Let your no be no

Don't risk causing offense where it wasn't intended

Several years ago, I reached out to interview someone for an article. This person was reasonably well known, so I wasn’t exactly expecting her to say yes, but I was a bit surprised by the tone of the “no.” What I presume was a form letter from her staff told me that she received numerous such invitations, and so she simply could not accept my request and do all the wonderful things she was doing — the wonderful things that were no doubt why I was reaching out to her in the first place.

I guess it was supposed to be nice, but I found the note a bit off-putting — like they were trying to convince me she was a better person because she was saying no. I think a simple “no” would have been fine, especially if this note was truly going out to dozens of folks daily. I doubt I was the only one who had this reaction to this person and her staff’s attempt to make a bigger point about priorities and schedules and the like.

Skip the sermon

Most of us don’t have staffers fending people away, but I have seen a surprising number of out-of-office messages lately that make me cringe for similar reasons.

If you think about it, an out-of-office message is also a “no” of sorts. You are explaining why you won’t be responding immediately. And that’s fine. But it’s sufficient to say that you won’t respond because you’ll be away from the office until a certain date. If you think it matters, you can say why — mostly because people will pivot differently if you’re away on a four month leave vs. a four day vacation. You can also tell the person who emailed you how they can reach someone else, if you’re in the sort of business where people cover for each other.

But many messages decide to make a point about email and work more broadly. Like “I’m taking a well-deserved vacation with my family. I encourage you to take some time away from email as well.” Or “We all need to disconnect from time to time.” Much as I agree with that statement, if you just sent an email with a question about last year’s quarterly report, it’s kind of annoying. You didn’t want moralizing or a sermon. You didn’t ask for someone’s opinion on work/life balance. You just asked for some information, and need to know that you won’t be getting it through this channel quickly.

A simple script

In general, when you say no to things, it’s best to just say no. Long explanations, or sharing your opinion about broader topics, risks causing offense where it probably wasn’t intended. You can say no for all sorts of reasons, and you often don’t really need to state the reason. A simple script is “Thank you for asking. I’m sorry I won’t be able to take this on, but I wish you the best of luck with the project.” Definitely don’t try to make people think that your no is somehow helping them — as in, if I said yes to requests like yours I wouldn’t be able to do x, y, and z. Just let your no be no and everyone can move on with their lives.