Many of the biggest decisions you’ll face in life involve other people.
Will you be in a committed romantic relationship with me?
Do you want to have kids?
Will you give me a promotion within six months?
What these decisions have in common are two-fold:
1. Your decision has high stakes;
2. Your decision depends on someone else’s decision.
At first glance, these decisions seem like binary decisions.
Example 1:
Let’s say you’ve been dating someone for a few months now. You want a more serious relationship. You have a relationship conversation with your dating partner to see where they stand.
You want a relationship and you want to know if they want one too. You ask them “yes” or “no” questions… and instead of hearing “yes” or “no,” you hear back “possibly someday.”
If they had said “yes,” you’d progress to a more committed relationship. If they had said “no,” you would part ways and see other people. But you don’t get either answer, you get something in between… so, now what?
Example 2:
If you’re in a long-term romantic relationship with someone, it’s useful to know if the other person wants to have children or not.
Two people who have different answers to that question are going to have a structural obstacle to having a mutually satisfying relationship.
Imagine that you’ve been in a long-term relationship with your partner. You’re deciding whether you want this to be a lifetime relationship.
One of your key needs is to have children. You ask your partner if they do. You expect to hear a “yes” or a “no.” Instead, you hear an “I’m not sure yet” or “I’m still thinking about it.”
If the other person said “yes,” you’d be thrilled to be in a more serious committed relationship involving parenthood. If the other person says “no,” you’d move on. What you hear in return is neither answer. What do you do?
Example 3:
You’ve been working for a company for four years. You feel you’ve done the work to earn a promotion. You’re a little frustrated that you haven’t been granted one yet. You ask your boss a simple “yes” or “no” question: “Will you be able to grant me a promotion within the next six months?”
The answer you get back is “Maybe, we’ll have to see how the budget looks for the next fiscal year.”
If your boss said “yes,” you’d stay six months and get the job you wanted. If your boss says “no,” then you’d be inclined to work on updating your resume. You don’t get either answer. You’re told it depends…
What these situations all have in common is that the other person responds with an answer that includes uncertainty. Maybe the other person will want to be in a more committed relationship… will want to have kids… will promote you… or maybe not.
What often happens in these situations is the person making the strategic life decision ends up waiting to get clarity from the other person. They haven’t said “no.” But they also haven’t said “yes” either.
I propose a different way of looking at this situation.
When assessing the other person’s response, don’t look for a “yes” or “no” response.
Instead, look for a “yes” or “not ‘yes.'”
You: Do you want to have kids with me?
Them: Maybe. (“Maybe” = “Not yes”)
You: Do you want to be in a committed romantic relationship with me?
Them: Let’s see where things go. (“Let’s see where things go” = “Not yes”)
You: Will you give me a promotion within six months?
Them: Let’s see how the budget looks the next fiscal year. (“Let’s see how the budget looks for the next fiscal year” = “Not yes”)
In other words, the other person answers “yes” or “not yes.”
This means:
“Maybe” = “Not yes”
“Let’s wait and see” = “Not yes”
“Possibly” = “Not yes”
“I’m not sure yet” = “Not yes”
Declining to answer the question = Not yes
Changing the subject = Not yes
The key insight is this: “Not yes” is an answer. It means they are… well… not saying “yes.”
You don’t want to use this decision-making approach for every situation. However, for some high stake decisions, the “yes” vs. “not yes” approach is a more useful, proactive way to make certain types of decisions.
Let me know your thoughts on this by commenting below.
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6 thoughts on “Yes vs. “Not Yes” Decisions”
Some questions don’t need to be asked. Most of the time you already know/have the answer by looking at the other person‘s behavior. Often times, when asking somewhat direct questions on sensitive topics, you don’t get “honest” answers. And by that I don’t mean the other person intentionally lies. Some people just don’t know and/or haven’t thought about it yet. So if you ask the question in the hopes of initiating a thought process… fine. Otherwise look at behavior.
Si the next part would be: what would you do with that answer, or what’s the next step. My take would be to prepare for the worst case scenario. Maybe in example 3, I would start updating my resume anyway. In relationships, this can be hard, but would still try to prepare (at least emotionally and mentally) for a worst case scenario.
I’m curious in the follow up to this initial conversation. If “not yes” is a logically reasonable response considering the situation, how to you establish a timetable or criteria to address the topic again in the future where you feel like there’s progress towards reaching a decision while collaboratively getting the counterparty to agree when a more definitive decision will be made?
Taking the promo example, what strategies can be used to prevent the same conversation from occurring after the next fiscal budget and being asked to wait another year?
Or a ‘not no’
I think this is mostly right and “not yes” is the same as “no”. But sometimes “not yes” is “probably yes if uncertainty can be resolved satisfactorily”. As an example, I just got a long-delayed promotion because the budget improved. I knew my boss wanted to give me a promotion, but he couldn’t because the budget was poor. So I stayed at a job I loved and got a promotion.
So, the answer of “let’s see where things go” after the question of “do you want to be in a committed relationship with me?” suggests that the person answering has concerns about commitment with the questioner. The questioner then needs to follow up with some questions to see what the concerns are and if those concerns can be addressed. That’s a tough but necessary conversation. Either the questioner will find a way to resolve the uncertainty and get to “yes”, or the questioner will have to take the answer as a “no”.
What do you do if you received a “not yes” answer? Do you take it as a “no”, or do you try and make it into a “yes”?