Softening tough messages is more brutal than telling the truth

There’s a particular kind of message that takes far longer to write than it should. You open a blank document and write version one. You read it back and think, ooh no, that’s way too stark. 

So you tinker. You take the edge off it, maybe add a little context, soften a word or a sentence here and there, then read it back and think, yes, this feels better.

Then you hit send and, with a certain amount of relief, get on with your day. Trouble is, it only feels better to the person writing it.

Here’s a version I’ve seen, in one form or another, many times:

Dear colleagues

As you know, the market has become increasingly competitive over recent months. Our financial performance does not reflect the effort everyone has put into serving our customers, and I want to personally thank each and every one of you for your hard work.

We have had to make some difficult decisions, however. If we are to survive and thrive, we will need to change our approach. This will not be easy, and we will need everyone's full support to make this happen. These are worrying times for all of us.

Your manager will explain more about the changes in due course.

There’s nothing technically wrong with this (although handing off clarity to line managers is something of a cop-out). The message is careful and considered, appreciative and well-intentioned. The writer doesn’t want to worry anyone with too much detail. But what they’ve done is worried people with too little detail, leaving one immediate (and obvious) question:

What does this actually mean?

You can almost hear the eyes rolling, can’t you? When soothing fluff stands in for clarity, people don’t feel reassured in the slightest. They’ll get straight on with filling in the gaps themselves.

• Is this a restructure?

• Are jobs at risk?

• What changes for me?

• When?

  
  

And because nothing has been said clearly, every answer is possible, and will in all likelihood be discussed in forensic detail by anxious colleagues. Anxiety builds because the message isn’t clear enough to be trusted. So the writer’s good intentions backfire, sometimes quite spectacularly. In short, downplaying a tough message does nobody any favours.

Now add one sentence:

We will be introducing AI agents to respond to everyday customer queries, with only complex issues routed to a member of staff.

Immediate clarity. People can see what’s happening and start to understand what might change in their day-to-day work. They may not like it. They may have questions and feel uncertain or anxious, but they’re no longer guessing.

The instinct to soften is understandable. We don’t want to upset people or prompt questions that we don’t feel comfortable answering. We want to avoid worrying people unnecessarily and show them care and appreciation. We also want to give ourselves time to work through the details and avoid saying something we might need to change later

So we hedge, and we generalise, and we put off communicating the uncomfortable specifics for as long as we can. But people aren’t stupid. When they can feel that something significant is happening, and it isn’t being said, they feel managed, not reassured. They feel as though things are being done to them, and trust drops like a stone.

I know it can feel brutally unkind to spell out a tough message in all its scary detail. What’s unkind is not being clear. We need to make the message real enough that people know what to do with it. At a minimum, that means being able to answer four questions:

• What, specifically, has been decided? (Not still under discussion.)

• What is changing? (Not the context, the reality.)

• Who is affected, and how? (In practical terms.)

• What happens next, and when? (So people aren’t left hanging.)

You may not have every detail mapped out, but if you fail to address these questions, people will make up their own answers. Rather than trying to make the message sound right, make the message clear enough for people to understand.

Now then. After all this doom and gloom, I have some good news for you. There’s a super simple sense check you can use before you send out a tough message, and it’s this:

Have I made this easier to send – or easier to understand?

People really don’t expect tough messages to feel comfortable or reassuring; they just want them to be clear. When they know what’s happening, they can respond, adapt, and move forward. Without clarity, even a message written with Shakespearean skill creates more uncertainty than it removes.

If you’re working on a tough message, take a pass through it and look for the sentence you’ve softened the most. Then, take a deep breath, and write it clearly. Still feeling a bit murky? I can help.

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