132. How to say "NO" with elegance and grace - the Quick NO, Slow Yes Process for Life Balance

One of the curses of being a physician leader is that everybody wants you. You're a smart, high-energy person. So at work, they want you to be on their committee or to come to their meeting. And in your home life, the PTA wants you, the board of the library wants you, and pretty soon you're overextended. In this episode, I'm going to show you the number one life balance skill of all physician leaders, and that's how to say no with elegance and grace. I'm going to show you how to say it word for word and when to say it. By the end of today's lesson, you're going to be an expert in that two-letter life balance power word: N, O, no.

In this episode, you'll discover a proven method to say no with elegance and grace, and I'm going to show you the secret agent decoder ring that will tell you when to say no and when to say yes. This is one of our ninja skills—a high-level life balance power tool for physician leaders.

To help us teach this skill and to help you learn and practice it, we've given it a shorthand name. We call this "Quick No, Slow Yes." When you say no, you say no quickly. When you say yes, you say yes super slowly. I'll show you exactly what I mean, and it's most effectively wielded once you know what your ideal job description is. I presented the ideal job description process back in Episode 130, two episodes back. If you haven't had a chance to do it, go back to Episode 130 after this and get started on your ideal job description.

Don't stop here. You don't need your ideal job description to practice saying yes and no, but the ideal job, career, practice, and life description that I teach you in Episode 130 is the secret agent decoder ring. Anytime somebody requests something of you, you compare their request to your ideal job and practice and life and career description. Whether or not that request is on the list of your ideal features determines whether you say yes or no. There's a link to Episode 130 in the show notes.

Once you have your ideal job, life, and career description, you can now use it as a sifting and sorting tool when people ask you to make new commitments. We've talked previously about decommitting when you're overextended, and hopefully, you've been able to do that and benefit from it. But what about the continued requests that people make of you? Because you're smart, you're bright, you're hardworking, you're a helper, you're a healer, they know it's hard for you to say no. So you're probably getting frequent requests to be on this committee, help them write that paper, or commit to other responsibilities both at work and outside the healthcare industry, like the PTA or church. People want you because you're dynamic and hardworking, but what they're asking might not align with your ideal job description.

I'm going to teach you something called "Quick No, Slow Yes." It goes like this, and you have to rehearse it, just like we rehearsed the decommitment conversation. If somebody asks you, "Hey, Dike, you want to be on the tumor board? We'd really love to have you, and man, you'd be awesome," and I know the tumor board is not in my ideal practice description, I'm going to give them a quick no. I breathe and say, "Hey, John, you know, I'm really honored by the invitation. That really means a lot to me that you would ask me. What I want you to know is that's not a priority. I do my priorities every quarter, but that's not a priority for me. I'm not the best person to be on the committee, and it wouldn't be a good use of my time and energy—time and energy I could otherwise be spending with my family. So right now, I'm going to say no. Good luck in finding somebody to take that position. And again, I'm honored that you asked."

Now, that may make you a little uncomfortable, thinking you would say something like that. Practice. Practice. Make it yours. Rehearse, potentially with your significant other or a colleague, until it feels comfortable. But make sure that when you know it's a no, you say no quickly so they can go find somebody that will actually do it for them.

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Slow Yes looks like this: "Well, Fred, wow, that sounds really, really interesting, and I think I'm interested in being on that committee. However, what I do when people ask me to do something that might be interesting is I check it out with my family, and I check it out with my other priorities so that I'm sure it fits in my ideal life description and that I can be a good, full-on contributor to your cause. So I'm going to go back and talk to my family and look at my priorities. I'll get back to you in…" and remember I said slow? Here's your slow: "I'll get back to you in two weeks," and I would encourage you not to ever use anything less than two weeks. Then you go back, look at your ideal list, speak to your family, and make sure it's something they're willing to be apart from you for so that you can participate.

The reason I say that is sometimes when you take on additional responsibilities without talking to your significant other or family, what ends up happening is you're getting up at five in the morning on a Tuesday, and they're saying, "Where are you going?" and you're saying, "Well, I'm going to the tumor board," and they say, "I never heard about the tumor board until right now. What the heck? What am I, chopped liver?" So make sure you take it home. Run it by the other people who are important in your life. Think about it. Give it two weeks, and then you can go back and say either a no or a very clean yes and be a full-on contributor to that particular effort, whatever it may be.

Quick No, Slow Yes. The only way you can do this now is because you have the bullseye identified on your ideal job description.

Make sense? If you repeat this, it will make more sense the more you study it. But the key is to rehearse. Rehearse because you, as an attractive, hardworking, smart person, are always going to get inbound requests to be on someone else's committee and to be in somebody else's meeting. Practice, practice, practice until your Quick No and Slow Yes roll off the tip of your tongue. Now step back. If you haven't already got your ideal job description, step back to Episode 130 and get started on that. There's a link in the show notes below.