Achieved Strategies

I’ve been in conversations lately about sharing bad news with employees.  They’ve centered on whether or not news that is difficult to hear should be shared.  “I don’t want people to be discouraged and I need them to be focused,” was the common reasons for not sharing difficult news.

All too often I’ve seen withheld information or watered down truth work against an organization.  Employees hear and share incomplete and inaccurate versions of the bad news.  The outcome is unnecessary anxiety, increased stress, and loss productivity.  The very reason for not sharing the difficult news ends up as the outcome.

The circumstances and timing of sharing bad news will factor significantly into when it’s communicated.

Here are four considerations to help you decide when to share bad news.

If people are aware of circumstances surrounding the bad news

We’ve worked with clients who were dealing with a difficult problem.  It’s why they hired us.  If the bad news stems from an existing, known issue, it’s likely that the bad news won’t be as difficult.  It may not be a surprise, either.

If people have had input on details related to the bad news

If teams, large groups of people shared their thoughts related to the bad news, you owe it to them to share the outcome.  If people give feedback – verbally or written, like a survey – it’s poor leadership to not let them know how the input was used.  It’s also poor leadership to not share with them the outcomes. Period.

If there’s a good chance the bad news will be leaked

We’d like to believe that confidential information stays as such. It takes just one person to tell a close colleague the confidential information. May be well intended, but the news is likely to spread.  Also, the more people involved in discussing and deciding on what to do about a sensitive situation, the likelihood of it’s leaked or over heard.  If this happens often in your organization, then get ahead of it and share the news.

If there’s an opportunity to leverage the bad news to do good

This may sound odd to you.  Bad news can have a way of uniting people.  Consider Japan and Haiti.  In America we have a soft spot for the underdog.  We like to see triumph over adversity.  If authentically positioned and intent is clear, bad news can help a team, a group, even a business come together to improve a situation.

Bottom line: Question the immediate response to not share or water down the truth. Give people more credit for having the capacity to deal with the truth. You can control the amount of spinning that stems from incomplete and inaccurate versions of bad news.

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