Saying "YES! And" to Impossible Requests

It’s Monday morning. You run a company that makes custom-designed magic markers for walk-up customers. A man rushes into your store holding a blue marker and a red marker and says, “I need for you to make me two markers that look exactly like this by 5:00pm tomorrow. I can pay you $10 for the job. How about it?”

Doing a quick mental calculation, you realize that it will take you three days to make the two markers. Even if you could make them in two days, it would cost you $15. The customer’s request is impossible to fulfill.

Now, let’s consider some possible responses you could give, and the potential impact of each:

a) “No, it can’t be done!” By saying this, you cut off all further conversation. The customer leaves unsatisfied, vowing never to bring you his business again.

b) “Yes, I’ll git ‘er done!” You say this in order to gain the customer’s business and to show a positive, “can do!” spirit. Even though you have serious doubts about succeeding, you maintain hope that things will break your way. However, when your original doubts are confirmed and you miss the deadline, the customer leaves unsatisfied, vowing never to bring you his business again.

So how can you maintain a positive yet realistic stance that will be more likely to satisfy the customer? By using the following response:

c) “YES! AND …”

We’ll reveal the rest of the response shortly. First, though, I’ll point out that saying “YES!” doesn’t mean that you Agree with the person’s Position – the “position” in this case being the exact terms of his offer (a blue marker and a red marker, by the end of Tuesday, for $10).  What it does mean is that you Acknowledge the Possibilities in the customer’s offer and Advance with Positive Purpose. And, in this situation, you have a powerful tool that lets you Acknowledge and Advance.

It’s called the Tradeoff Triangle. As shown below, the Tradeoff Triangle depicts the three components of any work effort: 1) The Outcome desired; 2) The Resources required to produce the Outcome; and 3) The Time it will take to produce the Outcome. The depiction of the effort as an equilateral triangle – all sides the same length – reinforces the fact that the “size” of any given Outcome must be supported by a proportionate amount of Resources and Time.

To apply the Tradeoff Triangle to the marker example, you would first mentally plot the stated Resources ($10) and Time (2 calendar days) on the appropriate sides of the triangle. But then you realize that you can’t then plot “one blue marker and one red marker” on the Outcome side, because that would throw your triangle out of balance.

Rather than give up altogether, though, you think: What Outcome could I generate with that combination of Resources and Time? Quickly mulling over the options, you realize that by 5:00pm Tuesday you can make one blue marker and give the customer an orange marker from your inventory on hand, at a break-even cost (which is acceptable to you) of $10.

So now you’re ready to give the complete response to the customer:

“YES, I understand your request, AND here is what I can do for $10 by 5:00 tomorrow: I can make a new blue marker and give you an orange marker from stock.”

By giving the customer an alternative, you are accepting his offer to engage in dialogue and advancing the interaction by making your own offer that builds upon his original request.

Now the customer can consider whether the revised Outcome you’ve offered is acceptable to him. And he might, for example, say, “Well, I guess the other marker doesn’t have to be red, and it doesn’t have to be custom-made. I only need a bright color for highlighting purposes, and orange will work just as well.”

This is how the Tradeoff Triangle helps you respond positively to even impossible requests: It allows you to think and act in terms of what you can do rather than what you can’t do! By keeping the dialogue open, you can reach a mutually agreeable result – one that never would have been discovered had you just said “No!” or “Yes!”