How to Say No

Personal requests. They seem to come from everywhere and everyone -- keynote speakers, board members, panelists, attendees, facilitators and very often the boss. They run the gamut from trivial to serious, and sometimes even unethical. Every meeting planner at one time or another has fielded such an appeal -- and likely felt angry for being asked, resentful while doing the task and uncertain afterward about whether their professional integrity remained intact.

Saying, “No, that’s not my job,” is not an option for most, largely because it goes against a meeting professional’s ingrained, service-minded ethic.

“Planners are behind-the-scenes workhorses who by nature are followers and empathizers who like to please people, which means they have trouble saying no,” explains Dr. Dennis O’Grady, a Dayton, Ohio-based communications psychologist, motivational speaker and author of Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along With Anyone (New Insights Communications, 2006). “Unfortunately, 60 percent of the population are natural-born leaders, and this majority group has no problem asking, even demanding, what they want.”

Do planners have no choice but to acquiesce? Not at all, say experts. There are many techniques for handling unwanted requests in a professional manner that won’t leave the requestor feeling unsatisfied with the response -- even if he or she happens to be the boss.

Before exploring coping mechanisms, however, it’s interesting to examine the sheer scope of the problem. Here’s what planners told M&C.

Tales from the front

The roles planners are called upon to play are many -- and maddening. Some examples:

Chauffeur. JoLane Hochstetler, president and founder of Denver-based The Meeting Edge, says over the past decade she has done her fair share of “mop and clean up” for a variety of clients and attendees. She recalls the time a board member asked to have someone drive her home in her (the board member’s) car, because she had been taking painkillers and didn’t think she could manage it herself. (While it certainly would be appropriate for a planner to help a client in distress hire proper transportation to get home, it clearly is not the planner’s responsibility to see to it that the client’s car is sent home as well.)

Bookseller. Then there’s the time Hochstetler was drafted as sales assistant to an understaffed author/speaker and wound up selling his books during the event, while her planning duties piled up. “It’s very difficult to say no,” says Hochstetler. “Women, in particular, are not good at it.” Adding to the dilemma, she notes, are the close personal relationships she has formed with her clients over the years, which makes turning them down “extremely hard.”

Personal travel agent. A New York City-based association planner who asked for anonymity recalls a keynote speaker who decided at the last minute to ask a few friends to join him on his trip and needed an extra room for them. “I had already gotten him a second room, and he still felt he was entitled to come back and ask for a third,” says the planner. “I was put in the uncomfortable position of explaining that our hospitality could not extend that far.”

Laundry attendant. Being asked to sort a stranger’s dirty laundry is not only demeaning, it’s plain gross. Yet, Theresa Garza, CMP, managing director of Tucson, Ariz.-based Amigo Meeting Solutions, recalls such a incident with a cringe: “He was a vice president from a huge automotive firm. I had to sort his dirty laundry before we sent it out to get cleaned,” says Garza. “I’m sure his administrative assistant wouldn’t have done it for him. But I was told by my boss that I needed to do it, and I did.”

Personal assistant. Some people just don’t know any boundaries, says one Midwest-based meeting planner who requested anonymity. One standout in this category was a high-profile motivational speaker hired for a client holding an incentive program in Hawaii. Among the speaker’s demands: Special organic fruit had to be flown in and a juicer placed in his room so he could concoct his daily potion.

“The real coup de grace was when he asked us to empty his bathwater, pack for him and meet him after his speech with a clean set of underwear so he could change before his flight,” says the still-reeling planner. The upshot? She performed all the tasks, even putting his underwear in her purse so he could fly home with clean skivvies. Years and many incentive programs later, the memory of being taken advantage of so completely still upsets her.

Accomplice to fraud. Tracy Norum, CMP, vice president and general manager for Oshkosh, Wis.-based Premier Meetings and Incentives, recounts an incentive program during which the client’s boss asked for a favor that seemed suspect. He wanted her staff to make an imprint of his credit card on several blank slips, and give them back to him, supposedly so that he could fill in his event expenses later for eventual reimbursement by his company. “That was when we had ‘slider’ credit card machines,” says Norum. “We told him the machine was broken and that we would not be able to do it until we got back to our offices.” The idea was to stall until the man had to use his card in a legitimate manner.

Another Midwest-based independent planner was faced with a similar unethical request. It involved one attendee’s missing luggage, which was “delayed just a few hours, yet she asked me to say the luggage was not found in time for the next day’s session, because she wanted to go out right away and buy new clothes for the program.” The attendee’s ploy had been to make the airline pay based on the attendee’s perceived immediate need, says the planner. She was left fumbling for excuses as to why she couldn’t facilitate the request.

Private detective. Meeting professionals who are asked to get involved in the extremely personal details of their clients’ lives find it can be akin to running two separate events. That was the case for one New York City-based independent planner. At the time, he worked in-house for an automotive corporation. For the company’s board meeting in Asia, one member brought both his wife (on a private plane) and his mistress (on a scheduled flight). He asked the meeting planner to give them rooms at opposite ends of the hotel and to report back to him on a regular basis as to their whereabouts, because he wanted to make sure they did not collide. “I ended up recruiting the hotel staff to spy on them and report to the client via headsets,” says the planner. “The two women never crossed paths or knew the other was there, but it was quite a nerve-wracking job.”

For another independent meeting planner in Texas, spying on the boss’ husband became an extension of regular meeting planning duties. “She [the boss] would make me drive my car, following him, while she slouched down in the passenger seat,” says the planner. “We did this for more than a month, and she caught him with several different people.”

How to take control

The biggest problem people have with saying no is “everyone wants to be popular,” says Patricia Fripp, a San Francisco-based executive speech coach, motivational speaker and author of Get What You Want! (Executive Books, 1998) and Make It, So You Don’t Have to Fake It! (Executive Books, 2000). “You really need to have a lot of confidence to say no. Most of us would rather simply say yes, because it is so much easier.”

Nevertheless, there are diplomatic strategies one can employ to turn down a burdensome request.

Suggest an alternative. Soften the turndown by suggesting a workable alternative that has credibility. For example, a good response to a request for additional guest rooms at the event’s negotiated rate would be, “Here is my sales manager’s contact information for the hotel. Why don’t you give her a call,” suggests Fripp. “What you are doing is appealing to their logic by giving them something that sounds like it is in their best interest, without turning them down.”

Keep it impersonal. When a request is of a personal nature, such as “Can you arrange to take my wife shopping?” the best response is one that avoids any kind of personal language, says Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D., founder of the Huntsville, Ark.-based Ozark Center for Language Studies. “Don’t use words like I, you or your spouse. And don’t appear shocked or insulted, or respond defensively or sarcastically,” she says, in deference to expressions such as “The rules don’t permit...” and “It’s against the organization’s policy to...” In addition, “always keep your body language neutral,” notes Elgin.

DON'T:

Appear shocked or insulted

Respond defensively or sarcastically

DO:

Mention rules or policy

Keep body language neutral

Get help when it’s the boss. Turning down a request from an attendee or speaker is one thing. But requests from one’s employer/supervisor/boss can bring a whole new level of challenge -- and anxiety. “It isn’t easy to say no to the boss, and it’s not always wise,” says Dr. Dennis O’Grady. “It doesn’t matter how professional your response or the reason you give for why you can’t handle the request; all they hear is, ‘Here comes the whining and excuses again.’?”

On the other hand, warns O’Grady, if the request is along the lines of being asked to spy on a spouse, then a “no” statement has to be made. “When empathizer types don’t say no, their spirit gets chipped away at, little by little, until they begin to dislike themselves for being weak,” he says.

O’Grady suggests considering a confidential visit to the human resources department. Without divulging the boss’ name, tap them for advice on how to handle the situation, particularly if the boss is a repeat offender. If they don’t feel they have the experience or resources available to assist, then ask if the department has the ability to direct your concerns to a company-paid professional who specializes in work relationships.

“People tend to think in extremes. I must say yes, or I can’t say no,” says O’Grady. “But usually there’s a middle solution. The course of action to take just needs to be thought through.”

Sometimes, experts agree, it simply takes some sober words of wisdom to the effect that fulfilling a certain request would not be in the best interests of the company, to establish workable boundaries with one’s superior.

Prepare in advance. According to Suzette Haden Elgin, meeting planners need to make up their minds in advance of taking on a job as to exactly what their limits will be, because it will prepare them to respond to any request outside those parameters. “If you’ve set your limits and know they are accurate, you’re unlikely to lose your poise or your temper,” says Elgin.

The upshot: Don’t paint yourself into a corner, cautions Fripp. Think of how you can give the client something without sacrificing your standards, and at the same time set a precedent for future requests. She cites the response she gives when asked to reduce her speaking fee: “Why don’t we see instead how I can add more value to your event? Would you like me to do a breakout session while I’m there, or an extra three-hour speech coaching session for your executives?” That goes a long way beyond just saying no.