“The institutional no can infiltrate all levels of the organization. It’s what causes a board of directors to say no to a big change of strategy (think Nokia and Microsoft missing the turn on smartphones). It’s what drives frontline managers to keep their top performers working on a current project and say no to their involvement in high-risk experiments that could fail but could also pay off handsomely later—especially if that payoff is likely to be after the manager has moved on to another role.”