Ways to say no with grace and style (2021)
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This environment forces you to just give them the results that they like to see, even if the results are not scientifically accurate. It’s as if the goal is not to do science, but to publish and tell an interesting story in your papers.
You might say: “well, just ignore them and do your own thing”, but unfortunately in academia so much depends on how people like you. Without good recommendation letters, citations, and networking, you can’t really go far in your academic career. I’ve seen people who couldn’t get their tenure after several years because of this.
It makes me sad but unfortunately this is the truth I discovered only recently. Had I had known about it, I’d stick to industry jobs.
I can remind myself that almost no one will ever read academic papers in my field, but at the end of the day, I’m still struggling with this dilemma: do the right and scientific thing and ruin my future in academia, or do what my peers are doing and make senior faculty like me.
Society is better off with good people in academia, but an individual is better off out.
It is - for tenured professors at good schools. But getting to that point is intensely competitive, and the vast majority of people don't make it.
I personally have left academia, mostly for personal reasons before I could really know for certain whether I would have made it or not, and I know some very competent people who stayed and managed to get good positions without having to compromise who they are.
I think the problems start when you're competent but not competent enough, and your ambitions don't align with how competent you are. That may sound harsh, but I think it's true (with admittedly some variance depending on the exact field you're in).
That is so strange. In the corporate world it is always easy and straightforward to say no to higher ups. They always accept a no gracefully. /S
In my experience, the best organization are the ones that are willing to get bottom up feedback. The more feedback is accepted and acted upon, the best is the organization. None gets it 100%, most are just half good at it.
> do the right and scientific thing and ruin my future in academia, or do what my peers are doing and make senior faculty like me.
Look for a middle ground. Do not make things worse if you cannot make them better. You will get small wins and wins will become bigger with time. And remember how it felt so you do not repeat the same behavior when you are at the top.
Sometimes, there are reason why things are like they are. Try to change the system instead of change people.
I know, the grass is always greener on the other side.
> Look for a middle ground. Do not make things worse if you cannot make them better. You will get small wins and wins will become bigger with time. And remember how it felt so you do not repeat the same behavior when you are at the top.
This is what I'm currently trying to do. Unsurprisingly, it takes more effort (time and energy) to solve this problem given constraints (the constraints being: make advisor happy + find a middle ground). It'd be much easier if the constraints were not there, or if I could just drop the second constraint.
When I hear your request, I am hearing you ask me to fudge the numbers so that this experiment has a more desirable outcome. Is that really what you want me to do? If not can you help me understand how to achieve what you are asking?
Also even if you can’t ask your advisor, maybe there is someone else with authority you could ask
When two people are arguing with just opinions, the senior person assumes their choice is valid. At least for me, this was frustrating as I felt my opinions are not given any respect.
Yup, it is the result of the profit motive. I think thanks to the Internet there has become a lot LESS respect for all kinds of views. Every blogger who has comments below can receive pushback. It wasn’t the case when people were simply publishing books with references.
I have taken advantage of this to some extent by interviewing some of the top people in what I am interested in. “Freedom of association”. I didnt even bother posting the videos as public, they are often unlisted.
Tim Berners-Lee
Noam Chomsky
Inventor of Freenet
Grandson of Milton Friedman
The author of Regulation S
Richard Heart from Hex
And so forth. A random assortment of people. Also people building new movements:
Andrew Yang
Tulsi Gabbard
Brock Pierce
Ben Swann
In general, I think people trust institutions less now, including scientists. Look at RFK Jr on Joe Rogan challenging the prevailin establishment on the coronavirus, etc.
Academia nowadays is a hyper-competitive hellhole.
> In my experience, the best organization are the ones that are willing to get bottom up feedback.
Yes, and those are distributed about equally everywhere. What changes is the impact of the bad ones.
Anyway, a clear sign you are in one of the good places is that people don't keep asking you "yes/no" questions.
My career has been seriously hampered by quitting a particular project early in my PhD. That project was intractable as far as I'm concerned. My PhD supervisor never treated me the same after quitting that project. I had to get advice from a third-party in my department to get my PhD supervisor to agree to let me graduate. My PhD supervisor refuses to provide me a reference now.
I wasn't able to get a research job immediately after my PhD, and worked as an underpaid bureaucrat (not doing research) for about 2 years before starting my current government contractor research position. My job security is comparable to that of a postdoc and I have worse benefits than most postdocs, but I am paid better.
I recently applied to a job at a national lab, and I could tell that the interviewer was alarmed when I said that my PhD supervisor refuses to provide me a reference.
The important difference between academia/research and non-research industry is that while saying no can jeopardize your current job in both cases, in academia/research saying no is far more likely to jeopardize your future jobs due to the heavy reliance on detailed reference checks.
publish or perish, lifelong grudges from irreplaceable never-wrong superiors looking to further their own Erdős numbers.
unpaid peer reviews that then become paywalled. rent-seeking from public libraries / community colleges via bundling.
data "science" aimed at producing a predefined conclusion. e.g. corporate research grants. p-hacking, dismissal/omission of inconvenient results that dont fit a narrative.
the adage "people don't leave companies, they leave managers" is simply not a thing that can happen without risking your entire carreer.
In retrospect, it would have been better for me to switch PhD supervisors or quit academia entirely.
The problem is with the structure of academia in my view. Disagreements are inevitable, but don't make someone unemployable because of them.
Have you asked him?
Humans have made incredible advancements in our understanding of the universe, yet we still have a starkly incompetent understanding of how to measure who is fit to hold power.
The one with the priorities is too long and vague. It is also known as “yes, and” as in “yes and which thing should I not do?” Much more to the point.
People will respect you more if you literally say “no”. If you start saying things like “I can’t right now because …” that just invites people to do problem solving like “ok so what if I write the blog post, then can you do the job interview?”.
A more direct variation is “no. I can explain to you why if you want”. Then the answer is clear and it signals there is no room for negotiation. That is a real no.
Or just “no”
I've tried the downright No after getting advice it's just better to say No directly, and I can tell you from experience that there is no better way to burn bridges and get people to dislike you when you do that. People seldom respect you for doing that. I think it's some strange disconnect from the theoretical and practical.
Agreed, with the caveat that I’ve almost always not regretted letting the bridge burn, because I dislike them for not being able to handle a simple but polite “no” as much as they dislike me for offering it.
Only if you really mean "no" but are lying and saying that to be polite. Most of these aren't really about how to phrase "no", but how to think about prioritization and scheduling and in many cases "yes, but" or "no, but" are more appropriate than unconditional yes or no.
Doubly useful, because if they actually want it enough to have it done anyway, they will free up the time required for it by themselves. The important thing here is to memorize another phrase: "Certainly. Could you send me a quick email about that reprioritization?"
Which is just a very graceful and stylish way of saying: "Can I have that in writing?"
My job includes giving realistic estimates on how long things take to accomplish. When asked to do something that I know cannot be done due to resource and time constraints, I's my duty to tell my employer as much, so he can make a strategic decision.
And in my experience, employers value that input.
Hang up on yourself.
Right in the middle of a sentence.
They’ll assume your battery died or that you lost service… because who hangs up on themselves?
EDIT: Ahh, it looks like it uses a font-variant: all-small-caps without setting font-ligatures: none
Nice find. I'm guessing it's a bug in the font?
(Though as cobertos noted, the author could have worked around the font issue by more careful use of font variant properties in their CSS.)
Which is false if you're not a decider to begin with. Otherwise, saying “no” to almost everything lands you somewhere between ‘uncooperative’ and ‘insubordination’. The majority of people are not the target audience for this article.
The "advice" ranges from saying no to coffee to saying no to your boss. Then the advice on "checking my calendar"...uh if I'm your boss, I would have checked your calendar already and see where you have timeslots.
Article seems like the author asked ChatGPT for ways to say no and then added their examples to shoehorn to one article.
It’s kind of like saying a successful race car driver uses the breaks more than the average driver. It’s meaningless because the nature of racing means your either at full they or full braking.
Then, at least you know that you are dealing with a jerk.
If you were just saying no because you didn't -want- to do it. Well, then your manager is calling your bluff, and ya, you need to find another way to wiggle out of it. Tough luck.
What kind of world do the people who write this stuff live in?
Of course this is ridiculous. When everything has the highest priority, there's no priority between the tasks.
The solution? Use my judgment and ignore the marked priority. The boss was going to be an ass either way.
the response is: list out your priorities and the impact of not doing them long with a recommendation of moving forward
... isn't that YOUR job? This especially sucks when it happens regularly and it means you're not spending any time on the prioritized work, just working on setting priorities.
So if I agree, I say "yes" and I do it. If I disagree, I say "yes" and I don't do it. Usually, when I disagree, that's because it is not as important as they think, and therefore they don't have to come ask a second time: they just forget about it.
Dude. That is the most savage passive-aggression I have ever heard. Is this guy a brit?
> “You are welcome to borrow my car. I am willing to make sure the keys are here for you.”
Who would ever say this? An asshole, that's who.
Don't be a passive-aggressive asshole. Just say no. If this makes them upset, use language that expresses empathy and compassion. But don't avoid a hard fact by trying to be cute or non-confrontational.
I think you're wrong on both counts. The first example is closer to direct than passive. Passive-Aggressiveness would be saying yes, but intentionally doing a poor job without communicating.
His second example was letting someone borrow his car when he couldn't drive them. I can't drive you, but you can borrow my car. I will make sure to get you the keys. Doesn't seem assholish to me.I would have been fine if she just said "no".
These days when I say I need to check my calendar people are instantly disappointed, everyone knows it’s beyond full.
And I can memorably remember being screamed at extensively (by a higher up outside of my chain) in a meeting 20 years ago, for asking what needed to be deprioritized.
I mean I use these all, but if people are going to be emotional about a no, they will see right through these, and you will have the same problems.
I think the list assumes you aren't being abused :( Screaming at a subordinate like that is abuse, full stop. If that's what one is dealing with, nothing on this list is going to help. I had a similar experience, in about the same era, and nothing on this list would have helped me, either.
But it's still good advice! Some people just don't know how to say no, and it's tough watching them bury themselves with stress handling tasks that could have been deflected with no loss to the company, or even the one who asked.
A problem ignored is a problem solved.
Obviously, you've never been to Japan.
Americans can sometimes deliver a yes/no with a non confrontal, energetic go getter smile which makes it very puzzling to outsiders. To believe an American I really have to look for commitment details delivered unprompted, otherwise it’s just hot air. Very anecdotal data because I haven’t been there much though.
The article is telling you to lead people to believe you'll say yes - and when you ultimately never do - they'll hate you more for it.
Or, you're simply creating more work on yourself because you're having to constantly come up with yet another excuse to kick the can down the road.
If the answer is "no", just say no.
People will appreciate it more than above because you're respecting them and their time.
If one of my friends did this -- actually, my real friends would never do this.
But if by "friend" here is meant in the fairweather / outer social orbit sense -- I guess it could sort of work. Most of the other techniques here (like the humorous "Nope!") strike me as off-base, somehow. And a sign that that person probably isn't worth having as a high-value friend.
- "I can (for you), but it involves me asking a few people for a big favor, so could you confirm with your (manager / colleagues / friends) that they really want this?". I've found this a) filters out most low-value requests, b) gets your own contribution recognized.
- "I didn't quite understand your email. The choices are A or B or C, what works best for you?". Don't anchor on their request, don't even mention it, just restate the choices open to them and let them choose. Particularly where there's a clear external anchor it elides any contrast with their request "well you said X, I can only do A, sorry there's such a gap".
I was told many times that I am "too direct". Well for some reason I prefer it this way and refuse to bend. Maybe it hurt me few times but I think it had also paid back.
Thus far, I've only been able to see downsides to not being direct in communication.
Q. Can you make this and that by 11 xteenth? And how much
A. Eh, meh followed by the story of their life.
Q. Ok let's try the other way. Give me a terms you are comfortable with
A. Blah, blah, blah ... Yap, yap, yap ... No real answer
Finally found somebody from whom I was able to extract X pesos Y months. Deposited retainer. Y month passed
Q. A we ready.
A. Oh this part did not come. That material is not available.
Q. Why the fuck did not you say so before? You have assured me that there will be no hold ups of that nature.
A. Blah, blah, blah ... Yap, yap, yap ... No real answer
When they say it is 3 month and 150K and may take a month or 2 of delay it is one thing and I am ok with such offer. But when it then becomes half a year and more and $200k and I am late for a season that messes with one's business. And this is why later on I found few people who knew what they're doing and were not fooling around and all my money went their direction (and I also sent them many clients).
“Let me get back to you on that.”
I just learned a new thing, can't wait for the opportunity to use it in real life.
Although I would like to think that I treat everyone with grace and style. If I'm polite with my "no", and it still doesn't work and the person isn't entitled to grace and style then I make it very clear and abrupt. "I said no, do you understand what that means?"
As for personal commitments (or “yes”) find it easier to say “let me think on it” or “that’s a great idea. Let me get back to you.”
Life is busy and it’s hard to commit in the moment anyway amongst whatever your existing commitments are.
Which is by far not the norm with managers I've had.
It is, however, perfectly clear.
I prefer to both give and hear a simple no.
People who seek explanations aren't always entitled to them (i.e. they're not your boss). Some people feel rude not giving explanations when asked. I feel people are rude for expecting me to give an explanation when I've said no.
Exactly how in this context do those terms make sense ?