When do entrepreneurs typically have to break bad news?
If they’re a manufacturer, they might have to tell their customers that the product they make is going to be three months late. If they have investors or employees, they may have to inform them that the company missed its revenue targets or suffered a loss. As company owners, we sometimes have to tell clients that one of our employees acted poorly and caused a problem with the account. Even on a personal level, you may have to tell someone you lost their records, or you forgot to get back to them. So this happens not just in business-to-business relationships, but also in business-to-consumer and employer-to-employee relationships. Q: Is there a distinction between delivering bad news that results from something out of your control vs. bad news that’s your fault? A: In either situation, if the bad news is something that the people on the other end will find out anyway, you must communicate it honestly. And if it’s your fault, it’s the right thing to own up and accept responsibility. In
