How to Say No and Set Boundaries
A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at my friend Tiffany’s club CAREhER on saying no: Salon Talk x Inclusive Leadership | 說不的藝術 with Bessie
I wrote a summary and reflection below in English after watching this Melinda Gates interview on tech’s ‘bro culture’ and investing in the next generation of female leaders.
I’ve been reflecting on being a product of ‘bro culture’ after working in tech my entire career and want to empower women. Hopefully my narrative and tactics below resonates and gives women a few more tools in the toolbox.
But first, I want to introduce CAREhER. CAREhER: “empowers leadership for women through our community connections, conscious content and curated experiences.” When I tell my friends in the US about it, I say it’s what The Wing should have been, but based in Taiwan with chapters in Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore.
Tiffany wrote this awesome promotional blurb on the why for the talk:
“The difference between successful people and the most successful people is that the latter say no to almost everything. Being bad at saying no hurts you, become a say no expert”
An insightful quote by Warren Buffet that resonates with many who are in leadership positions. Setting #boundaries and saying no are crucial skills for anyone in a leadership position, regardless of gender. However, for women in leadership roles, these skills can be particularly important due to various societal and cultural expectations.
I’m very excited for Bessie Chu, a senior product director specializing in building bridges across business and technology to lead collaboration across global teams, to join us at our club for an intimate salon talk on this topic. As a women in male dominated industry, Bessie’s insightful experiences will break down into these:
- What is a Boundary and Why
- Why Boundaries are Hard and Take Practice
- Three Types of Boundary Struggles
- How to set internal boundaries to set external ones
- Framing Setting Boundaries at Work
- Ways to Say No
Are you ready to become a “No” expert?”
I wasn’t nervous about giving a talk at this stage in my career. I had also been working in Taiwan long enough to feel confident about holding professional conversations in Chinese, but I was worried about being useful and relatable.
Tiffany pitched the talk to me in Tokyo over pizza. She knew I missed eating fancy pizza. She mentioned that it’s a topic Taiwanese audiences could learn more about. I joked she bribed me with pizza before I spiraled into a reflection on the environments I have been in and my behaviors. I was especially worried my advice and experiences would not be useful for Taiwanese working environments.
Watching the Melinda Gates talk, I’ve been reflecting on some of my less stellar tendencies that needed some growth as well, to put it charitably. To put it more humorously, these are some of the memes my co-workers have shared describing me throughout the years:
I am not a people pleaser, even on American standards. I pride myself in getting things done quickly at a high quality. I report to US headquarters in a mostly male Bay Area tech company and arguably live in an expat bubble. I’ve spent my time in environments where I needed to be feared and respected before being liked. I also have this attitude where it’s easy for me to say no at this point in my career because of my unique qualifications and the luxury to walk away if I wanted to from a bad situation.
Unfortunately being a product of these environments and this attitude has also made me the villain in my own and others’ stories.
When I stepped on the plane around this time a year ago, I had made a conscious choice in a life change, including telling myself that my aggressive agro New York tendencies would not serve me well in my new environment. Famous last words as I quickly realized I still needed them working at a US tech company, but I had to work on new dimensions as well.
I also know my own growth in the last few years with the pandemic and business school has given me other tools in my toolbox. I can lay the hammer down when it’s needed, but that’s not always the best tool for every situation. After all, my entire life has become about code switching, with about 85% of my life in Chinese and 15% in English.
Still, I was worried I’d be un-relatable and what I had to offer was not applicable.
I did research to understand more local perspectives to synthesize strategies. My raw notes and resources are here as well as the slides. I did my best to universalize the themes above structurally to make them broadly applicable.
Below is a summary of the talk I gave in the hopes it’s useful:
Why Set Boundaries
I opened my talk quoting an expert at professional interpersonal communications in Asia, Michael Chiang, who talks about this idea of a “Post-It Girl” as a woman who is convenient to just dump tasks on. She isn’t appreciated, but she works hard and takes on everything.
She ends up losing out on promotions and opportunities because she doesn’t prioritize her work or help her boss decide between trade-offs, creating situations where she drops the ball.
At a certain juncture in our careers, we can no longer depend on just burning time and effort to get ahead. You have to value your energy and expertise, or others won’t.
When you establish healthy and dynamic boundaries, you will:
- Value yourself and your opinions
- Not be afraid to ask others for help
- Know when and whom to share personal matters with
- Be able to respect others’ boundaries, including when others turn down your requests
- People will see you as reliable, trustworthy, and confident
What Are Boundaries?
Boundaries are limits and guidelines for what we set for ourselves, other people, and our environment. Boundaries protect your space and reduce stress to avoid burnout, establish your needs and values, improve relationships, and protect you from toxic people.
“Boundaries are limits or personal rules that protect your time and energy and allow you to perform at your best,” says Melody Wilding, a licensed social worker and author of Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work. “Everyone likes certainty and clarity, and that’s what boundaries provide.”
Steps to Set Boundaries:
- Build Self-Awareness: Figure out what makes you uncomfortable and why to clarify your thoughts and understand your values, needs, and boundaries.
- Identify Your Own Needs: Understand what your emotional and physical needs in different situations. For example, how much rest time, alone time, and support you might need in a given situation.
- Set Boundaries: Have clear psychological boundaries based on the above and use that as the wellspring to refuse inappropriate requests, reject unwanted emotions, maintain personal space, protect personal time, etc.
Why Are Boundaries Hard?
For those of us who grow up in Taiwanese families, even overseas, especially for those of us from the generations raised in the 90s and before, it’s common that we weren’t raised to learn to have boundaries with ourselves (overwork and pressuring ourselves to achieve success) or learn to have healthy conflicts or have our boundaries respected in our families.
I pulled this quote that summarizes this dynamic:
“It has to be said in our culture and how intimate relationships are so important, setting boundaries is extremely difficult. However, we can try to establish our own self-boundaries first. You can’t hope for others to have good and flexible self-boundaries or respect ours. Only when we establish our own boundaries can we impact the relationships and people around us.”
How to get to this point is key: “I respect myself enough to grant myself this opportunity to take a break, etc. I deserve it.”
Types of Boundary Struggles
- Setting a Boundary with Yourself
- Setting Boundaries with Loved Ones: Family and Friends
- Setting Boundaries at Work
I tend to push too hard on people. I also have the tendency to set boundaries in a tone that is too harsh at work and with family. I recognize this might have been necessary when I was younger, but it is less appropriate at this point in my life where I have more agency.
This leads to an important point: boundaries have a range — if you’re too rigid, everything outside of those lines becomes irrelevant. This can both alienate others and create a lack of understanding of other people. What your values are and the way you want to communicate will change with time, give yourself the flexibility to change.
Another place where I don’t do well is with friends, I will defer to them too much sometimes, eg. especially if they are older and have helped me.
The boundary I struggle with most is setting boundaries with myself. I work and play too hard. I always want more. This has come at the expense of my health and efficiency as I rapidly approach middle age.
As I alluded to in the above, boundaries are especially important at this stage in life and given that we live in a stressful geopolitical world, there are so many demands placed on us while the accumulated effects of stress and lifestyle choices begin to catch-up on us.
How to Cultivate Your Own Boundaries, Confidence, and Style
If the above was an overall philosophy and strategy on boundaries, below are more tactical examples I’ve pulled from my own experiences and different sources. Your mileage may vary depending on your own style and situation. It’s up to you to cultivate the best practices for you based on the frameworks below:
Setting Boundaries at Work: Principles
- The reward for hard work and good work is more work, but not necessarily high-value work
- When your time is valuable and you value it, others will value you and your abilities more
- Build trust with your colleagues and supervisor that they know when you’re saying no, you have credibility and what you’re saying has consequences
- Frame it so it’s how the best work can be done so you can be focused
- Figure out what’s firm and what has optionality
- Setting boundaries doesn’t mean being mean or hostile
- You can’t help negative reactions even if you aren’t hostile, that’s for them to own
Understand How to Turn People Down
- No one likes hearing being told no. Make an effort to understand how the people around you want to be communicated with
- Let the other person feel you are making an effort to pursue your goals together
- Saying no doesn’t mean having to use negative words. Some of these are inappropriate in certain work cultures
- Find a balance in learning to turn down requests in a way that’s natural for you and fits your environment. Note: Sometimes there is no choice but to leave a bad environment. You need to draw that boundary as well.
- Learn how to communicate in a way so that other person can understand and even benefit. Everyone accepts information differently
Tactical Ways Say No
- Ask for prioritization. Always be ready to talk about what you are working on and clarify urgency
- Acknowledge and appreciate enthusiasm — remember you can say no in a way that benefits the company and both parties
- In order for me to be most productive, I need this; in order for me to accomplish this task, I need focus, time, resources, eg. if it’s out of budget
- Offer substitutes, especially if it actually helps meet company goals better
- Say no directly if behavior is inappropriate
- “The deferral. I’m swamped right now, but feel free to follow up.” Note: This can be good for deferring the lazy, but can inadvertently cause disappointment
- “The batch. Others have posed the same question, so let’s chat together.” — Involve stakeholders in the decision-making process: Making the prioritization process collaborative by involving key stakeholders not only fosters a sense of ownership and alignment but also helps in building consensus around strategic decisions.
- “The introduction.” Give the person a resource that can help — make sure you don’t impose on that person
Utilize Frameworks
In product management, we often have to describe initiatives that don’t exist yet and persuade across stakeholders to get resourcing to do so. Having options for your bosses or colleagues in a structured way shows thoughtfulness and gives people options while having. This is also helpful for you to organize your own thoughts. If you Google Product Management Frameworks, you’ll get tons of results to pick from.
Two examples below:
Parting Words
Each organization and culture has its own characteristics: decide how flexible your boundaries will be and where, for example, I may give up some evenings so I can take calls, but I will not miss family dinners.
Not everything is 0 and 1, while some boundaries need to be rigid, eg. anything at work that is unethical and can come back to haunt you, and some aren’t, eg. some deadlines can be negotiated.
All of this takes practice.
Getting to know yourself and others is a lifelong process.
