Long-standing mistrust between departments that would oppose a change is left unrepaired by the change leader, so the coalition their shared interests suggest is slow to form while the decision proceeds.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Replacing the in-house maintenance shop with a national service contract was the plan of a regional trucking company's chief operating officer. Maintenance and dispatch both stood to lose from it, and the two had resented each other since a dispute over a wrecked tractor eight years earlier. The chief operating officer took each department's objections in separate meetings, answered every point in writing, and sent the full proposal to both heads. Neither head suggested a joint session, and nobody else did either. Maintenance argued about warranty coverage; dispatch argued about downtime. The two memos arrived a week apart and never mentioned each other. The executive committee approved the contract in June with both objections attached. In August, the chief operating officer asked the two heads to co-chair the transition team, the first time they had shared a table in years.
Why it works
Nothing new has to be built. The mistrust already makes opposing look worse, because each potential ally discounts the others: would this department hold the line if that one led the pushback? It makes opposing costlier, because reaching across an old wound means admitting the grievance was overblown and exposing one's flank to a group that may defect. The move works best when the wound is recent, when no outside threat would push the departments together, when the leader is careful never to be seen stoking the friction, and when nobody respected on both sides is around to broker a deal.
The thinking behind it
Mancur Olson The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965), Mancur Olson's account of why large groups with a shared interest often fail to act, explains why this move asks so little of the leader. Organizing costs fall on individuals while the benefits are shared, and old mistrust adds to those costs: each department must spend credibility and swallow past grievances before it can join the other. Leaving the feud alone lets that cost do the work.
Mark Granovetter Mark Granovetter's The Strength of Weak Ties (1973) shows that acquaintances who span separate groups act as bridges for information and support. Two departments estranged by an old grievance have lost those bridges, which is why their objections arrive separately. It also explains the counter: a respected manager who has worked on both sides is a bridge, and one conversation hosted by that person can produce the joint position the mistrust prevented.
Muzafer Sherif In Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment (1961), Muzafer Sherif found that bringing hostile groups into contact did not reduce hostility, while superordinate goals, problems that mattered to both and that neither could solve alone, did. That marks the limit of this move. When the cost of the change grows large enough to threaten both departments, it becomes a shared problem of exactly that kind, and the old grievance stops holding them apart.
When it fits
Reach for it when the opposition is real but divided by a history you did not create, and when your case can stand on its own in front of each group. You need the authority to decide, a process that hears every objection in full, and the patience to repair the relationship after the decision.
How to use it well
Hold to one rule throughout: you neither repair the old feud nor add to it.
- Meet each department separately, answer every objection in writing, and give both the same complete proposal.
- Say nothing about either department to the other, good or bad.
- If they ask for a joint session, grant it at once.
- Put both objections, in full, in front of whoever decides, and say so to both departments.
After the decision, give the two groups a shared job in the transition, so the feud stops costing the company.
What it costs and where it backfires
Leaving a feud alone has a price the company pays later: departments that do not trust each other coordinate badly long after your decision, and leaders who rely on old fault lines leave silos that harden. If either side learns you saw the rift and counted on it, the grievance turns on you. The move needs a defend-list act the moment you feed the mistrust with a remark, a selective briefing, or a hint about what the other side said. From there it is sowing division.
When it is used on you
Your natural allies are slow to join you, the leader answers each of you alone, and nobody proposes a joint meeting. Weigh what the old grievance costs you against what the change will cost both of you. Find someone respected on both sides to host a first conversation, and send one joint memo.