Unpopular decisions: listening without promising to give way
Allocating on-call duties or resources can cause frustration even when the constraints are genuine. The managerial question is specific: does allowing employees to raise objections before a decision make the process seem fairer, without giving them a veto?
What the literature establishes
Robert Folger (1977, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) experimentally examined the effects of having an opportunity to express one's views in an allocation situation. His findings distinguish evaluations of the outcome from evaluations of the procedure: having a voice can improve judgements of the procedure without eliminating perceived inequity. For managers, acknowledging an objection and granting a request are therefore not equivalent actions.
Being heard does not mean controlling the outcome
E. Allan Lind, Ruth Kanfer and P. Christopher Earley (1990, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) compared opportunities to speak before or after a decision with having no such opportunity. In their experiment, even speaking after the decision improved procedural justice judgements, but speaking beforehand had a greater effect. This finding supports a mechanism that goes beyond control over the outcome: the opportunity to present one's views also matters in its own right.
The premature conclusion
It would be tempting to conclude that simply letting people speak secures acceptance of an unpopular decision. These studies neither guarantee reduced frustration nor justify turning consultation into a technique for obtaining agreement. Within SHR's Emotional Intelligence programme, the useful distinction would be to acknowledge expressed frustration while clarifying what remains negotiable. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these findings do not demonstrate
These experiments concern bounded situations and do not directly measure managers' emotional intelligence. They do not demonstrate that a listening conversation produces lasting improvements in cooperation within a team facing repeated allocation decisions. Consultation conducted when everything has already been decided must be described accordingly: collecting someone's views is not the same as giving those views influence.
A practical check in Sion
In Sion, a team working in hydropower, healthcare, viticulture or Alpine tourism could test this distinction during its next allocation of on-call duties or resources. Before deciding, the manager would clarify non-negotiable constraints, collect objections and record how each was addressed in the final decision. A check would involve calculating the proportion of objections receiving an explicit response, then asking separately and anonymously whether the procedure seems fair and whether the person is satisfied with the outcome. These indicators would document the quality of listening and distinguish two commonly conflated evaluations, without establishing a causal effect of the approach on their own. To go further: explore the Emotional Intelligence training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Emotional Intelligence in Sion
- emotional intelligence
- Sion
- research
- training sion