Where then does the "learn to say 'no!'" attitude comes in if we are to say "yes, if..." to every idea coming our way? How to find the right balance between being a "can do" person, and NOT being the over-committer?
Weinberg talks about relevant things in "The Secrets of Consulting". Unfortunately I don't exactly have perfect memory, but it's something like:
- Don't say no to clients "crazy" demands, just calculate what it would actually cost, or what you would need to do what they ask, and quote them that.
- A good price is when you are OK either way: You're OK if they say yes, and OK if they say no.
The point is that if you instead of saying no ask a lot in return, you either get a great reward, or "get off the hook". If it's not a quid pro quo type of relationship, a personal relationship for example, I guess this does not apply (just say no =).
If I was to pull a rubber band back a small bit, and let go, it will fly a small ways. If I pull it back too far, it might break. However if I pull it back as far as it can go right before the breaking point, then let go the rubber band will fly across the room.
these "no because," people are a common resistance to new ideas. In engineers, they're almost the default. It's much easier to say no; to say yes is to deal with an increasingly larger amount of resistance. However, that resistance is also what makes the idea go far.
as a guy responsible for technology, I have said "no" a lot. For focus reason. Because you can only grow your team so much, you can only manage so many pieces of software at once, and, well, having a million non-interconnected pieces of software helps you getting many non-related software contracts, but it doesn't make a product.
Technically my answer was more "yes if we dump some other pieces of software, and we try to be the best player at this new idea".
