GETTING TO "NO"

"Everyone must choose one of two pains: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret." ~Jim Rohn

"If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession." ~Carlos Castaneda

 
I am obviously a proponent of workplace and societal effectiveness, especially when working in financial institution teams to accomplish myriad objectives that contribute to achieving the core aims of the organization. Often we are called upon to exhibit flexibility and efficiency to work effectively in those teams. And while many of us are familiar with Fisher & Ury's excellent negotiation read, GETTING TO YES, my friend, Monty Rainey, raises some interesting points in his article regarding the questionable effectiveness of Multitasking that led me to consider the alternative wisdom of "getting to no."


"Just Say No" became the popular cultural refrain in response to the epidemic of youth drug use a generation ago and remains equally important today. When faced with cataclysmic outcomes such as drug addiction, child abuse, or genocide, we may find it unquestionably simple to resoundingly say "no" to the heinous perpetrators and actions that lead to pain, suffering and death of countless individuals globally. Why, then, do so many of us lack that same resolve to say "no" when it comes to the everyday requests we find ourselves bombarded with via email, telephone, and in person?

As Stephen Covey aptly said, "(with people) if you want to save time, don't be efficient. With people, slow is fast and fast is slow." Yet, how often do we find ourselves attempting to efficiently multitask our family, household and faith life responsibilities? The internal conversation goes something like this: "Well, if I can review this proposal while helping Timmy with his Algebra homework after picking him up from hockey, then I can microwave some soup and help Betty with her science fair project that's due tomorrow once Lilly brings her home from ballet. That should leave me enough time to complete my presentation while I watch the 11 o'clock news." Did you smile knowingly, even just a little bit?

Our spouses, our children and our friends deserve the quality of our time, not simply the spectre of our harried presence. While there are admittedly differing viewpoints, as noted by Maureen Salamon (Healthday), this tendency to overschedule and multitask has even infiltrated the lives of our youth, causing varying degrees of unnecessary stress in children.

Applying that same perspective to our financial institutions and our teams, I invite you to review the outcomes you seek to achieve and I encourage you to examine the expectations and roles--both explicit and implicit--that each contributor is fulfilling to ensure that each member of the team has been assigned an appropriate share of the effort. As Leaders, we must factor into our review the cultural perceptions that each team member may have regarding priorities and imperatives, and ensure that an expectation of work-life balance is clearly communicated to everyone.

We must empower our team members to know that it is acceptable to choose to say "no" when a proposed additional task or project would impede an organizational objective of higher importance. While we must also be careful not to create the false impression that no one is expected to remain flexible when higher importance objectives arise, we should  emphasize that increased efficiency and decreased error rates can be achieved when one is allowed to "Just Do It"--to focus upon the highest priorities first--instead of attempting to juggle too many multitasked items. 

A confident and integrity-driven Leader knows that he can trust his team members to plan accordingly to meet or beat each milestone on the timeline. Given that trust, those same team members are better able to balance their lives outside of the organization, thus moving them personally into better alignment with their loved ones and their community. The most effective project leaders and team members I've observed are those men and women who know how to kindly say "no" and then get back to the task at hand. The strongest banks and credit unions will continue to be led by those focused Leaders.

TODAY'S QUESTION: Do members of your team continue to labor under the illusion of multitasking? What can we do as Leaders to authentically convey the effectiveness of focused attention and remove the expectation of multitasking?