At the end of the day, I transform the way you run your business into a business you love to run.
I just attended a team meeting in which the CEO gave (what could be interpreted as) a reprimand to his entire production team. Because of what I witnessed, I wanted to share with you some tips on how to best deliver bad news.
Tips
- Decide if the news is good or bad news.
- If it’s bad news, see if there’s a way to make it uplifting.
- Include your management team in the crafting of the message. They know their team better than you.
- Decide how you will handle any fallout from the announcement. For example, many people will discuss the announcement with co-workers and/or managers.
- Coach your management team on how to handle any fall-out from the announcement. For example, how do you want them to handle hallway discussions, etc.
- Execute your fallout plan.
- Meet with you management team a few days afterwards to check on how the teams are doing with the news.
Real World Scenario 1
Sales cycle and end of the month was coming to an end at a small agency. The CEO was trying to push the sales team to close their sales. One of the sales team members expressed the concern that the design team would not be able to keep up with the demand, if all the sales did go through. So the CEO went to the design team and said:
“Team, the sales team is working hard to close several of these outstanding deals in the last five days of the month. They really admire and depend upon you. They have got your back – so much that they worry that they will overload you. I need you to support your sales team. We know you are not at full capacity. We see your hours and we know you are not working your full 40 hours. So if you are feeling overloaded, keep it to yourself. Don’t talk to the sales team about it. Go to your car and scream if you have to. But don’t talk to the sales team.”
As you can image, after that uplifting meeting several designers huddled behind closed doors. They could have been discussing the weather…. But that is unlikely.
Several things can now happened, because of the way the CEO expressed himself.
- Designers could start padding their billable hours to make sure they hit 40 hours a week. And those hours would cost the client and affect future sales. Everyone understands that a 40 hour work week, isn’t truly 40 hours of design work. And only the billable hours are being tracked. BUT … there are lots of non-billable meetings, administration time, lunch hour, vacation/personal time, and investigation/learning in a regular work week. Now that the CEO has sent the message that they are determining how hard everyone is working via the billable hours – there could be some negative accounting fallout.
- Designers do not stop working when they clock out. Their minds are constantly working, designing, creating better ways to do things – at night; over the weekends and even while they sleep. The CEO isn’t paying for 40 hours. The CEO is paying for the years of experience and quality talent. The CEO is paying for what actually happens in the teams’ imagination: their creativity. To bring it down to “how long it takes the designer to manifest what’s in his head” is a disservice. The better talent may decide to look elsewhere for work.
- The managers heard the news exactly when their staff heard it. Therefore, the CEO treated the management just like everyone else. So, when the team disbanded after the announcement, they went directly into their manager’s office to complain. Since the manager was unaware of the message ahead of time, he was not prepared and may have empathized with his team.
Scenario 2
If the CEO had included the management team in his decision, they may have come up with a better message such as:
We are working hard as a team to close some important client deals before the end of the month. The sales team really needs your support to keep this momentum up. Please help them in any way that you can. This is an amazing team. And the sales force really admires and depend upon you. Let’s show them we have their backs. As we close more deals, we’ll have more funds to hire additional help. So – don’t worry about the workload. I have your back on that. You have my promise. Don’t give that another thought.
The same message could have been given in a different way. And now the management team has a better idea on how to handle any fallout.
For additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally. It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ