Anyway, my guruenlightened methat always the ‘good will triumph over the evil’. But the irony isthat we are not ‘Saints’ or can’t expect incarnations of the supreme toappear like those days to slay the evildoers. The only certainty is tolearn how to say ‘No’, in situations, where our conscience disagreeswith what you were asked to do by someone, even if s/he is yoursuperior or elder to you. You need to be the judge of your actions anddecline accordingly.

The best seller “TheBook of NO”(250 ways to say it – and mean it and stop People Pleasing Forever) bySusan Newman illustrates plethora of situations that we mayface bothat the workplace and private life and guides you how to say ‘No’.

Have you ever countedthenumber of times you said ‘No’ while at work? It would be very rare ornil, if the requester always is your boss, right?

Recently, a legalofficer inone of the UAE banks was asked by his supervisor to perform a diligenceexercise on a proposed merger of two banks. On a closer look, theemployee realized that the task has nothing related to the bank wherehe is working and on further quizzing the ‘boss’ agreed that this ishis personal work and what he was asking is a ‘personal favor’. Theirritated employee said ‘No’ as this was not part of his job and alsohas nothing to do with the employer, the bank.

In the corporate worldtoo muchsuch personal favors or unethical job requests like changing of HRrecords, manipulation of data and the like from unprofessional andcallous bosses come on a daily basis and the unfortunate subordinateemployees, most of the time, do not have much choice except to say‘Yes’ instead of ‘No’.

Similarly, using theemployeeas a Trojan and compelling him/her to reply emails to clients orsuppliers with the text dictated by the supervisor, just to createfriction or to convey to the Client or the Supplier what the supervisorwanted to say is also not uncommon these days.

In such situations, theemployee should be saying ‘No’. However, if the employee is “weak” oris a “saint”, then there will not be any end to it, as s/he will betaken for granted incessantly.

The moment you say ‘No’to aninsipid supervisor, we can expect the countdown for employee’s exitsoon. Recently, I received an email from one of my female friendsworking in a bSME (below the SME category business) explaining thereasons that triggered her resignation. The major reason was theattitude of her female toxic boss (trying to emulate the female CEO inthe 2006 movie, ‘ The Devil wears Prada’; please click the link to watch the clipping!)who used to hate this female employee since the day the employee defied Boss’s pressure to manipulate the core data ‘black box’ of the company.Since then, boss catches my friend for wrong or fictitious orunreasonable reasons such as not complying with the dresscode, notcarrying boss’s luggage during one of the business travels, herpersonal hygiene etc. Even after the employee submitted herresignation, the harassment continued in the form of delaying theresignation acceptance and withholding of her end of serviceentitlements. Sometimes, the ‘No’ bears a mega price tag!

An employee shouldmaster theart of saying ‘No’ in a very diplomatic ways if the situation demandssuch diplomacy. But diplomacy should not to be the criteria, if someoneis using you as a ‘tool’ to do bad or inappropriate tasks. Remember,the requester may not have a conscience but you may be having one!

Even though I preacheddiplomacy, but in circumstances where the employee feels that s/he hasbeen used or the request is unethical and against all known norms, thendefinitely the employee with no hesitation should turn it down with a‘big No’ giving diplomacy a vacation. The power of this two-letter word(‘No’) is amazing, ‘yes’, if aptly used!