親愛的安妮：當有人要求我去做不屬于我份內的事情時，我該如何巧妙地拒絕，又不至于讓自己看起來顯得粗魯無禮，同時又不會斷了門路？希望您不會認為這是個愚蠢的問題，但我確實需要您的建議。過去幾年，部門有額外的任務都會交給我，而且數量越來越多。我很愿意幫忙，雖然這通常意味著每天晚上要加班一兩個小時來完成這些工作。

????可現在，與我住在一起的父親年事已高，而且有病在身，我必須在下午六點鐘準時下班，來接替保姆。所以，我想建議部門將原先我做的那些額外的工作分攤給其他五個人負責——聽起來很容易，只是我生來不擅長拒絕。對我而言，相比讓別人失望的感覺，我更愿意點頭說“是”。您或您的讀者有什么建議嗎？——D.D.

親愛的D.D.：首先，我并不認為這是一個“愚蠢的問題”。演講家、作家鮑勃?伯格也有同樣的觀點。他在《財富》500強公司（Fortune 500）召開的研討會上經常聽到類似的問題。伯格說：“女性告訴我，她們在說‘不’的時候尤其困難。但我認為男性也面臨同樣的問題，只是他們很少承認而已?！?/p>

????他補充說：“大多數人都很友好，不喜歡讓別人失望。只要違背了我們的下意識，就是沖動占據上風的時候，結果就會讓我們做出一些不符合自己最佳利益的事情?！?/p>

????而且，你的情況是，工作量正在一點點地增加，直到自己背負了所有額外的工作。而嚴格意義上來說，這些工作并不屬于你的職責范圍。這種情況非常普遍，甚至有一個專門的名稱：范圍蔓延。伯格說：“我經常聽到客戶公司的員工抱怨這方面的問題。范圍蔓延在咨詢中很常見，因為在咨詢項目中，對項目結果有固定的預期，但范圍卻持續蔓延，直到超出了原先協定的或合理的范圍?！?/p>

????應該如何解決這個問題呢？伯格曾寫過一本書，書名是《化敵為友》（Adversaries into Allies: Win People Over Without Coercion or Manipulation），專門談到過這個問題。他認為，“說‘不’是個完結性的答案”，而這個觀點最近因為奧普拉?溫弗瑞等人得到了廣泛的流傳?！坝腥藢ξ艺f‘不’的時候，我會感到很難堪。當有人要求你做某件事時，直接說‘不’是很無禮的行為。這種做法會讓自己與其他人日益疏遠，進而讓自己的工作寸步難行，最終喪失了未來的發展機會?！?/p>

????他建議，更好的方法是與五位同事進行一次非正式的簡短會議，向他們解釋，從現在開始，你必須在下午6點下班。伯格說：“從‘我’的角度來傳達你的信息?！碧崆皽蕚浜弥v話內容，比如：“我有事要說一下。我在團隊里一直在承擔一些額外的任務。雖然我很高興能對團隊有所幫助，但現在我遇到問題了。由于家庭原因，我必須在6點準時下班?！?/p>

????伯格表示：“說話中注意使用‘我’和‘你們’的頻率。比如‘一直以來，你們讓我承擔了太多額外的工作?！晃稄娬{‘我’會讓人們感覺受到了指責，結果只會讓他們產生防御的姿態”——進而不太可能同意重新分配工作負擔的建議。然后提出你可以幫忙制定一個制度，在團隊成員之間平均分配額外的工作，同時征求他們有哪些更好的意見。

Dear Annie: I hope you don't think this is a dumb problem, but I need some advice on how to refuse when people ask me to do things that aren't part of my job description, without being rude about it or burning any bridges. Over the past several years, I've gradually become the "go-to" person in my department for more and more extra tasks. I'm happy to help out, even though it usually means staying an extra hour or two in the evenings to get everything done.

????But now, my family has my elderly and ill father living with us, and I need to leave work at 6 p.m. on the dot to relieve the home-care nurse. So I want to bring up the idea of dividing the extra work I've been doing among the five other people on my team -- which sounds simple, except that all my life I've had trouble saying "no" to anything that anyone wants me to do. It's always been easier for me to just say yes than to deal with the feeling that I'm letting someone down. Do you or your readers have any advice? -- Doormat in Denver

Dear D.D.: First of all, I don't think this is a "dumb problem," and neither does Bob Burg, a speaker and author who frequently hears some variation of this question from audience members in his seminars at Fortune 500 companies. "Women tell me they have an especially hard time saying 'no,' but I think it's a problem for men, too," Burg says. "They just don't admit it as much.

????"Most people are generally nice and don't like to disappoint other people," he adds. "Where it gets counterproductive is when that impulse takes over and makes us do things that aren't in our own best interests."

????Moreover, the situation you're in -- where a job just keeps expanding, little by little, until you're loaded down with all kinds of extra duties that aren't technically your responsibility -- is so common that it actually has a name: Scope creep. "You often hear people in client businesses complain about this," says Burg. "It happens a lot in consulting, where there are certain set expectations at the outset of a project, but the scope just keeps expanding until it's gone way over the line of what was agreed upon or what's reasonable."

????So how do you cure your scope creep? Burg, who wrote a book called Adversaries into Allies: Win People Over Without Coercion or Manipulation, takes issue with the notion, popularized lately by Oprah Winfrey and others, that "No is a complete answer." "I cringe when I hear that. Saying 'no,' period, when someone asks you to do something is rude. It also tends to alienate people, which can make your job more difficult and cut you off from future opportunities."

????A better approach, he says, is to call an informal, five-minute meeting with your five coworkers and explain that, from now on, you'll be leaving the office no later than 6. "Frame this announcement as an 'I' message," Burg suggests. Prepare a little speech beforehand where you say something like, "I need to bring something up. I've allowed myself to take on a lot of extra tasks here and, while I've enjoyed helping out, it's an issue now because I have to leave at 6 for family reasons."

????"Notice how often you say 'I', rather than 'you,' as in, 'You all have been dumping too much extra stuff on me for a while now,'" says Burg. "Focusing on the 'I' keeps people from feeling they're being accused, which will just make them defensive" -- and less likely to go along with your plan to redistribute the workload. Then say you'd like to work out a system for sharing the extra work equally among the group, and ask for suggestions about how best to do that.