Giving Workers Bad News…The Good Way?

Giving Workers Bad News… The Good Way?

NOTE: While this transcript has been reviewed, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript.

Jill Wiltfong:

Being the bearer of bad news.

Doug Charles:

I don't start these conversations with, "How are you doing?" They listen to every word.

Jill Wiltfong:

How tough is it to make that transition?

Doug Charles:

Set the stage. Get into the seriousness of the situation.

Jill Wiltfong:

We see a number of leaders predicting the worst.

Doug Charles:

People's crystal balls right now are cloudy. The pendulum swung very far.

Jill Wiltfong:

Is it ever right to send a memo?

Doug Charles:

I wouldn't.

[CEO]:

Again, I am terribly sorry to have to be delivering such difficult news, but that's the reality of how things will be at the company for the foreseeable future.

[Employee 1]:

Gosh, I can't believe things have turned so bad here so fast. The last quarter, we were hiring like crazy, and everything seemed great.

[Employee 2]:

Oh, I think you're just taking a down view of this. It'll all be fine.

[Employee 1]:

What do you mean? He just said they were going to cut bonuses 50% and close three departments.

[Employee 2]:

Yeah, I know, but that kind of stuff happens all the time. Things will improve. I'm sure of it.

[Employee 1]:

Gosh, I wish I had your optimism.

[Employee 2]:

What can I say? I'm a glass half full kind of guy.

[Jean]:

Hello, Recruiters for You. This is Jean speaking. How can I help you?

[Caller]:

Hey Jean. Listen. You know that job you were talking about? I think I might be ready for it.

Jill Wiltfong:

Hi, this is Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer for Korn Ferry, and this is "Briefings," our deep dive into leadership. It's the job nobody wants, but leaders sometimes have to do, being the bearer of bad news. Get it right and it's called courageous leadership. Get it wrong and you risk going viral in all the wrong ways. Although no one can say for sure, there may soon be plenty of bad news to go around. 4 in 10 firms say they plan layoffs this year, according to one survey. And in another poll, over half of CEOs say they expect economic conditions to worsen in the first half of 2024. So today, let's see if we can learn a way for leaders to find a quote, "Good Way to Give Bad News."

Here today to speak with me on this topic is Doug Charles, President of Korn Ferry's Americas region and Global Head of Consumer Operations. In his role, he leads the discussion at many large town halls that cover both encouraging and difficult news.

Hi Doug. Thanks for joining me.

Doug Charles:

Hey there, Jill. Well, normally I'm very happy to join you. What a difficult topic to talk about today, and to kind of be considered very good at, but thanks for having me today.

Jill Wiltfong:

No, glad you're here. So, let's start with that big town hall. When a leader knows that they have to give bad news to employees in that sort of environment, what are the first things that they should be doing to prepare for that?

Doug Charles:

Knowing your audience and knowing the mood of your audience going into that discussion is really important. So virtually every time, especially on the larger gathering ones, I would almost have a smaller gathering with the smallest subset of people that said, "This is what I'm about to go over. Hey, listen, in confidentiality, you know, I don't want to reveal too much, but is this the right message? Am I hitting something on the wrong points?" Because one thing I definitely learned was they listened to every word.

Jill Wiltfong:

I think that's really good advice. We do occasionally hear about leaders saying the wrong thing and messing up by going off script. When you've been in these situations, do you find yourself ad-libbing? Is that ever part of your approach?

Doug Charles:

The first two sentences I say are usually not ad-libbed. Those are usually scripted. After that, it's notes, and it goes back to something I said before. And if you google, like, how do you deliver bad information or anything like that, you're going to see words like honesty, authenticity, sincerity, empathy. And I don't know if you could come across that reading. I surely don't have that skill. If I'm reading, I'm reading. If I'm talking to you, having a conversation, then I can understand that this is you. Somebody on the other end of this has to go tell their significant other or family member that I just lost my job, or we can't go on vacation this year, or we have to do something that is very impactful for them.

[Michael]:

But delivering bad news is something that we all have to do at some point in our life, probably multiple times. And what is the best way to approach that?

[Chris]:

The right way to do it is you say, "I got bad news." You wait about a second and you deliver the news. Never let somebody get blindsided by bad news. They need about a second to prep themselves, no matter how bad the news is.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's former FBI negotiator Chris Voss sharing his thoughts on giving bad news. Doug, when you're handling these discussions in a large group meeting, it's different than a one-on-one, of course, but do you suggest following a similar strategy of mentally preparing people with a quick, "I got bad news," and then going right into it, or do you handle these a little bit differently?

Doug Charles:

I think it is different in a bigger setting than in a smaller setting, right? But I think in both cases, the commonality is you're not there to make five jokes. I don't start these conversations with, "How are you doing? What's happening over here? Is it raining by you?". I'm not into the small talk by sure. So, I definitely agree with him in that regard. Everybody has a little different style to them, and I've been told, you know, and we've probably all heard this from our children or someone else, they'll start a conversation with, "I know you're probably going to say no to this, but..."And I'm like, "Well, then I'm going to say no." Like, you've put me on the defensive at the very beginning before I have even heard what you had to say. So, I think there's other ways to say it than, "Hey, I got bad news for you." But get into the seriousness of the situation. So, I think you could sit back and say, "Listen, you know, today we're talking today about this." You know, and just set the stage as far as what you're talking about. Sometimes what I view as really bad news, they were like, "Oh, I thought you were firing me, and you're just cutting my pay by 10%." So, you know, you could almost change the dynamic by not understanding other individuals and where they're sitting.

Jill Wiltfong:

Are there any particular people that leaders should run their statement by first before going live? Is it HR? Is it Legal? Maybe even an outside publicist. Is that something that you recommend and tend to do?

Doug Charles:

I'm never to say that's the wrong answer. My answer is I try to find representatives of the people I'm about to talk to. So, talking to someone from PR about people who I'm going to cut out of the organization is not going to help me as much, you know. But having someone that I trust in the organization that knows this is coming, they've heard or whatever, and I can kind of talk them through it, helps me more.

[Audience Member]:

Hi, thank you for answering our questions. So as the CEO, you probably need to perform at a certain level every time because of the demands of your job. I was wondering on a personal level and from a health perspective, how do you... What are some of the things that you do? Maybe you try to have a certain amount of sleep, the number of hours of sleep per night, or, you know. What are some of the tips you could give us maybe? Perhaps you've worked with some health experts.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's perhaps an unexpected question posed during a Q&A session, Doug, that particular one with the CEO of a major company, how do you feel about hosting a Q&A after delivering difficult news? How tough is it to make that transition from difficult news into this open warfare with Q&A?

Doug Charles:

Sometimes in Q&A, to your point, they can go way off kilter, as it relates to what that personal curiosity is, and you have 1,999 people that don't care about that particular answer. What I have done in the past and will continue to do is you put a little buffer between the discussion and Q&A. And that allows the people that really have a question, I want to understand, I did not comprehend, I did not get my answer from that last call to have this. So, I'm not suggesting a week-long, but if you could... You know, if you're delivering bad news in the morning and you want to have a Q&A session in the afternoon, or if you want to have a Q&A session the following morning, I think that's smart. It works well.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's good. So, Doug, let's save this for the second half, but I am interested to know, why there's any bad news to share at all? Things seem to be looking up as we entered the new year. So, what's changed? More on this after the break.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

Hi, and welcome to the break. I'm Rupak Bhattacharya, and here's a quick look at what else is happening in business from Korn Ferry's "This Week in Leadership."

[David Rubenstein]:

For next year, are you optimistic about the global economy or pessimistic?

Rupak Bhattacharya:

In one survey, over half of CEOs say they expect economic conditions to worsen in the first half of 2024. This is in sharp contrast to the investors supporting them, with 94% expecting things to improve in the near term. Experts say this mismatch is caused by wary leaders still recovering from the shocks of the past few years, while investors focus on more recent positive news regarding inflation and the economy.

[Speaker 1]:

Obesity in America, it's something we don't like talking about, but it's hard to ignore.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

Americans are even unhealthier than they were just before the pandemic, according to a new Gallup poll. Nearly 14% are diabetic and 38% are obese, up 6% from 2019. Experts say that firms need to pay attention because not only does this data foretell rising healthcare costs, but also healthy employees make for more engaged and effective employees.

[Speaker 2]:

It's official. The auto market bubble has popped.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

US automakers experienced a strong rebound in sales last year, but experts expect that car purchases will level off in 2024. Market research firm Edmunds predicts that car makers will sell 15.7 million vehicles this year, which is only a slight increase from last year's 15.5 million, when sales increased a whopping 12%. Experts say persistently high interest rates and high vehicle prices are to blame for the current slowdown. For more insights on business and leadership, head to kornferry.com/insights. Now, back to Jill and our episode.

[David Rubenstein]:

Are you optimistic about the global economy or pessimistic?

[Ray]:

Pessimistic. The real issue, I think, is how we deal with each other. It was said earlier, very well, you know, peace. If we can keep the peace, if we can have a healthy, competitive environment without having a war with each other, we will be in good shape, we will make adaptations.

Jill Wiltfong:

We're back and we're speaking with Doug Charles, Korn Ferry's President of the Americas. Doug that was hedge fund manager Ray Dalio speaking. He mentioned being pessimistic about the economy, and he's definitely not alone among leaders, but at the end of last year, the tide seemed to be turning upward. Was that just the holiday cheer? Like, what happened? Because once again, we see a number of leaders predicting the worst.

Doug Charles:

No one likes uncertainty, and everybody comes to that and that's the easy answer. I think what you're seeing as well is correction, and that's different than uncertainty. And what you're seeing a lot with a lot of companies right now is they know the pendulum swung very far. The demand is not what it used to be so we can't rely on that kind of demand. So, managers are all about forecasting and predicting the future and aligning the resources in the organization to achieve, you know, what that crystal ball's telling them. So, people's crystal balls right now are cloudy.

Jill Wiltfong:

Yeah, for sure. So, if there is more difficult news to deliver, and certainly there's always, right, periods where you've got to balance that. We talked a lot about meetings in person, one-on-ones, big meetings, is it ever right to send a memo?

Doug Charles:

I wouldn't. I mean, so to answer the question, "Is it ever right to send a memo?" You know, memos get moved, memos get forwarded, memos get no context. You and I could have been having a conversation and you pick up on something at one point in time and say, "Okay, I know where Doug's going with this." But the other person that maybe reading it and say, "Can you believe Doug said this?" It's like, "Wait, I don't have all that context of what his explanations were." I think in this period of Zoom, I've always tried to do the, "Hey, I'm going to have a call. I'm going to have a discussion." Or at least people can see me. Going back to your comment earlier about, you know, the style or the approach that you have, I lose all of that in a memo. You know, me sitting back and saying, "I have really bad information to share. You know, talk to you on Friday at five." That means from now to Friday at five, there's a lot of speculation going on and a lot of you know, non-useful time spent in the organization.

Jill Wiltfong:

So, look, I don't just want to end on bad news because there's a lot of good news to share too. Any common missteps people have with getting good news across that you've seen happen?

Doug Charles:

Be appreciative. You know, be appreciative to someone that you're delivering, "Hey, I know what you put into this, to earn this, and I want to recognize, you know, your contributions." So, I think probably the leading practice is, don't just be so focused on the dollar or the promotion or whatever the good news is, remind them why they were selected for this. Reinforce to them, you know, the positivity. That some you try to do that says, "Hey, you know, there's not a lot of people in this organization receiving the news I'm telling you today, and we're telling you this news is because we have that kind of faith and commitment in you, your leadership, your style, that you're the type of person that's worth investing in." I think those words are important, you know, that people feel appreciated.

Jill Wiltfong:

Yeah, and maybe that's the note, right? Just don't forget to share the good news. Find moments to talk about the good. All right, well, Doug, thanks again for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Doug Charles:

Yeah, happy to be here.

Jill Wiltfong:

The Executive Producer of "Briefings" is Jonathan Dahl. Today's episode was produced by Rupak Bhattacharya, Nadira Putri, and Teresa Allan, and edited by Jaron Henrie-McCrea. It contains reporting by Russell Pearlman, Arianne Cohen, and Peter Lauria.

Our video segment contains original artwork by Frazer Milton, Hayley Kennell, Jonathan Pink, and Sasha Kostyuk.

Don't forget to read our magazine, available at newsstands and at kornferry.com/briefings. That's it for Korn Ferry's "Briefings". I'm Jill Wiltfong. We'll see you next time.

Doug Charles:

You told me I should say this, I got some bad news for you. So, there you go.

Jill Wiltfong:

Oh, is this how I'm going to get fired today?