How to deliver bad news when it's not your fault

People tend to shoot the messenger. Here's how to avoid the negative halo of bad news.

Sep 25, 2024

👋 Hey, it’s Wes. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on managing up, career growth, and standing out as a high-performer.

For more on how to handle tricky situations and communicate more strategically, check out my intensive 2-day course: Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers

I originally published a version of this essay in September 2018. Enjoy.

Read time: 6 minutes

As much as we don’t want to shoot the messenger, we often associate negative feelings with people who tell us bad news.

Work is hard enough as is. You don’t need that negativity associated with you, especially if a situation was out of your control.

For example, let’s say you and a partner organization submitted a proposal and were waiting to hear back from a major client. The client tells you that another company out-bid you with a lower quote.

Now, you have to tell your colleague that they have to re-submit a bid. You feel terrible because they put a lot of work into the bid. You could have set better expectations, so you’re feeling a little guilty for not having done that.

This happened to one of my clients, and he made the mistake of sounding overly negative in the email to his colleague. We fixed it, but it’s a valuable lesson for anyone who’s had to share negative news at work (which is all of us at some point).

If you have to deliver bad news that wasn’t your fault, keep these principles in mind:

Welcome or welcome back to my newsletter. Delivering bad news is just one of many potential points of conflict we face at work on a weekly basis. If you want to build your skills quickly and get hands-on practice, check out my course, Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers. You’ll learn alongside mid-career operators from organizations like Netflix, Uber, Zillow, Grammarly, Meta, Square, Amazon, Spotify, etc. → Save your spot

1. Avoid negative words, like "however” and “unfortunately.”

Small changes in word choice can impact your audience's perception, for the better or for the worse. According to George Lakoff, a professor in cognitive science and linguistics at University of California, Berkeley, you should use language that evokes imagery and strengthens your point.

You should especially be careful about using negative words that could lead your audience to catastrophize. Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, the co-authors of Words Can Change Your Brain, said:

“Angry words send alarm messages through the brain, and they partially shut down the logic-and-reasoning centers located in the frontal lobes.”

There's rarely a need for unfortunately, and other heavy-sounding words. It makes everything sound more dramatic than it needs to be. Your goal is to minimize drama.

More about why to avoid incepting negative ideas.

2. Avoid giving too many details.

When we feel guilty, we tend to over-explain. We secretly hope that by explaining, the person will understand and absolve us of guilt. Don’t give in to the temptation to explain everything in excruciating detail.

First, it’s selfish: you’re only doing it to make yourself feel better.

Second, it complicates the actual message. Recipients won’t know when the facts end and your own narrative begins.

Third, you owe it to your recipient to be direct.

Respect your audience enough to give them the key information they need to make a smart decision. If they have additional questions, they’ll ask. This opens up dialogue instead of overwhelming them.

3. Don't accidentally accept blame.

Obviously, if you’re responsible or even partially responsible for what happened, you should take responsibility.

But there’s a difference between empathizing (“I acknowledge this is frustrating”) and accepting fault (“I should have done X and Y, but I didn’t.”).

As the messenger, there’s no point in inviting your audience’s wrath for no reason.

When you review your message, ask yourself: “Would my recipient accidentally think I’m admitting fault based on my phrasing and word choice?”

An upset colleague or manager might project anger onto you as a way to cope with negative feelings. The danger of accidentally accepting blame is it legitimizes your audience’s negative perceptions, even if they were inaccurate and misplaced to begin with.

You’re essentially inviting them to project onto you. This erodes trust in your working relationships and tarnishes your credibility. If it happens too many times, it could stall your career because you’re associated with failed projects.

4. Get to your point quickly.

Warren Buffett told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, “We only give a couple of instructions to people when they go to work for us: One is to think like an owner. And the second is to tell us bad news immediately—because good news takes care of itself. We can take bad news, but we don't like it late.”

Contrary to what you might think, adding too much preface makes things worse. The tension builds and the person is imagining the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Cognitive psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis describes why we mentally escalate scenarios to the most extreme and negative conclusion. When your audience finally hears the bad news, they might think, “Oh, that wasn't so bad.”

Even though they got a pleasant surprise, relatively speaking, they just spent several minutes letting their imagination spiral into catastrophe. That’s cruel of you to let happen.

Preface as little as you can, so you can share the meat of what they need to know.

5. Remind the person of their own agency.

In a speech at USC Business School in 1994, Charlie Munger said, "If people tell you what you really don't want to hear—what's unpleasant—there's an almost automatic reaction of antipathy."

When people get bad news, they want to blame someone for their frustration—don't let that someone be you.

Our natural reaction is to shoot the messenger, but you can combat this by reminding your audience that they were involved in the situation, too. Chances are, they had a role to play in what happened.

Reminding people of their agency can be useful here. Behavioral economics research shows that when people remember they have the freedom to choose what to do, it encourages them to behave more generously.

Applied to the example we started with, you want to remind your colleague that you were both aware of the risks—and jointly decided to proceed anyway:

You both knew the result might not work.
You’re on the same team and working toward the same goal.
You want to figure out together what to do going forward.

Of course, put a soft wrapper around your message because a sarcastic remark won’t land well.

🚫 “We both knew this might not work. Don't act so surprised now.”
✅ “Last month, we talked about how we had a 1 in 10 chance of winning this bid. We decided to pursue it given the high payoff. At this point, if we choose to continue in the process, we could submit another proposal. I know it takes a lot of effort on your part, so it might or might not be worth the time. I can discuss with my team, too. Thanks for working on this together. Let’s check in on this next week on what we want to do.”

Accepting responsibility is important. If there’s any doubt that you are responsible, you should proactively address that. These principles are for times when you're simply a messenger—and just as surprised by the news as your recipient is.

In situations like these, use the principles above to protect yourself and help your recipient understand with minimal drama.

Have you been blamed for something that wasn’t your fault? Could you have framed the news differently when you shared it? Hit reply because I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next Wednesday at 8am ET.

Wes

PS Here are more ways to connect:

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn for insights during the week (free).
Check my availability to do a keynote for your team.
Learn more about 1:1 executive coaching. My clients include director- and VP-level operators at companies funded by Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins, etc.
Sell your ideas, manage up, gain buy-in, and increase your impact in my 2-day intensive course. September and October cohorts are sold out. Save your spot for December cohort → Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers