Week 20, 2025 - Just say no

Song of the week:

Top of mind

This week two reasonably serendipitously converging conversations occurred for me. One was a mentorship group that I hosted. Hosting does not mean I have all the answers, by the way. It simply means I facilitate, prompt and probe the group to transparently discuss the topic at hand. Which was job satisfaction and action bias.

The second occurrence was a second quarter check-in with my manager.

In the latter, my manager looked at my notes and said that it seems that I'm enjoying 'the work,' which is true, but no one outside of me knows exactly what that means. And specifically, how I am prioritising said work. Now, where she's coming from is abjectly wrong in that she thinks I'm prioritising one fun thing over another definitely-not thing. She just doesn't see the output of the not-fun thing; which is also my own problem to solve (comms).

On the first, in the discussion, folks both landed on saying 'no' as both a wonderful way to drive job satisfaction and to drive action bias where it matters.

It's funny, because I've given this advice to folks for absolutely years but am atrocious at doing it myself. I rarely say no. I always roll the sleeves up. I've always hidden behind imposter syndrome and said I'll just work harder than others to achieve results. But instead of this being a catalyst for change and good, as I get older, more tenured, more senior, it's unravelled a bit into me just being overly relied upon by others to get things done where others could probably do it themselves, or rely on someone far more directly capable or responsible.

So as I wind up this week, I find myself reflecting on how absolutely chaotic and hectic my calendar is. What can I say no to? And what do I need to do to elevate the deep work I need to do, both for myself and for my team ?

Photo of the week

(via my flickr)

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Published on: 17th May, 2025

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