I heard a great saying recently: "Better red faced once than pink faced 1,000 times"

What a brilliant saying and it encapsulates a personal motto. I don’t like surprises and as I have blogged before, I am a big believer that good news should travel fast, bad news faster.

In a bad situation, bring it out QUICKLY and make sure you have a plan to fix it. This approach has the following benefits:

1. It Increases credibility. People will come to trust you to tell it like it is when it is good or bad.

2. Rallies people to your cause. More often then not, people will rally to your cause which also spreads accountability. If you try to fix it on your own, you fail on your own. If you get everyone helping you, you win or lose together.

3. Sets the right expectations. There is nothing worse than surprising someone when they are expecting it to be different.

A simple approach that many miss, especially when forecasting.