I used to think you had to be a 'yes' person to get ahead, but a project in Denver showed me the opposite

For years, I said yes to every extra task, thinking it showed I was a team player. Last quarter, I took on three more small projects from my manager on top of my main work. I was spread so thin that my core project, a software rollout for a Denver client, started to slip. My boss pulled me aside and said, 'Your main job is the priority, not being helpful everywhere.' That was my wake-up call. I learned that clear boundaries and doing one thing well are more valuable than being everywhere at once. Has anyone else had a manager point out that being too helpful was actually a problem?

3 comments

3 Comments

johnflores1mo ago

I read a study from a business school that tracked employee performance. They found people who said no to extra tasks 30% of the time were rated higher by managers. The study said it showed they could focus on what really mattered for the team's goals. Your Denver story really lines up with that data.

elizabethn561mo ago

Actually read that study, it was 20%.

bennett.patricia17d ago

Wait, was that 20% of employees or 20% of their total workload they turned down? Seems like a pretty big difference depending on how you measure it. How did the study define turning something down, was it just saying no flat out or did they count negotiating a different timeline too?