Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

58 Understanding Rational Decision Making

Compliance Decisions: Responses to Demands

Audiences who are subordinate or under obligation to another party, in other words agents, make com-

pliance decisions in response to principals’ demands. For example, employees make compliance decisions

when they decide whether to take the actions management has directed them to take, customers in

arrears make compliance decisions when they decide whether to pay their bills, and suppliers make

compliance decisions when they decide whether to grant a dissatisfi ed customer’s demand for a refund.

Agents make compliance decisions in order to assess the legitimacy of the demands that are

made of them as well as to assess how easy those demands are to implement. Principals seek com-

pliance decisions when they attempt to get their agents to pursue a particular course of action.

Documents and presentations principals produce in order to elicit compliance decisions from their

agents include directives , orders , intent statements , contracts , standard operating procedures (SOPs) , invoices ,

policies , promissory notes , reprimands , and safety warnings.

The following list of questions provides a starting point for predicting an agent’s decision criteria

for any particular compliance decision. The list can also serve as an outline for the documents and

presentations principals produce in order to elicit compliance decisions from their agents.

• What is the purpose of the demand?


• What is the due date?


• What are the steps for completion?


• What are the evaluation criteria (i.e., the communicator’s decision criteria)?


• What are unwanted outcomes and the consequences for noncompliance?


• Whom should I contact if I have problems?

In addition to principals’ answers to the previous questions, agents may also require benchmark in-

formation about prior demands made on them, other current demands, the terms and conditions of

any relevant contracts, industry norms, or corporate policies, as well as applicable laws and regulations.

Of course, agents do not always comply with their principals’ demands. A study of U.S. Army

offi cers reading their commanding offi cers’ intent statements fi nds that the subordinate offi cers

took the actions their superior offi cers intended them to take only 34% of the time.^16 One rea-

son the subordinate offi cers failed to comply is that their commanders’ intent statements usually

neglected to address all of their criteria for compliance decisions. A content analysis of 35 intent

statements by U.S. Army commanders fi nds that although steps for completion were included in

92% of the statements, the purpose of the demand was stated in just 42% of them, plans for handling

problems that may arise in only 37%, and unwanted outcomes were mentioned in a mere 14%.^17

In corporations, when upper management fails to articulate the purpose behind their strategic

plans, mid-level managers often fail to implement the plans as upper management intended.^18 In

hazardous work situations, when safety hazard warnings fail to explain the purpose or rationale

behind them, employees are more likely to ignore them.^19 Conversely, when safety warnings clearly

state the rationale, consequences of noncompliance, and the necessary steps for avoiding injury, the

target audience is much more likely to comply.^20

On the following pages are two versions of the same directive from a quality manager in a large

engineering fi rm to supervisors and shop fl oor foremen as well as think-aloud comments made by

one of the fi rm’s supervisors who actually received the directive (note: the names of the employees,

the ISO 9001 auditor, the dates, and the fi rm’s locations have been changed). The supervisor’s com-

ments are numbered and inserted into each version in bold and brackets. The comments illustrate

how important it is for principals to address each of their agents’ criteria for making a compliance

decision. The comments about the original version are quite negative. Much of the information

included is irrelevant to the supervisor. What is missing from the original directive are clear-cut

answers to the supervisor’s decision criteria. Without those answers—such as a due date, specifi c