Ages ago, one of the managers on my team was complaining about how unhelpful the rest of the company was being (with our team's upcoming product release). I explained the job of everyone else in the building was to say "No" and their job was to get those people to say "Yes".

"But, but, but aren't we all on same side?!"

"Oh you sweet innocent child..."

Once this manager understood the rules, they did quite well playing the game.