Early in one’s career it’s useful, and perhaps necessary, to say yes more than no to additional work requests. It helps us gain valuable experience and build our reputation within the workplace. But understanding when to say no and why is crucial.
There are different stages to our careers and each requires different approaches. Understanding these stages and where you are at present is vital. Equally important are your personal aspirations and how those should inform your decision-making in the workplace.
Our early careers are about bridging the gap between theory and practice and learning the social norms or ‘way of doing things’ in the industry. This is done by getting as much experience and exposure to different tasks of varying levels of complexity and intensity as possible. There is also a sense of ‘earning our stripes’ to develop our professional judgement and that ‘gut feel’ top professionals are known for. There are no shortcuts but saying yes more often than no is helpful, especially in competitive environments.
As we progress, the focus shifts to more than just mastering and broadening our skills to building trust and our reputation. We need to demonstrate an ability to handle stress and high workloads and be team players. From this point, your personal aspirations are key and should drive your decisions about taking on additional work. Do we want to climb the corporate ladder quickly at the cost of work/life balance, or is obtaining and maintaining a good work-life balance more important, albeit that it slows down or limits our career progression?
If we’re aiming for a more balanced lifestyle, our focus should be on accepting additional tasks that give us exposure to or experience of new and higher-order tasks. This is to ensure that the additional time we do invest in extra work helps us advance, slowly. If we’re aiming for accelerated career progression, we may have to sacrifice personal time for work. We may need to initially say yes more often than no to show we are going above and beyond to stand out and impress superiors. Once we’ve got our seniors’ attention, we can begin to be more selective and say yes to some mundane tasks but ensure we leave capacity for tasks that expose us to new and important experiences or skill sets that work towards, for example, leadership and strategic thinking. The key message is to consciously appreciate why you are accepting or rejecting additional work requests and the consequences of those actions.
Some caveats
Consider the context of your workplace; the suggestions made are based on generic competitive corporate environments. Also, be cautious about getting a reputation as someone who takes on all tasks, as you may get inundated with mundane tasks that do not expand or showcase your skills and leave no room to accept strategic opportunities. Instead, those making requests spend time developing and progressing at our cost.
Your time is your most valuable asset and should be treated as such. Think further than superficial advice that emphasises saying no for the sake of saying no. Instead, understand what you want and where you are and then work strategically and purposefully towards those goals. Indiscriminately saying yes or no to additional work requests gets you nowhere. Be conscious in all your actions.
