Up-Close with Chin Teik; The Vicious Cycle of Yes, The Power of No

Up-Close with Chin Teik: Re-Think
The Vicious Cycle of Yes, The Power of No

Have you noticed how people are way too busy, running from meetings to meetings, working late, not pausing to breath, plan and reflect. People are constantly distracted by new demands from the boss or from the internal stakeholders. The organization’s language is ‘there is no negotiation on deadlines’ and ‘we are not allowed to say ‘no’. Have you ever wondered how these habits have been embedded and the reasons behind this language & mindset? 
I call it the vicious cycle of ‘Yes’ and the need for the Power of ‘No’.

Reflect:

• Is there really no room for negotiation on deadlines? 
• Is everything urgent and ASAP? 
• When is there time for thinking and planning if everyone is running at 100 miles per hour non-stop? 

I hope with this podcast, you will #pause to re-think on how to stop the vicious cycle of yes and allow the power of no because it is impossible for great organizations to be always in the urgent/important and not have time for the important/not urgent.  The pausing of the vicious cycle of Yes and the permission for No (in the right way) will promote 'Less is More'. 

Transcript

The Vicious Cycle of ‘Yes” and the Power of ‘No’

 Have you noticed how people are way too busy, running from meetings to meetings, working late, not pausing to breath, plan and reflect. People are constantly distracted by new demands from the boss or from the internal stakeholders. The organization’s language is ‘there is no negotiation on deadlines’ and ‘we are not allowed to say ‘no’. Have you ever wondered how these habits have been embedded and the reasons behind this language & mindset? 
I call it the vicious cycle of ‘Yes’ and the need for the Power of ‘No’. 

Our brain – wants to maximize reward and minimize threat. SCARF (status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, fairness – this has been covered in my other podcast) is the brain’s response to the reward and threat situation. We have 155 unconscious biases leading to system 1 thinking, which is to think fast and shallow.  SEEDS is how the neuroleadership institute summarized the 155 biases. SEEDS stand for similarity, expedience, experience, distance, and safety bias. 

o Similarity bias: The tendency to view people who look or think like us more favourably than people who are different 

o Expedience bias: The tendency to rush to conclusions in an effort to minimize cognitive effort 

o Experience bias: The tendency to believe that how we see the world is inherently truer than someone else’s perspective 

o Distance bias: The tendency to assign greater value to those things that we perceive to be closer to us, rather than further away 

o Safety bias: The tendency to over-account for negative outcomes instead of positive ones

These habits have been brought into the organization culture unconsciously by people – System 1 thinking with SEEDS. Employees (including middle managers) are not able to say ‘no’ for fear of being viewed as not committed and/or incapable of doing more. Due to the vicious cycle of Yes, managers forget how much is already on the employees’ plates and often keep adding in the name of ‘urgency’ or ‘priority.' The language of ‘ASAP’

 Recommendations

·       #1: make SEEDS a language in the organization for people to be given permission to use it to move from unconscious to conscious. The language of SEEDS will help to shift to System 2 thinking, think slow and deep.

·       #2: reduce the unnecessary long meetings without agenda and unclear roles and give people permission to schedule pauses and to move to system 2 thinking

·       #3: teach people how to say ‘no’ in the right way; to say no with options allows for the pause in the brain to re-think priorities as well as employee’s capabilities and mental capacities

·       #4: Leaders and managers need to be equipped and allowed to have the habit of subtracting (not urgent, not important – Eisenhower matrix)

I will leave you with this quote from Steve Jobs on The Power of No

“People think focus means yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundreds of good ideas. You have to pick carefully.” 

Thank you for pausing and listening to my language. I hope that you will pause and be more aware of the language in your organization culture. Have the heart and the courage to shift from the vicious cycle of ‘Yes’ to the power of ‘No’. 
I am not advocating that everyone to say no to everything which will stop the functioning of the organization. I will share how to use the power of no in my next podcast, which allow for clarity of focused execution as well as provide for the mental, physical, and emotional well-being of your people.

 Thank you and Be Well