What's Your Tough Message?

‘’One of my strengths is being able to deliver a tough message.”

So said a client a few years ago. It has always stuck in my mind. Especially so, as over the years, I have learnt that what constitutes a tough message for one person, doesn’t for another.

To many people, a tough message is something they believe is bad news for the recipient: the loss of a job, the fact that their performance is not up to expectations, or the damning news that the client doesn’t want them on the team.

But some people don’t look at this type of message as tough. A colleague once shared that he was looking forward to imminently having to make a group of people redundant. He had never done this before and it would be a learning for him. He felt confident of his ability to handle this with skill and sensitivity. 

In contrast, another colleague found it very difficult to offer praise for a job well done. This may have been due to multiple factors: good work being expected, a possible over-emphasis of her role in the deliverable (she was the team leader, so why praise the team she had lead), and a distinct uncomfortableness in recognizing others in a genuinely warm way.

Regardless of how we perceive the thoughts and behaviour of the people in these particular instances, we all have tough messages: delivering a ‘no’ to a request for involvement in a project; saying ‘yes’ to an opportunity you would love to take up for fear of disappointing your boss or team; pointing out the flawed logic of your Chairperson.

What’s your tough message and how are you going to learn to deliver it?