How to Communicate a Policy You Know Will be Unpopular

Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news. That being said, it should be a requirement for anyone that finds themselves in a leadership role to finely hone the art of communicating such news.

We've all seen the cringeworthy gaffes of situations such as the Better.com layoffs. Still others think it's ok to simply send a cold hearted email to deliver the bad news, somehow thinking they can offload the dirty work and leave it to email.

Let's face the facts: you're not getting off the hook that easy. Before you start bothering ChatGPT for prompts to outsource your humanity, let's cover a few key points on how to handle negative situations in a more graceful fashion:

Let's look at a few tips inside an organization:

1 - Get. To. The. Point.

If you were being laid off, would you want a long, unnecessary meeting? Keeping things brief and honest can diffuse a lot of anger, delivering things honestly and in a more respectable fashion. 

The popular movie Moneyball has a great scene played by Brad Pitt when he is showing his assistant how to let people go: (link)

2 - Return to Work: One Size Does Not Fit All

If you hired people before and during the pandemic, chances are you were fairly flexible when it came to remote work. So why are you making coming back to the office mandatory? Even worse, what if you hired people that were so far away from your offices that you're putting them in awkward positions.

Returning to the office may be needed for certain types of companies and roles, but for everyone? No way. Offices shouldn't be adult babysitting. If you don't trust your employees, that's a problem.

If you need people in the office, be direct and communicate this one on one, but often the world isn't black and white. While I believe that most "work life balance" mantras don't usually live up to their ideals, many of us have become more used to remote or at least hybrid work.

The more you offer remote and flexible work, chances are you'll have a motivated workforce on your side.

3 - Get Rid of Meetings.

Yes, you heard me. If we're already on the subject of no longer wasting people's time with costly (time, focus, mental, money) commutes and artificial environments, it's time to drop the all-hands power play meetings. You know the kind: do you really need that daily standing meeting where everyone barely contributes? Respecting a flexible work environment also should get tons of these meetings off of everyone's calendar. Try canceling the next one and see if you actually lose anything in the process. If anything, you can use a digital engagement platform to allow you to have a persistent campus instead of endless meetings.

How it works with outside communications:

Netflix has been making waves when it comes to their password crackdown announcement. 

In a newsroom communication called An Update on Sharing, Netflix explained that there would be changes in family sharing where people need to access the home account wifi at least once in a while. 

While you can imagine that this was a hugely unpopular move, considering the relative cost of your monthly Netflix bill and the increasing costs it takes to keep a streaming platform that's one of the largest pieces of internet traffic on a daily basis, can you really blame them?

Chances are, you pay more per month in coffee, restaurants, and other wants, not needs. Netflix is simply seeing that many people have been taking advantage of their platform by sharing, and you're just upset that you're not getting away with it anymore.

In the same announcement, Netflix mentioned that over 100 million households are sharing accounts, so a great deal of Netflix's revenue is on the line.

Don’t be afraid to give negative feedback.  Do you want a situation to improve without addressing the problem? The world is moving too fast for avoidance tactics.