Delivering Bad News Tactfully
& Effectively
Tashiba Summerour
Scott
COM480: Communication
Studies Capstone (BCL1419A)
Instructor: Dan Tinianow
May 26, 2014
Delivering Bad News
Tactfully & Effectively
Anyone who has worked as
a manager or team rep can understand this scenario and it’s a tough one to deal
with. Delivering bad news is never easy for anyone who has a sense of empathy;
these situations at times can cause the person that has to deliver this bad
news more discomfort than the person on the other end or receiver of
information. It’s important to have all of your facts in place about this employee;
it may be helpful to practice what you want to say or how you plan to handle
this person being upset from stepping in the door.” When planning your message,
you can't avoid the fact that your audience does not want to hear what you have
to say. To minimize the damage to business relationships and to encourage the acceptance
of your message, analyze the situation carefully to better understand the
context in which the recipient will process your message”. (http://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/)
The way I would approach this employee would be with
caution hearing that they have already had confrontational moments on the job.
First thing meet this person with a smile and good energy to let them see and feel
that this isn’t a moment about browbeating them about what everyone has been
talking about. Ask them about how works has been for them, if they have any
concerns or complaints this is the opening to the conversation listening to
their side can give more detail on how to deal with this employee.
“A way of confronting others in conflict situations,
assertive communication is defined as the ability to speak up for one’s
interests, concerns, or rights in a way that does not interfere with the
interests or infringes on the rights of others. Of course this also means that
one must allow the others to communicate their own feelings, beliefs, and
desires. Assertiveness is seen as a middle ground between no assertiveness,
which is failing to stand up for your personal rights or doing so in a
dysfunctional way, and aggressiveness, which is standing up for your personal
rights without regard for others”. (Abigail, 2011).
Now that we have
established that this conversation is about work and productivity we then would
need to talk about policy and what is required. The fact that this employee has
the reputation for being confrontational and has changed the atmosphere at work
means that if they are going to stay on they may need additional training on
how to deal with conflict resolution and many jobs offer this with ethics, or workplace
sensitivity training. “Sensitivity training and its close cousins (diversity
training, respect work shopping, etc.) are all recent inventions. But they've
become the standard response to offensive public utterances. Such training is
regularly mandated by human-rights tribunals and by legal settlements in
discrimination and harassment cases”. (Preville, 2001).
The employee’s response
I would assume is going to detail how others maybe the cause of the
confrontations and that they have been sabotaging his/her efforts when it comes
to the customers and service support. This is when the manger has an obligation
again to show the employee why they were hired and show them that it has been
on them to do a better job when it comes to communicating to the customers and
that the company has a standard that hasn’t been kept by them and this is why
they need to be on probation for the next ninety days. When the employee leaves
my office they will have a clear understanding as to what the issues are and
that they have time to change and get with the program or they will need to
prepare for more serious steps dealing with their future at business.
Conflict resolution
techniques: Identify the source of the conflict, look beyond the incident, request
solutions, and identify solutions both disputants can support and agreement. (amanet.org).
Although there are several places or ways in which people feel they can handle
conflict it is important to have the proper skills for a more successful outcome.
“The S-TLC system is an acronym for
Stop, Think, Listen, and Communicate. We use the hyphen in S-TLC to help you
recall the system because we all need a little TLC in our lives”. (Abigail,
2011). This has been a game changer and can effectively help one navigate through
delivering bad news in a more tactful way it may not be easy at first but will
get better with time.
Reference
(http://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/)
Using The-Three Step Process for Writing Bad News
(Abigail, 2011). Managing Conflict through Communication /Ruth Anna
Abigail, Dudley D. Cahn.—4th ed.
(Preville, 2001). What exactly is sensitivity training? ProQuest
(amanet.org). The Five Steps to Conflict Resolution
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