How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

THE “POSITIVE NO”
We’ve talked about how having limited hours in the day means you can’t do it
all. Every time you say yes to a request, you’re effectively saying no to
something else. So you want your yesses to be focused on the things that matter
and that you’re uniquely placed to do. But there’s a common obstacle to
focusing our time, which is a desire to avoid difficult conversations with people
who are making requests we have to decline. “I don’t like conflict or feeling like
I’m letting people down,” says Anthony. “So I find it hard to say no, and I get
tense before making the call or walking into the meeting where I need to do it.”
That’s where the “positive no” technique comes in. If you find it difficult to
extricate yourself from low-priority commitments, then learning how to deliver a
positive no is like discovering a new superpower—it gives you the ability to
make everyone feel better about the choices you’re making (including yourself).
First articulated by William Ury, the co-founder of the Harvard Program on
Negotiation, it’s a technique that fits very neatly with the neuroscience of our
discover-defend axis. Remember that our brains are constantly scanning for
anything that promises to be a potential threat or reward. When people are
responding to a threat, their brain diverts activity from sophisticated thought to
blunt and rapid responses, a little as if they’d suddenly discovered the building
was on fire.
Now think about our usual way of gracefully declining a request. We start
with “I’m really sorry, I’m not going to be able to come to the meeting/take on
the project/paint the self-portrait you commissioned…” It sounds polite. But
starting with the negative signal of “I’m sorry,” however well meant, puts the
other person on high alert. Their brain immediately goes into defensive mode:
“You’re backing out! This is a threat!” And in this mode, people don’t have the

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mental capacity to be expansive or generous in their thinking like they do when
they’re at their best. You might have been hoping for the other person’s
sympathetic understanding of your priorities, but you’re unlikely to get it while
they’re on the defensive.
To give yourself a better chance of engaging with someone whose brain is in
discovery mode, you instead want to start with something positive, rather than
something negative. Like this: