Intro to Negative Messages: "Be The Cat"

Notes on Damage Control

Regardless of the profession or how virtuous our lives, we all face many situations in which we are the bearer of bad news.

Negative Letters address situations that are inherently bad; something bad has, is or will happen to the reader, and you are either responsible for the bad thing or at least responsible for sharing the bad news.

Remember that all professional documents serve three purposes:

1) To Inform: the nature of news is by definition "negative". Use positive emphasis to:

a)  minimize the negative information; make big problems appear smaller

b)  accentuate the positive by working toward the solution ASAP.

 2) Achieving a Larger Purpose: Your purpose here is always to:

a) contain the damage and keep it from spreading

b) minimize "psychological reactance"; direct the reader's anger or frustration away from you and toward a solution.

 3) Ethos: Perhaps this is the main goal, and in extremely negative situations it may be nearly impossible to achieve. However, to achieve your purpose, you must:

a) use you attitude to protect the reader's ego; empathize, sympathize and place no blame

            b) re-establish your ethos (credibility, authority)

c) frame situations as objective problems that can be solved if tackled together.

Negative letters also address these three purposes, and often with the highest possible stakes and with one exception: instead of attempting to get what you want, you are mainly attempting to avoid getting what you don't want; you are taking a bad situation and keeping it from getting worse.

In technical terms, our goal is to avoid or limit Psychological Reactance.