How good are you at delivering bad news?

Hi !!

How good are you at delivering bad news ?

If you’re in any medical profession, you’ll probably have to do this often, and it doesn’t always get easier.

Last week I had to call an owner in the morning to say I had made the decision to put their dog to sleep overnight. The owners hadn’t had any of their phones switched on, and the dog was suffering at the hospital, so I really had no choice, but still, it was a tough one!

I have to prepare myself for calls like that, breathe and stop for a second. When the owners picked up, I explained what had happened, as gently as possible, and then waited for their reaction.

And right there, that is what we worry about when we have to tell someone something we assume they’ll take badly: how are they going to react?

It could be something much less dramatic, like telling our friend we can’t come to their wedding. Or tell a customer we don’t have something (important to them) in stock. Or tell our partner we scratched the car.

At the core of our worry having to deliver these news, what it really is about is: What do I make it mean about myself if people get upset or mad?

It is as if, being the messenger delivering these news, and sometimes being the responsible for what has happened, we are also responsible for the receiver’s feelings. And coming from that, what they might say to us, or do, that will in return make US feel bad. So we desperately rehearse what we’re going to say, and when (IF we tell them at all!), trying in vain to control how they may react.

As you might know by now, if you’ve followed me for a while, it is impossible to control other people's feelings. THEIR feelings will come from whatever their thoughts are, and as much as you might know the person you’re about to deliver the bad news to, you can’t know for sure what they’re going to think about it.

If you’re calling a client you might not even have met before, you can imagine how impossible it is to control their reaction in any way or form.

So stressing out over it gives you zero reward.

What you WANT to do is check in with yourself and decide how you want to deliver the message in a way you can stand up for.

For me that means being honest, and if an apology is owed, deliver it at the same time.

And then STOP talking, and let the message sink in.

Don’t try to control what the person at the other end may think about you by coming up with all the why’s and blaming others.

Also decide ahead of time how you want to protect yourself if they blow up and get angry or upset at you.

Realise it really has less to do with you, than with the upsetting news they just had.

You can decide beforehand what you’ll do if they get abusive: “I’m sorry you feel that way, I can see/hear you’re really upset, I’m going to give you some time to process it and call you later”.

Decide what you want to think about yourself if you have messed up and they are likely to start blaming you. Are you ashamed because you failed at something? How can you feel that for a little while and know that it will go away, and that it’s normal to feel like that when we fail? (Not that I’ve ever scratched a car so I wouldn’t know how that feels, ahem!)

It’s easy to get reactive when the emotions are riding high, and wanting to lash back at the other person. It’s important though, to let them have their feelings and let them work through them, and not try to change that, because 1) you can’t, and 2) they might think you’re trying to gaslight them.

So, to sum it up, before a difficult phone call or coming home and deliver some bad news:

• Take a breath and think about how you want to show up, for you
• Don’t try to control how the other person is going to react.
• Let them have their feelings, and realise it’s not about you, but the news you delivered
• Decide beforehand how you want to react if they get abusive.
• Decide beforehand what you’re going to think about yourself.

If you frequently freak out over situations like this, and you don’t know how to handle them, coaching might be a right fit for you. In coaching, you learn how to be more aware of how you’re thinking and feeling, so you can be proactive and not react like a rabbit in the headlights. You won’t let other people’s reactions affect you so much, because you’ll be so much better at setting inner boundaries, and accept people can be who they are, and what they say doesn’t mean anything about you as a person.

In your corner,

P.S: Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like a 50 min free consult. where we can look at this for you, and decide how you can make some everlasting changes to the way you deal with other people.