Bring me surprises!

Are you guilty of telling your team you don’t want bad news? Or worse still, no surprises?

Can you imagine how that might have played out with the recent events in the news? The IT glitch at RBS. The billing problem at nPower.

The CEO finds out when a journalist calls him… Oh dear, you can just see it now!

So clearly, you do want bad news, because you can’t deal with it, if you don’t know about it.

However, if we look at the wider implications, what message are you giving your staff? That it is better to sweep it under the carpet rather than ‘fess up’? That you can’t handle bad news?

Let’s face it – neither of those messages is going to impress your team.

If you want to be respected, and seen as a good manager, you need to be able to handle the problems as well as the good bits.

How you handle those challenges – no shouting and no dishing out blame – is how you will be measured.

So are you sure you don’t want bad news? I say bring on the surprises!

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