Don't Be A Disaster News Reporter

We frequently see TV reporters interviewing victims of unspeakable tragedy.  Inevitably, the reporter will ask the victim how they feel about the situation.  What a stupid question.  Of course the victim feels terrible. It is an attempt by the reporters and the audience to pry into another person's inner thoughts for less than noble purposes.

Don't do this to your employees.

Part of the management gig is that you will occasionally have to deliver bad news to an employee.  Don't deliver an adverse decision to an employee and then ask them how they feel about it.  They feel like crap.  Do you want them to lie and pretend everything is OK, or do you want them to tell the truth and brand them as a whiner?

If you're any kind of manager, you will know how they feel.  No one delivers good news and asks how you feel about it.  "I'm giving you a 50% raise!  How do you feel about that?"

The way to mitigate these issues is to build trust and communication in advance.  Two good posts on this topic are You're Not Listening by Rands and A Good Place to Work by Ben Horowitz.

Spoiler alert: If they don’t trust you, they aren’t going to say shit.