Bad news doesn't require bad feelings

Six ways managers sabotage themselves

I got tired of writing short-form content on LinkedIn, so I thought I would take a pause and get back to long-form essays, just to give my mind the right exercise. This post is about all the don'ts when it comes to delivering bad news. I get asked about this constantly in interviews and podcasts, and even though I cover it in the book, I thought I would summarize the important ones in this post and add some additional content not covered in the book for all you constant readers.

Here we go.

Hate the other person - I have seen mostly newer (and some experienced) managers fall into this trap. The trap being: you have to hate or strongly dislike the other person before you can deliver tough feedback to them. When you are delivering bad news to an employee or a peer, you don't have to be upset or angry or hateful. In fact, if you show up like that, the other person will immediately form an opinion that you just dislike them, and there is no way they can get on your good side.

In fact, I would argue that employees shouldn't have to worry about your good side and bad side. They should only worry about meeting the expectations set by you and the role they signed up for. You are not a dictator. If you overtly lean on having a good and bad side, you will only attract sycophants. You will be surrounded by yes people, which is wrong for many reasons.

Don't show up ready to show your bad side. Instead, show up with empathy, directness, and most importantly, facts. You don't have to use 'disappointed dad' language like, 'I am not upset, just disappointed' to get your message across. Be direct, be empathetic, use facts, and give them a way out. Don't just tell them they are not meeting expectations without also providing them a way to meet your expectations.

Relish it - I have met very few leaders who exhibit this especially nasty trait. These are leaders who relish or derive some perverse pleasure in putting employees through the wringer with the explicit goal of grinding them down to a point where they leave on their own, or their effectiveness drops to zero because they are living in constant fear. These leaders put employees on the spot, berate them in public (and call it radical candor), set traps for them, give them impossible tasks, and poison the well to a point where the employee cannot move to another team to escape them, and their only recourse is to leave.

This is absolutely the wrong way to manage people out. Leaders who use fear tactics to get people out were probably subjected to similar torture by their bosses, and instead of making the world a bit better by not repeating the sins of the past, they have decided to propagate nastiness.

Call me old-fashioned and sentimental, but I believe the universe keeps score. You will reap what you sow.

Be vindictive - This is when leaders make an employee's life miserable because they somehow 'wronged' them. Maybe they spoke up against them in public, or went to HR with a grievance, or went above them to their skip-level manager to complain about something. The right thing to do is to figure out why your employee is doing what they are doing.

Pushing back against you in public is mostly a good thing you want to encourage in everybody because it helps you validate your assumptions and prevents you from making a dumb decision. If your employee goes to HR or your boss to complain about you, it means they are afraid to come to you with their concerns. Maybe they don't feel safe or comfortable speaking to you, which in itself could be because of a myriad of reasons. Maybe you are a new manager and you both don't have a relationship. Maybe it's a personal matter they don't feel comfortable sharing with you.

Whatever might be the case, your immediate reaction to your employee not directly engaging with you can't be to make their lives miserable. The correct thing to do is to figure out why they don't feel comfortable engaging with you. Approach it from the standpoint of understanding them better so that you can help them better. Ask for feedback and act on it. In most of the cases I have encountered in my career, I was able to turn around a professional relationship by being self-critical, asking for feedback, and really acting on it.

Obviously, there will be situations where the employee is clearly trying to make you look bad or is making outrageous demands that cannot be met. Even when it becomes clear that it won't work out between the two of you, be empathetic, be direct, and use facts. Never be vindictive. Also, don't do it alone. Use your HR team.

Shit sandwich - This is something inexperienced managers do quite a bit. Heck, I did it when I was a newly minted manager and extremely afraid to deliver any tough feedback to any employee because of the potential disruption it might cause to the team's social cohesion and harmony. So a shit sandwich is when you deliver the bad news/critical feedback sandwiched between two pieces of good news. The recipients could be employees, stakeholders, bosses, and even customers. On its surface, it seems innocuous, right? The two pieces of good news soften the blow of the bad news. You delivered the bad news, and the recipient doesn't feel too bad about it. Win, win, right?

Wrong.

When you are delivering bad news, you don't want to bury the news or distract people from it. You are delivering the bad news because you want people to focus on it. You want people to zero in on it and act quickly, so that you can fix the damn problem! If you are delivering bad news to an employee, you want them to lean in to figure out how to fix the problem. If you are delivering bad news to stakeholders, you want them to understand the reality and what the next steps might be. The shit sandwich doesn't make the problem go away.

In fact, a shit sandwich never goes away. You know why? Nobody wants one.

Muddy the waters - This is a variation of the shit sandwich, but worse. This is when you hide the shit sandwich in its entirety and don't tell the other person any meaningful details. You give them half answers or poorly thought-through feedback filled with anecdotal opinions, and at the end of the conversation, the recipient is left scratching their head and wondering if they did something good, or something bad, or something else altogether.

Don't beat around the bush. If something is not working in a project, say so. If someone is not hitting their commitments, say that directly and support it with facts. If a project is delayed, say it is delayed and follow up with what you are doing to fix the ship. Be empathetic, but direct, and always provide a way out, especially if you are giving critical feedback to an employee.

Remember, the 'resource' you are dealing with is a real person with real lives, families, ambitions, and dreams. If you are going to make them question their dreams and ambitions, give them a way to succeed as well.

Surprise them - Lastly, don't surprise them. Our minds are wired for procrastination. Neuroscience research suggests that procrastination stems from a conflict between different parts of the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex (responsible for rational thought and planning) and the limbic system (which prioritizes immediate gratification and emotional responses). This means that our brains are naturally drawn to the path of least resistance, even if that means delaying important tasks for short-term emotional relief.

Fight that urge, because if you don't, you will end up letting that problem (that requires you to deliver tough news) fester and become worse. Stakeholders, customers, employees, and bosses all want to hear about what's not working sooner rather than later.

P.S - I convinced a few brave leaders to let me workshop some ideas with them about navigating messy conversations. Apparently, it didn't go as badly as I thought - here's the feedback:

So, if you are looking to organize a workshop for your leaders around tough conversations, reach out at info@maheshguruswamy.com

Until next time!