How You Do It Is Part of the Decision

“We had no choice” deserves a more specific question: no choice about what?

Ending an investment? Acting before a deadline? Giving people little information? Leaving them to work out the consequences themselves?

Those are separate decisions. They may be subject to different constraints, and they need their own justification.

Consider a project that no longer warrants its investment. Continuing would consume resources needed elsewhere. Stopping it may be the right call.

That does not tell us when to inform the team, how to represent the work they did, or how to handle commitments made to customers. It does not tell us what support people will need to move to their next responsibilities.

The business case establishes why the project should end. It does not answer those other questions.

The standard cannot be that nobody is upset. Someone may understand a decision, receive a clear explanation, and still strongly oppose it. Their disappointment does not by itself establish that the decision was wrong. Their acceptance does not establish that it was handled well.

The more useful question is whether we took reasonable steps to avoid making a difficult situation worse. That might mean information early enough to act on, practical support, or a direct answer instead of false hope. A gentle but evasive answer can leave someone unable to plan.

Crucial Conversations calls the supposed choice between honesty and respect a “Fool’s Choice.”¹ We can be clear about what has been decided without dismissing what it costs the person hearing it. Respect does not require ambiguity, and candor does not require contempt.

There are real constraints. Support costs money. A transition takes time. Some information cannot yet be shared. Those constraints should lead to explicit tradeoffs, not a general exemption from considering the people affected.

Some consequences are inseparable from the decision. But calling the overall decision necessary does not make every choice about how to carry it out inevitable.

It should never be easy. It may get easier.

Experience should make you more capable of acting under pressure. You may become less anxious before a difficult conversation, more precise in your explanation, and better able to listen without becoming defensive. You may stop confusing your own discomfort with evidence that the decision is wrong.

That is different from becoming indifferent to what the decision costs someone else. The aim is not to suffer enough to prove that you care. Nobody benefits from a leader making a painful event about their own feelings. You can become steadier without becoming numb.

In Meditations 5.20, Marcus Aurelius describes turning an impediment into material for action. In 6.30, he puts kindness alongside disciplined action.² I take those ideas together: the difficult conversation is not standing between us and the work of leadership. It is part of that work. Here, the obstacle to overcome is our temptation to avoid responsibility, not the person affected by our decision.

There is an opportunity to practice honesty without contempt and resolve without indifference. The demand is not permanent distress; it is refusing to let another person’s loss become morally trivial.

If the work gets easier because we have placed enough distance between ourselves and the people affected, we have removed part of what should inform our judgment.

Character is not just whether we can explain a decision. It is what we choose when we have room to choose differently.

A company that genuinely cannot afford to help people through a transition faces a different problem from one that can readily afford reasonable support and chooses to provide none. When support is readily affordable, withholding it simply because people lack the power to demand it is a failure of character, not an unavoidable business necessity.

It is relatively easy to speak well of people while their work serves our needs. The more demanding test comes when our interests diverge. Their contribution does not disappear because their project, role, or agreement no longer fits our plans.

People should not have to remain useful to us to be treated with care. Nor should that care depend on access or negotiating leverage. A standard should be something people can count on without having to secure an exception for themselves.

Epictetus argues in Discourses 2.18 that our actions strengthen the corresponding habits.³ That makes each decision more than a test of existing character. It is practice for the next one. Facing consequences and arranging not to face them are both things we can become practiced at. Experience alone does not tell us which we are learning.

A leader can end an argument by making disagreement unpleasant. That does not establish that the decision improved. Even when aggression secures a concession, the concession does not account for what happened to cooperation or the information available next time.

James Detert and Ethan Burris found that managerial openness was associated with employees speaking up with suggestions for improvement; their analysis linked that relationship to how safe employees felt speaking up.⁴ My concern is the reverse incentive: when bringing a problem means inviting a confrontation, silence can become the easier choice. A meeting with fewer objections may contain less information, not better agreement.

There is also evidence of an immediate performance cost. In three experiments, Christine Porath and Amir Erez found that rudeness reduced performance on routine and creative tasks, as well as helpfulness.⁵ These were bounded experiments, not measurements of an entire company’s profitability. They nevertheless challenge the assumption that contempt is merely an unpleasant style with no operational cost.

Firmness asks whether the work meets the requirement. Hostility punishes the person who brings an unwelcome answer. I want the person who sees a flaw in the plan to bring it forward while we still have time to act.

We can set demanding targets, negotiate firmly, stop failed investments, and terminate employment when the reasons warrant it. Those actions need sound judgment and a willingness to follow through. Anger is not a prerequisite. Listening does not give someone a veto; correcting an error does not mean abandoning the goal.

A successful outcome is not proof that every part of the method was necessary. The useful question is whether we could achieve the result while preserving more of the information and cooperation the next result will require.

Making the call is only part of the work.

Before approving a consequential change, we should be able to explain who bears the cost, which consequences are unavoidable, and what we will do about the harm still within our control. Where a more responsible approach costs more or takes longer, that belongs in the proposal—not outside the calculation.

For a reduction in staff, I would want a plan for the business that remains: what work stops, which commitments continue, and who has the capacity to meet them. The plan should also specify how people will be told and what transition support is reasonably possible. Neither the operating plan nor the treatment of people should be an afterthought.

Then judge the result beyond the announcement. Did the savings materialize after transition costs? Can the remaining team meet its commitments? Are important risks still being raised early? Are we losing people the plan depended on retaining? Those are questions about whether the decision achieved its purpose.

The people carrying out the work need the authority and resources to do it. Their responsibility for execution does not replace ours for the decision. We must remain available to hear consequences we failed to anticipate and correct what we can.

I do not want a gentler version of a failing business. I want us to make the changes the business needs without needlessly damaging its ability to succeed. That means meeting the moment and the goal: making the hard call, carrying it out with integrity, and taking responsibility for what follows.

How you do it is part of the decision. Being willing to face what you decided is part of the job.