In Vevey, explain a proposal before defending your position
In a management decision, each side may firmly defend a solution whose workings it struggles to explain. The useful question is specific: does asking how a proposal would deliver the expected outcome help people reconsider their position more than asking why they support it?
What the literature establishes
Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil (2002, Cognitive Science) show that people overestimate their understanding of familiar mechanisms, including how everyday objects work. When required to provide a detailed explanation, they lower their assessment of that understanding. This finding distinguishes the feeling of understanding from the ability to describe the steps in a mechanism; it does not directly address workplace disagreements.
Explaining a mechanism rather than listing reasons
Philip M. Fernbach, Todd Rogers, Craig R. Fox and Steven A. Sloman (2013, Psychological Science) extend this approach to public policy proposals. In their experiments, asking people to explain how these proposals work reduces perceived understanding and leads to less extreme positions, whereas asking for reasons to support them does not produce the same effect. One plausible interpretation is that listing reasons allows people to defend a preference without examining the causal links on which it rests.
The premature conclusion
It might be tempting to conclude that asking for an explanation is enough to resolve a conflict. Yet the findings concern reassessing one's own understanding and position, not reaching collective agreement or improving decision quality. A disagreement may also concern clearly identified interests or values: clarifying the mechanism does not make it disappear. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot promise
These experiments do not demonstrate that an executive committee will make better decisions after a round of explanations. In organisations, distributed expertise, hierarchy and reputational stakes may affect how people respond. Difficulty explaining something orally therefore proves neither that the speaker is incompetent nor that the proposal is weak; participants need the opportunity to consult documents and involve other relevant functions.
A practical check in Vevey
In Vevey, whether at the headquarters of a global food group or in an SME on the Riviera, an exercise in SHR’s “Communication” programme could address a real disagreement, such as a procedural change involving purchasing and quality. Before defending their preference, each side writes out the chain “proposed action — intermediate steps — expected effect”, identifying which links are documented and which remain hypothetical. For each hypothetical link, an owner and an expected check are recorded; at the next session, participants calculate the proportion of those links actually checked against evidence available for inspection. This measure does not establish that the disagreement has been resolved, but shows whether the discussion has turned assertions into questions that can be examined. To go further: explore the Communication training in Vevey in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Communication in Vevey
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