{"id":196,"date":"2025-09-13T21:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/chapter\/8-2-approaches-to-communicating-bad-news\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:19:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:19:35","slug":"8-2-approaches-to-communicating-bad-news","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/chapter\/8-2-approaches-to-communicating-bad-news\/","title":{"raw":"8.2 Approaches to communicating bad news","rendered":"8.2 Approaches to communicating bad news"},"content":{"raw":"<h2>Indirect vs. Direct Approach<\/h2>\nThere are two ways to approach communicating bad news, depending on the situation, audience, your role, and all the other communication variables: a direct approach and an indirect approach. In the figure below the two arrows represent the two approaches. The arrow pointing to the left is the indirect approach, while the arrow facing the right is labeled \"direct\" approach. We discuss each one in the following pages.\n\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1024\"]<img style=\"color: #373d3f; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 1em;\" src=\"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/image1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"511\"> Figure 8.1 Two Approaches of Communicating Bad News[\/caption]\n\nFigure 8.1 is derived from <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/chapter\/bad-news\/\">\"Bad News\"<\/a> available at <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/\"><em>Communication for Professionals<\/em><\/a> by Susan Oaks, licensed under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International<\/a>, unless otherwise noted.\n\nThis section is adapted from <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/chapter\/bad-news\/\">\"Bad News\"<\/a> available at <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/\"><em>Communication for Professionals<\/em><\/a> by Susan Oaks, licensed under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">CC BYNC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International<\/a>, unless otherwise noted.","rendered":"<h2>Indirect vs. Direct Approach<\/h2>\n<p>There are two ways to approach communicating bad news, depending on the situation, audience, your role, and all the other communication variables: a direct approach and an indirect approach. In the figure below the two arrows represent the two approaches. The arrow pointing to the left is the indirect approach, while the arrow facing the right is labeled &#8220;direct&#8221; approach. We discuss each one in the following pages.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"color: #373d3f; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 1em;\" src=\"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/image1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"511\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 8.1 Two Approaches of Communicating Bad News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Figure 8.1 is derived from <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/chapter\/bad-news\/\">&#8220;Bad News&#8221;<\/a> available at <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/\"><em>Communication for Professionals<\/em><\/a> by Susan Oaks, licensed under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International<\/a>, unless otherwise noted.<\/p>\n<p>This section is adapted from <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/chapter\/bad-news\/\">&#8220;Bad News&#8221;<\/a> available at <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/\"><em>Communication for Professionals<\/em><\/a> by Susan Oaks, licensed under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">CC BYNC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International<\/a>, unless otherwise noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-196","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":192,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/196\/revisions\/197"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/192"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/196\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}