Don’t Say “No”

Conventional management wisdom states that saying “no” is a good practise. There’s enough evidence to show this is true, so I won’t dispute it. Check this article on Fortune out. Forbes has primers on how to say “No” to stay productive and efficient. Works well in jobs with fair predictability, and set career paths (CPG companies, banks, consulting firms etc. — large, global companies).

However, I want to say this doesn’t work in all cases. Especially if you work in startups — there might be many pivots for the business, multiple changes in priorities. Saying “no” is a potential opportunity-killer.
(Situation: You say “No” to joining a seemingly moonshot project → the project goes mainstream → company pivots → new businesses are built as you watch from sidelines)

I’d recommend saying ‘yes’ to explore new projects, and buying time to understand constraints/variables. (In planning terms, work backwards from a “yes” to understand what you’ll need to be able to deliver). For example: If you feel you’re choked for bandwidth and can’t deliver, ask to hire a team to increase capacity to deliver the project. Solve for all other constraints the same way.

The message is simple: If you work for a startup, don’t always say “no”. Say “yes” and solve for other variables proactively. I think that’s how leaders become leaders.

P.S: I found a Richard Branson quote agreeing with me!
P.P.S: A few years ago, I said ‘yes’ to many new workstreams, and before I knew, we were a team of 9 (vs. alone earlier). I won’t claim we did amazingly well on all projects, but the effort was disciplined and some didn’t go as well as we’d have liked.