Bad news gets edited on the way up

The Monday pack is still green. The people who sit with customers have already worked out that the target cannot be hit without a corner being cut, and they are saying so to each other.

Agreeing with the boss

Amy Edmondson treats the slow climb of bad news in organisations as an instinct that a hierarchy makes worse. On the HBR IdeaCast she names the ordinary moves. People want to look good, divert blame and agree with the boss. A hierarchy turns the volume up. The spontaneous choice is to stay quiet unless the people above you will welcome what you have to say. No one, in the line she uses, ever got fired for silence.

That is how a number gets edited on the way up. The person closest to the work softens it for their manager. The manager softens it again. By the time it arrives, it fits the plan already in the pack.

Closed ears

Her example is Wells Fargo while it was still widely admired. Cross-selling made sense to her, because another product for a customer you already have costs less than a new relationship. The strategy then met the limit of what customers would buy. The people selling could see it. The message from above stayed the same: hit the target. Staff believed they would be fired if they missed. She calls that stretch goals plus closed ears. Selling crossed an ethical line, including accounts that were not real, and the admired result came apart as an illusion.

The report from the people watching that failure was the report the bank needed. More pressure is what it sent back down.

What a leader does on purpose

She names three activities a leader has to keep doing. Set the stage. Invite people in. Answer in a way that makes the next report likely.

Setting the stage means saying what kind of work this is: how much uncertainty, how much complexity, how much it depends on other people. She pictures each person with a private threshold for when they will speak. Some will talk once they are about half sure. Others wait. A leader pushes the threshold down by naming what is at stake, so a concern is said while it is still rough.

Inviting means a real question, then listening. Julie Morath, chief operating officer at Children's Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis, met staff who thought the hospital was already safe, because they had not heard of things going wrong. She asked whether the last week had been as safe as they would want it to be for their patients. Edmondson says people then lined up to talk.

The reply decides whether you get the next one. Disappointment is fair. Anger teaches the room to edit harder, because the person who spoke will not bring you the following miss. Thank them for a clear view and ask what help gets the work back on track. If the same person keeps missing, move to coaching or a change of role, and leave the standing of the person who spoke intact.

Toyota made the ask physical. The Andon cord lets someone on the line pull it when something is off, including when they are unsure. Build a route like that, so the bad version arrives while it is still small.

1. Name the uncertainty in the work, so a half-formed concern is in scope.
2. Ask whether last week was as sound as they would want it to be.
3. When the answer stings, thank them and ask what help they need.
4. If the miss keeps recurring, coach or change the role. Protect the standing of the person who said it.

Our psychological safety workshop gives an intact team a place to practise that reply on a real miss. The next Monday pack still depends on whether the person who knew was willing to bring you the version they told their peers.