Does Saying "No" Damage L&D's Reputation?
Eliminate this common fear by using a different approach altogether.
We know that saying yes to fulfilling every request for training isn't the wisest move. Not only does it stretch our limited resources, but it's one of the actions that keeps us in order-taking mode. Every time we say yes and deliver a beautiful learning product, we reinforce the message to our stakeholders that this is how they work with us.
But in the struggle to move to a place where we work as strategic business partners, saying no to stakeholder requests too often feels risky to most L&D teams. It might be the most common concern (or complaint) I hear.
"If we start pushing back on requests, stakeholders will stop coming to us in the first place."
"If we say no to fulfilling a training request, we will become known as the 'department of no' and no-one wants to work with that team."
"If we say no too often, instead of looking at us to help, our stakeholders will see us as progress blockers."
With this narrative playing in our minds, L&D sits at the precipice of a chasm filled with a deep dark fear of irrelevance. It stops us from moving forward. We know working more strategically, in partnership with the business, has the potential to increase our impact, but we fear that saying, 'no' to requests will lead us straight to the bottom of this chasm. That's a place where we are no longer needed or valued, we are seen non-team players, and we are eventually booted out of our jobs. Too dramatic? Maybe.
Allow me to paint an alternate picture. One where the chasm of irrelevance is only an illusion. This is the reality I experienced with my own team. But this chasm disappeared via a different approach. It didn't involve saying yes or no. In fact, we rarely said either. We knew that yes or no weren't our only options. Limiting our answers to these two responses would have limited what we could do and oversimplified how we did it. Instead, we started working with stakeholders as if the request was an invitation to partner, not a question requiring a single response.
Here are five keys to this different approach:
#1. Start outside of your L&D lens
Stakeholders think they are coming to L&D for training, learning, or development, but this isn't actually the case. It's deeper than that.
When stakeholders come to L&D with a request, it's because something in their world isn't working. This pain point has gotten big enough that they feel the need to reach out for help.
When a stakeholder came to our team, we started treating it as an opportunity to dive in and partner to solve a problem vs. an opportunity to create a product. We set aside our L&D lens and attempted to view the request first through a problem-solving lens.
We used the following mantra as our driving assumption: When a stakeholder comes to us with a request, we assume that no one (not us, not the stakeholder) knows the problem or the solution, yet.
That assumption allowed us to take the approach of a detective. Sniffing out clues to solve the problem first, instead of diving in to create a product.
#2 Sit on the same side of the same table (figuratively)
Ultimately, L&D and our stakeholders should be striving for the same goal, to improve the organization and its people. That means we are on the same team. The best teams aren't made up of solo acts thrown together onto the same field. Instead, they show up together, practice together, work together, and win together.
We're on your side
When we began to work with stakeholders we did so acting as partners and team members, sitting on the same figurative side of the table. Our goal was to show the stakeholders that we were in this together, committed to helping them ease their pain. We did this without initially saying yes or no to their request. Instead, we said yes to further conversation and to learning more about the reason behind the request.
My favorite response was this:
"Thanks for coming to me, I'd love to partner with you to find the best solution."
This statement expressed gratitude, noted I would show up as their partner (same side of the table), and indicated I was committed to solving their problem. At this point, that was all that was needed.
We're here with you, at your table.
It's one thing to sit on the same side of a figurative table, but we also needed to ensure that we were sitting at the same table, not at two separate tables across the room.
To do this, we needed to start the conversation at exactly the place where the stakeholder ended it. Using their language and their request as the starting point for our detective work.
Yes, we want to know if this request ties to larger business objectives, whether training can solve the problem, what success will look like, and the desired learning outcomes. But we don't start there. Unless the stakeholder comes to you with a direct request to help with business initiatives, they likely aren't thinking about these things yet. Most often, they are thinking about their pain point and need for a solution. If we jump outside of their request immediately, they are likely to be confused and frustrated. They won't feel heard. It will seem to them like we are at a different table.
So, we start with the request they brought forward. Using their language. For example, if someone comes asking for a communication boot camp, we start by asking the reason a communication boot camp is needed. If they say it's because the team isn't communicating well, we ask how they know the team isn't communicating well. Eventually we can ask about the other things (business objectives, learning outcomes, etc.) that are more strategic.
#3 Aim to Ease the Real Pain
There's a concept in medicine called, referred pain. This occurs when we feel pain in one part of our body, but the real source of the pain comes from somewhere else (Cleveland Clinic). Think about when you eat or drink something cold quickly and experience pain in your head, affectionately called, "brain freeze." The problem doesn't stem from your head, but from the part of your body touching the cold, your mouth and throat.
In my experience, stakeholders often experience a type of referred pain. They think that the problem is a lack of knowledge or skills and can be solved by training/learning, but they haven't actually done a full analysis. Often, they don't have the time or resources to do so given their overflowing plates. But if knowledge or skills are a form of referred pain, and the real issue is a clunky system, a manager who won't give feedback, misaligned rewards, unclear expectations, or a lack of access to needed resources, to name a few, creating a training solution won't fix the real issue.
If we are committed to working with the stakeholder to uncover and ease the real pain, not the referred pain, we don't need to provide a training solution just because that is what they asked for. Instead, we can suggest alternatives. We don't say no to helping, we just redirect to a better solution. We help them discover what they really need to solve the problem, which is often different from what they think they need.
#4 Provide Space for Stakeholder Reflection
Busy stakeholders often don't have the time or the mental space to reflect on and consider alternatives to a training solution. But you, the L&D pro, have the skills to help them do so.
Facilitation skills are a superpower that most L&D professionals use regularly. However, we usually think of them as classroom or training skills. That's true, but they are useful in many more scenarios. If we think of facilitation as leading someone to a particular conclusion by providing them with questions along with the space and time to reflect and respond thoughtfully, we can just as easily facilitate within our meetings with stakeholders.
This is one instance where thoughtful questions are important, as is the corresponding silence. For my team, we worked on asking the questions that gave stakeholders the space to reflect and consider the issues. Our stakeholders were incredibly smart. Often, we found that by providing thoughtful questions and time to answer, the stakeholders came to the conclusion on their own that training wasn't the answer to their problems.
But this didn't leave us out in the cold. In fact, it increased our credibility. After facilitating this type of conversation with a stakeholder, it wasn't uncommon for them to come back to us with other concerns or pain points. The difference was, they came with a curious mindset, looking for help in determining a solution, not asking for specific training. This facilitated discussion was a big part of helping us move towards work as strategic business partners.
#5: Add unexpected value
Sometimes we needed to fulfill a request due to political, compliance, or strategic reasons. For example, someone higher in the chain of command was convinced training was the answer and wouldn't allow for alternative thinking. Other times governing bodies wrote training into their contracts and not fulfilling that request could lead to expensive fines. Sometimes we needed to build a relationship or increase visibility through a particular project. In these instances, we followed another of my favorite mantras:
Push back in the ask, not on it.
We agreed to fulfill the request, but we made changes within it or added value using our learning expertise. Often, this meant adding something unexpected to surprise and delight the stakeholder like a follow-up resource or reinforcement strategy. Sometimes we added measurements that showed the impact on performance or even asked to do an analysis of the process in question after the fact to determine if another solution would be better in the future.
We started to show, in small ways, that we were capable of doing more and we did this within the request, not outside of it. This is where a training "order" becomes an opportunity to move the needle towards working as a strategic business partner. Stakeholders don't know we can work differently if we don't show them, the best place to do this is within the work we are already doing.
Intentional responses lead to more credibility, not less
When we start thinking about a stakeholder request as a cry for help instead of a need for training, we can respond as problem solvers first and learning experts second. This means our response is outside the bounds of a simple yes or no. We say yes to the conversation. We say yes to partnering in search of the best solution. We say yes to adding value or working more strategically within a request if that is our best option.
Bottom line, we make sure our answers are intentional. They are strategic, cracking the door a little at a time to facilitate the realization of a new way of working with L&D.
When my team got to the place where we showed up as problem solvers on the same team and at the same table, focused on easing the real pain, and continuously showed new value, the chasm of irrelevance disappeared. Our credibility and the asks to work with us increased, they didn't decrease. But they did look different. Instead of, "we need a 30-minute eLearning about this product" they sounded like, "my team is struggling to explain this product to customers, can you help us figure out what might work better?" That's a very different conversation. The small changes and reframes led us to eventually work as strategic business partners.
Related Articles
Be sure to check out these past articles in this series about abandoning the complainer’s playground and stepping into the champion’s camp:
