EngineerHer

My poor talent acquisition partners in work have a tough time. I have exacting standards for who joins my team and they don’t always fit in a job description.

After all, how do you describe the ability to say “no” to your boss in a job description? Good soft skills? Clear communication? We all know they’re basics in the modern world.

That’s why I ask in nearly every interview I do nowadays, “how do you say no to me?”

And I give context. (I’ve touched on this before, but I think it deserves a more detailed exploration!)

The context

I don’t micro-manage. (My team are already wetting themselves laughing at this notion.) In fact, on a day-to-day basis, I rarely know exactly what my team are working on at any given second. Unless we’re in crisis mode, anyway. I assume everyone on the team is an adult and can manage their own workload.

But with that comes a responsibility. I have to make sure my team know they can say no to me. By that I mean, when I see a task coming in, I usually pass it on to the person I deem best able to complete that task. Who has the skills and abilities to complete it effectively and efficiently.

That can lead to one person getting an overload of tasks in the one day. Or, occasionally, in the one minute. I depend on my team to highlight this to me. Whether it’s a “Orlagh, I know I’m good, but seriously!!” or a “Hey, can we have a chat about work load and timelines”, I expect my team to call me out on this.

Sometimes I’ll pick up on a facial expression from someone who has just been assigned a pile of work when they were already uncomfortably loaded. But that depends on me being around when they read a message or me verbally asking them to do something. Not the best system really.

it’s much better when someone just comes out and says it to me.

In the interview

And I’m serious, I will say it out straight in the interview, “It’s important to me that my people can say no to me. Whether it’s due to workload or what I’m suggesting not being the best path forward, I need to know my team will speak up. How would you say no to me?”

The answers intrigue me. One thing that’s an instant red flag? “Oh, I’ll never say no to my manager.” It’s not an immediate “no” from me in that case, it depends on what comes next. If the next line is “I’ll work all the hours God sends to make sure the work gets done”, then that is a definite no from me.

If the next line is, “I would possibly ask for some work to be re-prioritised”, ok, that’s pretty ok. But the word “possibly” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and I need to get a sense of how likely that is. Because I really don’t want people overworked for no other reason than I’ve forgotten how much work they have on.

Ideally? Well, ideally, I want someone to say, “OK, so here’s what happened the last time. My manager assigned me some work that was way outside my bandwidth and skills. I immediately contacted them/ spoke to them to highlight this, and offered a solution.” Or, for people less comfortable saying no to managers, I want to hear something like, “Well, ok I don’t feel really comfortable saying no outright, as my experience has been that managers don’t like that. However, there have been occasions when I’ve had to re-direct work or re-negotiate timelines to accommodate shifting priorities.” That’s really not bad from someone who doesn’t want to say no to a manager. If they follow up with an exact example, I pay a lot of attention to them.

Basically, I want to know my team knows it can a) have a backbone and b) use it.

There’s saying no and then there’s saying no

Now, there are of course times when someone says no to me and I can’t accept it. Things like PPE, safety and quality compliance, time keeping… those are fairly basic right? And even then, in time keeping, there’s always some flexibility. Part of me treating my team like adults means they usually pick up on that.

And even in the midst of a crisis, there are nearly always some basic tasks that can’t be put off, so someone or other is saved from dealing with the crisis. Again – I expect my team to step up and say something for this. Recognising what’s important even in a crisis is vital.

And we spend time figuring this out as well. I don’t expect people to be psychic. I encourage my team to share experiences with each other – particularly when it comes to dealing with me. Advice like “if she’s drinking more than one cup of coffee a day, or if she’s hitting the Coke, steer clear at all costs” is vital to a new starter. (It means I’ve not slept or the stress levels are climbing too far to engage with people on a human level)

This also means I let my team know I am indeed human. Some of the time anyway. And they know that anything that makes my life easier will be welcomed. So even in the midst of a crisis, if a person comes along as says, hey, I know we’ve just pivoted to this, but if I do this, we can all chill a bit – I’m usually open to the discussion at least.

The point is to build the trust in the team.

Building trust?

That’s a whole other blog post. But for now – how about speaking to your team about how to say no in a way that works for everyone?