What I have found often works for my team is "I don't fully understand why corporate does some of the things they do, but this is what they're asking of us. We need to give it an honest shot. If it fails, it'll be because it was a bad idea, not because we weren't up to the task or because we undermined them. And if it does work out, they'll be very happy with us. So how do you think we should go about this?"

Acknowledge that we don't always have the full picture, appeal to their sense of integrity, and make it a sort of challenge for them to succeed with implications of getting rewarded without promising anything specific. Be honest, but frame it encouragingly.

Of course, I work in restaurants, so our culture is often a little more coarse and direct than a typical office setting because of the constant short-term time pressures. I left out the expletives that would normally be sprinkled in