No News Is Bad News

  ProjectsAtWork  

Do you or your peer and superiors shoot the messenger who brings bad news? If so, you can be certain that the messenger’s priority is not bringing you the information you need: It’s protecting their hide. That’s why in most organizations good news zooms to the top, while bad news — data that reveals goals missed, problems lurking, or feedback that challenges or defeats our strategy — flows uphill like molasses in January.

Strong project leaders understand this reality. To combat it they work hard to build a primary and insatiable demand for the unvarnished facts, the raw data, the actual measurements, the honest feedback, the real information.

We must install a confidence and a trust that leaders in the organization value the facts, the truth, and the speed of delivery, not the judgments or interpretations of “good” or “bad,” and that messengers are valued, not shot. If we can do this then the entire behavior pattern of performance information flow will change for the better.

And this will improve the speed and accuracy of the information you need most to make difficult or complex decisions.

This is excerpted from “Have You Earned the Right to Lead?” by John Hamm.

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