Ask yourself, when someone comes to me with an idea or suggestion, is my first response to say yes, or is my first response to say no? It doesn’t matter if the idea or suggestion is good or the idea has merit, is your first response most often yes, or no?
I have to laugh at myself sometimes when I find myself saying no right off the bat, then when I hear the complete idea or suggestion, I have to backtrack and say yes. Some people even use both responses in the same breath! “Do you want to go to lunch? Yes, No, I don’t know, I have so much to do”.
So many great ideas get lost because they were met with a no, rather than the much more supportive (and honestly), more accurate “tell me more”, or “let me think about it”. No-people get the reputation as closed-minded, difficult to approach, and fearful of change. Yes-people get the reputation as being supportive, open with a forward vision. In saying yes we do not have to commit ourselves to any particular path forever, we can always change our minds as we see the program unfold.
What if you are in a supervisory position. You have some very good people working around you. They follow your lead, and what will that lead be? Willing to look at possibility, or run screaming into the night when possibility knocks at your door. People on the way up must expand, try, explore. It is your responsibility as a leader to support that expansion, or to try to hold them down, and the latter will simply not work.
You decide for yourself. Awaken, IN-power yourself. Become aware if you are a yes person, or a no person.
