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At the Daily Voice, a group of local-news websites, we see another example of how the indirect style is ill conceived in bad-news messages . Based on this Friday email, would employees expect layoffs on Monday? Carll Tucker is the company chairman, and Zohar Yardeni was the CEO, who recently resigned. On Monday, the good news came: all 11 of the company's Massachusetts sites would be closed, and major layoffs would take place in Connecticut and New York. Sounds like bad news to me. Gawker offered this advice: "...we would not advise applying for one of the Town Reporter positions currently posted on the Daily Voice's site. If the phone interview goes well, they'll bring you in the next day to punch you in the face." Discussion Starters: What is a better approach for the news of layoffs? When is it appropriate to use the indirect style for bad-new messages?

New Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is making her mark, but she's ruffling a few feathers. In an email to employees , HR head Jackie Reses asks "all employees with work-from-home arrangements to work in Yahoo! offices." As expected, remote employees aren't too happy about the change. YAHOO! PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION — DO NOT FORWARD Yahoos, Over the past few months, we have introduced a number of great benefits and tools to make us more productiv e, efficient and f un. With the introduction of initiatives like FYI, Goals and PB&J, we want everyone to participate in our culture and contribute to the positive momentum. From Sunnyvale to Santa Monica, Bangalore to Beijing — I think we can all feel the energy and buzz in our offices. To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo !, and that starts with physically being together. Beginning in June, we’re asking all employees with work-from-home arrangements to work in Yahoo! offices. If this impacts you, your management has already been in touch with next steps. And, for the rest of us who occasionally have to stay home for the cable guy, please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration. Being a Yahoo isn’t just about your day-to-day job, it is about the interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices. Thanks to all of you, we’ve already made remarkable progress as a company — and the best is yet to come. Jackie Hundreds of Yahoo! employees currently are working remotely, including customer service representatives and workers who don't have a Yahoo! office close by. After a series of layoffs, Yahoo! may be taking a different approach to reducing headcount and increasing productivity. Some speculate that employees who can't or won't make the change will quit, making reductions easy. Yahoo! responded to the controversy with only these statements: "This isn't a broad industry view on working from home. This is about what is right for Yahoo right now." "We don't discuss internal matters." The email inspired a wave of articles, include a Wall Street Journal cover story covering the number of people, benefits, and possible career derailment from working remotely. Discussion Starters: How would you describe the tone and approach of the Yahoo! email? Yahoo! management clearly didn't want the email to be released. What, if anything, could have prevented this? What's your reaction to employees' forwarding the message: are they justified, acting inappropriately, or something else? Why would an employee forward an email that's marked "proprietary and confidential"?

Someone needs a better editor—and a heart. To announce 11,000 employee layoffs, Citi issued a press release titled, "Citigroup Announces Repositioning Actions to Further Reduce Expenses and Improve Efficiency." "Repositioning" appears 17 times in the release. Sure, layoffs usually are good news for Wall Street, but the real damage is the layoffs, not mentioned until late in the release and suspiciously absent from the three lines summarizing the statement up front: Fourth quarter 2012 pre-tax charges to total approximately $1 billion Approximately $900 million of expense savings expected to benefit 2013 results Projected annual expense savings to exceed $1.1 billion beginning in 2014 The quote from new CEO Michael Corbat is a real tear-jerker, too: "These actions are logical next steps in Citi's transformation. While we are committed to – and our strategy continues to leverage – our unparalleled global network and footprint, we have identified areas and products where our scale does not provide for meaningful returns. And we will further increase our operating efficiency by reducing excess capacity and expenses, whether they center on technology, real estate or simplifying our operations." Although companies may justify jargon as required for the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), they are free to craft messages any way they would like. Companies need to be smarter about their audiences, knowing that employees likely will read their press releases. Assignment Ideas: Read the entire press release . Identify all of the verbs that can be improved. Also look for nominalizations, and change these nouns and adjectives to strong verbs. Rewrite the press release. What improvements can you make to the text and the CEO's quote?

Nestle has voluntarily recalled its powder used to make hot chocolate because of a possible Salmonella risk. Although no illnesses have been reported, the company is taking precautions because its supplier of calcium carbonate, an ingredient in the mix, announced a recall. On its website, Nestle posted this statement about the decision: At the end of its recall notice posted on the FDA website, the company apologized: "Nestlé is dedicated to the health and safety of its consumers. For these reasons, the company initiated this voluntary recall. We apologize to our consumers and sincerely regret any inconvenience created by this incident." Discussion Starters: After reading the recall notice, would you avoid similar products, or are you convinced that this is an isolated event? As of this writing, Nestle hasn't posted anything on its Facebook page. Why do you think that is? Is that a good decision?

Hopeful NYC Marathon runners received the bad news: the 2012 Marathon has been cancelled. This reverses Mayor Bloomberg's decision announced during the week. The initial decision to continue the marathon received harsh criticism, with New Yorkers concerned that resources needed to rebuild the city after Hurricane Sandy would be redirected to the event. Organizers of the marathon became increasingly concerned about divisiveness over the decision and announced a cancellation, after all. George Hirsch, chairman of the board of Road Runners, which oversees the marathon said , "The marathon is about uniting the city. But all it was doing was dividing it. Is that what the New York City Marathon is all about? No, not at all." In an email, the Road Runners organization explained the decision. The positioning is interesting and a topic of criticism on Twitter: organizers defend the initial decision and blame the media and controversy in forcing the decision: It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that the 2012 ING New York City Marathon has been canceled. The decision was made after it became increasingly apparent that the people of our city and the surrounding tri-state area were still struggling to recover from the damage wrought by the recent extreme weather conditions. That struggle, fueled by the resulting extensive and growing media coverage antagonistic to the marathon and its participants, created conditions that raised concern for the safety of both those working to produce the event and its participants. While holding the race would not have required diverting resources from the recovery effort, it became clear that the apparent widespread perception to the contrary had become the source of controversy and division. Neither NYRR nor the City could allow a controversy over the marathon to result in a dangerous situation or to distract attention from all the critically important work that is being done to help New York City recover from the storm. NYRR, in partnership with the Rudin Family and the ING Foundation, has established the "Race to Recover" Marathon Fund to aid New Yorkers impacted by the storm. Over $2.6 million has been raised, including a $1 million donation by NYRR. We are asking you to join us by making a $26.20 donation, or whatever you can afford, to help bring recovery and hope to those communities and families most affected. Proceeds will go to Hurricane Sandy Relief, administered by the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City . You can also donate to the relief effort through NYRR's fundraising platform, CrowdRise , which includes the American Red Cross and other charities. NYRR will redeploy the marathon resources and materials toward the recovery effort. We will share the details of this project as they are finalized in the days ahead. We all recognize this has been a very challenging time in New York City that has impacted so many people, including you, our runners. Please know that this is one of the toughest decisions we have ever made, and that we deeply appreciate your support. According to one New York Times article , the cancellation will cost the city an "immense" amount of money. (Image source of the finish line before the marathon was cancelled, showing a fallen crane in the background.) Discussion Starters: What's your view of the email from Road Runners? How well does it explain the decision, and how convincing is the rationale? What this the best decision for NYC? Why or why not?

Why wait for employees to forward internal messages to the press? RealNetworks founder and interim chief executive Rob Glaser has posted a layoff email to employees on Facebook. Dear RealNetworks Team, I’m writing to provide an update on the progress we’ve made over the past 8 weeks and to provide some context and information regarding the layoffs that are taking place today. When I came back in as Interim CEO on July 3rd, I said we would focus on 3 things: Reviewing and assessing all of our businesses and new initiatives, Coming up with a go-forward Strategy for RealNetworks that would set us up to grow and thrive, and Putting together a plan to stop burning cash and to return the company to profitability. I also said we would move fast, have a bias towards action, and would work hard to complete all 3 of these efforts within 2 months. After a lot of hard work by many people across the company and around the world, today I report to you that we have indeed achieved the 3 objectives we set out to work on beginning 8 weeks ago. Very soon I will have a lot more to say about our collective assessment of our businesses & new initiatives, and about our go forward strategy. Specifically, we have scheduled a series of company meetings – both in Seattle and at our main offices around the world – for on or around September 6th. After these meetings I believe that each of you in attendance will walk away with a clear understanding of our strategies and excitement regarding where we’re going. Today I will discuss our plans to return the company to profitability -- in a way that will set us up for future growth & success. As we mentioned on our financial results call on August 8th, our senior team has put together a plan to cut at least $45 Million of annualized costs. This plan has several aspects to it; one of the main ones is to streamline our operations and to do things more efficiently. Unfortunately, a major part of this streamlining entails reducing our workforce from approximately 1140 people to about 980 people. We are doing this in two phases. The first phase, which begins today, involves laying off approximately 80 people, who are being given notice today. The second phase, which will take place over the next 3 to 7 months, involves approximately 80 more people, who are being notified today that there is a specific future date when their current assignment will be ending. We hope to redeploy a number of these people when their current assignments end, but as of today don’t know how many we will find positions for. These people are working on projects that will merge duplicate systems or otherwise make us more efficient. I want to express my deepest gratitude to the approximately 160 people affected by today’s announcement, and also my remorse that we have had to take these steps. You have all made major contributions to RealNetworks. We are grateful for everything you have done for our company and our customers. I also want to express my appreciation to the approximately 980 people who are not directly impacted by today’s actions, and to acknowledge that many of you are indirectly affected, because of the impact on your colleagues and friends. Permit me to close on a personal note. When I came back into Real after having been away from day-to-day operations for 2 ½ years, I thought there was a pretty high likelihood that there would be a day like today. I knew it would suck for everyone, and indeed it does. But I promised myself that if we did have to do a significant layoff, I would do everything in my power to make sure that when we did it we also knew where we were going. I wanted to be able to look everyone in the eye and tell them that we have a plan to succeed that I believed in from the bottom of my heart. I feel like we are almost there. While we still have a few areas to work out, we have made great progress. I can honestly tell you today that we are at least 80% of the way to having such a plan for every major part of our company, and have line-of-sight on the final 20%. This clarity on strategy, as you would expect, has significantly influenced how and where we are cutting costs, and where we are investing for the future. I look forward to discussing this further when we meet next week. Rob Glaser responded to a New York Times inquiry about his decision by saying that he will limit his Facebook posts to major company-wide messages. The few comments he's received on Facebook support his transparency. Fortunately, the email also is well written and appropriate for a layoff message. And it's not the first. The New York Times reports that Glaser has been keeping employees informed throughout the process, so this email is no surprise. Discussion Starters: How does Glaser balance emotional appeal and logical arguments in his email? How is the email structured? Does this work well for the message and audience? What do you think of Glaser's...

As companies report their second-quarter earnings this week, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) communicated its bad news : revenue is expected to drop by 11%. AMD's news release focuses on disappointing sales in China and Europe. However, a writer for The Street criticizes AMD's analysis: "AMD blames its upcoming drop in revenue on just about everything out there, except its competition, Intel." While Dell and HP use AMD chips, Apple products switched to Intel a few years ago. AMD's news release is below: " AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced that revenue for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012 is expected to decrease approximately 11 percent sequentially. The company previously forecasted second quarter 2012 revenue to increase 3 percent, plus or minus 3 percent sequentially. The lower preliminary revenue results are primarily due to business conditions that materialized late in the second quarter, specifically softer-than-expected channel sales in China and Europe as well as a weaker consumer buying environment impacting the company's Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) business. "The company expects second quarter gross margin to be approximately in line with prior guidance. Operating expenses for the second quarter are expected to improve and to be approximately 8 percent less than prior guidance of approximately $605 million, a result of tightly controlled expenses in the quarter. " AMD will report second quarter 2012 results after market close on Thursday, July 19, 2012. AMD will hold a conference call for the financial community at 2:00 p.m. PT (5:00 p.m. ET) that day to discuss second quarter financial results and to provide information regarding expected third quarter results. AMD will provide a real-time audio broadcast of the teleconference on the Investor Relations page at http://www.amd.com . The webcast will be available for 10 days after the conference call. " Discussion Starters: Find two or three other sources that explain why AMD's earnings report is disappointing. What's your view of the reasons for declining revenue? If you agree with The Street's assessment, should AMD have been more forthcoming? What are the arguments for and against a more straightforward discussion of the Apple and Intel relationship?

In the midst of an internal investigation about "personal conduct," Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn has resigned . The news was unexpected , although Best Buy has experienced declining sales, attributed to the access people now have to visit stores, compare prices, and then buy elsewhere. Two weeks ago, Dunn announced plans to close 50 stores and cut 400 staff. A 28-year employee of Best Buy, Dunn was selected as CEO in 2009. Some said Dunn was a poor choice given the company's challenges: he has sales experience but lacks the knowledge and expertise to fix the deeper problems. The conduct issue remains a mystery, and because Dunn resigned in the middle of it, we may never know the outcome. In a news release about new leadership , Best Buy assured the public that the decision wasn't business-related: "The board of directors of Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) today announced that Brian Dunn has resigned as chief executive officer and director. There were no disagreements between Mr. Dunn and the company on any matter relating to operations, financial controls, policies or procedures. There was mutual agreement that it was time for new leadership to address the challenges that face the company." At the same time, the company did acknowledge the investigation in a statement to the press: "Certain issues were brought to the board's attention regarding Dunn's personal conduct, unrelated to the company's operations or financial controls, and an audit committee investigation was initiated. Prior to the completion of the investigation, Mr. Dunn chose to resign." Focusing on business continuity, Best Buy's news release named an interim CEO: "Director G. Mike Mikan has been named interim CEO to lead the company while a search for a new CEO is underway. Richard Schulze, the founder of Best Buy, continues to serve as chairman." Read an update about the potential misconduct issue. Discussion Starters: Analyze Best Buy's news release as a bad-news message. What principles does the release follow, and what principles does it not use? What is the rationale for these decisions? Evaluate the quotes in the news release by Dunn and Mikan. Do you find these reassuring?