Niceness kills, or at least costs

I know a company that has a problem: everybody is too nice.
No, it's not my employer, although let it be noted that my co-workers are very nice indeed and when we disagree it's both civilized and it gets results. Very cool, indeed.

But at this other company nobody wants to say no. Nobody wants to get anyone else upset. Everyone behaves very well in group settings, agrees to do things and then goes off and quietly doesn't follow through if they didn't really agree in the first place. Projects get built but don't launch because they thought they had consensus but at the last minute some roadblock appears, often in the form of 'that won't work for my business, here's why'. That way people aren't held accountable. They agree to give it another try, and surprise! - same results. So we're poking around, looking for someone with stamina and teeth.

Why am I writing about this? I need to figure it out and just needed to get some thoughts down. More later.