Years ago, while serving as the executive leader of a local organization affiliated with a larger national network, I found myself caught in what started as a branding discussion.
It turned out to be a much bigger lesson about leadership, decision making, trust, and the difference between asking for input and actually being open to it.
The national organization was undertaking a significant name change and rebrand. The goal made sense: bring dozens of independently governed organizations operating across Canada under a more cohesive national identity.
Some affiliates were already using a variation of the proposed brand, while others had long histories, established reputations, and significant local brand equity under their existing names.
Executive leaders from across the country were brought together to discuss the proposed change. We explored the value of a common identity, possible names, the implications for our local organizations, and the potential benefits of greater national alignment.
At least, that was what many of us believed we were there to do.
As the conversations progressed, it became clear that the national leadership had already settled on a preferred name. In fact, negotiations had already taken place to acquire the rights to it.
Suddenly, the nature of the conversation changed.
What initially appeared to be a decision-making process shifted to a decision-endorsement process.
Finkelstein, Whitehead, and Campbell (2008) describe a decision-making trap they call “one plan at a time,” where leaders become attached to a preferred course of action and alternatives receive increasingly limited consideration. Looking back, I can see elements of that dynamic at work.
When Local Reality Collides With National Strategy
For the organization I was leading, the proposed name created a significant branding problem.
A well-established organization in our community already operated under a very similar name. I raised the concern early because I believed adopting the proposed national identity could create confusion among stakeholders, supporters, community partners, and the people both organizations served.
Other leaders acknowledged that the concern was legitimate.
Toward the end of our meetings, we were told that the executive leaders would vote on the proposed name. We were also told that if even one leader opposed the change, the purchase would not proceed.
Before the vote, I restated my concern and explained why I could not support the proposed name for our local organization.
The conversation became increasingly tense.
Other leaders began expressing frustration that their perspectives had not meaningfully influenced the process. The atmosphere shifted quickly from collaborative discussion to something much more adversarial.
Then came an awkward pause.
The facilitator left the room.
When they returned, we were informed that a vote would no longer take place. The final decision would instead be made by the national board.
We were also told that our local organization would receive some form of accommodation because of the naming conflict in our community.
Looking back through the lens of Argyris (1976), the process reflected characteristics of single-loop learning. The discussion largely focused on how to implement the preferred solution rather than stepping back to question the assumptions, decision rules, or process that had produced the solution in the first place.
The question was essentially:
How do we make this decision work?
The more important question might have been:
Should we reconsider how we arrived at this decision?
When Compliance Replaces Conversation
When the branding guidelines were eventually released, the expected accommodation had not been incorporated.
There was also little direction about how our local organization should manage the significant brand confusion the new name could create.
Instead, we were expected to comply with the national branding requirements or potentially jeopardize our standing within the network.
Our local board decided that it could not responsibly proceed under those conditions. The concerns raised during the national meetings were presented again, this time formally.
The other local organization affected by the potential naming confusion also became involved and sought legal advice because of concerns about stakeholder confusion and damage to its established identity.
What had begun as a branding initiative had now become a governance, relationship, reputational, and legal issue.
The organization had moved from strategic discussion into crisis management.
Argyris (1976) argues that double-loop learning involves questioning not only actions but also the governing assumptions, policies, and values behind those actions. In this situation, the escalating conflict eventually forced that deeper level of examination.
Ultimately, an exception was granted that allowed our local organization to operate differently within our community.
The immediate problem was addressed.
The relational problem was not.
Winning the Decision, Losing the Trust
The original intention of the rebrand was to create greater unity across the national network.
Ironically, the process produced the opposite outcome for some of the people involved.
Instead of greater alignment, there was increased distance.
Instead of stronger trust, there was skepticism.
Instead of greater participation, some leaders became increasingly cautious about whether future invitations for consultation represented genuine dialogue or simply another request to support a predetermined direction.
That may be the most important leadership lesson from the experience.
Procedural fairness matters.
People do not always need their preferred outcome to prevail. But they do need confidence that their concerns were heard, alternatives were genuinely considered, and the process was credible.
A leader can make the “right” strategic decision and still damage the system in which that decision must operate.
Years later, I find myself less interested in asking whether the national leadership made the right branding decision and more interested in asking what all of us, myself included, could have done differently.
Could I have recognized earlier that we were operating within a single-loop process?
Could I have shifted my advocacy from defending our local position to questioning the decision architecture itself?
Instead of repeatedly saying:
“This name will not work for us,”
perhaps I could also have asked:
“What assumptions are we making about what national alignment requires?”
“What evidence would cause us to reconsider the preferred option?”
“How will we distinguish consultation from endorsement?”
“What happens when national consistency creates legitimate local harm?”
“What decision-making process would allow us to preserve both national coherence and local responsibility?”
Those questions move the conversation from disagreement about an answer to curiosity about how the answer is being formed.
And that is where double-loop learning becomes particularly valuable for executive leaders.
The Leadership Question Beneath the Branding Question
This story was never really about a name.
It was about what happens when leaders become committed to a solution before the people affected by it have finished exploring the problem.
It was about the difference between consultation and participation.
It was about how quickly procedural unfairness can become relational distrust.
And it was about recognizing that once leaders become defensive about a decision, the ability to remain curious about that decision can disappear remarkably quickly.
For executive leaders, perhaps the challenge is not simply learning how to make better decisions.
It is developing the discipline to occasionally interrupt our own decision-making process and ask:
Are we still exploring, or are we now simply defending?
That question might prevent a difficult conversation from becoming a crisis.
And every once in a while, it might even save us from discovering that the biggest problem with a new name had nothing to do with the name at all.
References:
Argyris, C. (1976). Single-loop and double-loop models in research on decision making. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(3), 363–375.
Finkelstein, S., Whitehead, J., & Campbell, A. (2008). Think again: Why good leaders make bad decisions and how to keep it from happening to you. Harvard Business School Publishing.