David.Poole (8/10/2009)
It depends on the personality of the person you are speaking to.Some managers view any resistence as dissent to be crushed. A carefully phrased question can start a productive chain of thought. The answer to said question my sooth your fears, achieve nothing or prompt a manager to re-evaluate the situation. 2 out of free aint bad.
Some people like to be told straight but no-one likes to be made to look a fool.
I agree with you whole-heartedly. I can't tell you the number of times I have had to pussy-foot around someone who *claims* they don't want yes-men (but in reality believe they know everything about everything, especially after reading this great article in USA Today).