Oh. Mixed feelings on this. Good quote, and etc. but there is something about this I can’t resonate with. The… “ask permission”ness of it all.
Saying No
51–60 of 120 posts
Re: Saying No
#52This is poorly written with an unclear outcome. This starts as talking about how to make 1:1s more productive. It ends with, I must presume though it is unclear, losing a lease with no backup. This is not more productive. Compromise is about figuring out how to give everybody what they want while letting go of how it happens. Turning on half the ACs is a great compromise. Whatever happened at the end is not. To be ge…
The author kept acting in good faith till the other party stopped doing so, which I took as the actual resolution to this story. Maybe when you stop treating people like rational adults when they have demonstrated otherwise is where you find your real “no.” It’s a hard lesson I’ve learned many times, and it sometimes entails walking away from something to preserve your own sanity/integrity.
Re: Saying No
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also threaten things that they have no real power or authority to actually do, because they are used to people just rolling over and letting them get their way.
Well you don't actually know that from the story. Being in the same yacht club as the owner of the building conveys these kind of powers - it's like no one has encountered preferential treatment, good or bad, before.
Agree, I was speaking more generally about the type of person who is just bossy because they usually get away with it.
Re: Saying No
#54This is poorly written with an unclear outcome. This starts as talking about how to make 1:1s more productive. It ends with, I must presume though it is unclear, losing a lease with no backup. This is not more productive. Compromise is about figuring out how to give everybody what they want while letting go of how it happens. Turning on half the ACs is a great compromise. Whatever happened at the end is not. To be ge…
I read it as they already had the compromise in place, since he said they agreed the AC closest to him would be off and the AC farthest from him would remain on, and the other party eventually demanded the close AC be on as well.
In this scenario, where a compromise was reached and then breached by the other party, how exactly would you arrive at a "compromise"?
Re: Saying No
#55I felt zero sympathy after the author decided to ignore any possible valid reasoning under the cemented position of 'well I pay rent' -- that's not maturity. Further more, my rule: the more someone tells you how mature their position is and how child like you're being the more the odds increase that the only problem is that your opponent doesn't have a mirror or an ounce of introspection.
I agree, especially mentioning the compressor as being some ignore-worthy issue. I can imagine the owner saying something like “this is a desert and that unit’s designed to be powered on continuously, and when you flat-out turn the thing off it breaks the hardware. Stop turning it off.”
And on that note, has no one involved heard of a thermostat?
Re: Saying No
#56Saying no without attempting to negotiate first also comes off as childish, and affects the outcome of future negotiations because it demonstrates an unwillingness to compromise.
No is a perfectly reasonable starting point for a negotiation.
Right?? Not sure how you start a negotiation without the first move being a no.
Re: Saying No
#57So at the beginning of the story you started with a rented space you and others practice yoga, and the end result is that you lost your practice room, without gaining anything else other then… slightly more confidence? Is there supposed to be a teaching in here?
I don’t think he actually lost the practice room. The person speaking was not the owner.
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Re: Saying No
#58It feels to me as if the author got it backwards - in turning the AC back on, they didn’t „say no“ - the person who put up the note has „said no“ in the first place (to the practice of turning the ACs off) and the author was ignoring this clearly visible outlined boundary that other person has drawn. Don’t get me wrong, the note itself wasn’t great either, but ignoring it wasn’t some great sign of „saying no“ - it wa…
100%, the author believes they learned the lesson, but failed to recognize what it looks like when a person on the other side initiates this process. It's amazing the dissonance here: > They should expect a possible answer to be 'No' and be prepared to negotiate the difference. I didn't throw these wise words back at him, but that's what was going through my head. And it emboldened me further. I simply told him the r…
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Re: Saying No
#59I think this is somewhere in the middle east - Dubai likely - and it is hot there. It is quite predictable that there would be mass opposition with institutional support against turning off air conditioning in a common space, despite having a couple of hours of exclusive rental. That said, it is a good reminder that we have a choice in what we are willing to accept, and can fall back on a BATNA, even if it is not the…
> I think this is somewhere in the middle east - Dubai likely
What led you to this conclusion?
Re: Saying No
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The alternative is also not getting what they want: a cold yoga space. The alternative was using the phone call with the manager to calmly explain the situation and try to negotiate. The blog kept talking about using "no" as a starting point for negotiating, then when the negotiation opportunity peaked he refused to listen to the other person and gloated about it. The second half of the book's advice (the negotiate…
It seems to me that the person who wasn't listening was the manager who ignored the reasonable reasons for not wanting a cold room and made up some bullshit about compressors.
The blog literally says "I didn't care to understand" to demonstrate that he was not interested in listening.
I would not assume the manager was making things up. He might have truly believed what he was saying. In these situations if you take the time to understand, you can get a lot of leverage by getting to the root of their concerns and then building a pathway to address them mutually.
If they thought it was going to harm the compressor, you would listen and understand their concerns. Then you would explain that you are familiar with the system and can show them that it won't cause harm to the compressor. Then you propose a reasonable alternative, such as offering to set it to the desired temperature as soon as you leave and possibly sending them some authoritative HVAC source to allay their fears.
The person in this story didn't even try to do that.
If you spend time with professional sales people (the good ones), the first thing you learn is that you have to listen to the other side, understand the root of their concerns, and work toward a mutual resolution. If you shut down and refuse to even listen, you get nowhere like this guy.