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Delivering Unfavourable News
Chapter Overview
This chapter explores the special demands of communicating information that is unfavourable to receivers. You’ll revisit two standard writing plans that can be adapted and applied to communicate negative information while neutralizing its emotional impact and being respectful of receivers’ needs. You’ll be introduced to considerations for word choice, style, and tone that make a refusal, a denial, or an announcement of negative information easier for readers to accept. You’ll also learn how and when to apologize, and you’ll discover that sharing unfavourable news need not threaten business relationships.
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn to do the following:
- Identify the special demands and characteristics of bad news messages.
- Apply direct and indirect writing plans for bad news messages.
- Organize bad news messages with a direct plan.
- Organize bad news messages with an indirect plan: writing buffers, citing reasons, and de-emphasizing the bad news.
- Politely refuse requests, claims, and credit; turn down job applicants; announce bad news to employees; and decline invitations.