We often hear the phrase “Don’t shoot the messenger” and I feel like it’s not enough.

While it’s true that many people are terrible at this in practice, we need to push for a culture where the harbinger of bad news is actually rewarded. After all, they’re the ones courageous enough to step forward into the spotlight to showcase an issue. 

We need to make sure that we’re actively rewarding those messengers bringing up issues. 

After all, negative feedback is a huge gift – now we know about the problem so we can fix it.