Bad News Early
Why does the same problem get so much worse in the telling?
The idea
The cost of a problem grows with the delay in reporting it, and so does the damage to your credibility.
In the real world
A slip disclosed in week one is a schedule change; the same slip in week six is a crisis.
Going deeper
A problem disclosed early is a schedule change with options; the same problem disclosed late is a crisis with none. What expires in between is the ability to do anything about it.
The second cost is to you. A team that learns you will conceal a problem discounts every future reassurance, so the credibility spent is not recovered by the problem eventually being solved. Since the disclosure has to happen anyway, delaying only removes the choices and adds the reputational cost — which makes early disclosure a self-interested act rather than a brave one.
Where it stops applying
Escalating every wobble before it is understood creates noise and false alarms. The threshold is whether someone else's decisions would change if they knew.
Why it matters
It reframes early disclosure as protecting yourself rather than exposing yourself.
Try this today
Name the thing you are currently hoping to fix before anyone notices, and tell someone.
Test yourself
A project will be two weeks late. The lead knows in week one and says so in week six. What changed in those five weeks?
Show the answer
The options. In week one there were choices — cut scope, add help, move the date. By week six they have expired, and the team has also learned the lead will conceal a problem, so every future reassurance is discounted.
Learn this in the feed Answering from memory, then again days later, is what makes it stick.