perhaps they're not as efficient with their workloads as they could be, but I do think some people do take on so much.

So you've got the genuinely busy people. I. And the people who are pretending to be busy. And in terms of ascent, assertiveness, what we're really concerned about, I think on this episode is it's those people, like you're pointing out maybe even entire teams, and some cultures, are certain cultures, you know that, what's that Little Britain sketch computer says?

No. Is it Little Britain?

[00:11:50] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:11:50] **Andrew:** teams and cultures, work cultures where they try and. Say no to everything. There's

[00:11:57] **Scott:** Mm-hmm.

[00:11:58] **Andrew:** that will say no, maybe it's the purchasing. I'm not, they don't have a hard time in anybody who's, who's listening from a purchasing department. But purchasing departments will say, no, nope.

You can't have that. You can't do this. Maybe IT departments in your experience will say yes 'cause they want to be liked and, and there's an expectation. So it's around expectations. I think what we're touching upon here then is rights Expectations. It's, it's a bit of a mix. It's a bit of a toxic mix, I think.

But

[00:12:23] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:12:23] **Andrew:** starts, as you say, and we'll talk about it, I think from two angles. Here is the leader's job to protect their team. But I think you as an individual, we each have a responsibility to know ourselves and our own boundaries, and we need to be good at setting boundaries. Uh, yeah, you're right.

The leader needs to set boundaries for the team, but we as individuals need to set boundaries. And one thing I would offer as, as a tip is we also, all of us have to have our own wellbeing boundaries. know, we've talked about, um, the, in the episode about burnout. You know, burnout doesn't start with sort of fireworks.

It's a slow grinding down of the individual. So if you're gonna be assertive, you have to have the boundaries of self-care. know, going home and putting the phone, the work phone in the drawer and, and not, you know, not needing it until the morning, not checking emails late into the night, not agreeing things outside of, you know, meetings and certain boundaries.

So, yeah, we, we also need to have that self-leadership, I guess, you know, we need to be looking after ourselves in order to be assertive in the workplace. So perhaps we then should start thinking about why. People find saying no. So difficult. In your experience, why do you think, I mean, you've touched upon it with your own of IT experience, but why do you think people tend to find it difficult to say no?

Do you have any sort of take on that?

[00:13:46] **Scott:** I think there's an expectation that we won't be liked if we say no,

[00:13:49] **Andrew:** Yeah.

[00:13:49] **Scott:** that we will be letting people down and that we won't be doing our job. Maybe we were afraid to say that we're overloaded. So there's probably a fear as well of being judged, saying, oh, well why can't you do this?

It's your job kind of thing There, there's, I think the main thing is probably fear and wanting to be liked and not being, um, part of the team, you know, fear of getting singled out. Oh, there's no point giving it to them. 'cause they always say no or they're never going to do it, or they're always too busy to help me.

So I think there's a deep rooted need to be liked and loved and, . Part of the team.

[00:14:25] **Andrew:** Mm.

[00:14:25] **Scott:** And yeah, that links to the IT example where, , the mindset was, well, IT already hasn't got a good reputation, so we daren't say no. But actually that's a self-fulfilling prophecy then because you say yes, you take on too much and then you'll have an even worse reputation because.

You just won't deliver on everything. And I, I often say my, one of my mantras is I'd rather do a few things really well and deliver than lots of things really badly and never deliver anything,

[00:14:53] **Andrew:** Yes.

[00:14:54] **Scott:** which is, back to that point about what you say no to is important. So it's, I think the, it's hard for people, but it's overcoming that fear and thinking actually, if I say no to this.

In a positive, constructive way and give good reasons why and take people on that journey with me and understand why I'm saying no. That makes sure that I'm protecting my time to the things I have said yes to that can actually deliver the things that are gonna really deliver the value.

[00:15:21] **Andrew:** Yeah. Do you know that phrase saying No early protects your integrity later. So

[00:15:27] **Scott:** I haven't heard that one.

[00:15:29] **Andrew:** protects your integrity later. And what I think that phrase talks to is you can't take something on or you shouldn't take something on because you're already, I. At capacity or beyond capacity for many people, if you keep on saying yes, you're gonna let people down, you're gonna fail, you're not gonna hit deadlines, you're gonna fall behind, and then your reputation will suffer because way back three months ago, six months ago, you said yes to a project or an extra piece of work and you shouldn't have done. So if you can say no appropriately as we'll, explore and how to do that. And there are definite ways to say no that are intelligent and mature and sensible and so on. But if you say no, uh, in the, at the right time, and I just wanna touch on something else in a, in a moment. But you are protecting your reputation because as you said, you're saying yes to a few things perhaps, but the, the stuff you are saying yes to, you are delivering at a very high standard. Now, of course if you're seen as effective, people are inevitably gonna give you more stuff, aren't they?

[00:16:35] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:16:36] **Andrew:** Do you know if you, you are good at your job, because like you've said, you're focused on the things that, that really matter. reputation will be high. The therefore people want to do more. They want you to do more.

So it's a tricky path to follow here, isn't it? I mean, as you say, say yes to the right things. Say no to the things you should say no to, because you're saying yes. You're saying yes to the right things, people will want you to do more. So I

[00:17:01] **Scott:** Mm-hmm.

[00:17:01] **Andrew:** a sort of counterintuitive thing going on here.

The more successful you become, the better at your job that you get, more things you'll have to say no to.

[00:17:13] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:17:14] **Andrew:** In a way, you

[00:17:14] **Scott:** And

[00:17:15] **Andrew:** even better at saying no in order to maintain that reputation.

[00:17:19] **Scott:** yeah.

[00:17:20] **Andrew:** sense to you?

[00:17:21] **Scott:** Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's maybe not as that black and white either in terms of, it's not necessarily yes or no. It might be a no, not right now.

[00:17:31] **Andrew:** Yeah, not yet.

[00:17:33] **Scott:** And it depends on the nature of what you're being asked to do, of course. Because as I said, quite often a lot of the things I got asked to do were frankly, bonkers

[00:17:40] **Andrew:** Mm-hmm.

[00:17:41] **Scott:** or, or not, based on any, you know, from my professional viewpoint, that was going to be a waste of time.

Some of the requests though, were that's a really good idea. Yes, we should absolutely do that, but I know that I've got higher value work that we are doing right now.

[00:17:56] **Andrew:** Yes.

[00:17:58] **Scott:** It wasn't a no, it was okay. Yes. But we're going to have to look at where we prioritize that and how I keep you in the loop about where that is in our pipeline of work.

[00:18:07] **Andrew:** indeed.

[00:18:08] **Scott:** that make sense? So I don't think it's necessarily a yes or a no. Sometimes it is a yes, but, or

[00:18:14] **Andrew:** Uh,

[00:18:14] **Scott:** let's pipe that or look at that later to.

[00:18:16] **Andrew:** precisely. One thing that strikes me as, as you've saying that I think a couple of things. First, us, I think mentioned we're two blokes, two guys, and I think there is definitely some research around how men and women, terms of the workplace, and if anybody's listening to this, there might be think, well, it's easy for you to say 'cause you are older white men, and you can say no, we've both been in positions where we're very junior.

So it it, it really depends on your ability. say no or yes on lots of different factors. Your age, your experience, your position in a company, whether you are a freelancer working for a client. have to be realistic that we are sort of maybe simplifying when and why

[00:18:54] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:18:55] **Andrew:** yes or no. Would you agree?

I think we've gotta be careful that lots of nuance about,

[00:18:59] **Scott:** Absolutely.

[00:19:00] **Andrew:** yeah, you might say to your colleague, no, I can't do that for you yet. Yet, like you just said, but to your boss or. The, the top of the tree, the md, the CEO, whoever she is, you know, you might have to say yes because it's the CEO. So it's a

[00:19:15] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:19:17] **Andrew:** problem we're dealing with here, and I think if you are struggling with this, it's to be kind to yourself to say, yeah, this is, this is difficult. Certainly in the workplace. I mean, it's difficult at home, isn't it? I mean, it's difficult

[00:19:27] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:19:28] **Andrew:** if you've got kids and kids are the, the, the, you know, they're the smartest people getting you to say yes. They want the ice cream, they want the, the, the toy. They want to spend more time on their Xbox or whatever it is. So kids are very good at getting to say yes usually. But what we've gotta remember is that you have a capacity as a human being, whether that's at home and or at work. You have a capacity and you need to know what your capacity is and guard it.

You know, be very careful with that cap capacity because your reputation and your health depends on your capacity.

[00:20:02] **Scott:** There are times when maybe the CEO says, just do it. And you don't feel safe to challenge even though you think it's the wrong thing to do. And I think people then need to make sure that they are protected and protect themselves.

And I would advise things like saying, okay, maybe you don't agree. Say, you know, again, it all depends on the circumstances, but make sure that you record your decision somewhere, even if it's with your direct line manager and say, look, the CEO has asked us to do this. I don't think it's the right thing to do, but he's told us, or she's told us, we just need to get on and do it.

But I just want you to note that this is the potential impact of that. We may in two months time. Find out that it was a waste of time. So actually, is there something you can do to get some support from a colleague or your direct line manager or somebody else to make sure that you've kind of offloaded that to somebody so that you've protected yourself rather than carrying the burden on your own.

So you've got people to back you up if actually, you know, I've, I'm doing it because I've been asked to do it, I think it's a bad idea. Does that make sense?

[00:21:08] **Andrew:** That's so right. I think if, if you've got a good CEO, he or she should allow you to say no. it might be a case of, as we've talked about in in previous episodes, it it, it's that psychological safety thing that I keep banging on about the, the, the good CEO allows space for you to push back and say, I perhaps would recommend a different route of action.

I, I would recommend we do something differently here. You may not be saying no completely, but you should be able to offer your input If you have a CEO or or an MD or boss who says, no, just get on with it and you cannot say no to that person. What you'll end up doing is maybe having to say no to somebody that you previously said yes to, and you talked about IT departments.

Often, I've worked with IT departments where we've asked for something to be done and another department had priority over us. And our project got pushed back. So they had to say no to us, or they didn't ever say no. They often just took twice as long as they, they'd agreed to. So there are very, there's so many layers to this.

It's

[00:22:11] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:22:12] **Andrew:** It's not easy, certainly in the workplace. And the one thing I would point out is I, I, you mentioned a CEO that I did work with a client a few years ago in, in, in an engineering company they had a, um, a web development team who. Spent six months, I think it was working on one of the part of the website, just to keep one of the senior people happy and they should have said no, their boss of their team couldn't or wouldn't say no to this senior person. I'm not, not exaggerating, it was just, it didn't add any value to the website. It was a huge amount of money. It was a lot of time for this web team to work on this part of the website and the rest of the organization was screaming out. resource. They were screaming out for things to be fixed. this, the boss of this particular web team could not say no this, uh, senior person. it,

[00:23:04] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:23:05] **Andrew:** in all directions. And it's not just, you know, colleagues working with each other within, if you like, within the sort of classic Dilbert cubicle space. It goes up and down the organization. That goes across organizations, between departments.

We talked a lot about. Why it's difficult to say no and, and the implications and the impact of not saying no enough. So we start trying to offer people some ways to say no. Well, if you like any, any suggestions on how to say no?

Well,

[00:23:32] **Scott:** Yeah, so we can follow something called the desk script method, which is DESC script.

[00:23:40] **Andrew:** Yeah.

[00:23:40] **Scott:** So that begins with describing the specific behavioral situation. Express. So expressing your feelings or concerns, but using I statements, not you kind of point at the finger, but how you feel, how you see the situation specify.

So what would you like to see? Change or what would you like to happen? What the desired outcome be and consequences. So what do you think are either the positive or negative consequences of that? So I'll give you an example. So starting with describe, so you may say, this , request has come in asking me to work on X, and it could take three months.

You express that. I feel I'm being asked to do something that doesn't fit with the objectives or priorities of the organization right now. I actually don't think it's the right thing to do. It's not the right direction to go in. Specify. Say, I'd like to us to actually look at this objectively and say, you know, can we work together to see if there's the right thing to do?

Can we get some evidence? Can we get some other people's opinion on this? And then the consequences would be. This is to make sure that we are making the best use of our time. 'cause we recognize that our time is finite and actually we don't wanna waste company resources or time. We can't do everything.

So that might be a way that you may lay out in a way that's depersonalized. You're not attacking the person, you're not coming across as defensive. You're saying, actually we're trying to. You know, specify what's going on here and , how this makes you feel and how, trying to get them to think about what the positive or negative outcomes of that might be, rather than just, you've asked me to do it, I'm not just gonna say yes.

[00:25:19] **Andrew:** The desk that describe express, specify, and consequences model is really, really helpful. I think I wish I'd, I'd learned that years ago, um, because I've often. Got into quite difficult arguments with people when I've tried to say no, and I've, I've, I've messed it up. So it's a really useful framework I was gonna offer if people can't remember desk, which as I say is a great thing, just saying things such as simple responses, saying things like, yeah, thank you.

Um, can I think about it? Can I get back to you? One of my favorites in the workplace is, thank you. I'll check and get back to you. And that, that shows that you aren't saying no immediately. you are open to thinking about it and checking first, because we talked about resource. You might initially say yes in a meeting to doing something, but you've forgotten about another meeting that's happening next week, or you've forgotten about something you promised a colleague.

So I say, I say when you are being offered or asked to do things, saying Yes, I'll get back to you, or if you have to, assertiveness. Assertiveness would be saying. I'm sorry. Thank you for asking me for that, but I can't commit to that right now. I can't do that right now. That would be assertive. But again, going back to the desk script, that's a really polished, professional way to at least identify to other people that you've thought about this and you've tried to explain to them why perhaps you can't take it on.

[00:26:45] **Scott:** Yeah, and just as you were saying there about in, we referenced a meeting, of course, again, down to the circumstance and when and how you are asked to do something. It might be in an email or it might be in a boardroom meeting in front of lots of senior. New people. So the dynamics at play, there will be

I really feel I have to say yes in this circumstance 'cause I'll be judged versus over an email. It might be a bit easier to do. Um,

[00:27:09] **Andrew:** CC.

[00:27:09] **Scott:** again, certainly the, the, can I think about it, can I take that away? Or, we've got a lot of work right on right now. I need to go and discuss it with the team, see what we can prioritize.

So there's, it's, it's deferring, but also making sure that you do then follow up afterwards, of course. 'cause if you never get back to them, then you lose the credibility.

[00:27:29] **Andrew:** If you use desk every time that people will, uh, they'll work out what you're trying to do. I think what I'd to say of course is that a couple of things, and you mentioned this earlier on is clearly in the workplace you still wanna be a team player. You still wanna be enthusiastic.

You, we talked to in the career change episode, if you've not heard the career change episode, check that out. We talked about, you know, if you're bored in your job taking on new things. So this really is. balancing actor, you do wanna see, be seen as being proactive and positive and enthusiastic. So what we're suggesting here, there are ways to do that whilst at the same time protecting those boundaries and protecting that, that resource. One final thing that I'd I'd offer is, whilst Scott, you mentioned about being a manager, if you are a manager and a leader. Of a team, you need to be really clear about their workload. And I know you are big into Agile and, you know, uh, workflows and things. I, I had a team that I managed years ago and they couldn't say no to the customer. And sometimes some organizations are terrible. You know, we know, we know all organizations that have, uh, lots of organizations have terrible customer service. But this particular team that I, I manage, they couldn't say no to the customer and they were doing extra work. The customers were asking for it. And of course once they'd done it once, the customer then kept on asking and kept on asking. So I insisted that they said, no, never complained. They just,

[00:28:53] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:28:53] **Andrew:** okay. Fair enough. I think we put a charge if they, if the customer really wanted us to do that work, which we were doing for free beforehand, we just put a nominal charge. And the customers just stopped asking. So I say, I think the other responsibility you've got as a manager is not only looking after your own boundaries, but as you pointed out earlier on, is protecting the BA boundaries and and capacities of your team. That's really important.

[00:29:16] **Scott:** Yeah, that's reminded me of, , something that would happen in the police. I, my team worked with the call center team, , to do digital shift, and one of the things that came up was what was described as over service. So police, , phone lines are continually. At capacity and the non-emergency line, and what we found when listening in to some of the calls to look at efficiency, et cetera, was for the right reasons.

The staff answering the phones were offering over service too much. So, for example, a remember of the public would phone up say, I need help with this. And actually it wasn't a police matter, but that particular call handler would say, let me just look that up on the internet for you and I will send you the link.

Whereas actually, ideally they said, this isn't a police matter. Please can you go and research on the internet. You'll find the answer yourself.

[00:30:04] **Andrew:** Yes,

[00:30:05] **Scott:** The problem with that over services, then the customer go, ah, they were really helpful last time. I'll tell people and then they'll phone them again. Can you help me with this now and help me with that?

So I think it's about setting boundaries as well

[00:30:15] **Andrew:** Yes.

[00:30:15] **Scott:** terms of not offering an over service, uh, 'cause again, that compounds the problem again. I just thought it was interesting. You just triggered that. Reminded me of that.

[00:30:23] **Andrew:** absolutely right. So I think what we're saying there's institutional boundaries and individual boundaries aren't there. So

[00:30:28] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:30:28] **Andrew:** try and of bring this literally, literally home with some final points, then some final suggestions.

Have you got any sort of final suggestions or tips for people to

[00:30:37] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:30:38] **Andrew:** assertive?

[00:30:39] **Scott:** So as we've said, know your rights. You are entitled to protect your time, and I've said that before. You know, if you don't protect your time, don't take control of your own time and capacity. Other people will. So standing up for that 'cause you know you've got a job to do and generally. People will know what they're doing and they in the best place to decide what's best use of their time.

So know you're right. Stand up to those requests that you don't agree with. As we've said, it's not necessarily black and white. So take away and say, I'll think about that. Be respectful use the DESC script method that we've talked about, um, for those bigger moments. Um, and. I just, again, come back to that mantra.

The things you say no to are often more important, the things you say yes to.

[00:31:21] **Andrew:** completely.

[00:31:22] **Scott:** cannot do everything, so

[00:31:23] **Andrew:** completely, as I

[00:31:24] **Scott:** be assertive, but for the right reasons to protect your time, and frankly, the organization and your colleagues.

[00:31:29] **Andrew:** Absolutely. As I said, saying no early protects your int integrity later, and I, I, I just challenge the listener to sort of think about this. It may be a skill that you feel you're fine with. If there's somebody that you know that is always saying yes, maybe forward this episode onto them. But if you are somebody that needs to practice this, think about this. Think about how you say no politely and carefully and assertively and have a go practice one saying one no this week.

Think about those boundaries. Write them down and protect them because you cannot say yes to everything. And by trying to say yes to everything, you're actually saying no many things. So yeah, this is a really important skill and you can get better at this.

Thank you for listening to the Work Unravelled podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next one. If you'd like Andrew or me to help 

[00:32:19] **Scott:** you or your 

[00:32:19] **Andrew:** business, 

[00:32:20] **Scott:** whether it is for team productivity, leadership, coaching, or communication skills, our website addresses are in the show notes.

Thanks, and until the next time.