There is no power or control in saying yes, only in saying no.
+1.
-1984.
“There is no power or control in saying yes, only in saying no.”
In thirty plus years dealing with the government I ran into lots of low-level officials who said no to whatever my company proposed. It didn’t matter how good the proposal was. The issue generally was if they say yes to something then if it went badly, they can be blamed. If they say no, then nothing happens, and they can’t be blamed. Officials can make it to the next grade by never approving anything. But just one mistake that can be blamed on them will forever stain their career.
Even when there was no downside, they often said no. Probably for the same reason two-year-olds latch onto the word and repeat it incessantly. One way around this is to brief a higher official who is in charge of something and then that official will ask the lower guy, “what about X? How’s that going?” “Oh, that’s all approved. I signed the paperwork yesterday.” Typically, higher officials do know where the problems are even if they never fire anyone who is problematic. You can never complain about a low-level no-sayer because you’ll rarely know the behind-the-scenes power plays keeping him in his job.