How do you navigate gender in your workplace?

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Women at Work wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard.

Whether you're a CEO, a mid-level manager or even an intern, I'll bet that a lot of your

work day is about fielding requests. People asking you to weigh in on a decision, join a team, help out on a project,

give them a promotion or raise. In today's show, we're focusing on the answers to these questions,

knowing when to say yes and how to say no. For many of us it can feel hard to say no,

particularly to coworkers and bosses even when we're extremely busy and really

can't fit another thing on our plates.

Or maybe you're one of those people who says no too often,

as a knee-jerk reaction because you're swamped or a little afraid of taking on a challenge.

Our guest today has studied how the most successful executives evaluate all the requests

being thrown at them and figure out how to respond.

He says that people who learn how to decide on and give the strategic guest or the well-reasoned no are the ones that build the best careers.

Bruce Tolgan is the founder and CEO of Rainmaker thinking.

He wrote the book The Art of Being Indispensable at Work and the HPR article learned to say no.

Bruce, thanks so much for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having.

So let's start with a problem. Why does so many of us say yes too often and

hesitate to say no? Well everybody in the workplace wants to be that indispensable go-to person.

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