5 Tips for Saying No To Stakeholders - Roman Pichler

This resource first appeared in issue #58 on 22 Jan 2021 and has tags Strategy: Prioritization, Strategy: Working with Stakeholders

5 Tips for Saying No To Stakeholders - Roman Pichler

You can’t keep focus on your goals and priorities without saying no to requests. We’ve covered articles on this in the roundup before, and alluded to this in the stopping things advice at the beggining of the newsletter, but it’s an important topic! Pichler emphasizes:

  • Don’t feel bad about saying No
  • Empathize with the stakeholder
  • Reframe the conversation - around the problem to solve and the project goals
  • Don’t rush the decision (but don’t procrastinate saying No, either)
  • Try to find common ground but don’t split the difference

All of these things are important in both individual and group communication of changes, whether preemptive (“We won’t be doing this any more”) or reactive (“No, I’m afraid we can’t do that.”)

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