Leaders announce where a change is headed before every job and reporting line is settled, say plainly which details are still open, and let factions argue inside that frame before positions harden.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Within three years, the chief executive of a commercial printing company announced, forty percent of revenue would come from packaging. She said plainly what had been decided: no plant would close that year, and the two sales forces would merge in the spring. She also said what had not: which of the four plants would convert first, and the reporting lines below vice president. A calendar on the intranet showed when each open question would be settled. Plant managers joined working groups on the conversion order, and three of them built cases for converting first. When the union steward at the oldest plant asked about jobs, she told him it was undecided and would be settled in September. In September it was.
Why it works
A direction without every detail lets each group see the version it would like, which raises the benefit of supporting it. Naming the open questions and the dates keeps people from guessing at their own downside, so support costs less for now. Opposing an announced direction that comes with an open process looks like refusing to take part in work others have joined. It works when the audience is varied, when the gap before details arrive is neither so short that nothing settles nor so long that rumor fills it, and when leaders hold the line on what is open and tell the truth about what is decided.
The thinking behind it
Erving Goffman In Frame Analysis (1974), Goffman argues that people make sense of events through frames that answer the question of what is going on here. Announcing a direction with an explicit list of open questions sets the frame: factions argue about the open items inside a shared understanding of where the company is going. The same work defines a fabrication as managing activity so others form a false belief, which is what calling a settled decision open would become.
Daniel Kahneman Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory (1979) shows that people judge outcomes as gains or losses against a reference point, and that losses loom larger than gains. Specific details about jobs and reporting lines make individual losses concrete, so announcing every detail at once invites opposition from everyone who can now calculate a loss. Naming the open questions and their dates keeps people from inventing worse losses than the real ones.
Robert B. Cialdini Cialdini's Influence (1984) describes commitment and consistency: once people take a position, especially a public one, they feel pressure to act in line with it. Groups that join working groups on the open questions are committing to the direction by taking part. That makes later opposition to the direction harder for them, which is also why commitments should not be requested before people know what they are committing to.
When it fits
Best for a change whose direction is set while many details are not, led by someone with the authority to decide those details and the discipline to publish a calendar for them. It works best where factions have different hopes that can be argued out in working groups.
How to use it well
Separate the decided from the open, and say which is which.
- Announce the direction with the decisions already made, including the unwelcome ones.
- List the open questions and the date each will be settled.
- Give factions a forum to argue the open questions, with real influence on the outcome.
- Avoid promising outcomes on open items, even to calm a meeting.
- Keep the calendar, and announce each decision as it closes.
When someone asks about an open item, give the same answer everywhere: what is known, what is not, and when it will be settled. Consistency across forums is what keeps factions from comparing notes and finding contradictions.
What it costs and where it backfires
Factions will project their hopes onto the open questions, and some will feel misled when the answers arrive, however clearly you said they were open. Uncertainty breeds rumor, and a missed date costs credibility on the rest. Withholding decisions already made from people entitled to know them, or describing something decided as open, is where this becomes concealment and lying.
When it is used on you
When two factions cite the same announcement to justify opposite expectations, compare notes across groups and put the readings side by side. Press for one concrete commitment on jobs or reporting lines, ask what has already been decided, write down what you were told and when, and hold any public endorsement until the specifics arrive.