HEARING NO

"Say no more often." That's something you read in a lot of those handy lists of things we're all supposed to do to be more successful / more productive / more innovative / generally better than our current selves and more like the Steve Jobs types of the world. While I'm not necessarily a fan of those lists, saying no is one piece of advice I agree with and should follow more than I do.

Of course, when you're Steve Jobs saying no is probably a lot easier and I have to wonder just how often people said no to him with any success. Because here's the part that never seems to get mentioned: if we're all supposed to get better at saying no, then we also need to get better at hearing no. And this applies to leaders as much as it does to the people they lead.