During my consulting days, we had project reviews every 2-3 days. And every review felt like a final exam — you wanted to blow the audience away with your presentation!
But sometimes, you get stuck — it could be due to insufficient data, a hard problem, or myriad other reasons.
In such situations, would you give the bad news to your manager? Or put on a brave face and try harder? My instinct was to do the latter.
I hated admitting that I needed help since it felt like an admission of incompetence or failure.
But when you suppress the bad news, you put yourself under even more pressure. And if the pressure becomes too much, our brain’s “fight, flight, or freeze” response gets triggered and we panic. And ultimately, you might end up giving bad news at the last minute.
Hiding your problems is a blunder for two reasons:.
1. You don’t give your manager an opportunity to help you.
2. If you inform your manager at the last minute, there is no time to fix things — the consequences become 10x worse.
The thing that any manager hates is not bad news, but bad surprises.
So whenever you are stuck, give bad news early and seek help. Overcommunicate. And at any cost, avoid negative surprises.
Asking for help is not failure — it is a sign of emotional maturity.
– Rajan