Good news is duck soup, bad news on the other hand is often either spun or ignored. That’s exactly backwards from the way it ought to be. The vital lesson about bad news is this: Whenever you encounter bad news you have found poignant evidence of a failure to understand the conviction(s) of another.

In this Manna Groups video from 1981 Bob Manna details the importance of telling the truth, especially when the truth is “bad news.”

It’s tempting to label news as “good” or “bad.” But news is not about labeling. News, like all communication, is about telling, and labels like “good news” and “bad news” cloud the story each seeks to tell. The truthful telling of bad news is the first step to avoiding impending failure.

In the same way as telemetry guides a torpedo towards its target, so too is “bad news” guiding you toward the arrival of success.

Bad News
May 1, 2012 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Video production date: May, 1981
Version: 0051787B(R03) • Feb 13, 2014

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Bad News (MOV)
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