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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Organizations often try to include as many people as possible in the decision-making process, but sometimes it's just not possible to involve anyone beyond a small group. The need for confidentiality and speed are constraints, as is the sheer difficulty of polling an entire organization regarding decisions that will affect an entire company. Managers or executives must sometimes "download" a decision to their people after the fact--and this is where many a decision crashes on rocky shoals. Mergers fail as key employees leave and others resist change; union contracts are rejected after months of negotiation; and changes in employee benefits meet with strident protest. What's behind these failures, and what can be done to avert them? The authors lay out reasons for ineffective downloading: a disconnect between the two sides as the negotiating parties fails to see the negatives of a decision; a failure to clarify responsibilities, which results in rumor and word-of-mouth being the primary channels of communication; a desire to inform people quickly--which often means superficially; and a paternalistic desire to protect members of an organization when people would prefer to just hear the truth. Against this record of mistakes and misguided notions, the authors set their four-stage process for robust decision downloading. Their process is informed by survey research of several hundred employees in a variety of organizations, as well as interviews with dozens of executives.

When it comes to communicating effectively, leaders must not only be mindful that less is more but that strategy trumps tactics. These co-authors, professors and communications consultants, argue that leaders are more than willing to communicate, but that they too often approach the task on a tactical rather than strategic level. Moreover, these same leaders may use every medium and format available, but they rarely co-ordinate their use and deploy them selectively. Four steps taken - assessing the context, crafting the strategy, implementing the strategy and provoking the dialogue - will enable leaders to deliver messages that are clear, effective and achieve their goals.