Why "No" is the Laziest Word in Leadership | Joe Yaffe

Saying no is always the easy answer. I found that being a great lawyer required me to not be the guy that just says no. You've gotta be, to succeed at a high level in the legal business, even there you had to be the person who said, look, what you just described isn't the best way to do this. Here's a better way to do it that will both accomplish your business goals and mitigate the risks that I've identified. You also have to be ready to say your job is to identify the risk, not necessarily cleanse the world of risk. Being somebody who's able to balance risk with business goal is a critical part of being a high-functioning lawyer. And it takes time to get there because when you're just starting out, it's very easy to say, well, the statute says no, so therefore no. You're much better served if you say the statute says no, but if we restructure this arrangement this way, we've got some daylight to get this done. And that's kind of the thought process I bring to bear as COO, which is my job isn't to say no. My job is to figure out how to make the business succeed. And if that requires telling people to do things a little bit differently to get to the same place, you know, that's That's the right outcome versus no.