We’re planning to announce some unpleasant news at our company where I’m the chief financial officer. Business is slow, so we’re freezing salary increases across the board – from the CEO down. The five of us in the senior management group are debating how to announce it. Most want to do it swiftly to get it over with. But I’m wondering if there’s gentler way to soften the sting?”
Ordinarily I’d recommend doing it quickly. It’s decisive, it prevents you from waffling or changing your mind, and, because unpleasant decisions always spawn disgruntled employees, it shuts down (if not eliminates) the inevitable vocal opposition to your decision.
Rethinking the swift stroke
But couple of events to people I know made me change my mind. highly placed media executive heard rumblings that his group of 400 people was in trouble. The rumours made it to the trade magazines, but the president assured him his group was safe so the executive shared the good news with his relieved staff. The next day, he was asked to resign and half his people were laid off.
I wonder what purpose this secrecy served. All it did was induce shock in lot of talented professionals and make most of them angry. They were justifiably angry at the company, but less justifiably, they were also angry at their boss who did nothing more than ?lie’ to them because he was being lied to.
Wouldn’t it have been better to leak the potential dismissals gradually over few weeks – not only to alert people that they were in danger but also to give them time to accept the idea and quite possibly start looking around? What harm would it have done?
Shutting the office in 48 hours
The same thing happened to one of our customers. Her superiors told her and her colleagues on Wednesday they were shutting down her Chicago office – they had 48 hours to cope with the news that they were out of job, to pack up and get out.
Again I wonder what larger purpose this swift and clean approach served.
As CEO I appreciate the financial reasons. But again what’s the harm in privately alerting staff concerned that bad news was coming?
A good manager knows you have to be as careful with people you dismiss as with the ones you keep. The former can come back to haunt you in many ways; you may even have to work with them again.
Floating ideas ahead of time
Sir Ernest Shackleton is case to think about. He saved the lives of all 27 men when they were stranded for two years on an Antarctic ice floe in 1914-16. I was impressed by his tactic of floating rumours and ideas ahead of time when difficult decision had to be made. It gave his men time to mull over the idea before dealing with the reality.
For example, in year two of their ordeal, Shackleton knew the expedition’s dogs would have to be killed.
So he often talked about the dogs’ drain on supplies – to let the men get used to the idea. Thus, on the day when four teams of dogs had to be shot, it wasn’t as traumatic for the men because they saw it coming.
Think of this tactic. Your people will deal with bad news better and in their own way if you help them see it coming.
Procrastination
I’m sure one reason bad news is delivered fast is we don’t allow ourselves time to do it any other way. No one likes delivering bad news, especially when it puts people out of job.
That’s why even the most decisive managers procrastinate in this area. They wait as long as possible, perhaps hoping for positive turn of events, until they have no choice. By that time neither do the people concerned. You have to treat unpleasant decisions on case by case basis. The pace depends on lot of factors, but delaying bad news simply because it’s unpleasant is not one of those factors.
People appreciate it more if you let them in on the secret as soon as you know.
Mark McCormack is the founder of International Management Group.www.successsecrets.com
