647: How to Say NO! - Robyn Theisen

How to Say NO!

Episode #647 with Robyn Theisen

Saying no can be hard — but it’s not as hard as you think! If you have a hard time saying no, don't miss this episode. Kirk Behrendt brings back Robyn Theisen, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share how to have the conversation in a clear, effective, and non-emotional way. Start saying yes to saying no! To learn how, listen to Episode 647 of The Best Practices Show!

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Main Takeaways:

Say no to things you know you should say no to.

“No” can be a non-emotional conversation.

Set clear boundaries and expectations.

Saying no isn't as scary as you think.

Get good at being clear, not nice.

Quotes:

“I find, mostly, that people don't know how to have the conversation. That's the hardest part, is that people or leaders interpret [saying no] as it's going to have to be challenging or emotional or difficult. If you handle the conversations correctly and have the right pieces in place to be very clear about your expectations to begin with, I find they're easier to have.” (2:22—2:47) -Robyn

“You, as a dentist, have to get things going in your life, so you say yes to a lot of things. If you look at the early years of your practice, a yes was a good thing. Yes to patients, ‘Yes, I'll do this. Yes, I'll do that.’ Yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, the yes creates a lot of activity. And then, there's a certain point in your career where yes doesn't provide any more value. Yes just makes you more miserable. The new word that you have to use is “no”, because no keeps it all in a container. If you say yes to everything, you're never home, you have every PPO on the planet, you're seeing every patient, you're saying yes to every team member request, every patient request, and you take all these on as your own burdens, and you're miserable.” (3:34—4:14) -Kirk

“Expectations minus reality equals conflict. This is so true in the no versus yes. Are the expectations clear and allow you to either go down the yes or the no path based on the expectations that you've set up? That is one of the first things when I'm met with a challenge or something that I'm going to say no to, was I clear with how I set it up to begin with? And from a team member perspective, am I clear to everybody so that that expectation is set for everybody on the team?” (4:31—5:01) -Robyn

“When there's conflict, I always check myself. Was I clear from the beginning? Was there some room for gray area? Or as the leader, how could I have said this better or more clearly so that there isn't conflict, or the no doesn't have to necessarily come up? And so, I want to check myself with how that expectation was set to begin with.” (6:07—6:27) -Robyn

“When conflict is unresolved, it eventually becomes crisis. Whether it be perio, whether it be a relationship, whether it be money — you can't just live in conflict. Conflict has to have resolution, at some point. And so, having it fester, grow, and compound usually ends up in a relationship falling apart, or a health circumstance. So, you want to minimize it. It's okay to have conflict, but then we've got to resolve it and go back to it.” (6:36—7:04) -Kirk

“If there's a question that keeps coming up, there is that opportunity to go back and say, ‘Do I need to be more clear in my employee manual? Do I need to reset the expectations so that we're all on the same page?’ and be able to check yourself that way. The employee manual is the best way to start team members off with knowing what the expectations are and setting yourself up for success, both with them and for you.” (7:24—7:45) -Robyn

“In today's environment where everybody is so nervous about addressing or saying no to team members for fear of losing them, or just in the hiring market that we have, if you set this up clearly from the beginning and your new team members know exactly what the boundary is, there isn't room for there to be conflict, or there isn't room for them to misunderstand what your expectation is on how they arrive to work. What is the expectation about time off and how you request that? If we set them up from the very beginning, there isn't the conflict to feel nervous about saying no for fear that they're not going to be a part of the team, or they're going to be upset about it.” (8:30—9:04) -Robyn

“A healthy team doesn't experience entitled team members. Now, you might not want to hear that, but that's true. I don't find a healthy team where great team members are like, ‘No, I'm entitled to this.’ No — they are all built with the right behaviors, the right mental capacity, the right buy-in. And that is a function of leadership.” (9:34—9:56) -Kirk

“It's about knowing how to have the conversation. Things are going to come up, and so we avoid them. And by avoiding them, it makes matters worse. Like you were saying earlier, if there is some type of conflict there, it is going to put strain on the relationship until it comes to the head. And oftentimes, then it explodes. So, knowing how to have the conversation to begin with is an important part of it, and how to do it so it doesn't have to be emotion-filled. It's factual, and you're having a conversation to come to a resolution.” (10:42—11:11) -Robyn

“One of the most important pieces is to find some common ground when you're in disagreement. ‘Okay, can we both agree that we need to build a great team here and that we have to do X, Y, Z?’ You’ve got to start somewhere, because if you feel one way and I feel one way, it's going to become highly emotional and potentially explosive unless we can find some common ground about who we are as a group of people.” (11:12—11:37) -Kirk

“Having a set of core values is the most important thing you will ever do in a business because we can always trace back. And I'll tell you exactly how you use it. You use core values when it's positive, but you also use them when you get into potentially very difficult situations. I can say, at any point, ‘Listen, we are a team that believes all-in attitude. We give greater than get. Would you agree?’ Everybody that's here has to say yes — not because I'm making them say yes, but because they bought into that. So, we don't have to agree, but we do have to align on how we're going to support that value system.” (11:40—12:17) -Kirk

“It is really important to enter the conversation in a place where you are emotionally stable about it or not heated about it. [Otherwise], the conversation starts off on the wrong foot. So, if it takes you a minute to be able to collect your thoughts and cool down from it . . . I also think you have to go in it with the idea that you want to resolve this. We're asking questions in the conversation because the relationship is important, and we want to come to a resolution — not because we're mad about this, or we want to be right. We want to enter it in a place where I want to understand where the other person is coming from and be in the right emotional space to hear them and be able to work through for a resolution.” (12:50—13:28) -Robyn

“If we just want to be right, you're in a totally different emotional space when you are coming at this with trying to prove a point and asking questions for that reason rather than asking questions to understand or to clarify.” (13:30—13:43) -Robyn

“Dealing with somebody who has to be right is very difficult. I have been that person where I'm trying to be right. I always tell myself, ‘I don't want to be right.’ But there are times I do. And so, when Covey taught that principle, seek first to understand before being understood, those weren't just words. Those are actually really good practices. So, even when you're angry, and you're upset, and you're out of equity with somebody, and you have a lot of conflict going on inside, it's often best to ask a question and go, ‘Okay. Can someone help me understand what just happened here?’ because it'll take everybody from the emotional part of the brain to the thinking brain, and we can start to unpackage this because there are some things you may not see.” (13:49—14:34) -Robyn

“It could be that they have a totally different perspective on this. So, have your ears open to really listen. If you're going to ask the question, be prepared to listen and accept what they're telling you.” (14:37—14:47) -Robyn

“My dad gave me this advice: ‘Son, you're marrying a great woman, Sarah. You can be right, or you can be married — but you can't be both.’ I use that in my marriage, I use it at home, I use it with my team. And so, I'll say this to you as a dentist listening. There are going to be times where you're going to be like, ‘Okay. Do I want to be right, or do I want a team?’ It's a great question, because you can still eventually get the practice where you want it to be from a vision standpoint, but you don't have to lay down the hammer right now and tell everybody you're right because it's taking you further back than it is forward, in some respects.” (14:51—15:29) -Kirk

“[By listening], potentially, you learn something. Potentially, the way you wrote the employee manual or the way you intended it to be is not the way they interpret it. That goes back to the expectations piece. Do we need to change something there? If one person is having the questions, others potentially are. So, you learn something from it and can clarify it so that the issue doesn't arise again.” (15:30—15:51) -Robyn

“It’s better to be consistent than it is to be perfect or excellent all the time. I think if your behavior as a leader is consistent and you're calm, people can buy into that. They can go, ‘I know he's probably not going to like this, but he's going to be calm about it.’” (15:53—16:07) -Kirk

“Circle back when you make an agreement. If there is a, ‘We're going to follow back on this in 30 days,’ make sure that you do that. If it's important to you to resolve, make sure that you follow back with them. If you set the time to do it, be intentional about that and set the time to circle back.” (17:26—17:41) -Robyn

“It also is helpful, when that agreement gets violated, to be able to go back to the team member, or your partner, your kids, whoever that is, and be able to say, ‘So, my understanding of the agreement was this. Here's what happened. Help me to understand what happened there because this is what we agreed to.’ Again, it doesn't have to be an emotional thing. ‘We talked about this. This is what we both agreed to. In what I'm seeing here, this doesn't feel like what we agreed to.’ It gives you permission to be able to circle back and have expectations for what the outcome is.” (18:06—18:39) -Robyn

“The better you get at saying no, the more people will be okay on both sides. When you deliver the no, and then when they see the no, you go, ‘Wow, that didn't go so bad.’ People don't freak out as much as you think they will. And then, ultimately, what you want to create is team trust. Team trust knows that when they come to the bald guy, ‘I already know what he's going to say. He's going to say no, and that's okay.’ And so, it's one of those things that as you work on this in your family and in your business, you'll get so good at saying no to the things you know you have to say no to.” (18:44—19:17) -Kirk

“Another thing that we get very good at is there's one thing that happens, we avoid the conflict, and then these other behaviors start to stack up. So, then it adds more fuel to the fire. It is best to be timely if there's something that has gone off the rails or isn't right. Address it at the time. Don't allow it to stack and have more emotion go into it rather than addressing it head on, take care of it at this time, and go forward.” (19:35—20:01) -Robyn

“Classic in a dental office, you're in between patients, everything is busy, and it's like you're having these one-off conversations in the hall. Take the time to sit down and have a conversation that allows you to listen. I had a mentor one time tell me what these conversations are. Don't allow the other person to make you be unprofessional. Stay professional. Don't let their emotions get the best of you. Be well-thought-out. Have the time and place to sit down and stay professional in the way that you're delivering the message.” (20:04—20:32) -Robyn

“How these conversations happen is, ‘This is what you did. This is how you made me feel,’ all of these very blaming accusations. Instead, use “I” statements. ‘Here is what I saw.’ Be very specific. ‘Here is how I interpreted it,’ any of those “I” statements to take it back to you, and then ask them for clarification. ‘Is that how you intended? Am I correct in how I saw that? Am I correct in how I heard that?’ So, it is more of a conversation rather than a blame game of, ‘This is what you did. This is how you did it.’ People get very defensive about that, and that doesn't make for a conversation. It makes for a defensive argument.” (20:47—21:22) -Robyn

“The same mentor that told me to stay professional also said, ‘No one can make you feel a certain way. You are allowing yourself to do that.’ So, remove that from the way that you phrase it to them. Take responsibility for how you saw it, and give it from your perspective, not blaming somebody else for how they made you feel.” (21:41—21:59) -Robyn

“You can only feel bad if you let somebody else make you feel bad.” (22:08—22:11) -Kirk

“Being clear is kind. So, your expectations, setting those out. If you get the same question from several team members, I would encourage you to go back to yourself. Were your expectations set clear? If it's a common question, potentially, there is some more clarification that you need to put in there.” (22:22—22:39) -Robyn

“I encourage [teams] to eliminate the words “unfortunately,” “but”, and “however,” from their language and instead add “and”. It makes you change the way that you say the statement, and it changes the way that it's heard. So, you say you want to tell people what you can do, not what you can't. And you started the sentence by telling them what was negative. So, it started with, “unfortunately.” Which, after “unfortunately,” “but,” and “however,” anything that follows is a negative. That is how people and patients and your team interpret it. So, tell them what you can do. Insert “and” instead and remove those other three words.” (23:29—24:04) -Robyn

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:37 Why saying no is important.

3:27 E – R = C.

6:27 Create an employee manual.

7:48 Set clear boundaries.

9:04 Set clear expectations.

10:15 Know how to have the hard conversations.

12:27 Get out of the emotional zone.

14:48 You can be “right”, or you can have a team.

17:07 Follow up on your agreements.

18:39 Saying no isn't as bad as you think.

19:25 Address conflict in a timely, professional manner.

22:17 Clear is kind.

23:01 Eliminate these three words from your language.

Robyn Theisen Bio:

Robyn Theisen brings an entire life and legacy of dental experience to the team and every team with which she works as the daughter and sister of dentists. With almost 20 years of experience in dentistry, her roles ranged from practice management to operations at Patterson Dental to coaching teams. Robyn’s passion is empowering teams to realize that they can dramatically impact the lives of the people they serve by implementing skills and systems to remove barriers to life-changing dental treatment. She has done it for decades and does it every day with dental teams.

Outside of coaching, she enjoys time with her husband, Rob, and two daughters, Emerson and Ruby. She loves traveling, music, fitness, and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.