A TECHNICAL WAY TO VIEW SPINNING

Denial

The new manager instructed Annie not to use the company car until it was serviced, and to sign a new waiver before driving. Annie went ahead and used the car because she always had used it without having to ask permission. The manager reprimanded Annie. Her response was, "But this is how it's always been done."

Bargaining

When the manager repeated the policy, Annie said, "Well I'll just do it this way today, okay? And I'll pay for the gas myself ."

Anger

The manager was consistent and courteously repeated the new rules. Annie reacted with, "Well this is pointless and annoying. I've always had free use of the company vehicle, and now you're telling me I have to ask 'mother-may-I' every time I have a client call me and I need to use the car?"

Depression

The manager explained the rationale for the new policy, which Annie agreed made sense. She stated, "Yeah, I can see that is a better policy for the organization, but it sure is difficult for me now that I have to re-think this entire logistics process for my project team. It was so easy before to just pop out on a client run without a bunch of paperwork and hassle."

Acceptance

The manager supported Annie by calmly listening to her as she went through the stages dealing with this change. When Annie seemed to be more in acceptance, the new manager complemented her on her history of teamwork, and suggested she review the policy and paperwork as soon as she had time, and offered to answer any questions that might come up. Annie responded with, "Yup, we're all in this new merger together I guess. I'll figure it out. Thanks."

Learning Byte

Because the manager was aware of the stages of normal grief cycle, she didn't take Annie's resistance personally and was able to remain calm, focused, and supportive while Annie moved through the stages. The manager also tracked her own stages as she bumped into the resistance of Annie that was a change from her fantasy that everyone would just be easily willing to comply to her new authority. The manager noted her own emotional content, and put it onmhold for the moment. She did not resist the resistance and did not counter it with more resistance and escalating emotional power plays. The resistance went away. The manager knew Annie to be a solid employee, and with the tool of understanding grief stages, actually facilitated Annie's adjustment to a rather small change. The entire transition took only a few minutes and did not evolve into an emotional spin.

DO THIS: Learn the stages of grieving and apply them to any change.

DON'T: Make the error of thinking that it takes a death to experience the stages of grieving.

All change brings some degree of loss and some degree of gain. For example, you choose the pudding over the chocolate cake; you gain pudding but lose cake. You may gain a pound and lose your diet. If you stand up and move across the room to look out the window, you have lost your chair , warmed pillow, your original posture and perspective. You may have gained a view of the river and a more comfortable back. Loss and gain are consequences of all change. The ratio or value of loss to gain is defined by the perception of the one who is changing, the value or meaning of the change, and the level of real or perceived control of outcome. Managers help people manage feelings when they see they are losing control. The closer a change gets to threatening control over comfort , security or mortality, the more serious it is perceived and the more loaded with spin potential.

In business, most people would agree that their paycheck determines a significant portion of their security. Few people work just for the sport of it. For some the paycheck is literally the difference between life and death. Some people are totally dependent on a paycheck or some of the benefits, such as retirement or health insurance. People take mortality risk levels of their jobs very seriously and any change, no matter how much gain is potential, triggers fear of losses, real or perceived. Because all loss leads to grieving to some degree, managers who are familiar with the stages of grieving and see those stages as natural will be more compassionately efficient during change events.

The stages of grieving are tools for Emotional Continuity Management. It is amazing to discover how much more receptive and non-spinning a person can be, and how quickly they adjust, turn to teamwork, increase loyalty and respond with open communication when change responses are seen as grief responses and not as emotional spins .

Management needed a consultation because the front desk receptionists in financing were becoming agitated and abrupt when the clients came for their paychecks . The clients often complained to the receptionists angrily about errors in their checks. The receptionists had no authority and were bombarded by these outbursts. The consultant helped the receptionists understand that the clients were merely grieving, and in denial, bargaining, anger, or depression. The receptionists didn't know that they were the first line of Emotional Continuity Management.

Learning Byte

The receptionists softened their approaches to clients who were angry or trying to bargain through potential losses of control. They stopped taking the client outbursts personally and regained composure , increased compassionate language, and were able to support one another as a team. They found some humor and were able to be more pleasant to clients and each other.

DO THIS: See how grief plays into your relationships with clients or co-workers .

DON'T: Assume that angry people are obnoxious when they just might be frightened.

Leona didn't like her husband Hal and she hated her job. She had recently fallen in love with a wonderful man who made her life seem worth living. She was offered a new job in his company the same week her husband was diagnosed with a life-threatening health condition. The diagnosis would mean many years of ongoing medical intervention. Hal had to quit his job. Leona was now stuck in her job because it had excellent health insurance. She realized that if she divorced her husband, the consequences could truly be terminal for him. She talked with her counselor and discovered she didn't hate Hal enough to be homicidal, and that at this point she would need support to keep her job and her hope. She decided to discuss this openly with her husband. The two of them found a way to keep the marriage and the health insurance while moving on with their adult lives. They had to re-think their marriage vows and both agreed that they would help each other have the best life they could under the circumstances. They decided to stay married, but Leona continued the relationship with her new man. Hal moved in with another family member. Leona grieved the loss of the new job opportunity each day as she entered her old job worksite. Her co-workers never knew any of the details of her personal choices, but some of them became distant and blamed her for being less friendly. She was thus never chosen for the promotions that might have helped her be more financially independent.

Learning Byte

This was a difficult and unusual situation. Management may not know the emotional factors of the private lives of their employees from day to day. And there is generally no reason they should, unless work is impaired. Leona's work did not suffer, but her spirits declined. An observant and compassionate manager might have offered her some creative problem solving, a special assignment, or personal encouragements.

Do This: Watch for signs of despair that may indicate that an employee is struggling with a personal challenge.

Don't: Invade the privacy of someone who is coping, but encourage them toward hopeful solutions.

Human beings grieve everything from pens to pets, jobs to hairlines, cars to lovers, parking spots to waistlines. Because grieving is a natural part of our everyday lives, managers, employers and employees need to understand how it translates into the workplace. Grieving is somewhat of a multi-dimensional emotional state that moves feelings from one stage to another. A person can be in one stage of grieving about one issue, while in another stage about a completely different loss. Twelve people experiencing the same loss will go through the stages at different speeds and with different perceptions and responses. Some will resolve the loss quickly; some will take time and need additional support from co-workers, management, or from resources outside the workplace. Some people stay stuck in one stage or another and act from that emotional location for a long time. These individuals perceive their other experiences from a perception of loss that can be managed by understanding that their choices may continue to be predisposed to bargaining, anger, or depression. Moving between stages until resolution of one stage can seem to create endless spins of discomfort. Being stuck in one stage feels permanent. Being in a different stage than someone in the same situation can feel odd and is occasionally perceived as betrayal to the value of the loss.

The speed of recovery from a stage of grief is a variable. Rapid recovery through a change cannot be forced or mandated , but also depends on a willingness and ability to move through the grief work adequately. Avoiding the task does not help the process; it only delays it and leads it to becoming distorted into some other set of feelings. Most adults have experienced losses in their lives but that doesn't mean they are efficient at moving through their grief in a healthy and efficient manner. Grieving can accomplish character building, or be the source of an emotional spin that can turn a person, situation, or business into emotional turmoil for the wrong reasons. Grieving is serious business, and business should take it seriously.

Grief doesn't just happen when there is a high-drama event, terrorist incident, natural disaster, death, or traumatic episode. There is no need for body bags and carnage to trigger significant and elaborate grieving states. Grief happens hundreds of times a day. Managers need to know that although most people adjust to grief, some do not. Some people get stuck in one stage for a very long time. Have you ever known someone who was stuck in anger for a long time? Have you known someone who was stuck in depression for a long time? Have you ever bargained to try to maintain control of some difficult situation? Do you have any employees in your company who are emotionally stuck in one stage of grief work? Emotional Continuity Management means being an expert on grief work.

Denial

John went to work at the mall on Christmas Eve. It was freezing and he hoped for his usually close-up parking place near the entrance .

Bargaining

John cruised the lot for open spots close to the entrance for 15 minutes.

He saw a spot up close and zoomed toward it. There was a motorcycle in the spot.

Anger

John cursed the motorcyclist under his breath and moved on.

Depression

John decided to park in the outer lot and walk farther.

Acceptance

John parked far away and trudged to his job in the mall.

Learning Byte

John didn't get stuck. If he had gotten stuck in anger he may have gone to work in a sour mood and stayed upset all evening. If he had been stuck in depression he may have questioned working at the mall or turned it into some other self-depreciating thought. If he had stayed stuck in bargaining he may have driven around for much longer looking for that easy parking spot. Grief happens. John wasn't devastated emotionally by this change and his adjustment.

DO THIS: Become and efficient griever.

DON'T: Make changes without expecting grief to be a part of the process.

Business losses from change are emotionally loaded because work is so intimately associated with safety and survival. Work is associated with key perceptions about the self, ego, status, worth, value, money and character. Business changes link many areas of human behavior. Work represents internal perceptions that are key to the foundational infrastructure of the personality and stability of the self. Changes in work can fragment the very foundations of self worth. What this means emotionally is that change can unhinge people from the inside out causing temporary or permanent unbalancing, which can lead to emotional spins. Something as simple as someone taking a parking spot that an employee has "territorialized" can lead to emotional grief and spinning behaviors.

Even removing an outdated vending machine can become a symbol for survival. If a vending machine becomes symbolic to survival, the vending machine is now emotionally charge and the change attached to the loss of it by its removal can become a grief event loaded with bargaining, anger and depression.

The cafeteria at the hospital closed at 7:00pm. The only food available for graveyard shift came from home or the one vending machine in the lounge. Without evaluating the effect, administration removed the vending machine, claiming it wasn't necessary or financially viable . The uproar was extreme. Graveyard shift workers took it personally blaming everything from favoritism to outright loss of civil liberties. After many loud and angry meetings where administrators explained the fiscal rationale behind the economic losses associated with the machine, three employees resigned. The cost to the hospital topped $95,000.00

Learning Byte

No one asked what emotional needs were met with a vending machine available for middle-of-the-night emergency services personnel. To them it was "lifeline" and symbolized comfort and security. Many Emotional Continuity Management defusings were accomplished over group "let's-go-get-something-out-of-the-vending-machine" pilgrimages. For example, during one short-staffed night shift, the community experienced a particularly grisly multiple car accident that included many fatalities. The small hospital was crawling with grieving relatives, press, medical examiners, emergency personnel, and other previously admitted or emergency patients . The staff was running at full speed for hours on end. The vending machine became the "safe harbor" to run to for a "quick candy bar" to get through the next hours of work. Someone would say, "I'm getting a candy bar" and take the 3 minutes to breathe, recompose themselves , and emotionally regroup to go back into the fray.

The loss of this whimsical old vending machine, the night staff's symbolic safe harbor and nurturing mother with a cookie in the middle of a hard night, became personal. A previously tense, but covert low-level rivalry between day shift perk of ready-to-eat-food and the self-defined "food-less heroes of the night" became overt warfare of words and disgruntled employees. The battle that had been underground for years was now spinning wildly into the open. Administrations didn't see it coming and it created an unfixable rift between administration and night medical staff, days-only employees and nights-only employees and the three employees that quit. The Emotional Continuity Management consultant immediately asked what the vending machine meant to people and was told. The staff was collectively appalled that no one in administration or management had even had the courtesy , much less the wisdom, to ask if the vending machine was useful to anyone . It became very personal.

DO THIS: Assume that everything matters to someone.

DON'T: Forget to do your research! Don't neglect to ask everyone before a change. You don't want someone you missed asking to show up disgruntled because you didn't anticipate that a simple loss might be catastrophic to someone.