職場雙語:7種不傷人的委婉拒絕方法(1)

How many ways are there to say “No” without offending anyone's feeling? Well, there is “No, I can't”， “No, I don't have time” and “No, I don't want to”。 But the problem is that many of us try to avoid situations that require us to say “No” to people. In almost every culture this little word is associated with rejection, failure, egoism and a lack of tact and empathy towards others.

有多少種方法在拒絕時而不得罪人呢？ “不行，我沒法做。” “不行，我沒空。” “不行，我不想做。” 但是問題在於，我們很多人都想避免對別人說“不”。 幾乎在每種文化中，“不”這個字都和拒絕、失敗、利己主義、應變能力不足、缺少同情心聯繫起來。

I can not recall how many times I have eaten burnt, undercooked, blandand poorly tasting dishes simply because I did not want to hurt the feelings of the person who had cooked them. Or the times when I bought something, I did not need, because I felt guilty leaving a shop empty-handed after spending 20 minutes of the shop assistant's time.

我記不起來有多少次，我因爲不想傷害做飯的人的感情而吃掉糊了的、夾生的、平淡無味的或味道很差的食物。 我也記不起來有多少次我買了不需要的東西，只是因爲我覺得花了導購員20分鐘的時間兩手空空離開會有一種負罪感。

How do you say “No” without offending anyone or feeling guilty afterwards? There is a great lesson to be learned from such approach to communication.

怎樣說“不”而不冒犯他人或之後自己沒有負罪感？我們可以好好學習一下這種溝通的方法。

If just like me, you sometimes find it difficult to be direct about saying “No”， you can still be assertiveand express you disagreement in a more subtle, yet equally powerful way. The great thing about this method is that it gets your point across without making you look bad, unprofessional, insensitive or uncaring.

如果你和我一樣，有時你會發現很難直接說“不”，但是你依然可以自信地用更加微妙、同樣有效的方式表達異議。 這種方法的精妙之處在於，既能表達你的意思，又不會讓人覺得你很差勁、不夠職業、不夠敏感或漠不關心。

Here are 7 Sneaky Ways to Say “No” without Offending Anyone

下面是7種拒絕而不傷害他人的委婉方法：

1. “This sounds interesting, but I have too much on my plate at the moment.”

“聽起來很有趣，但是我現在有太多的事情要做。”

When you start your disagreement with a compliment: “this sounds interesting”， it makes the person less defensive and gives you a validreason to decline “I have too much on my plate at the moment”。

如果你在表達異議時用讚美開頭：“聽起來很有趣”，會讓人的心理防禦降低，這時你可以用正當理由來拒絕，如“我現在有太多的事情要做。”

2. “I'm sorry but last time I did ___, I had a negative experience.”

“不好意思，上次我這樣做時，我很難受 。”

This is a life-saver for me every time I have to explain to people that I do not eat meat. Before I would say that I was a vegetarian, but for some reason this explanation has never worked on hospitable Italian grandmothers. They would try to feed me bacon, sausage and octopuses （yuck!） explaining it with “this is not meat” or “I just put a little in this dish”。

當我每次需要向他人解釋我不吃肉時，這句話是我的救命稻草。在此之前，我通常說我是素食主義者，但是不知什麼原因，這種解釋對好客的意大利奶奶們一點兒用也沒有。她們總是讓我吃培根、香腸和章魚（真難吃！），並向我解釋“這不是肉”或“只放了一點點兒。”

Now I simply say, “I'm sorry, but I can not eat meat. Last time I did, I had a terrible headache.” And it works like a charm, because no one wants to hurt you on purpose.

現在我只是說，“不好意思，我不能吃肉。上次我吃肉時，我頭疼得很厲害。” 這非常管用，因爲沒人想故意傷害你。

The focus here is not on what you want or do not want to do, but on your previous bad experience.

這裏要注意的是，關鍵不在於你想要什麼或不想做什麼，關鍵在於上次你這樣做很難受。

3. “I'd love to do this, but ____”

“我想這麼做，但是____”。

This is a great way of saying that you like the idea, you are willing to help, but you just can not do it at the moment.

這是一種很好的方式，說你喜歡這樣做，你想去幫忙，但是你現在沒法做。

Note: Just do not go into a lengthy justification of why you can not do it.

注意：不要進一步說明你爲什麼不能做。

First, it is not necessary. Time is a limited resource and when you say “yes” to one task, you have to say “no” to other opportunities that might be more important, urgent and beneficial to you at the moment. Second, offering a lengthy explanation makes you sound guilty and unsure, so people might push further to see if you will agree.

首先，沒有必要。每個人的時間都是有限的，當你對一項任務說“是”的時候，你就不得不對另外的一些機遇說“不”，儘管那些機遇現在對你來說可能是更加重要、緊急或有益的。另外，進一步解釋會讓你有種負罪感和不確定感，人們可以進一步勸說你看你是否會同意。

4. “I'm not the best person to help on this. Why don't you try X?”

“我不是這項任務的最佳人選。要不你們看看X行不行？”

If you feel that you can not contribute much to the task, have no time or lack the resources, do not beat around the bush! Let the person know it up front. This, however, does not mean that you can not be helpful. You can still refer the person to a lead they can follow up on.

如果你覺得你不能在任務中投入太多精力，沒有那麼多時間或缺少資源，那就不要拐彎抹角！讓別人知道。這樣，別人就不會覺得你沒有幫忙。你可以推薦他人供他們參考。