[sph]

> Nobody wants to hear "no"

Nonsense. The client that made me a job offer as CTO listed the fact that I wasn’t afraid of saying ‘no’ to unreasonable requests or unrealistic deadlines one of the things he valued the most in my work. He had plenty of experience with contractors that would always say yes, promise anything and then find themselves unable to deliver because they underestimated the complexity of the task.

Saying no is what makes a professional so valuable. Of course you always want to offer alternative approaches.