Is There A Good Time For Bad News?

Roxanne Wu, Shanghai

I have always thought that our moods are unique-people live and experience  things differently within their own culture and this affects their moods accordingly. Some areas of astrology and Blood Group Research claim that a person’s mood can  be predicted,  I think it’s hard to believe that one person’s mood could be predicted, and even less likely for a large group of people. However, it seems that as a PR practitioner, you have to know the art of communication, including when to communicate.

This weekend, I was about to click ‘send’ on an email to my boss which contained some bad news when I remembered some advice given to me by my boss, “Don’t give bad news on a Friday”.  Would Monday morning be a good time? I asked myself. The facts told me otherwise...

To develop a news angle for  a recent  Wrigley’s campaign, ‘Benefits of Chewing’, we cooperated with a psychologist from the famous Sun Yat Sen University in Mainland China on some research. The research was based on the study of  people’s expressions, especially stressful emotions shown on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.   The study included the observation and gathering of data on real life behavior, as it took place. As a result, the findings based on 1.2 billion posts from across 34 cities in China, are quite representative.

The key findings brought great news value to our communications program but I think they are also helpful for day to day life in the office.  

The findings are as follows:

1. Negative expressions and emotions are at their highest levels on a Monday morning. 

With stresses accumulated over the weekend, and the prospect of a whole week of work ahead, people tend to show negative feelings during the first few hours of work on a  Monday. 

(I think it would be wise to refrain from giving bad news early on a Monday to avoid the resulting  negative emotions becoming angry letters printed on Weibo!) 

 2. Negative expressions and emotions are at their lowest levels on a Thursday. 

(If you’ve got to pick a day to give bad news, Thursday is your best bet.  It gives people time to handle the bad news on Friday and gives them a buffer period over the weekend to face up to it.)

I sent a ‘thank you’ note to the expert psychologist leading this research with some additional key learnings and received his feedback – “Go and check when the government releases bad news.”