When no is the kindest thing to say

And Simon doesn't even have PRINCE2 certification!

I haven’t blogged for a few days, my creative and analytical talents have been fully employed with matters of work and upon finding a few minutes away from work, I’ve been in “time for a sit down and a cup of tea” mode rather than wordsmith. One of the reasons for this level of business and focus has been an explosion of project-management-itus at one of the projects I look after. In essence we’re now reporting at a microscopic level of detail on every action we take. Seriously if it gets much more we’ll be filling in thirty page reports every time we grab a toilet break.

Now we’re not driving this level of insane reporting ourselves, oh no. This is at the request of the client who is asking for reports, contact logs, deliverable level plans, low/no tolerance level risk reporting and cost schedules. Now we’re capable of doing this of course but I question why we want to do this for the client. We’re not helping the client do this the best way.

It’s time to say no.

The concept of saying no is vital to our trade. We’re can’t offer best value to our clients if we slavishly fulfil their requirements. It’s our job to ferret out those requirements, test them and then offer our best opinion of them before we agree to start work on them. This can go against the commercial instincts of our managers and sales teams of course. The lure of easy money can be almost irresistible at certain points of the reporting calendar but for us to sustain long term relationships with our clients, for us to deliver best value to them and for us to sustain the whole consulting based delivery model, in whatever field we’re talking it’s vital that “No” remains part of our vocabulary.

Otherwise bad things can happen, and since the consulting model applies in so many fields from IT, to professional services, to engineering to medicine etc, that means that buildings can fall down, systems can fail, commercial ventures can go bust and people can die. One facet of the problem is that people are blurring the consulting side of things with the delivery side of things where the can-do/yessir! Model is in much demand. Then there are commercial pressures which make organisations say “yes” too often to make a number. Which is a convoluted way to transfer risk into an already uncertain future.  Some organisations can’t negotiate contracts properly and leave them selves unable to say “no” in certain circumstances, which is another convoluted way to transfer risk etc. There are cultural factors too, saying “no” really goes against the grain for large parts of the world and finally there is confidence. The ability to say no isn’t a given. It happens outside of the professional sphere as well. We all say yes too easily and we don’t say no often enough.

Saying yes can be a very attractive feature but when you say yes for the wrong reasons all you are doing is taking on more risk. When you say no, you are running the risk of missing out on opportunities but saying no for the right reason, when things are unsafe, when things are suboptimal, when things are valueless, goes beyond risk and reward. It’s a duty of care.

Whether the client listens or not is a different matter of course.