How can you best deliver bad news at work?
Delivering bad news, especially at work, can be incredibly difficult. Even the best leaders have trouble delivering bad news to their employees. It is a situation where both parties experience negative emotion; the deliverer feels anxiety from delivering the bad news and the receiver is devastated by the news. A recent article entitled “Displaying Fairness While Delivering Bad News: Testing the Effectiveness of Organizational Bad News Training in the Layoff Context” in the Journal of Applied Psychology described an approach to deliver bad news—something called “bad news training”.
Bad news training consists of two components. The first is the “bad news delivery component”. This protocol was borrowed from the healthcare industry. The protocol is as follows: arrange the setting, deliver the bad news, provide an explanation, deal with emotions, provide follow-up information, and summarize.
The second component of bad news training is the “fairness component”. The fairness component deals with employees who receive the bad news as perceiving the organization decisions and procedures are fair. This type of training entails bad news being delivered with thorough explanation for the decision. In addition, this approach entails listening to the receiver so that the person feels heard.
Richter and colleagues (2016) examined the effectiveness of the training in a two-part study. The researchers compared managers who received the full training (with both components) and managers who only received partial training (with only one of the components). The researchers hypothesized that the bad news delivery component would help deliverers of the bad news deal with the stress of the situation. Further, they hypothesized that the fairness component would help receivers more easily accept the bad news with less negativity. Simulated layoff scenarios with actors were used for the study. The results of the study confirmed the researchers’ hypotheses. The bad news component helped managers better deliver the news. Further, the fairness component helped receivers of the bad news view the situation as fair with less negative responses.
Findings from this study demonstrate the usefulness of bad new trainings in the work environment. Delivery of bad news is not easy for anyone. However, both components, the bad news component and the fairness component, can be beneficial—one to the deliverer and one to the receiver. Therefore, both components have their place in bad news training and should be utilized.