Jonathan watched in horror as Patricia shredded Dave's career. Sure, Dave had just given the Board the bad news — the earliest possible ship was now six months later than promised. But it wasn't Dave's fault alone, and he shouldn't suffer for it. Still, Patricia's behavior was no surprise. Jonathan and Dave had discussed this possibility over scones and coffee in his office just this morning.
As he watched now, Jonathan vowed that he would never do what Dave had just done — hand the hangman the noose to hang him with.
Have you ever watched a career being shredded? Jonathan's was a typical reaction. He decided that he would avoid the trap that snared Dave, by never revealing anything that Patricia could use to harm him. A typical reaction, and, I believe, an appropriate one. If you work for someone who kills messengers who bring bad news, always deliver good news — or no news at all.
That's the problem with killing the messenger. If you're a manager in a project-oriented organization, you need to know the full, unvarnished truth. When you kill a messenger, you demonstrate what happens to those who deliver unpleasant Truth, and you deliver a message of your own: Tell me the truth at your peril.
If you've bagged a messenger now and then, can you believe the reports you receive from people in your organization? Are they truthful? Are they complete? Or are they perhaps skewed toward the positive?
If you've bagged a messenger
now and then, can you believe
the reports you receive from
people in your organization?And what of those who still dare to report bad news, despite having watched you finish off several messengers in the past couple of months? Don't they get it? Don't you doubt their sanity? Can you trust their reports? Killing messengers has such predictable results that you have to question any report you receive. When people have to put their careers on the line whenever they open their mouths, it's more difficult to trust what comes out — good news or bad.
But what about the project managers who've really messed up their projects and who then report the bad news? You might ask, "Can't I kill them?" Nope. Not even them. People watching your actions might not realize that you're acting on the basis of performance, rather than killing a messenger. If you must, reassign poor performers — don't destroy their careers. After time has passed, and they aren't in messenger roles, you can take other action without putting at risk your access to Truth.
In a project-oriented organization, Truth is your most important asset. You must have free access to the Truth. Killing messengers drives Truth underground. Never, ever, kill the messenger. Top Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
For a connection between killing the messenger and Virginia Satir's Five Freedoms, see "Ethical Influence: I," Point Lookout for July 4, 2007.
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Related articles
More articles on Emotions at Work:
- Coping with Problems
- How we cope with problems is a choice. When we choose our coping style, we help determine our ability
to address the problems we face. Of eight styles we can identify, only one is universally constructive,
and we rarely use it.
- Totally at Home
- Getting home from work is far more than a question of transportation. What can we do to come home totally
— to move not only our bodies, but our minds and our spirits from work to home?
- The Loopy Things We Do at Work
- At the end of the day, your skill at finding humor inside the dull and ordinary can make the difference
between going home exhausted and going home in a strait jacket. Adopting a twisted view of the goings-on
might just help keep you untwisted.
- Self-Serving Bias in Organizations
- We all want to believe that we can rely on the good judgment of decision makers when they make decisions
that affect organizational performance. But they're human, and they are therefore subject to a cognitive
bias known as self-serving bias. Here's a look at what can happen.
- A Review of Performance Reviews: Blindsiding
- Ever learn of a complaint about you for the first time at your performance review? If so, you were blindsided.
Reviews can be painful. Here are some guidelines for making them a little fairer.
See also Emotions at Work for more related articles.
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- And on May 8: Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: 3
- Recognizing just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can reduce the incidence of problems. Here is Part 3 of a collection of antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure, emphasizing past experiences of participants. Available here and by RSS on May 8.
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