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Article Leading In Times of Trauma Once in a great while, tragic circumstances present us with a challenge for which we simply cannot prepare. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, immediately come to mind. But leaders and their team members face crises at other times too. Tragedies can occur at an individual level. An employee is diagnosed with cancer, for example, or loses a family member to an unexpected illness. Or, on a larger scale, a natural disaster destroys an entire section of the city, leaving hundreds of people dead, injured, or homeless. Such events can cause unspeakable pain, not only for the people involved, but also for those who see misfortune befall colleagues, friends, or even total strangers. That pain spills into the workplace. The managerial rulebooks fail us at times like these, when people are searching for meaning and a reason to hope for the future. There is, however, something leaders can do in times of collective pain and confusion. By the very nature of your position, you can help individuals and companies begin to heal by taking actions that demonstrate your own compassion, thereby, unleashing a compassionate response throughout the whole organization. Research has demonstrated that although the human capacity to show compassion is universal, some organizations suppress it, while others create an environment in which compassion is not only expressed, but spreads. Why is organizational compassion important beyond the obvious and compelling reasons of humanity? Unleashing compassion in the workplace not only lessens the immediate suffering of those directly affected by trauma, it enables them to recover from future setbacks more quickly and effectively and it increases their attachment to their colleagues and hence, to the company itself. For those who witness or participate in acts of compassion, the effect is just as great. People’s caring gestures contribute to their own resilience and attachment to the organization. Indeed, it has been discovered that a leader’s ability to enable a compassionate response throughout a company directly affects the organization’s ability to maintain high performance in difficult times. It fosters a company’s capacity to heal, to learn, to adapt, and to excel. In the following pages, I will describe the actions leaders can take to enable organizational compassion in times of trauma. Before I begin, it is worth noting that some of the examples are drawn from the events of September 11, 2001, because the magnitude of pain surrounding those events was unprecedented in business history and because of the public nature of those events, the stories are relevant to a broad audience. However, pain occurred in the workplace long before last September, and individual and group trauma will continue to disrupt people’s daily lives, [at times, shattering their lives] as long as humans continue to conduct business. Beyond Empathy When people think of compassion, the first thing that comes to mind for many is empathy. But while empathy can be comforting, it does not engender a broader response and, therefore, has limited capacity for organizational healing. Instead, research shows that compassionate leadership involves taking some form of public action, however small, that is intended to ease people’s pain, and that inspires others to act as well. TJX President and CEO, Edmund English, who lost seven employees aboard one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center, gathered his staff together shortly after the attacks to confirm the names of the victims. He called in grief counselors the very same day and chartered a plane to bring the victims’ relatives from Canada and Europe to the company’s headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts. He personally greeted the families when they arrived in the parking lot at midnight on September 15. Although told by English that they could take some time off after the attacks, most employees opted to come into work, as English himself had done, and support one another in the early days following the tragedy. For a historical perspective on the same kind of compassionate leadership, we can look at Britain’s Queen Mother, who demonstrated great courage by refusing to leave London as bombs ravaged the city around her during World War II. She and King George visited sites that had been destroyed during the blitz of 1940, showing her dedication, concern, and commitment to the allied cause, and inspiring life-long admiration and loyalty for her constant presence. What the president of TJX, Edmund English, and the Queen Mother, and other leaders have done is facilitate a compassionate institutional response on two levels. The first level is what I call a context for meaning. The leader creates an environment in which people can freely express and discuss the way they feel, which in turn, helps them to make sense of their pain, seek or provide comfort, and imagine a more hopeful future. The second level is a context for action. The leader creates an environment in which those who experience or witness pain can find ways to alleviate their own and others’ suffering. Research indicates that those who excel at leading compassionately and effectively in times of crisis, adhere to a set of shared practices that help people make sense of terrible events and allow employees to heal and move on. Meaning Amid Chaos Acute trauma, tragedy, or distress can cause people to engage in intense soul searching. I am not referring to the restlessness and stock taking that is a natural and ongoing process as people mature and grow in their careers. I am talking about the persistent and vexing questions that affect how people live their lives: Why did this happen? Could I have prevented it? How will we cope? Why me? And even for employees who witness a tragic event, but are not directly affected, why not me? It is not your job as a leader to answer these questions, but at the same time, it is not realistic or reasonable to ask people to ponder these questions only on their own time, outside the workplace. Instead, you can cultivate an environment that allows people to work through their questions in their own way so they can eventually start assigning meaning to events and begin healing. You can start by setting an example for others by openly revealing your own humanity. You may well experience the same emotions affecting your employees from deep sorrow, to anxiousness, to uncertainty, to anger, to steely resolve. Openly expressing these feelings can be very powerful for those who witness it, especially during times of extreme pain. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s public display of grief in the wake of the New York’s terrorist attacks set the stage for an honest expression of anguish throughout the city. And, at the same time, strengthened people’s resolve to rebuild and restore confidence in the city. When people know they can bring their pain to the office, they no longer have to expend energy trying to ignore or suppress it, and they can more easily and effectively get back to work. This may be a mutually reinforcing cycle since getting back to a routine can be healing in itself. Conversely, when you expect people to stifle their emotions, they do not know how or where to direct their energy and it is very difficult for them to figure out how to focus at work. It also tests their loyalty for the organization. I am familiar with the headquarters of a large manufacturing firm where a visitor died suddenly in the company’s hallways despite employees’ heroic efforts to revive him. Company leaders did not acknowledge the trauma publicly, leaving people shocked and demoralized, and uncertain about how to respond should such an event occur again. Some employees were racked with guilt over not being able to save the man’s life. Others felt weak and helpless because they had no opportunity to grieve in the presence of their colleagues. They had shared a significant experience and could not console one another or even recognize people’s extraordinary efforts to revive the victim. This one event damaged, not just the employees who were directly involved, but also the social fabric of the whole company. By acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, the company’s leaders left people feeling as if the organization did not recognize them as human beings which created a rift between the employees and management that has never been repaired to this day. Be Present A seemingly simple, but important aspect of demonstrating your humanity is just being present, physically and emotionally. It shows employees that the organization cares about what happens to them and will do whatever it can to help them in a time of need. At one leading research firm, a senior vice president died suddenly of a heart attack. The grief-stricken CEO personally visited each member of his twelve-person management team to deliver the news, going house to house to share in each person’s sorrow. His presence could not undo their colleague’s death nor could it stop their pain. But there is tremendous power in just sitting with people as they process terrible news. Bear in mind too, that being there does not mean you have to visit people at home. Sitting with someone who is going through a crisis in his or her office can be just as powerful. Unfortunately, however, the simple act of being there does not come easily or naturally to most people. It can be much easier to avoid those who are in pain. One CEO told me that his natural tendency had been to shrink from addressing people’s personal problems until the sudden death of his own son revealed for him the power of other people’s presence. “Their compassion,” he said,” made all the difference.” Leaders can also help people in times of trauma by taking care of their basic needs, which gives people the room to make meaning of events for themselves and allows them to focus on coping with the crisis. This is one reason people bring food to friends who have suffered a death in a family. But it can apply to organizations as well. At one company, an employee’s daughter suffered a horrific car accident far from home. To make it easier for the employee and her husband, the company’s leaders rented an apartment for them near the hospital. Knowing that they had a safe and close place to stay removed one aspect of the family’s stress and allowed them to focus on their daughter’s health. This meaning-making process can also be supported by communicating and reinforcing organizational values. Reminding people about the larger purpose of their work, even as they struggle to make sense of major life issues. The bottom line is this: The way that you deal with tragedy and illness and misfortune in the lives of employees, not only of your top people, but of all your people, literally defines your values as an organization. And people do notice. A final note on meaning making. Symbolic gestures can be very powerful. Two days after the September 11 terrorist attack, Queen Elizabeth II asked her troops to play the Star Spangled Banner during the changing of the guard services outside Buckingham Palace. This extraordinary break from a time-honored tradition dating back to 1660 gave thousands of Americans far from home, as well as supporters from other countries, a way to pay their respects and to mourn. Actions Amid Agony A context for meaning is the all-important backdrop for creating a compassionate organization. But it is in creating a context for action that leaders can truly unleash an organization’s power to heal. As a leader, you can set the right example to awaken the potential compassion. Perhaps the most important step you can take is to model the behaviors you would like to see others demonstrate. Frequently, people are not sure if it is appropriate to bring personal matters into the workplace or they may simply not know how. You can show them using your status and visibility as a leader. Leaders can also use their influence to reallocate resources to support people in need. I know the manager of a billing department at a large hospital who makes it a point to know the workloads and personal circumstances of each member of her unit. That way, she can cut people slack when they need extra support. For example, one employee’s husband suffered kidney failure and was awaiting a transplant. The billing manager gave the woman a pager and organized a team of people who could step in and pick up the woman’s work on a moment’s notice. That way, the employee would be able to take her husband to the hospital without delay if a kidney became available. When tragedy strikes, the company’s existing infrastructure [its formal and informal networks and routines] can be helpful in locating useful resources, generating ideas, coordinating groups that are not typically connected and communicating to people what is happening and how the company is responding. For example, after two Macy’s stores were badly damaged in the 1994 North Ridge, California, earthquake and could not immediately reopen, a store manager used the payroll system to quickly deliver cash to employees whose homes were destroyed. Macy’s issued emergency advances of up to a thousand dollars at a time so that people could secure food, water, and shelter for their families. Following the immediate relief effort, the human resources team used its standard placement routines to search among Macy’s stores in Southern California for opportunities to put displaced workers back on the job right away. Human resource workers quickly determined where help was most needed and then used their networks of employees to establish car pools for people. Within a short time, all employees and undamaged stores were up and running again. People often think of routines as unwieldy processes that interfere with quick response, but in Macy’s case, the established routines helped to expedite matters. From the Bottom Up It is essential to understand that organizational response does not have to happen at the top. Leaders need to recognize and support instances where spontaneous organizing and compassionate actions occur at the lower levels of a company. When the organizational context emphasizes and inspires compassionate responses, bottom-up initiatives can take hold and have a healing effect. At Foote Hospital in Jackson, Michigan, employees wanted to help a colleague who had lost three close relatives, so they lobbied for a system that would let them donate vacation or personal time to others who needed extra days off. Donating time has now become an official policy at Foote Hospital, although, of course, contributions are voluntary, thanks to the initiative and innovative thinking of people at the staff level of the organization. This program took on new life in the wake of the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Foote employees donated more than eighteen thousand dollars worth of their vacation time to the Red Cross Relief Fund. Again, at their own initiative and the hospital matched their gift. As these stories indicate, organizational compassion can be contagious. Indeed, what I call “positive spirals of compassion” where one act of compassion inspires another act of compassion. The Case For Compassion It is hard to document the positive effect that organizational compassion has on employee retention and productivity, but it is clear that employees will reward companies that treat them humanely. On December 11, 1995, a fire destroyed the Malden Mills Manufacturing Plant in Massachusetts. Instead of taking his three- hundred-million-dollar insurance payout and relocating or retiring, owner, Erwin Feuerstein, decided to rebuild the factory. He announced that he would keep all three thousand employees on the payroll through December while he started to rebuild. In January, he said he would pay them for a second month and in February, Feuerstein pledged to pay for a third. His generosity made quite an impact on his employees. Productivity at the plant nearly doubled once it reopened. Conversely, the cost of not providing leadership and the organizational infrastructure to help people deal with their grief are considerable. People in pain tend to be distracted at work and if they do not have appropriate outlets, they may become unresponsive and even uncooperative in dealing with colleagues and customers. Just as compassion can be contagious, so can the detachment that accompanies a non-compassionate response. Loyalty to the organization erodes not just among the people who have directly suffered a tragedy, but also among their colleagues who witness a lack of caring and concern. Over time, if an organization will not or cannot support the healing process, employee retention will suffer. At one large city television station, the station manager lost his wife to breast cancer. During his wife’s extended illness, the employee felt no compassion from his boss. Instead, he endured complaints about his relatively low level productivity and how the Neilson Ratings were at that particular station. On his first day back to work after the funeral, his boss said to him, “I guess you’ll be working those twelve-hour days again.” The station manager, who was now raising two young children on his own, quit. He decided that the company simply was not worth his effort. At the very human level in every organization, there is always grief somewhere in the room. Most of us would be somewhat surprised to discover the private struggles of those that we rub elbows with every day. One person may be feeling personal pain due to a death in the family. Another may find personality conflicts in the workplace unbearable. Still another may be watching a colleague struggle with a serious illness and not know how to help. You cannot eliminate such suffering, nor can you ask people to check their emotions at the door. But as a leader, you can use your leadership to begin the healing process. Through your presence, you can model behaviors that set the stage for the process of making meaning out of terrible events. And through your actions, you can empower people to find their own way to support one another during painful times. This is the kind of leadership we wish we would never have to use. Yet, it is vital if we are to nourish the very humanity that can make people and organizations great. For more information about Ken Chapman and Associates’ Leadership Development Programs, contact Ken Chapman at 205.366.0265 or email Ken at kchapman@leaderscode.com. <End> |
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