Why I Said Yes

Till a couple of years back, I was often labelled a “Yes man”. At work and at home. Until triggered, he is agreeable, they said. A yes guy.

As I get wiser. Not due to more wisdom. Just from watching, without trying to influence anything that is biased or self-centered. At least I claim to be so.

The other day the label came up again.

The MD shared an idea. He wanted us to work on it.

Three colleagues came up to me after the meeting. Their faces had that look. The one that says, we know better.

“Sir, why did you say yes?”

I could hear what was underneath the question. The futility. The fatigue. The conviction that nothing will come of it. Maybe they were right. Maybe they weren’t. I didn’t know yet. That was the point.

I didn’t argue. I said something else.

“If we have to decide on team size, the basic working has to be fine first. When that is in place, we are taking an informed decision. And so is the MD.”

They went quiet. I think they were waiting for me to roll my eyes with them. Push back on the idea. Form a small camp in the corridor.

I didn’t.

Here is what I have noticed about myself over the years. The moment an idea sounds futile, my mind has already decided. It then builds a logic around the decision. Finds reasons. Picks data that fits. It is not thinking. It is defending.

It happens the other way too. When an idea sounds exciting, the same thing. The mind has decided. It is hunting for proof.

In both cases, the working is missing.

The Ashtavakra Gita has a line I keep coming back to. You are not the doer. You are the witness. For years I read it as something for the meditation mat. Then I started seeing it at work.

The doer has opinions before the data arrives. It is fast. It is loud. It is the one rolling its eyes before anyone has done the math.

The witness just watches. Watches the idea. Watches the reaction. Watches the rush to judgement. And waits.

The witness is the one who says, let us do the working first.

Without the working, what do we really have. My notion. Their notion. The MD’s. None of them talking to the data.

The basic working is a pause. Long enough for the bias to lose its grip. Long enough for the witness to be heard over the doer.

When the working is done, the idea speaks for itself. If the math doesn’t add up, the MD will see it himself. He doesn’t need me to tell him. He will see it the way I will. Through the numbers.

If the math does add up, the team will see that too. Their fatigue, their futility, their resistance. None of it survives a clean working.

Most of the decisions I got wrong, I had already decided before working. Most of the ones I got right, I had paused long enough to let the witness speak first.

Saying yes to the MD wasn’t the decision. Saying yes to the working was.

The decision is still ahead. So is the data.

That is why I said yes.

There was one yes in my life that wasn’t this. When I said yes to the love of my life. For years after, till a couple of years back, I called it commitment. Maybe that was the doer in me. Trying to put a working word on something the witness had already known.

So my take on relations is a complex one. At work. At home. Same question every time. Who in me is saying yes.