This is Stevea Robbins.

Welcome to the Get It Done guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

We all hate to be the bearer of bad news.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They say don't kill the messenger, but just because they say it doesn't mean that we want to be the ones to test the theory.

And yet one of the most important skills to have is precisely that, the ability

to be the bearer of bad news. Bad news is, unfortunately, more common than good news. If you're

working in a large business, whatever you do involves coordinating people inside the company,

along with people, events, and organizations outside the company. We're talking thousands of elements that all have to sync up to get the job done.

A product launch, for example, has design and printing deadlines, press releases, interviews

to be given, articles to be written presentations at trade shows, product development,

product manufacturer, customer outreach, industry outreach, trade show presents,

and of course, Oreo ice cream cake for the launch party.

The chances are very, very small of any one particular person or department screwing up.

Maybe, I don't know, 1%.

But if there are 500 internal deadlines handoffs, people, and processes involved, not to mention

Oreo ice cream cakes, then you can expect five things, which is 1% of 500,

to go wrong. And when they do go wrong, they're almost certainly going to cause problems,

because let's face it, how often does something accidentally end up ahead of schedule

using less money and producing higher quality? Accidentally, never. And when things do start

to unravel, you may be the one who has to say something.

Start with your voice tone. When reporting bad news, your voice tone matters a lot. The emotion in

...