The first thing that entered your mind: You messed up, you made a mistake, I can’t believe you are here, what a waste of time.
The first thing that should come out of your mouth: You did well on X, Y needs some work, here’s what we’re going to do to get you there.
Your first thought gets out all your frustrations, in your head but is not the delivery your team needs.
The person on your team already knows they screwed up, they don’t need to hear it in stereo.
What they need to hear is where do they go from here.
Delivering Bad News is less about what went wrong today and so much more about what can be fixed for tomorrow.
