A Request, an Order and the Right to Refuse

Do not issue an instruction nobody intends to carry out.

Every such order reduces the weight of the next one. The system learns fast: a formal demand can be ignored if you wait until the boss is busy with something else.

Before an instruction you have to check:

• whether you have the authority;
• whether the result is clear;
• whether the resources exist;
• whether the deadline is realistic;
• whether non-performance will have consequences;
• whether the task is actually needed.

A request and an instruction, meanwhile, differ in the right to refuse.

Do not phrase something as a request to a person who in practice cannot say no, if voluntariness is being implied. A boss, a teacher, a parent and a financially controlling partner should be especially careful with the phrase “you don’t mind, do you.”

If refusal is impossible, it is more honest to call the task mandatory and take responsibility for setting it.

The opposite extreme is not asking because you expect a refusal. Sometimes the person will agree, offer part of the help or explain the terms.

A good request allows the answer:

No.

Not now.

I can only do part of it.

I need to be compensated.

Any commitment really does require a resource: time, money, attention, or giving up other work. Even when the payment is not in money, there is a cost.

The only thing to avoid is confusing cost with an obligation to balance every human act immediately with a return favour.

Whether it is a request or an instruction can be checked in one move: imagine the answer “no” and look at what happens a month later. If nothing, it was a request. If the person then spends six months missing out on interesting projects, it was an instruction in polite packaging, and the packaging was there so that responsibility for the decision stayed with the person doing the work. “You don’t mind coming in on Saturday, do you” is the worst offender: refusal is formally possible and costs more than the Saturday itself.

A polite form does not reduce the coercion, it shifts the awkwardness onto whoever has less power. It is cheaper to say “this task is mandatory” and answer for it yourself.