Avoiding Persian Messenger Syndrome
There is an old English saying that “bad news travels fast.” In many cases that’s true. Except, perhaps, in companies and ancient Persia.
Ancient Persia
In ancient Persia it was not uncommon for messengers who delivered bad news to be punished or executed. The lesson is obvious enough that it survived thousands of years and became one of our most well known phrases: don’t shoot the messenger.
How does this apply to companies?
Fortunately modern organizations no longer execute messengers. However, many still create environments where people quickly learn that bad news is unwelcome on many levels.
No team member, manager or executive stands up and says, “Only bring me good news.” Instead, they interrupt the person raising concerns. They become visibly frustrated when problems are surfaced. They celebrate positive updates while treating negative ones as failures. Over time people learn the lesson. The result is predictable: bad news doesn’t disappear, it just arrives later, filtered, softened, and stripped of all its useful context.
King Henry II may never have intended for Thomas Becket to be killed when he reportedly asked, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Yet his words created an incentive structure that others acted upon. Leadership often works like that. People pay far more attention to what leaders reward, tolerate, and react to than what they formally say.
”Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome” - Charlie Munger
Every word is an order. Therefore so is every reaction & every silence.
If people in your business hesitate before bringing you bad news, they are responding to something you’ve taught them. The question is whether you intended to teach it.
How do you fix this?
Simple, do not shoot the messenger, especially when the news is bad, instead positively reward them.
Make sure you thank people for surfacing problems early. Remain calm and composed (especially when things go terribly wrong) and direct your attention to solving the issue instead of assigning blame. More over, pay attention to how long it takes for bad news to reach you. Why? Well, if every update you get is positive you don't know about the next crisis until you lift up the covers and look underneath. By that point it's usually too late. It's not your reporting, data, ops or analytics that cause this. It is the culture you or your managers have created.
Great organizations do not have people too afraid to bring news. Great organizations allow people to speed run delivery of that news because they are confident and know they will be listened to, supported and trusted to help resolve the problem.
Set the culture and trust your people.
"Tell us the bad news immediately" - Charlie Munger