Just say NO!

No, this isn't another Public Service Announcement (but Hey! Say no to Drugs!). I'm talking about the fact that no one seems to know how to say NO anymore. I sit through endless meetings where people hem and haw (yeah, I guess I AM that old), about this or that, and we'll look into this or think about that, but what they're really saying in their mind is NO. If they drag their feet long enough they know we'll have to take what they give us. Because no one wants to tell "upper management" NO - we can't deliver on that tight timeline.

Or the uneducated management types that have no idea the herculean effort necessary to recreate manually week by week the presentation you had to do for them months ago as a one time effort.

Or the... Or the... And the...

If you mean NO, say NO. Deal with the consequences, and spend the four hours of meetings that you just avoided coming up with something better than what you said NO to.