Easiest way to is to provide an illustration of the cost of doing said action. Those costs need to be put in terms that they understand. That way they can ev

Easiest way to is to provide an illustration of the cost of doing said action. Those costs need to be put in terms that they understand. That way they can evaluate how much they really want things. This is an indirect no. We can do that, it will cost X and take Y time and have Z impact on the code base and our long term velocity. Is this what you would like to do? Quite often, they will say no themselves. If you have no trust with management and they ignore your warning, the org is already at high levels of toxicity and there isn't much you can do anyway. Realize that and navigate the position accordingly.