How to Communicate on the Truth When People Don’t Want to Hear It

I love this quote: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” – somehow apparently wrongly attributed to James A. Garfield (former president of the US). Yet I find it ever to true in particular because part of my job as consultant is sometime to tell the truth everybody sees in the organization but no-one dares tell top management.

One issue with telling the truth is that it needs to be done the right way: it needs to be done in a way that avoids outright rejection. If rejection happens, then it was no use.

In these tough situations, there are several ways to avoid rejection, which are best combined:

establish a trust relationship with the person you need to tell the truth (the longer relationship the better; good references also help),
tell the truth in a manner that passes the message while still being (borderline) acceptable by the recipient; the best is to interact at that occasion to calibrate the message,
exploit time to make the revelation gradually accepted, through repetition and letting time and nights do their work in the subconscious.

I am convinced that Truth will hurt on the short term, still it is a much better remedy on the longer term. Tell it, and tell it the right way.