Galactic Activity 13

Deliver difficult news with the appropriate demeanour, care, and seriousness with respect to the topic.

Activity 13 – Delivering News in a Difficult Situation

Duration: 2 mins
Applicable Streams: Personal challenge, Leadership, Learning & Development, Workplace skills, Education, Meeting Skills

Aim

In this activity you are aiming to:

Deliver a structured speech for a specific workplace situation where bad news needs to be delivered

Objectives

To do this, you will need to keep the following objectives in mind:

  1. Foreshadow the bad news.
  2. Explain what has happened and why.
  3. Explain the consequences or how things will look moving forward.
  4. Offer support.

The Why…

Situations arise where you will need to deliver bad news. This Activity gives you the opportunity to practise that.

I​n the workplace, this may look like informing people about

  • a death in the workplace,
  • a colleague who has been seriously injured, or
  • a whole department being retrenched.

This is NOT a humorous activity or one to be taken lightly or made fun of. It’s providing an opportunity to do something that hopefully you’ll never have to do, and also providing experience for other members should they have to deliver similar news in the future.

Where do I start?

  • Think about the worst case scenarios for news that you might need to tell others about at work.
  • It could be something that happened previously and the news was delivered badly – how would you deliver that news if you had the chance to do it again?
  • Follow the HOW TO instructions above, and rehearse giving the speech to yourself.
  • Soften the dialogue as much as possible without being trite, and remember to always offer support or follow up for whoever needs it.

The How

Specific guidelines on how to tackle this activity.

  • Foreshadow the bad news (I’m sorry, but I have some news that isn’t particularly pleasant’) – be clear from the outset that the news isn’t good.
  • Describe what has happened in clear, straightforward language.
  • Describe the reasons, or context in which it has happened.
  • Explain what will happen moving forward and whether there are options that need to be discussed or decided on.
  • Provide support as necessary.
  • Unless you want a specific challenge, this is NOT intended to be a role play situation with a live audience.

Variations:

  1. Make the news about yourself.
  2. CHALLENGE: Field questions from the audience. In this case the Chair needs to ensure that the questions are realistic, possible and not frivolous.

Tips and traps

TRAPS:

  • Using too much medical jargon, euphemisms or cliches.
  • Prattling on to fill up the time or awkward silence.
  • Trying to make light of the situation, or focusing too much on the ‘silver linings’.

TIPS:

  • When you’re speaking you should be frank, but also show compassion.
  • Allow some pauses, which allow the listeners time to digest what you’ve said.

Guidelines for Program Director:

Ensure everyone understands this is NOT humorous or frivolous – it’s practice in doing something that is VERY difficult and that you’ll hopefully never have to do.