3 Tips for Delivering Bad News

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If we haven't been acquainted yet, I’m a professor of organizational and cross-cultural psychology, the author of?Global Dexterity?and?Reach, and an HBR contributor and consultant.?I also work closely with coaches, trainers, consultants and teachers to certify them in my?Global Dexterity Method.

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I hope you enjoy today's newsletter about an important, but challenging topic: delivering bad news.

For many managers—especially first time, or novice managers—the experience of delivering bad news, during a layoff conversation or even a negative performance review—can be surprisingly emotional. I have studied the challenges that managers face when delivering bad news and here are some of the key insights and best practices from this research.

1. Don't go in unprepared.

As seasoned as you may be—and as busy as you may be—don't believe you can just walk in, improvise, and deliver negative news on the fly. Because most likely you can't—or can't in a way that enables you to be your best self. Of course, in the end you will have to improvise anyway, since no conversation goes exactly as planned. But if you've prepared ahead of time—especially for potential contingencies you might experience in the moment, you'll be much more capable of actually doing the improvisation you need.

2. Find your way of balancing compassion and directness.

You don't want to be a compassion-less robot delivering the message. But you also don't want to be a puddle of emotion either. You need to find some way to hit the mark in between these two extremes—delivering the message but in a way that shows you truly care. It is not easy to strike that "middle range" chord, but it's something essential to work on as you develop and hone your interpersonal style.

3. Don't neglect your own well-being.

As challenging as these situations are for recipients, they are also psychologically depleting for the performers. To think that you're just going to "suck it up" and set your own emotions aside is both unrealistic and unwise. Instead, find a way to process emotion ahead of time, so that you come to grips with the legitimacy of the message you're delivering—that it's fair, legitimate, and justified. Also find a way of restoring yourself after the fact so the emotions you just experienced don't leak into your subsequent activities. Make sure to take care of yourself even as you are taking care of the other person. The two are not mutually exclusive, and, in fact, quite the opposite: inextricably linked.