Communicating 'Bad News'

A frequent question in my leadership seminars is about how to communicate ‘Bad News’.

First of all, nobody, and that includes managers, likes to communicate ‘Bad News’. Sometimes this is because of consideration, though, in my view not communicating is inconsiderate. Another important reason is that we are fearful of the negative reaction.

 

First of all, fear is not a good guiding principle for managing. We cannot manage with fear. It saps your energy and puts you in a foul mood.

The next argument is that not bringing up the ‘Bad News’ will always haunt you. Problems rarely solve themselves, but fester on over time and become more severe. It is also often unfair towards staff. Let’s assume that a staff is underperforming and you don’t bring it up straight away you are depriving your staff the chance to improve and still get a good appraisal (salary adjustment) at year-end.

There is, of course, sometimes a situation that one is really fearful about the consequences. Let’s assume that you need to reprimand your staff, but you are concerned that the staff will resign and that would be highly inconvenient at the time. In this case, think about the worst case scenario and how you would solve it. Once you are clear about your plan what you will do in the worst case, then choose a good time and discuss the ‘Bad News’ with the staff. There is an interesting side effect. Since you have a good back-up plan you will come across more confident (not fearful or apologetic). Your staff will feel this. In my experience, the worst case scenario didn’t take place that often. Mostly, the issue was solved positively.

Here are some techniques how ‘Bad News’ can be said in an appropriate manner

Package bad news with good news – Example: ‘When we install the computer system I require you to work overtime (bad news), however, once that is done we can all work more efficiently (good news).

Package bad news with worse news – Example ‘We need to discuss this now (bad news) so that you still have a chance to achieve your KPI’s and it will not affect your year-end appraisal (worse news).

Let somebody else say it – Examples: ‘In line with our quality standards we have to re-do the job’. ‘Based on my experience, this approach does not work. You need to change’.

Really, really bad news (example salary cuts / retrenchment of staff) cannot not be packaged ‘nicely’. Your only option is to be frank and open, settle the issue as good and quickly as possible and move on. Don’t allow the unpleasant issue to be brought up again and again as these impacts the mood of the team. Rather encourage your team to focus on doing a good job, typically, the best way to recover from a bad situation.