Tight-Lipped Subordinate

There's this dynamic that plays out between bosses giving instructions and subordinates receiving them. Or perhaps sometimes its the other way around. Sometimes it's the boss or an equal (say, one spouse subverting the other spouse's plans) who does the thwarting. It goes something like this. After a discussion of what needs to get done:

“…So, do you understand all those instructions?”
“Yep.”
“Great, so you know what to do now, right?”
“Sure!”
(Thinks about it.) “Are you silently coming up with reasons to veto everything I just told you?”
“Absolutely.”
“So when we meet again, your stuff won’t be done, I’ll be disappointed, and you’ll have a list of excuses?”
“That’s the plan!”
“Is there any way I can get you to tell me those various road-blocks and excuses for failure ahead of time so we can address them?”
“Nope. That would be telling.”
"Is there any way I can monitor progress before our next meeting, so I can avoid another meeting where I ask you about your progress and nothing is done?"
"...What was that? Sorry I was looking off into space, hoping you'd get bored and lose interest in this topic."
“Alright, see you again next time for more of this bullshit!”
“Cool! Looking forward to it. See you then!”

If you're in charge of getting someone to do something, be it a child, employee, boss, coworker, spouse, etc., you've probably had this experience. The person agrees that X  should get done, but has all kinds of reasons why it won't. Maybe it's "I'll e-mail Jim in IT, who will ignore my e-mail. I can say I did my part, but it will be someone else's fault." Or "I'll agree to do this task, but prioritize it below everything else without saying so. It'll basically never get done, because it will never be a top priority." Or it's something that you can't imagine, so you can't anticipate it. If only you could get the person to describe the obstacles, you could figure out a solution and get the task done. But the person assigned to the task anticipates this and keeps tight-lipped. It's like having this guy working for you (or with you). Maybe it's subconscious or unintentional, but you get the feeling that the person it playing this deeper game of "avoid unpleasant task." This can be avoided if both parties air their expectations and try to get them aligned, but one or both parties may want to avoid this confrontation.

Sometimes the boss may feel this is happening, but really he's being a bad boss and not giving clear enough instructions. It's still a responsible employee's job to pipe up and say, "You didn't give me what I need to do my job."