Settling support in private one-on-ones before the formal meeting, so objections are heard and answered in advance and the meeting ratifies a decision people have already worked through.
An example
The head of commercial lending at a regional bank wanted the credit committee to approve a program lending to trucking companies against their receivables, a product the bank had never offered. Instead of walking into the committee cold, she spent the week before in six one-on-ones. With the chief risk officer she went through the loss assumptions and agreed to cap the program at fifty million dollars for its first year. The treasurer asked about funding costs, and the head of operations worried about how the collateral would be monitored; she brought each of them the numbers they asked for and changed the monitoring plan after the operations conversation. The general counsel wanted a review of the lien documents, which she scheduled before the meeting. The committee approved the program in twenty minutes, with the chief risk officer moving the motion.
Why it works
Private conversations let the proposal look better to each person in terms of what they care about: cost discipline for finance, risk limits for risk, workload for operations. Supporting it in the meeting is easy, because each concern has already been raised and answered and the member is ratifying something settled. Reopening it from scratch in the room looks less worthwhile once the main objections have been dealt with, and speaking against it costs more, since the objector stands alone against a consensus they were consulted on. A roster small enough to see one by one, and a culture where public disagreement carries a cost, are the preconditions.
The thinking behind it
Erving Goffman Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956) separates the front region, where a performance is given before an audience, from the back region, where it is prepared. A pre-wired meeting moves the real negotiation into the back region of one-on-ones and leaves the formal meeting as the front-region performance of a settled decision. Done honestly, every member of the audience has also been backstage, which is why consistency across rooms matters.
Robert B. Cialdini Cialdini's Influence (1984) describes commitment and consistency: once people take a position, especially a written one, they feel pressure to act in line with it. A one-on-one that ends with a concern resolved and the change confirmed in writing creates that kind of commitment. In the meeting each member is acting in line with a position already taken, which is why the vote goes quickly.
Solomon E. Asch Asch's Studies of Independence and Conformity: I. A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority (1956) showed that a unanimous majority pulls some people into agreement, though most held to their own judgment and the effect varies with culture. A room whose members have agreed in private presents something close to unanimity, which makes a late objection hard. His finding that one ally changes the picture explains why a single member who declined the pre-meeting can still move the room.
When it fits
Small decision bodies, roughly four to ten people, are where it works, especially where public disagreement is costly and a proposal that meets surprise objections in the room tends to die. You need the standing to ask each member for time, and enough flexibility in the proposal to change it in response to what you hear.
How to use it well
See each person who will decide in the week or two before the meeting, starting with those whose objection would matter most.
- Go to listen as much as to sell. Ask what would make them vote no, and be ready to change the proposal.
- Frame the case in terms of what each person cares about, and keep the facts the same in every room.
- Follow up in writing with whatever you agreed, so each change appears in the pre-read.
- If people ask who else you have seen, tell them. A member who discovers that the consultations were kept from each other will treat the whole thing as staged.
In the meeting, let the people you persuaded speak for themselves.
What it costs and where it backfires
It takes days of senior time, and the people you consult will expect to be consulted next time. Over years, a body whose decisions are all settled in advance stops deliberating: members prepare less, attend grudgingly, and take real business elsewhere. The line is honesty across rooms. Once you tell different stakeholders contradictory things, or time the conversations so they cannot compare notes, the consultation is staged, and one ally saying "as we discussed last week" in the meeting can expose it.
When it is used on you
If everyone else met the convener in the week before and you did not, or allies let slip "as we discussed," the meeting is wired. You can decline the private meeting and reserve judgment for the public forum, or take the one-on-one and use it to get your conditions into the proposal. Either way, compare notes with other stakeholders before the vote.