How I Push Back Without Sounding Difficult
Diplomacy Is a Power Move
This is
- your weekly guide and shortcut to mastering emotional intelligence through the power of empathy. I recently wrote about how to STOP being your team’s emotional dumping ground.
It's meetings, all day long, for the next 6 hours.
Your boss sends a Slack message asking, "Can you do this thing? It's urgent."
Your stomach churns. You don't want to say no, but you can't say yes. This is a day of unmovable meetings. You want to be focused on them and not multitask.
How do you diplomatically say NO without burning bridges? You are not an AI that can work 24 hours a day; you need to sleep at some point!
You know it might be urgent, but they might say it is "urgent" when you really have a few days to do it.
How do you level up and push back without being that "difficult" employee?
I Didn't Want to Be That Person
I didn't want to be that person who was difficult, saying no and being the drudgery of a team. I've always been a high achiever in my academics and strived to put my best foot forward in work.
However, as the statement in "Primal Leadership" by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee states, "No creature can fly with just one win" (p.26). You cannot fly high in your work if you do not have the right tools at your disposal. These tools can include time, knowledge, or collaboration.
Saying no completely or no can help you achieve your end goals.
It is not an act of disobedience or disrespect. It is an act of empathy to be candid about the limitations on you in the present moment, whatever they may be.
You are human and more than just your work. It's okay to set boundaries to protect, well...you!
The internalized belief that we must say "yes" (especially as women) is ingrained in us from a young age, from an era in which people often worked for our companies for a lifetime.
Yes, loyalty is good. Loyalty to the point that you are working at 11:23 p.m. at night while fighting off a cough and needing a good night's rest is not loyalty. It is not suitable for you or your employer. It is time for a mindset shift and to say No respectfully.
Overdelivering Isn't Noble. It's Unsustainable.
You say yes when you mean no. The words escaped your mouth before you could think. Now, you are working late into the night, with regret?
Why go here, to begin with?
If you do it often enough, the 40 hours your salary pays for is actually 60 hours, maybe even 80. You are devaluing your own pay. It is not sustainable.
Plus, the people around you will come to assume this is your normal bandwidth, which will only result in more work coming your way.
Before you get to this situation, there are some psychological tricks to use to say "yes."
Visualize the aftermath of saying "yes" before you are tempted. Are you able to commit to this additional workload? Will another commitment suffer as a result, or will it be mediocre because you had to pivot your time?
Anchor in empathy. Is it empathic to take on something the other person believes you can thoroughly do but cannot give your full attention to? Is this fair to either one of you? No!
A best practice is to have a pushback script ready…
The Pushback Script That Kept My Career Intact
If you want to reach your professional development goals, you cannot be in a constant state of fight or flight, or, as it is sometimes called at my work, "firefighting mode." It's challenging to sit with your thoughts, be creative, and produce your best work when you are under the pressure of the foundation cracking.
How do you say no, even if you are primed to do so with the right mindset shift?
You know you want to say no, but how?
Apply 4 parts:
Keep it in your own voice. An overly formal response can come off as cold
Share the reality as an objective statement without the emotion
Be focused on a solution that works for both of you
Keep it collaborative and open in dialogue
Write up your go-to statement based on the above. I recommend you take a sticky note or put it in a easily accessible spot on your laptop.
You might even create several variations, depending on who you are talking to, such as a coworker on your team or someone higher up.
For example, here is my go-to:
Hi, thanks for including me in this urgent task. Quick heads-up, though: I'm allocated to [X and Y] today and won't be able to give this the attention it probably needs today. When is it due?
Do you want to chat quickly about what's most critical or see if we can reassign something? I'm here to help; I just don't want to drop the ball on anything else.
You're Not Difficult. You're Discerning
Being discerning is diplomatic and strategic.
If you said Yes to everything you ever were asked to do, would you be able to achieve true greatness in an area of your life? No, you would be a master of none, as the expression goes.
If you are stretched in 10 different places instead of focusing on 3, do those 10 areas get the same level of focus? Not likely.
Push back to protect your time, work, and purpose. Urgent for someone might mean today or next week.
Do not undercut your worth. If you go the extra mile, make it known, not to brag, but to reinforce that it is not the norm.
Shift your mindset to say no and have a go-to script ready. When you have a split second to think, this will come in handy to think of your feet. You are not being difficult; you are extending empathy in communication, practicing self-management, and building social awareness.
You, too, can push back without sounding difficult.
✅ What I’ve been analyzing this week (reading, watching, listening, etc.)
📖 I’m reading “Primal Leadership” by Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. This bestseller is going to reshape how I show up and lead.
👂Want to hear my reflections from my post last week in a an under 1-minute audio? Check out my 2nd issue of Humanity Beyond AI Friday’s, and scroll to the top section!
📺I did a Webinar last Wednesday titled, “Humanizing Revenue Operations: Why Empathy and Efficiency Must Coexist” with Arriel Balogun. Watch it now on YouTube!
Want more on Empathy and Emotional Intelligence to Elevate your career? 📈
I empower💪tech people to elevate their empathy, to accelerate their careers
Thanks, Colette. The usual advice of ‘just say no’ sounds so simple, but in reality it is often difficult. Your example of how to do this practically is really helpful in this regard.
Professionally I struggled to push back used to the round about way or implicitly state my disagreement. Love this resource, especially the graphics!