Be The Bad Guy!!!

Nobody wants to be the bad guy, and that's exactly the problem.

I'm becoming increasingly concerned by something I've noticed everywhere — in friendships, workplaces, and business relationships. People are deeply, almost pathologically, averse to confrontation. Not conflict for conflict's sake, but the basic, decent act of telling someone the truth.

A friend doesn't want to hang out anymore, so instead of saying so, they just become flaky. They archive the chat, move on with their life like nothing happened while the other person keeps texting wondering what went wrong.

Someone wants out of a relationship but can't say it, so they dodge calls and hope the other person takes the hint. When they’re cornered and can’t dodge anymore, they say they’re just going through “stuff”, but insist they’re still interested in the relationship. Their hope is that the other person gets frustrated enough to leave.

Two businesses are in talks, one changes their mind, and instead of sending a simple message — "we've decided not to move forward, here's why" — they just go quiet. Radio silence. Hoping the other side gets tired of following up and moves on.

We think we're being kind. We're not. We're just outsourcing the discomfort to the other person and making them carry it alone.

We're teaching kids to do the same thing. Little ones who never want to say anything that might upset a friend, so they agree with everything, go along with plans they hate, laugh at jokes they don't find funny — all just to keep the peace. We call it being "nice". What we're actually raising is a generation that doesn't know how to tell the truth.

And don't even get me started on hiring. We interview a candidate, put them through rounds of our process, take up their time — and then decide they're not the right fit. Fair enough. But instead of sending a simple "we've decided to move in a different direction," we just... don't. We go quiet. The candidate waits a week. Then two. Then a month. Still nothing. We're hoping they get the hint and move on.

Who does that?

That person rearranged their schedule for your interviews. They prepared. They got their hopes up. The least they deserve is a sentence. One sentence. "We've decided not to move forward, but we wish you well." Done. It costs nothing and it's the decent thing to do.

I've led a lot of teams, and one pattern I keep seeing is this: organisations that say they're feedback-oriented, but where nobody actually gives feedback. Instead, people smile at a teammate's face and then go to the manager to vent. The reasoning is always some version of "I'm not trained for difficult conversations." So the manager becomes the message relay, the buffer, the bad guy by proxy. I've had to deliberately design processes to break that loop — and even then, people struggle.

Here's my honest take: you don't have to be brutal to be honest. If a product didn't work for you, you can say: "I decided not to move forward because ABC was hard to set up and DEF never worked for me." If you don't want follow-up, just add: "I won't be revisiting this for now, but I hope the feedback helps." That's it. Clean, useful, respectful.

Ghosting isn't neutral. It leaves people waiting, guessing, calling again and again because they believe you made a commitment and don't know what went wrong. We hope the problem disappears, or that the other person gets frustrated and gives up. That's not kindness at all, that’s just cowardice under the guise of “consideration”.

We can do better. Honest feedback is how products improve, how teams get stronger, how relationships stay real. It's not about being harsh — it's about having enough respect for someone to tell them the truth.

Be the bad guy!!!