The Power of "No": A Shift in IT Thinking

Children are funny.

Their outlook on life is usually filled with a wonderment that many adults -- especially me, at times -- often forget. We encourage their creativity and to (safely) experiment with the wide and varied experiences life has to offer. It's their naivete that makes them appear fearless.

I vividly remember a recent visit from a couple of family friends. Their two year old daughter was an endless source of energy. She had just mastered the art of running and was eager to show everyone how fast, how long, and how far she could run. It was the most exercise our pets have gotten in a long time; not the fun kind of exercise, mind you, but the survival-of-the-fittest kind.

Eventually, her parents tried to get her to settle down after a while. Please sit down, they pleaded.

No!

The running continued without a single hesitation or break in stride, her hair whipped around like the tasmanian devil from Looney Toons.

Mom and Dad were more stern the second time around: If you don't stop running, we'll put you in timeout.

No!

That was her new word, her parents told me. As the evening went on, No! even meant Yes! She didn't care. She had learned -- in her short time on Earth -- that No had a certain power to it: a kind of finality that affected people and how they reacted to it.

If they wanted her to take a nap and she didn't feel like it? No!, and the nap was bypassed. How about chicken nuggets for dinner? No! Then what would you like, then? Choices! I say "No!" and I get choices? Ice cream!

It went on and on. In my mind, the point was made: No, in her world, was a powerful tool.

(As an aside, I'm not a parent and only know child rearing through my experiences as a child with my parents and through family friends. Needless to say, the little toddler in our story learned a few more lessons that night about politeness and respect. But, yes, she did end up having ice cream for dinner.)

Ahem. Back to the content at hand.

Let's change the setting from my -- now partially disheveled -- home filled with friends and children to the fluorescent lights of the office: coworkers, watercoolers, and that person from that one department you just aren't quite sure about. You know the one.

Everyone is gathered for a meeting arranged by a business sponsor, with all of your usual participants for these types of things. The sponsor presents a problem and believes that a solution from the IT department that would enable them to increase the net widget count for the company by 30%. Everyone is cordial as the problem and potential solution are discussed. At the climax of the meeting is a simple question: So, can we do this?

And the response from IT: No. (Notice the lack of exclamation point. More business-like that way.)

A brief, tenuous silence hangs over the meeting room, just long enough for an awkward gaze or two to be had.

IT calmly walks through their sound reasoning. Not enough resources. We haven't thought through all of the possibilities. That solution isn't possible with the capabilities we have today, we'll have to put it on the backburner.

The silence broken, the possibilities are discussed, but effectively, the meeting is already over. Yes, time will be spent catching the person up on the conference call that couldn't quite hear everything (or they'll catch you up on what they were trying to say, but couldn't, because they were on mute), follow-ups will be jotted down (hopefully with assignments and due dates), and meeting notes will go out.

What about the business problem? It's entirely possible that a solution will emerge after the group goes back to their own departments for some private discussions, one-off emails, and a whiteboard session or two with the one critical attendee that couldn't make the first meeting.

Another alternative is that the idea gets dropped altogether, lost in a sea of meetings with technical musings and meeting notes stuffed in a folder on a shared network drive -- only referred to by a letter of the alphabet that everyone just knows -- that's revisited after a long period of time with the question: This is a good idea... why wasn't this done? The company could've had 30% more widgets! If only the idea was 20% cooler.

Take this reaction and expand it over a number of years. It gets ingrained in the organization's culture. Meetings are still had, solutions still get implemented, but every interaction has an added layer of angst in preparation for No.

That word may even lead to fewer meetings, solutions implemented without IT's involvement, or some other workaround that was discovered by someone simply trying to do their job better than the day before.

Mike, that's all well and good, but it simply isn't feasible saying "Yes" all the time.

I get it. Maybe there are missing requirements. Maybe there are one or more resource constraints. Maybe there simply isn't enough time. The point isn't that No should never be used. (It's not a double-negative if one of the words is "quoted", right?)

This is the point:

The entire conversation changes when you simply flip No into Yes, but.

It's similar to reading someone's body language: arms crossed is No, arms at your side is Yes, but. Ok, that's a gross oversimplification, but I think you see what I'm getting at.

Yes, but opens the door for possibilities. Those words invite collaboration and critical thinking from those involved. Yes implies that something is possible. Planting that seed of possibility in the minds of people promotes creativity. There's a solution here... let's find it.

Choosing Yes, but over No is an easy change for every individual to make. In the example above, there may still not have been a viable solution at the time to increase the company's widget count by 30% just by using different words. Some situations are simply too difficult to readily overcome: Yes we can do that, but all of our developers are recovering from the week-long doughnut festival. It'll be at least three months before anyone is productive again.

However, by choosing Yes, but over No, I've seen the trepidation to engage with IT slowly melt away and give way to more productive, inclusive discussions. The perception begins to change from bringing solutions to IT to collaborating as a team in order to come up with a joint solution. This leads to more effective conversations, fewer meetings (What!) on the same topic (Aww), reduction in wonky workarounds, and an overall feeling of general awesomeness that comes with there's a great feeling of trust and synergy between groups of people.

Years of No cannot be undone overnight. The shift to Yes, but takes time and commitment to achieve an inclusive, organizational transformation. But with such a simple change in philosophy, I've seen a complete change in mindset from within an organization that enabled teams to implement the right solution faster and with more collaboration.

Making that switch is one of the many somethings that it takes to make a shift to failing a little less and succeeding a little more.