The Poison Pen: How Should Managers Deal with Anonymous Accusations?

Say your CEO receives an anonymous complaint about your department. Should she A.) Convoke everyone to a departmental meeting, read the note, and ask what is going on? Or B.) File the complaint away and do nothing—but keep a close eye on the department.

We've all seen many more instances of A than of B, alas! Anonymous accusations need to be handled with tact, discretion, and care. Of course, the complaint could be about harassment, discrimination, or a safety problem—including a potential for workplace violence—and then the CEO should meet with you personally and let you know what she's received.

Note I said personally. No delegation here, since the accusations contained in anonymous messages should be considered suspect and not delegated down the chain for action, in order to avoid further organizational contamination, which may well be the writer's purpose. And if it's not about those particularly sensitive issues, consider not even passing it on. It's tough not to react, but you need to avoid doing so and train your managers to do likewise. Here's why:

If someone doesn't sign an accusation, it likely means that the sender has a personal problem or a nefarious agenda, rather than that there's a legitimate organizational issue involved. A seemingly decisive but in fact ill-considered response will only make matters worse.

Get the whole story

The other principle involved here, which should be enshrined in your management training program, is the need always to get the whole story: you know there's more than one side involved. The ability to restrain yourself before jumping into the fray, no matter how much you want to, represents a key characteristic of the mature, effective manager. Picture the executive letting her subordinates and colleagues battle it out in a meeting before finally herself taking a position.

Instead, lean back and take it all in. Think. And in the case of the poison pen letter, that's why you monitor the department in question, just in case there's actually something going on there.

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The temptation to react compulsively needs to be examined—by you! Ask yourself what your need to react says about how you feel about the people and issues involved? What's your real stake here? You may discover biases and influences you're barely conscious of.

A knee-jerk reaction makes you look weak and ineffectual to your subordinates, and unstable to your superiors.

Don't overreact to anonymous accusations

Finally, overreacting to an anonymous communication undermines your credibility with your direct reports. Confronting them with anonymous accusations indicates that you think them capable of reprehensible behavior. And if your reaction is more public, they'll be convinced you have no loyalty to them. And the favor will be returned—call it management karma.

Of course, if the message is anonymous because the corporate culture is dysfunctional—if we have a case of an organization in which there's a prohibition against any sort of critical feedback—then there may really be a problem that needs acting on quickly, hence the exception for EEO issues and safety in general. It's become clear that the Deepwater Horizon tragedy involved some of these communication issues.

When I was young and impetuous, in my first management class, the brilliant instructor, a disciple of Koontz and O'Donnell at UCLA, asked me a question to which I felt I had to give a clear one-way-or-the-other response. My answer was wrong, and my neighbor, a seasoned Air Force master sergeant, leaned over and whispered, "Hedge!" I was clueless; I thought "hedge" referred to shrubbery. Seriously. Meanwhile I've learned the value of his advice, even if I still fail to follow it. Think, and be honest about the need to reflect. Don't jump right in, especially if you just don't know. Admit you don't know. And resist the pressure, which is probably self-generated.

In the meantime I've seen lots of organizational damage from the ill-advised handling of poison pen letters, with otherwise smart managers reacting like so many husbands and lovers in Shakepeare's plays, ready to suspect the worst of those closest to them. I hope your organization's management training program will the the first one I've heard of to include how to deal with this issue. Try a case study approach—you'll love the resulting debate!

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