Every small team has had this meeting. An hour on the calendar, everyone invited, a real discussion - and at the end, the founder announces the plan they walked in with.
The problem is not that the decision was made in advance. Plenty of decisions should be. The problem is the hour of pretending, because people notice, and the next time you ask for their input they give you less of it.
We now say it out loud at the start: this one is decided and here is why, or this one is open and here is what we do not know yet. It costs one sentence. It has saved us a surprising amount of goodwill.
Discussion