I will never forget the day that my VP sent out a revised vacation policy to the leadership staff at the hospital.  Nurses can roll with the punches most days, but DO NOT mess with their time off!  The buildup to the next day’s emergency leadership meeting was like a tidal wave growing in angry, destructive power as it roared toward the beach – and when it was 15 minutes from striking my boss called in sick.  Guess who got to facilitate the meeting?

I had little time to panic before I faced the mob.  My mouth was dry, stomach queasy, more than a little shaky in the knees as I walked to the conference room.  But I was able to hear an inner voice telling me:

 Don’t Let Them See You Sweat

I decided that my best approach would be to stay calm, stay focused, and control my emotions in the face of the crowd’s fury.  I walked in, went directly to the front of the room, stood and faced them, and launched the meeting with my authoritative speaking voice.  You may not feel confident but you have to sound like you are.  And remember that’s confident, not cocky. 

 Acknowledge Their Pain – Avoid Sugarcoating It  

That meeting did not end with “and they all lived happily ever after”.  The supervisors were still ticked off, but not as ready to tar and feather me at the end as they were at the start.  It helped that I acknowledged their pain.  After all, in their eyes I was the cause of it! 

I incorporated that lesson into a recent meeting with union retirees about the steep increase in their medical coverage cost.  Your audience will never believe that you fully understand the impact of the bad news you are delivering.  You can’t – you are not one of them.  Still, if it’s bad news don’t beat around the bush.  State the situation and the facts that led up to it as plainly as possible.  Tell them that you know it is not pleasant for them and that they may have a hard time with it.  Allow them to ask questions.  Commit to getting back to them with answers you don’t have at the time, and then honor your commitment.  Be honest – do not promise anything you cannot or will not deliver.

Stay Focused on the Message  

A bad news meeting will turn into a free-for-all if you let it.  Keep your message focused and use your best meeting management skills to keep the audience on track.  Anticipate some likely questions and prepare concise answers to them.  Don’t hesitate to defer questions that are off topic to the end of the session or to a future meeting.  Encourage general questions but defer questions about individual issues to the end of the meeting or to a one-on-one session afterward.  Do not allow more than one question at a time.  Speak loudly and clearly – use a microphone if you need it.  This is no time for a mousy attitude!  Stand your ground.  If audience members begin shouting, ask them in your firm voice to calm down so that you can continue the meeting, or to kindly leave so that you can proceed.  I have never had to walk out of a meeting that I was facilitating – but would not hesitate to do so if I felt it necessary.

 What are They Going to do – Cook You and Eat You?

A couple of years ago I was preparing to facilitate an intense series of employee benefits meetings at which I was introducing a new, radically different benefits program to an employee audience that had not seen any benefit changes for about 20 years.  There had been prior written communication, I felt very prepared, and had solid support from the executive team.  The boat started rocking when I was asked to have the first meetings at the plant where employees were notorious for being “difficult”.  For several days before the meetings, people stopped me in the halls of the corporate office just to say “I can’t believe you are going to ___ for the first meeting!  Are you crazy?”  “Good luck – you’ll need it!” “Where should we send your remains – if there are any?”

I laughed it off until I found out that the business unit President and ALL of the VPs were planning to attend the meeting – at 5:30 a.m.!  Panic started to set in.  I barely slept the night before.  I reviewed my notes obsessively.  I wrote my will.  When I arrived for the meeting – 30 minutes early – all of the execs were lined up at the back of the room staring at me.  Now I knew what it was like to face a firing squad. 

The meeting started and – everything was fine.  The pre-meeting preparation boosted my confidence and the employees, while not thoroughly delighted with the entire message, were very receptive.  The President and VPs were shaking my hand and patting me on the back.  I lost all that sleep for nothing!

The moral of the story is, do not assume that a “bad news meeting” will result in your public execution.  After all, the audience will not cook you and eat you!