Bad news isn't always bad
Dick Richards of Come Gather Round gives an example of why he suggests Don't Shield Them From Distress: An Example and closes with a great comment:
... don't expect that telling the truth alone will be enough to initiate change: expect instead that witholding distressing truths may render change impossible.
Interesting. If you don't provide people with your assessment, then they will never know how you truly view their contributions. And without that information, how can they possibly know whether they are moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?
Jack, I like the entry and it made me think of a book i am reading, "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas E. Ricks.
I can't help reading the book for the "information connections". I am also looking for organizational foul-ups which may have contributed to people at the top making decisions based on either the "wrong" information or based on interpretation of data and events through a particular filter.
According to Ricks's book, throughout the post-invasion period the "bad news" was often filtered out as it made its way to the top decision makers in the Pentagon. I think we might try to extend Dick Richards' ideas of telling the truth to include advice or techniques non-management types can follow to get the 'bad news' to decision makers. This is often very hard work as it takes, sometimes, a lot of research and argument to convince a manager that his interpretation of an event is not complete.