Some people say they like to be surprised. Sometimes it can be fun, really.
Most people don’t like to be surprised, though, especially not in their ‘professional life’. Surprises are rarely good nor fun…
There’s an old saying (well, not really old, not much of a saying) which goes something like: “If you don’t want to be surprised, don’t surprise others”.
The surprises I’m talking about can be many. For example, but not limited to:
- You’re going to miss a deadline.
- Your availability is going to change dramatically (going on a long vacation, for example)
- You need to change an agreed understanding between you and a peer.
- And more..
All of the above can be handled and nothing catastrophic will happen (probably), but the sooner your peers/managers learn about it, the better they can help you (and themselves) deal with the results.
You can also choose to not communicate the news because, hey, it’s going to happen anyway and you can handle it alone (and why bother others so early in advance), but then you might be surprised by their response once they learn about it in the last minute (or a little afterwards).
And as already mentioned above – if you don’t want to be surprised, don’t surprise others…
