The Art of the Negative Response
Some of us are negative by nature, the glass if half empty and evaporating rapidly. Some of us are positive by nature, the glass is half full and the first half was delicious. Most of us, however, are instinctively wired to respond when asked to do a new thing or think a new thought or tackle a new challenge with an initial “No.”
Why? Why do even the most positive, proactive, and optimistic start in a negative space? I’m a change geek so I’m assuming it’s a fight/flight change bias. The very newness of the request, idea, imposition pulls up all the ‘hell no that is probably a lion’ instincts and makes us want to reject not just the ask but also the asker. That isn’t even necessarily a bad starting place. It is important personally, emotionally, physically, professionally that we be initially wary of a new demand on our time and attention.
The problem is that negativity is self-limiting. If we are always initially openly hostile to new information or new requests made of our time and attention, people will increasingly perceive us as unpleasant, uncooperative, unhelpful, and obstructionist. If we routinely reject new ideas, we don’t learn and grow and adapt to a changing environment. It’s like being more or less permanently stuck in the back half of a change space where we push away from ourselves all newness and stew in our sad space. On the other hand, if we go too far the other way, openly accepting all requests, all demands, all ideas, and all changes, we don’t protect ourselves, our time, our attention and by extension the resources of our company, our team, our community, or our family. The person who can’t or won’t say no is also at risk of reputational damage, physical and emotional burnout, and failure to thrive. So each of needs to strike a balance. Ideally, we harness the negativity impulse and constructively channel it in a way that allows us to say yes and be positive where it is appropriate, firmly redirect where needed to say no.
For me, this has long been encapsulated in the maxim: “Never say no without a path to yes.” When someone asks me to do something, my first impulse may well be to sneer, “Yeah nah.” But instead, I try to breathe in, breathe out and ask myself a few questions:
“Is there a reason to be negative?” – Sometimes our subconscious puts together a lot of data points including past experience and knowledge and informs us immediately that we should say no before we could rationally articulate why. When you ask yourself, is there a real reason to say no here? you start down a path that helps bring that snap judgement into focus. Maybe you don’t have the skill, you’re not the right person, it would derail more important tasks, or the ask has never been done successfully before. The better you understand your reaction, the better you can explain it to the Asker.
“Do I just not want to help the Asker?” – That’s legitimate, mate. If you’re asked to think or do something by someone you don’t trust or don’t care for or who shouldn’t be asking, it’s fully on you to decide if it’s worth it to say no. Again, be ready to articulate why you are saying no, rejecting the Asker as well as the Ask.
“I want to help the Asker, but this isn’t the way.” – People routinely ask us to solve a problem for them, but they simultaneously provide their own path to solving it. The path they want you to take may simply not be one you wish to go down. Can you say yes in some other way? Can you help them really identify their pain point and work proactively to address it without doing the Ask?
Just asking these questions often takes me from a negative, unhappy, imposed upon mental space and moves me into a place where I can start floating constructive solutions to the Asker. Sometimes, I find myself doing the Ask. The negativity was on me and working my way through my emotional response helps me overcome my own resistance and fear: “It’s not a lion. I’ve got this.” Sometimes, I say yes to something else, help the Asker in some other constructive way while protecting my own needs and interests. Sometimes, I pull out a spear and warn the lion away. “Go away lion. I’m not doing your shit today.” But at least when I do that, I know the ground on which I’m fighting that No fight. I know my why. This makes me a more confident warrior for my own time, sanity and reputation.
“You have to protect your time with your life… because it is your life.” ~ Bret Jacobs
