Every company has to make decisions that employees hate. These decisions usually are met with resentment and resistance. Employees can be heard complaining about what “they” always do to “us.”

It happens at Disney too. One example occurred in the late 1980s after Michael Eisner became Disney CEO. It was Walt Disney World tradition that the parks would close early on Christmas Eve so that Disney employees could spend that time with their families. When the new Eisner management regime began looking at all of Disney’s practices, they realized that they were leaving thousands of tourists stranded in their hotels with nothing to do on an important evening.

Rather than simply change the policy, management explained the problem to the cast members. A hallmark of Disney service, and one the cast shares, is the purpose of making guests happy. By introducing the problem months before the event, and making their decision based on guest happiness, and explaining the decision in those terms to the cast, any real complaint about the new policy evaporated. The vast majority of cast members not only understood, they supported the decision.

The lessons I take from this experience are as follows.

• Have a clear purpose that can guide your decision-making process
• Dialog the problem you wish to solve with the employees who will be affected by the decision you make (even better – involve them in making the decision
• Articulate the resulting decision based on how it aligns with the purpose your employees are trying to achieve

If you focus difficult decisions about what “we are doing to ourselves” instead of “what they are doing to us,” you’ll prevent a lot of that breakroom (or even worse-on stage) complaining.