Long before a choice comes up, a trusted expert keeps the decision-maker supplied with the facts, definitions, and assumptions it will rest on, so the conclusion follows from premises already accepted.
An example
For a year before a regional property insurer renewed its reinsurance program, the chief actuary sent the chief executive a two-page note every month. Each one took up a single question: how the company measured its exposure to severe convective storms, why claims inflation on roofs was running ahead of the general index, what a one-in-fifty-year loss would do to capital at current rates. None of the notes recommended anything. The chief executive began using the actuary's definitions in board meetings, and the chief financial officer started asking for the storm figures in the same format. At renewal, the actuary proposed buying more catastrophe cover at a higher price. The finance team had expected to argue for cutting it. Instead the discussion took the exposure figures as given and turned to which layer to buy. The larger program was approved in one meeting.
Why it works
A decision is a conclusion drawn from facts and values. Whoever supplies the facts, the definitions, and the way a question is measured shapes the conclusion without arguing for it. A proposal that follows from figures the decision-maker already accepts looks better for it, and agreeing is easier, since the premises were tested and absorbed over months with no decision riding on them. It works only where the expert is trusted and the information is accurate and complete. A decision-maker who later finds that inconvenient facts were left out will discount every premise from that source.
The thinking behind it
Herbert A. Simon Simon's Administrative Behavior (1947) analyzes organizations as systems of decisions in which individual choices are shaped by premises the organization supplies, such as goals, information, and procedures. Whoever controls those premises influences the decisions made from them. The chief actuary's monthly notes are premises in exactly this sense: by renewal time the measures of exposure were settled, and the larger program followed from them with little argument.
Daniel Kahneman In The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice (1981), Tversky and Kahneman show that equivalent descriptions of the same choice produce predictable reversals of preference, and that the frame a decision-maker adopts is controlled partly by how the problem is put to them. Definitions and measures supplied months ahead set that frame before any option is on the table, which is why the defense is to question the measures early.
When it fits
It suits specialists who brief senior people regularly: actuaries, risk officers, engineers, economists, heads of analytics. It needs a decision that can be seen coming months ahead, a channel to the decision-maker that is not tied to any request, and expertise the decision-maker values. It is slow work and fits people who expect to be in the role when the decision arrives.
How to use it well
Identify the decisions coming in the next year and the questions each will turn on. Then brief on those questions, one at a time, with no ask attached.
- Define terms and measures carefully, and use the same ones every time.
- Include the facts that cut against your eventual view. A premise is trusted only if it is complete.
- Copy the people who will advise on the decision, so the premises are shared.
- Keep the notes short and dated, so they can be cited later.
When the decision comes, make your recommendation openly and show how it follows from figures everyone has already seen. Anyone who disagrees can then argue with the premises in the open.
What it costs and where it backfires
It takes a long time and pays only if the decision you anticipate arrives. Peers may see a standing channel to the top as favoritism, and the decision-maker may wonder later why you never stated a view sooner. The clean form holds as long as the premises are true and complete. Choosing which facts to leave out, or defining a measure so it can only point one way, turns briefing into concealment, and one discovered omission discredits the whole series.
When it is used on you
If a decision seems settled before it is debated, look at the definitions and figures everyone is using and ask where they came from. Test the premises directly: request the underlying data, propose another measure, bring the facts that were left out. Argue there, before the conclusion, because once the premises are accepted the conclusion is hard to resist.