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I'll be showing you how to communicate bad news on this week's episode of MasterTalk. Register for one of my FREE communication trainings: https://www.rockstarcommunicator.com/

1. Use empathy to communicate your bad news in a short and firm way. (0:59)

When I was younger and I was the head of a competition program in my university, I had to say no to so many people since very few of them actually made it. One person in particular was a nightmare. I felt really bad about saying no so I wanted to provide feedback because I thought that she wanted it to get in next year, and boy did it go wrong. She debated me on the feedback and then I got mad and then she started crying, and I just didn’t know how to handle the situation, I obviously apologized later for my poor leadership skills there, but the bigger lesson here is that every time I communicated bad news in the future, I just said what the news was, kept it short, and listened to their emotions without changing the decision or giving them feedback.

Remember everyone this is a decision, not a debate. Bad news is such a shock to people that they don’t want to know how to do better in most cases, at the very least, they’re looking for someone who understands what they’re going through and that’s pretty much it. So many of us in our relationships, in our communities, when we hear bad news, whether it’s not getting onto a competition team or much worse, a lot of people are just looking for a listening ear to just sit there next to you, while most of us want to help them find the perfect solution, and it doesn’t work.

2. Use lower vocal tones with a gentle twist when communicating bad news. (2:47)

You can imagine that when you’re communicating bad news, chances are that you’re not suppose to do it enthusiastically, you’re supposed to do it calmly and gently. I used to never do this and would get so much backlash about being distant or cold, and the way you fix this has nothing to do with your personality since most of us know what empathy is, which is putting ourselves in somebody else’s shoes, but saying OK, this person might not want to look at the positives of this bad news right now, so let’s not try to reframe this person’s mind and give them a class on how to control their mind, let’s just sit there in silence and answer questions that we can in a gentle, calm way with lower vocal tones, simple as that.

When you talk about anything in general, you usually adapt your vocal tones to the situation. If someone is really loud, you increase your vocal tones to go hey, I understand you vice versa, but when you communicate bad news, you should never mirror the other person’s emotions because mirroring someone’s rollercoaster of emotions can be extremely damaging which is a mistake, I of course, made in the past, so keep it gentle and consistent during the entire conversation.

3. Reflect on the bad news that you’re giving & ask yourself if it’s even worth it long run. (4:40)

This is more life advice, and I’m no expert here, but something that helped me a lot to get through a lot of the bad news I communicate all the time, whether it’s saying no to a podcast or a speaking engagement or saying no to someone asking me for my time or the competition program I used to be apart of, I spend a lot of time reflecting on whether the bad news is worth delivering or not in the context of what I’m doing. For example, if your goal in life is to be a doctor, before you waste 10 years of your life, going through medical school, you should spend some time in a hospital just observing other doctors, is that what you truly want to do with your WHOLE life?

As always, if you enjoyed this week’s episode of MasterTalk, be sure to SMASH that LIKE button and SUBSCRIBE to the YouTube channel as well to see more videos like this and if you know one person who got some bad news recently or needs to communicate it, send them this video so that they’ll be one step closer to doing it right, take care everyone.

For business or public speaking coaching inquiries, you can reach me at [email protected].

Special thanks to Maison Leporem for letting me use the space.
https://maisonleporem.com/