Five Ways to Say No to Power Without Blowing Up Your Standing.

So let's build the version that would've kept the account.

Mm, mm-hmm.

So John, as always, this is gonna be five moves, and let's look at the same meeting you were talking about.

Okay.

So they say, "Cut the timeline in ha- cut the timeline in half.

W- we're gonna skip the testing." So first of all, skip the testing just sounds terrible, no matter what the conversation is.

[laughs] Let's start with move one.

We wanna separate the person from the position.

So you're not attacking them, you're pressure testing the idea, and you basically say so.

Okay.

So let's just give that a try real quick.

Okay.

So instead of, I knew you were gonna ask me to try this.

Oh yeah, you gotta try it.

You don't give me the answer key, but, uh, instead of staying quiet, like not gonna go just quiet and burrow in a hole.

I'm gonna say something like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm totally with you on hitting this window.

We gotta do that.

But let me pressure test the plan for a second, because I want you to win here."

Yeah, and John, the, the key part of that sentence is you're making it abundantly clear that you're on their side.

So there's a big difference between dissent from beside them versus dissent across from them.

So that's gonna leave to move two.

You wanna lead with a shared goal, and then introduce the risk.

So in other words, we're not gonna open with, "I disagree."

Right.

So we're gonna open with, "We both want this launch to work." So we establish what we agree on, and then I come in and say, "Here's the one thing that worries me about getting there."