Just say no!
That’s what we heard with President Reagan’s war on drugs. Over time the phrase has been usurped and plugged into so many places that context has been lost and just saying no has been understandably anchored to the “right and good way” of answering when you are guarding yourself and others around you.
To create a healthier you and a healthier group of people around you at work, get really good at holding boundaries but recognize that saying no is not necessarily your best option. Saying no might be the easiest (and possible the safest), but it doesn’t teach those around you how to coordinate with you for the best outcome for everyone.
Make holding boundaries a discussion of priorities, capacity and outcomes that don’t just orient on you. These four things will aid tremendously in figuring out what you can do to hold work boundaries in a healthy way:
- Conspire for the success of everyone,
- Get clarity on the relationship between a position and a role,
- Hold boundaries while honoring commitments and
- Orient actions on being kind not nice.
Conspire for The Success of Everyone
My kids taught me when they were young that me saying no to them was always the safest route… for me. I was busy running a consulting practice and I was very good at teaching the kids that no meant no. They knew asking again was fruitless. If I was busy and only half listening to what they wanted, saying no meant I wasn’t changing the situation I was in. I didn’t have to work new responsibilities into my day. The problem with just saying no to them was that it might very well be shutting off great possibilities for the future for them AND for me.
Fortunately, this habit of saying no (not changing my day) wasn’t part of my leadership and work style. My team knew that coming to me with issues or opportunities was usually met with a discussion of priorities, capacity and outcome changes. We would look at what was on the docket currently, examine how change would affect anyone involved and get clear on the what the overall end result would likely be.
The cultural component of the organization was to have not only your concerns and interests in mind but your team’s and the organization’s concerns and interests as well. Conspire for the success of everyone!
Aside: reflecting on this, I need to check in with my kids to see how my unconscious parenting has affected them.
Position and Roles
Organizationally, if you get clarity on your own responsibilities (roles you hold) and know what other’s roles are, you can conspire and coordinate better.
Most people conflate role(s) with job (also known as position or title). The professional world even uses these words interchangeably. If you think of a role as a high-level view and agreement to hold an area of responsibility and a position as a set of roles, we can communicate much more effectively for ourselves and others. In a company most titles are associated with 1-8 roles.
For instance, the title Operations Manager could have multiple roles associated with it depending upon who you are working for. The position Operations Manager at ABC, Co. might hold these roles:
- Project Management Support,
- Customer Relations Manager,
- HR Support,
- Financial Data Manager, and
- Operations Manager.
While the position Operations Manager at XYZ, Inc. might hold these roles:
- Project Manager,
- Inventory Manager, and
- Strategic Planning Team Member
- Facilities Coordinator
You can see that they are clearly two different jobs and working for ABC, Co. then shifting to XYZ, Inc. would require a considered focus on the roles to coordinate well with the new team.
Getting clarity on what roles you are holding them shapes the boundaries you are working with.
Holding Boundaries while Honoring Commitments
Generally, when we think of holding boundaries we think of holding our hands up and pushing back. Just say no. Don’t let anything through. That’s the safe and “right” way of being, right? But…
If you shift your thinking just a bit and think of holding your responsibilities in your hands, you begin to see it’s about choices. It’s about taking care of what’s already in your hands – what you’ve already committed to.
You already know you can’t hold too much. If you are to honor what is already there, what commitments you’ve already made, taking on something new requires you to determine which commitments can be let go.
Don’t do it alone (conspire for the success of everyone). Those that ask things of you can help you to prioritize what you are holding, what commitments do you already have to them and others. Involving them in the process of choosing which commitments stay and which ones go accomplishes a lot. It:
- makes them feel heard,
- reveals the workload you already have to them and others,
- reinforces what your actual roles are so they can make better requests in the future and
- creates an opportunity for you both to keep the bigger picture in mind when choosing what’s next.
If your world, your roles are part of living healthy cell, the wall of that cell is permeable; it allows for change within the cell. Holding boundaries can be the same – let things in and push other things out.
Be Nice or Be Kind
Don’t just say yes either!
Sometimes you push up against your need to be nice when you are trying to hold a boundary. You just keep on taking on more and more.
We are nice to those around us because we’ve been conditioned to be that way – by our parents, by our religions, by our teachers. We’ve been conditioned to just say yes when someone asks for help. We even sometimes call it “taking care”. We then have problems taking care of ourselves; it feels right and good to do what others are asking of us. We have to choose between them and us.
We can choose to be kind instead of nice. It may be uncomfortable to do, but in the long run it helps to conspire for the success of everyone.
What’s the difference between being nice and being kind?
Being nice is making the moment as tension free as possible. Saying or doing the thing in the moment that makes it as easy on the other person or persons… even at our own costs. We end up taking on more than we should or is even possible.
Nice looks like:
Your boss: “Can you get me this new key project done by the end of the quarter?”
You: “Of course. That’s my job!” All the while you are dying a bit on the inside because you know you are going to have to dig even deeper than you already are.
Being kind is setting a person or persons up for success in the future even if it means tension for you or others.
Kind looks like:
Your boss: “Can you get me this new key project done by the end of the quarter?”
You: “Sherry, I know you need this project done and I know I’m the best one to do it for you; it’s part of my job. There’s just so much on my plate already. We’ll have to talk about what I’m currently committed to and how we can get someone else to do something. Can we put a 20-minute conversation on your schedule?”
Being kind may take more time and courage to say no in the moment, but it’s letting your boss know you do have a boundary, but a permeable one. You can get to a yes; it just takes time.
Finding Your Balance
Work relationships can get pretty complicated. Holding boundaries by always saying no alienates others. Not holding boundaries by always saying yes is depleting for you. Find the way of holding boundaries that is honoring your current commitments and involving others around you.
Take the next week or so and just observe yourself.
- Are you holding boundaries with out context? Do you know what responsibilities you have and what the boundaries actually are?
- Are you uncomfortable having the conversation about boundaries because you might create hard feelings?
- Are you presenting a wall and saying no because it’s the safe thing to do?
- Are you looking at the big picture?
- Are you involving others in coming up with a different way of looking at what commitments you already have?