Despite their experience and expertise, lab managers can’t see everything that’s happening in the lab. They rely on others to share their observations and report events from the lab and feedback from key stakeholders. In his book, The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle presents the importance of emotional safety in building a successful team or organization. One aspect of emotional safety that he emphasizes is to embrace the messenger. This is aligned with the concept of don’t shoot the messenger, but it takes the idea to the next step. Not only should we not harm the messenger, but we should embrace them for bringing us the truth, even if that truth is painful or frustrating. Here are some tips for embracing the messenger to ensure you know the truth about your lab:
#1 – Thank you
It can be as simple as saying thank you. These are powerful words that acknowledge the humanity of the speaker, demonstrate appreciation for hearing the truth, and validate their decision to bring the truth to you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the information. What matters is that this individual made a good decision to share the information with you. Saying thank you reinforces your desire to make data-driven decisions and your interest in learning the truth.
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#2 – Separate emotions
If the information brought by the messenger is bad news, separate your emotions and distinguish between your feelings about the news and your feelings about the messenger. It is quite possible to have conflicting emotions simultaneously. Bad news by itself can drive a range of negative emotions, including anger, frustration, irritation, and worry. That’s Ok and natural. However, we need to direct those emotions at the news itself and not at the messenger. Being informed of problems will help you make better decisions, so we can express positive emotions to the messenger like gratitude, relief that we are now aware, and appreciation of their dedication and bravery.
#3 – Be an effective messenger
Bringing bad news to a superior is never fun and can feel dangerous. Model being an effective messenger by proactively delivering the truth to your line managers. Show staff that it is safe to be a messenger in your organization. Don’t expect your staff to behave one way and then behave differently yourself. Your lab will benefit from line management having the truth available as they make decisions that impact the lab.
Lab managers need to make a wide range of decisions. It seems that we rarely have all of the information that we’d like as we face making difficult decisions. It is very frustrating to agonize over a decision and then learn that more or better information was available, but no one was brave enough to share it with you. Encourage staff to tell you the truth. Everyone will benefit from decisions made with more and better information. You can start by embracing some messengers.
