Reflexion on Activity 10: Saying "no"

We have already seen in the previous blog post what assertiveness is. Let me remind you that it is a basic attitude in order to defend your interests but having the others in mind so it is not an aggressive position neither a passive one. That is why, to avoid the last case, it is necessary to learn how to say no and defend your position even if other people gets annoyed.

Activity 10 consisted on creating a dialogue between a employee and his boss when the first man must explain to the coordinator it is impossible for him to hand in the report before the agreed deadline. As we had to make up the story I believe it was in most of the cases seen in the lesson easy to explain why it was impossible to finish it on time so the chief had to assume it as we also modelled the behaviour of the CEO. Anyway, I think it was useful because we had to think in convincing things to say no and we realise its importance. However, I believe other activity would be more useful but also it would also be more strange or difficult to do it during a lesson. To check the capacity of person to say no to things they must be confronted to a superior and in a difficult situation. For example if one day the teacher arrives at class and order a 50 pages report for the next day we would then see students’ capability to say no, specially if the professor insists on it and threaten all of his pupils to fail.

As I said before it was good training for learning how to say “no” but I would try to do the activity I proposed to be done in a more real way. I really think it is such an important attitude in our lives that nowadays rule most of our behaviours. As we can see nowadays many problems have a lot of problems but just few people try to change it or at least complain about it. Most of the people just lay at home and take a passive attitude that leads towards nowhere, like that no change in the world can be done. It is really necessary to always defend our interests and put them together with the other’s point of view.