Waiting for a decision: offer reassurance or make uncertainty explicit?
In Lausanne, a medtech approval, university funding, an international sports decision or a funding round at a Lake Geneva region scale-up can leave a team waiting for an extended period. The management question is specific: how can a manager acknowledge concern without promising an outcome beyond their control?
What the literature establishes
Dan W. Grupe and Jack B. Nitschke (2013, Nature Reviews Neuroscience) review the mechanisms linking uncertainty about future threat to anxiety. Their framework connects threat anticipation, attention and difficulties identifying safety signals, among other processes. It does not mean that every workplace delay causes anxiety, but it invites managers to examine what makes the future threatening rather than treating concern as mere impatience.
A lack of control can change interpretation
Jennifer A. Whitson and Adam D. Galinsky (2008, Science) show, across a series of experiments, that a lack of control can increase the perception of patterns or connections that do not exist in the information presented. Uncertainty and lack of control are not identical: this study illuminates a related mechanism without establishing how a team interprets silence from management. It nevertheless provides a reason not to confuse a convincing explanation with a well-supported one.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that managers should restore confidence by projecting certainty. These studies do not test that prescription and do not justify unfounded assurances. A cautious application within SHR's Emotional Intelligence programme is to acknowledge expressed concern, then distinguish what is known, what remains unresolved and what the team can actually influence. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot promise
A review of anxiety mechanisms and experiments on control do not amount to an evaluation of a management communication protocol. They cannot predict either an employee's level of concern or the effect of regular updates in a Lausanne organisation. Practice must also distinguish information that is not yet known from information that is confidential: explaining this boundary does not warrant implying a favourable outcome.
A practical check in Lausanne
For a Lausanne team facing one of these waiting periods, SHR can propose a four-week trial: maintain a shared log of open questions, each with a person responsible for follow-up and a date for the next update, even if the decision remains pending. At each deadline, record what has been confirmed, what remains unknown and the next step, then calculate the proportion of updates delivered on the announced date. A weekly anonymous question — “Do you know when you will receive the next update?” — can check whether that predictability is actually perceived. These indicators measure the reliability and clarity of follow-up, not a demonstrated reduction in anxiety or an increase in emotional intelligence. To go further: explore the Emotional Intelligence training in Lausanne in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Emotional Intelligence in Lausanne
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