The cost of delivering bad news, badly

Every day, managers across the world deliver bad news badly. A restructure announced in a five-line email. A performance issue raised in a corridor or on a Teams chat message. A redundancy handled with a script and a shrug.

The damage isn't just personal. It's cultural.

As I’ve written about before, I have empathy for managers. Most are promoted into a role without the proper education or guidance on how to fulfil people management responsibilities, however, that doesn’t lessen the impact that their words and actions have.

When bad news is delivered poorly, not only can it generate emotional harm, but it can evaporate trust. People may not remember the news itself, but they remember how it felt to receive it and they’ll talk to their colleagues about it. 

Conversely, they remember whether someone looked them in the eye. Whether they were given space to respond. Whether anyone actually cared. They’ll talk about this too, but in a way that generates trust.

Doctors learned this the hard way. For decades, clinicians delivered diagnoses bluntly, efficiently, and moved on. Then researchers began measuring what happened next. Patients who felt unheard didn't follow treatment plans. They disengaged and as a result, their personal outcomes suffered.

So oncologist Robert Buckman developed a protocol called SPIKES. Six steps. Designed not to soften the blow, but to make sure the person in front of you can actually process it. 

Setting: Private space, sit down, minimise interruptions

Perception: Ask what the patient already knows

Invitation: Ask how much detail they want

Knowledge: Deliver the news plainly, without jargon

Emotions: Acknowledge and respond to the emotional reaction

Strategy/Summary: Agree next steps, don't leave them guessing

Some managers do some elements of this conversation well, whilst some don’t do any of it well.

In my experience, the last part is where many managers fall down. They deliver the news - often in a fairly clunky way - then disappear, leaving people in a void, filling the silence with anxiety and assumption.

The cost of that void is enormous. Fear, anxiety, disengagement, resentment, gossip, attrition. All of it traceable back to a conversation that nobody either had the skills or prepared properly for.

Delivering bad news is a core management responsibility. There's no avoiding it. But there's a significant difference between a manager who delivers it well and one who doesn't.

Your people will remember which one you are.