October 15, 2026
Hi Everyone,
Saying no to a colleague can feel awkward, or even like a mistake you'll pay for later.
Psychologist Jingyi Lu tested this across a series of experiments. People who refused a request expected far more resentment than requesters actually reported. We expect damage that mostly never comes.
Today we're sharing a short script for saying no to a colleague without damaging the relationship.
The yes does more damage than the no
Say yes to work you can't fit, and sooner or later you let your colleague down.
In Donald Sull's research, only 9% of managers said they could rely on colleagues in other departments to deliver every time. And once a manager has been let down, Sull found that they start working around that colleague instead of asking again.
You said yes to protect the relationship, but not delivering causes more damage than a no would have.
The three-line script
This script works whether a colleague wants to borrow someone from your team, hand you extra work, or get you into a working group.
Line 1. Name the priority you both know about. For example: "My team committed to the June launch, and everyone is booked on it." Because your colleague already knows about that commitment, there's nothing to argue with.
Line 2. State the decision, not the constraint. Vanessa Patrick, who has studied refusals for over a decade, found that "I can't" invites the question "why not?", and then your peer starts solving your constraint for you. "It's only a few hours" and "we can wait until next week" are both answers to "I can't". A decision leaves nothing to solve. So the line is "we're not taking on new work before the launch."
Line 3. Ask what should move. If your colleague thinks their request should come first, let them say what gives way. For example: "What would you like me to tell Sarah we're dropping to make room?" Then, if you can help in a smaller way, offer it: "I can give you an hour on Thursday to plan the work with you."
Here's the whole script, for a colleague who wants to borrow a designer for two weeks:
"My team committed to the June launch, and we're not pulling anyone off it. If you think this should come first, what would you like me to tell Sarah we're dropping? Otherwise, I can give you an hour on Thursday to help you plan it, and we can look at it again after the launch."
What if the colleague has more influence than you?
Some colleagues are risky to upset. Maybe the CEO listens to them, maybe your team depends on theirs. With them, you'll be tempted to skip the script and just say yes.
Keep the script. Lu's experiments brought up one more finding for exactly this case: the more power the person asking had, the more people overestimated the fallout from saying no. They expected the most damage where the least happened.
Go deeper
👉 Jingyi Lu et al.: Rejecters overestimate the negative consequences they will face from refusal — skim the first two pages the next time you're bracing for fallout; the numbers will calm you down.
👉 Hidden Brain: You 2.0: How to say no — listen for Vanessa Patrick explaining why "I don't" ends discussions that "I can't" keeps open.
👉 Rob Cross: Reclaiming your day — use this if the requests never stop; the most efficient collaborators win back roughly a day a week.
👉 Ramona Shaw: Managing up with Melody Wilding — read the transcript for Wilding's trade-off wording, which works upward as well as sideways.
Coming up on Monday
The next issue is about getting honest criticism from AI, with a prompt you can copy and use for your next big decision.
Thanks for reading!