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Uncover Your Needs

Often, when we list our interests, we are listing our wants - our everyday desires, aspirations, and concerns. These are the things or conditions we would like to have, often very much. We want our office to be comfortable, the deal to be profitable, the vacation to be relaxing, and the price to be affordable. If we probe deeper, we will find underneath these wants a set ou core motivations - our needs.

Needs are the basic drives that motivate human behavior. Perhaps the five most basic human needs are:

• Survival or safety
• Drink, food, and other life necessities
• Belonging and love
• Respect and meaning
• Freedom and control over one’s fate

.....

It pays to dig deep in uncovering your needs. The deeper you go, the more likely you are to hit bedrock, a place of strength and stability that can anchor your No.

William Ury, The Power Of A Positive No, NY 2008, p. 37

The Three Great Gifts Of A Positive No

According to the sages of ancient India, there are three fundamental processes at work in the universe: creation, preservation, and transformation. Saying No is essential to all three processes. If you learn how to say No skillfully and wisely, you can create what you want, protect what you value, and change what doesn't work. These are the three great gifts of a Positive No.

• Create What You Want ... Over breakfast one day, he confided in me that the secret to creating his fortune lay in his ability to say No. "I sit there all day and look at investment proposals. I say No, No, No, No, No, No - until I see one that is exactly what I am looking for. And then I say Yes. All I have to do is say Yes a few times in my life and I've made a fortune." Every important Yes requires a thousand Nos. ...
• Conserve What You Value ... Almost everything we care about can be affected or threatened by the behaviour of others. A Positive No enables us to set, maintain, and defend the key boundaries - personal, organizational, and societal - that are essential to protecting what we value.
• Change What No Longer Works .. Whether you are talking about making an organizational change at work, a personal change at home, or a political or economic change at societal level, every creative change begins with an intentional No to the status quo. Your No might be to complacency and stagnation in the workplace, to dishonesty and abuse in family life, or to injustice and inequity in the larger society ....

How To Use First you prepare your Positive No - you uncover your Yes, empower your No, and respect your way to Yes. The you deliver your Positve No - you express your Yes, assert your No, and propose a Yes. Finally, and most important, you follow through on your Positive No - you stay true to your Yes, underscore your No, and negotiate to Yes.

William Ury, The Power Of A Positive No, NY 2008, p. 18

Get Your Nos Right

When we make fun of children saying No, calling the age when they first learn to use that word the "terrible twos", we are missing the importance of the developmental work they are doing. For this is when children are becoming autonomous and learning to create boundaries. They are beginning to define who they are - and who they are not. If you listen carefully behind their Nos - "No, I don't want to eat that! No, I don't want to wear that! No, I don't want to go there!" - what do you hear? "I exist. I have a right to my own feelings. I have a right to my own opinion. I am me." ¹ A new being is anouncing her independent existence. Learning to say No is essential to the ongoing development of each human being.

No is the key word in defining your identity, your individuality, or, in organzational terms, your brand. If you cannot say No, you do not have a brand, for your brand is defined by what you say No to. No is a selection principle that allows you to be who you are and not someone or something else. No gives you the individuality and definition that make this world a richer place.

Because No is the word we use to express our power, the normal tendency is to overdo our Nos, so they come across as attacking² - or to underdo our Nos, so they come across as weak and hesitant. The challenge is to get it just right. How can you be assertive without being aggressive?

TBC ___________________________________________ ¹In terms of professional adults I would sum up as: I have a right to my own competence. ²I deem that in the last 15 to 20 years the formal signs of aggressiveness have been tabooized in a measure that you will find many people out there who will try to qualify a mere polite No as aggressiveness on your side.

William Ury, The Power Of A Positive No, NY 2008, p. 126

Let Your No Flow

The solution (to letting your nos flow) is to use what might be called a natural No.

A natural No is simple and straightforward. It flows naturally an almost effortlessly from your Yes. I remember hearing natural Nos from my daughter Gabriela when she was small. "No" would just roll of her tongue as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "No, I don't want to talk right now, Papo. I'm playing. Can I go now?" I would be five thousand miles away in a jungle, having trumped miles to find a phone to talk to her and having tried the line a half dozen times, but I always found myself utterly disarmed because her No was so natural. It was transparent, untamed by fear, unspoiled by anger. It was honest, clean, and matter-of-fact.

Nos get more difficult to say as we get older and our emotions and motivations become more complex and our sense of consequences more acute. But if you've followed the process this far, the action is, in one sense, already over. You've done the essential preparation work. You are like an athlete who has trained hard. Now, during the race, it is time to reap the rewards of that hard work.

Let your No flow. Let it flow from your Yes you have uncovered. Let it flow from the power you have developed. Let it flow from the respect you have offered. In this way, your No will be clear, committed and clean.

William Ury, The Power Of A Positive No, NY 2008, p. 127