On 10th April 1912 The White Star Line launched the RMS Titanic from Southampton. It was the largest ship afloat at the time and was supposedly unsinkable. 5 days into her maiden voyage to New York, she struck an iceberg. It was the early hours of the morning with many of the passengers below decks in their cabins. The Titanic had enough lifeboats for a little over half the people on board.
It was the worst peacetime maritime disaster the world had ever seen with the loss of over 1,500 lives.
The disaster was most recently immortalised in James Cameron's 1997 movie, Titanic. Until 2009 it was the highest grossing film in history and won 11 Oscars.
It lost it's title as the highest grossing film in history to another James Cameron film, Avatar.
There is a particular scene in the movie, that is based on the reportedly historically accurate account that the Captain sent the orchestra onto the deck to play some cheerful music to stop the passengers from panicking as the ship was sinking.
This is a classic example of focusing your energies in the wrong place when faced with impending doom.
Even as the ship sinks and the orchestra starts to slide along the deck they are still playing. A futile act and an unnecessary loss of life.
Sometimes it comes to the point where you just have to admit defeat and walk away with your pride intact.
I'd rather be on the lifeboat than sliding towards oblivion (Tweet this)
We all face challenges in our lives and have to make hard choices. We all make mistakes, it's part of being human. Bad news is a fact of life and we can deliver it to others and face it ourselves in different ways.
The trick is to learn from our mistakes and to find the positives in every bad situation.
Sometimes we have to take ourselves to the edge of the abyss before we realise that we need to make a change (Tweet this)
With every change, there is always opportunity (Tweet this)
Here's my take on 6 bad ways to deliver bad news:
1) Text Message
If you need to tell someone something bad, say it to their face. Avoiding them makes you look cowardly and unprofessional. Man up!
2) Blaming and scapegoating
Take responsibility for yourself and your own actions. Stop finding someone to blame. Often, there is no one person at fault, the majority of disasters are a result of a serious of unfortunately timed systematic failures.
The media are brilliant at this - 'trial by newspaper' has seen the end of countless political and celebrity careers.
3) Radio Silence
Not telling people is much worse than telling them. At least if people know they can act accordingly. A small business trying to cover up bad news lets everyone involved down. It erodes the trust of customers, staff and anyone else with a stake in the business. Your reputation will be in tatters if you lose the trust of those associated with you. No one has the right to remove other people's freedom to act.
4) Being blasé about it
"Oh well, never mind," does not tackle the problems that got you in that mess in the first place. You run the risk of making the same, or worse mistakes in the future.
5) Denial
Pretending it isn't happening is asking for trouble. Mistakes should be learned from, not ignored or dismissed.
6) Too much sugar
The blow of bad news can be softened by packaging it with good news, however, too much sugar coating can diminish the message to the point that it is not taken seriously by the recipient.
There's a saying 'you can't polish a turd'.
Mythbusters proved that you can polish a turd - but the fact remains, however much you polish it, it's still just a ball of shit.
When you've had to deliver bad news,
how have you handled it?
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