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Showing posts from November 5, 2013

A Manager's Decision: Tell the Good News or the Bad News First?

You're the owner of a business, and you have the unpleasant task of firing an employee or terminating the contract of a supplier.  How do you do this? Tell them the bad news first?  Tell them the good news first?  Or do you construct what is known as a bad news sandwich by telling the recipient good news then the bad news then more good news? It's complicated According to researchers at the University of California, Riverside, it's complicated.  The process of giving or getting bad news is difficult for most people, particularly when news-givers feel unsure about how to proceed with the conversation, psychologists Angela M. Legg and Kate Sweeny write in "Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News First? The Nature and Consequences of News Order Preferences." "The difficulty of delivering bad news has inspired extensive popular media articles that prescribe 'best' practices for giving bad news, but these prescriptions remain largely anecdotal