What are your experiences of bad news? and what should successful leaders do to handle them?

Bad news for engineering work normal with less expertise and processing speed of the problem increases with increasing experience and need for calm and patience, wisdom and intuition

The history of failed businesses is littered with examples of bad news being ignored and not acted upon, or indeed not being perceived as bad at all, until it was too late. The key is to ensure that bad news has a short journey between the 'originating source' of that bad news and those who can do something about it. Don't let it fester by ignoring it-companies have 'gone under' as a result

 

There are four things that really good (and successful) leaders do when it comes to bad news:

1.       They work on the way they personally react to bad news and make a conscious effort to react positively.

2.       They create an environment where bad news are welcome. Where people are expected to rise issues as soon as they appear, rather than hiding them. They often create an environment where the consequences for not telling bad news far outweigh the potential consequences of telling bad news.

3.       They make sure to celebrate turnaround stories: where people have come up and told the bad news, and were the right actions were taken straight away to contain or eliminate the problem. Sharing these stories will help to create the right environment and will send out the signals that it is not only important to share bad news, but that the reactions and consequences are positive.

 

4.       They identify and manage objective performance measures to illuminate any deviations which might translate to bad news. This will alert all concerned immediately as the incident takes place and eliminate the personal feelings towards the matter.

Bad news or threats may be relatively, the challenge is how to overcome them as a leader.

A good leader, in my opinion, would do the following in situations of bad news/crisis, while being mainly solution-orientated:

 

1. Calm, quick & thorough analysis of the news/problem at stake.
2. Proper communication with key stake-holders, matching the situation at stake.
3. Swift transition from analysis & communication into practical problem-solving.
4. Making sure precautionary case-study plans are in place for future remedies & problem avoidance.

 

Customer complaints is bad news for me. Though most complaints are constructive, its sad that the customer has to face issues.

 

Its important to make sure that when the customer complaints, do not interrupt them and hear them out. The important thing is to ensure that despite the complaint, the customer has to be persuaded to come back. Though this is very hard, positvie methods of serivce recovery can ensure the customer is back in most cases.

 

With the team, it is important to communicate the complaint in a quick time frame sighting the issues faced firstly by the customer and then asking the team what they feel would be an effective remedy. If there are multiple teams involved, it maybe a good time to make the team think of possible service recovery methods. This will also develop the team. After hearing all suggestions, the leader must finally develop the strategy to ensure that it is not repeated.

 

The issue should be logged and an action plan should be sought and implemented and also feedback to be taken from the customer.

 

A good leader should not loose grip of the bad news and must be on top of the problem. He/she should realise that finally it is him/her who is the leader of the team and he/she is directly responsible for the good news and all that causes the bad news

 

 

I have had bad news myself when my promotion was not supported. I was frustrated and devastated.

Anyway, successful leaders, in may opinion, should not jump to conclusion. They should keep calm and probably find ways to overcome that bad news. Maybe gather certain staff whom they think can give suggestions and study each suggestion. There is bound to be an answer

Be calm, and have a smile, and put plan to solve the problem

Manager need to show following maturity in communicating a bad news:

 

1. Give heads up to senior members of the team so that the bad news shouldn't come as a surprise.

2. Manager need to prepare himself emotionally.

a. Try to empathize with affected people.

b. Be prepared for difficult questions which might come up.

3. Be genuine -  Be open, clear, and honest in the conversation.

4. Choose the right time and place to deliver the message..

5. Start with the facts, and justify the decision taken is right one.

6. Be careful with the message if you are communicating broad audience: 

a. Create a message that s suited for each audience's concerns, roles and responsibilities .

7. Provide hope

8. Have several follow-up talks.

Breaking bad news needs very special communication skills. Breaking bad news in unprofessional way may end with serious problems.

 

A successful leader would:

1. Be credible

2. Choose the right time and place

3. Tailor your message to the audience

4. Give people an advance warning

5. Be prepared

6. Be empathetic

7. Provide hope

8. Encourage action

9. Reinforce values

Bad news is always not welcome especially if it could have been avoided.Denial could be shunned ,but one needs to accept the situation and seek the best way forwawrd to redress it ,with all boldness.

bad news is a good way of telling you about the mistakes that it already HAPPENED!

so, a successful leader will not waste his time trying to find who is to be blamed about it, instead he will think of how to not get this thing happens. in this way, he will find the cause of the issue, and will fix it rather than blaming and punishing.