How to share bad news
By: Matt Palmer
Tags: Change Management, Leadership, Management, Board Of Directors, Reporting

Management theory is full of advice on how to share isolated elements of bad news amongst lots of good. But what about when the news is mostly bad?

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010 was definitely bad news. But was it shared well? Credit: DVIDSHUB on Flickr (creative commons)

In real life and in work many things do go wrong. Project delivery, and change in particular, does not always go as planned. Whether you are rolling out a new business venture or making changes to processes, technology or teams, sometimes you’re left searching for a glimmer of light in the darkness or expecting a roasting from management for the lack of progress achieved.

Sharing bad news is a good thing. If we don’t share bad news, people can’t help solve problems. If on the other hand bad news is hidden, trust is lost and you are never again believed. It’s always better to get it out there, and no matter how much it hurts the best time do so is usually right now. But importance and urgency don’t make it easier.

A technique often shared for communicating mostly good news with a bit of bad is to sandwich the bad news between two elements of good news. For example, “The hiring was completed on time, but unfortunately Tim quit on his second day. We’ve already found a replacement and Sarah is working out well”.

If this is used when the news is mostly negative it appears defensive: “The project initiation documentation was completed on time, but just as we were nearing completion it became clear that serious errors were made in the specification and we are now going to have to write off the $10m investment and start again. We are however becoming better at writing specifications.”

You’ll get no credit for that. It sounds defensive, which is the one thing worse than simply putting the bad news on the table by itself.

Fortunately, there’s a simple way to share bad news without hiding the facts or appearing defensive. It’s the Reverse Sandwich Method.

Here’s the same situation, but put differently this time:

“Serious errors were made in the specification, and we are going to have to write off the investment and start at the beginning. However, we have improved the process to ensure that projects are properly specified and this cannot happen again. At $10m, this is an expensive lesson we are not going to forget.”

The facts are the same. By any measure, this is a terrible project outcome. Yet rather than being defensive, we are simply factual.

By acknowledging the problem straight away, we take the ammunition from those who might find it easier to use the outcome to attack us rather than working towards solutions.

By identifying the progress that has been made, we show that not all is lost and the experience has been valuable.

By acknowledging the impact, we show we understand that this does not mean forgiveness and that there are lessons to be learned or challenges to overcome.

If you are behind on a project or deliverable, or the results of your work have not been the ones you wanted, reporting this is never going to be comfortable. By finding the right way to be honest, we can help others look at the problem constructively.

Does this mean an easy business meeting? Absolutely not, and nor should it. At the end of the day goals have been missed, and even if they are not your fault you were Officer of the Watch when they occurred. We can expect some accountability for that. However, it is much better than pretending all is well and losing trust, or appearing defensive and losing confidence. It may even mean winning new respect and living to fight another day.