The Habit of Yes can Hurt Your Business

Most people at startups are in the habit of saying yes.

If you are looking for a resolution that will transform your life, get in the habit of saying no.

The habit of saying yes occurs when someone asks you to help him with something that "will only take half an hour," or when a co-worker asks you to sneak in a "quick" bug fix to the weekly sprint because it's an "easy fix and should only take ten minutes." We've all been there and our natural inclination is to say yes.

There are lots of reasons why we say yes but most of them have to do with the fact that saying no feels rude. Yes, on the other hand, leads to happy co-workers, happy employers and a conflict-free environment. Yes, for lack of a better word, is admirable. It is pleasant. It is agreeable. And everyone likes yes.

The Habit of No

Ethanaustin (2015) states that the habit of no is one of the healthiest habits your business can develop.

At its most basic level, the habit of no is about accepting the reality that all ideas are not equal. The habit of no means ruthlessly prioritizing ideas, setting goals and then sticking to them. No is having the conviction to eliminate the good to get to the great.

The Path To Greatness is Paved with No

"The reason that no is so important is simple: no company has ever achieved greatness by being good at ten different things. They achieve greatness by being best-in-the-world at one thing".(Ethanaustin (2015)

The best companies have a singular thesis about what the future looks like and then maniacally execute against that thesis. They ignore the outside noise. They know exactly where they are going and then say no to any ideas that don't take them closer to achieving their goal.

Take Google for example. Today Google offers everything from cloud storage to grocery delivery but that is not how Google won the Internet. Google won the Internet because long before you could use Google to video chat with Nana halfway across the country, Google figured out how to do one thing 10X better than anyone else in the world: sell ads on the search engine results page.

The same idea can be applied to investing in public stock markets. No one has ever become a billionaire by betting on index funds. Investors win big when they have a thesis about what the future looks like and then place all their chips on the sector or company they think has the greatest chance of creating that future. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. The business world is the same.

Moonshot or Bust

The habit of saying no is so critical for a business, it's necessary to understand it assists the business to grow.

If you are at a venture-backed startup, by definition your singular objective is growth. You're not aiming for single or double-digit growth. You're shooting for 1000% growth.

Your objective is to land a moonshot or die trying.

Startups that fall into the habit of yes never hit the moon. Instead, they divide their time between a handful of activities and end up doing all of them at a B+ level. In the real world getting a B+ is an okay outcome, but in the binary world of startups a B+ is the same as an F. B+ work might get you 85% towards the moon, but it will never, ever, ever get you all the way there.

Once you realize that B+, A- or even A work isn't good enough to hit the moon, it necessarily changes the way you have to operate.

Developing a Habit of No at Your Business

When a business has a culture of yes, the people who dare to say no may get labelled as unhelpful, selfish or "not a team player." But this couldn't be further from the truth.

The habit of no is all about teamwork. It's about acknowledging what is required for everyone to reach a common goal, respecting this common goal and giving your company and your co-workers the best shot of achieving it.

If your business goal is to land on the moon, the next time someone asks you to do something that pulls you off course from achieving this goal, you should politely decline.

You can have an open discussion with them. Show them your prioritized list of tasks you are working on to achieve the comprehensive company goals. Once all the information is on the table, decide together if the new task is more or less likely to move you closer to your company goals.

The habit of no can be scary but it can also be transformative. It starts with one person and then it spreads. It's certainly not the easiest habit to develop, but if you can commit to keeping your head down — to executing a common goal, and inspiring others around you to do the same, you might all look up one day and realize: "Holy shit! We're on the moon."

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