How to Say NO to Your Boss

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5 years ago

Last week I shared a situation in which my previous direct report, Julie, was struggling with her new manager (see post here). In summary, Julie’s new boss is expecting her to focus on projects that she feels are unproductive and/or potentially could have a negative business impact. I’ve thought a lot about Julie in the last week; as I’ve thought about it, I realize she also needs to learn to say no to her boss sometimes.

However, saying no to your boss is easier said than done. These types of conversations with your boss can lead to one of the Career Killers. Please be careful!!

As such, I would refrain from simply giving a hard no to your boss. You may need to do so directly, but I consider that the tactic of last resort.

So what tactics should you do instead? Here are a few….

How to Say NO to Your Boss

Approach #1: Mutual Decision-Making on Priorities

If your boss asks you something and you’re overwhelmed or not sure is an important or beneficial task, I encourage you to include your boss in a discussion to co-decide on the priority of this new work.

It would look something like this…

Boss: could you develop a new customer loyalty program?

You: Interesting idea. I’ve been planning to focus on the XYZ project over the next few weeks. How about I take a stab at comparing the estimated benefits and work effort required for these 2 initiatives. I’ll get time with you on Monday to review and decide how to divide my time between those 2 projects given the benefit and work effort.

Boss: Thank you. I forgot you were also working on project XYZ. That is project is very important. Yes let’s discuss.

Essentially what you are doing here is illustrating the relative importance of the new request to other ways in which you could spend your time. By including your boss in that assessment, you are effectively minimizing the degree to which you need to say no. Instead, you are both agreeing that something is not a priority

In the end, your boss will be aligned on what you’re area of focus are. Also, I believe your boss will see you as a leader for taking charge and being laser-focused on the biggest areas of impact on the business.

Approach #2: Propose a longer timeline

A different approach is to propose a more generous timeline for a project you feel is less of a priority. So, you’re not saying “no” per se; instead, you are saying “next week.”

So, this is how it would go:

Boss: could you develop a new customer loyalty program?

You: sounds interesting. I’m focused on project XYZ at the moment, could I get back to you in 3 weeks to discuss what this would look like?

If your boss says “yes,” then…great! If your boss says no, then I think you need to try #1 above. For some reason, if you’ve tried #1, then we are getting pretty close to having to give a hard no.

But before discussing how to to that, let’s discuss…

Approach #3: Let’s not do something crazy

Bosses are people too; they can sometimes have wild ideas that would not have the best business outcomes. I once had a boss that wanted us to tell customers that they needed to be more responsible for their own actions instead of coming to us if our product broke. Hmmm, I could see his point, but it didn’t seem like a way to build long-term trust.

In that situation, I’d suggest asking “how might we” questions (my favorite professional advice!). It would look something like this:

Boss: We are getting too many customer complaints about product breaking. Our customers need to be more careful. We should tell them to be more careful in our packaging, and then not offer a replacement product if they brake our product.

Me: Interesting idea. Yes, we are seeing more broken product complaints recently. How might we inform the customer to be more careful without offending them?

Boss: I’m not sure we could.

See how asking the “how might we question” allowed you to push back on the idea, without saying “no that is crazy”?

Approach #4: A hard no

While I think it’s rare that someone needs to give a hard no on something his or her boss requests, I believe you need to be prepared to do it. You’ll likely only need to do that once or twice in your career. But it would be important to do it right!

When would I have to give a hard no?

Well, if your concerns are not about resources or timing, then you’re probably dealing with tougher constraints such as legality, morality, or — at minimum — appropriateness for the culture of your organization.

So how do I give a hard no?

I would simply say, “I cannot do that” or “I’m not comfortable doing that.” You don’t need to give a reason or say anything other than that. However, I do suggest following up with, “Instead, I could do…” and then give one or two alternatives.

So, for an example…I once had a boss that wanted me to basically “spy on” another colleague to him. I didn’t that would be appropriate given our culture, and I felt it was dishonest and detrimental to my relationship with my colleagues.

Here is how our conversation went:

Boss: Could you find out if Sheryl is doing what she should be doing on Project XYZ?

Me: I’m afraid I’m not comfortable doing that. Would you like me to tell her to set up a time with the 3 of us to review her progress? I would be happy to give her my thoughts in that discussion.

In the end, I propose an alternative way to ensure the project is on track that I was more productive (one in which we were being transparent about giving an assessment).

In conclusion, I believe that it’s rare that you need to say no to your boss as most areas of misalignment have to do with time and resource constraints. In those situations, you are much better off mutually deciding on priorities. That said, there will come a time when you’ll likely have to give a direct no, and I hope this post has helped you prepare!

If you’d like an external position on saying no to your boss, check out this interesting article: https://bestlifeonline.com/say-no-to-boss/