Have you ever been the bearer of bad news? It’s tough, isn’t it? Nobody wants that job. You may have heard of the saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger.” It means, “Don’t take out your anger on the person delivering the bad news. It’s not their fault.” Did you know there are variations of this saying in countries all over the world? And that some form of this saying was found in writings from 446 BC—almost 450 years before the birth of Jesus Christ? The great playwright William Shakespeare was the one to coin it in the English language. He used this phrase in two of his plays, Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra. (1)

But how do you protect the bearers of bad news? In medieval England, kings would hire men who could read to serve as town criers. The majority of citizens were illiterate, so town cri…