Discuss these situations in small groups and decide what medium—for example, email, text, video meeting, or in-person meeting—to use for each message. Try to come to consensus, although you may not find a perfect answer. You also may consider multiple messages.

● If you managed a restaurant and had to tell 18 employees that the restaurant will be closed tonight because of allegations of food poisoning, how would you deliver the news?

● If you laid off a manager and the entire department of eight people who work in four different countries, how would you deliver the news to the group?

● If an employee works in California, and you (the manager) work in New York, how would you tell the employee, whom you have known for two years, that you’re leaving the company?

● If you just learned from Human Resources that one of your direct reports has been hospitalized, how would you communicate with the employee? How would you communicate with the employee’s coworkers to let them know that the employee will be out for at least two weeks?