One thousand, four hundred and forty minutes from now another day of your life will be over. The question is not how much life you have left. My question to you today is: how many of those 1440 minutes are going to matter? And how many of them will you waste on things you do not want to do, and do not need to do? Your life matters. Your time matters. And if your commitment “bucket” is overflowing to the point where you cannot do what matters to you - you need to empty it. There are only two ways to do this. You either have to: Remove a current commitment from the bucket or Decline new commitments as they come in Breaking a commitment is very difficult – but nobody likes turning down commitments either when they know it will hurt other people’s feelings. And don’t I know it - I used to be tremendously over committed. However, today I shall share with you my genuine, and very successful method of saying “No” without (hopefully!) souring a relationship: The Empathy Sandwich. Why A Sandwich? It occurred to me there had to be a better way than bluntly saying no to people. I was turning it over in my head when I remembered a strategy I used for delivering criticism: the criticism sandwich. The basic premise of a criticism sandwich is that to make criticism easier to swallow, you “sandwich” it between two pieces of praise. I figured if it’s good enough for criticism, maybe it’s good enough for turning down commitments as well. Formula for the Empathy Sandwich The empathy sandwich formula is simple enough: Empathy Sandwich = Empathize + Decline + Empathize Again The Empathy Sandwich In Action Them: ”Sid I’m swamped this weekend, do you think you can handle [task that they want Sid to do] for me?” Sid: ” Empathize: I know what you mean. It’s so hard to make time isn’t it? I remember you telling me last week how you’ve been working long nights at work and have been stretched thin. Decline: I’m sorry, but I can’t handle [that task] for you. Empathize Again I sure hope the pressure eases up on you soon, I know how hard you have been working these past few weeks and it seems like you always work harder than anyone else at your office. “ This example is exaggerated, but you get the idea.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 20:51:25 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015