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138. Navigating Grief at Work-with Margo Fowkes
94 Plays2 years ago
Margo Fowkes is the founder and president of OnTarget Consulting, Inc., a firm specializing in helping organizations and individuals act strategically,improve performance and achieve their business goals.
Margo works with clients to solve problems of productivity,
morale and innovation. Author of Leading Through Loss: How
to Navigate Grief at Work, Margo also coaches leaders on how
to create a more compassionate culture by acknowledging and
speaking openly about grief and loss in the workplace.
In addition to her consulting work, Margo delivers a variety of workshops and keynotes. Her most sought-after programs include From Coping to Conquering: Overcoming Negativity in the Workplace, Working Through Grief and When Conflict Strikes: Preserving the Relationship & Getting What You Want.
Inspired by her son Jimmy who died in 2014 after an eight-year battle
with brain cancer, Margo launched Salt Water, an online community that provides a safe harbor for those who have lost someone dear to them – a child, parent, partner, sibling, close friend or pet. Inspired by Jimmy’s determination to live a rich, full life despite his circumstances, the blog posts and resources focus on healing and building a new life in the aftermath of a devastating loss.
Contact Margo Fowkes:
https://www.ontargetconsulting.net
https://findyourharbor.com
https://www.facebook.com/OnTargetConsultingInc
https://www.facebook.com/FindYourHarbor
https://twitter.com/margoontarget
https://twitter.com/FindYourHarbor
https://www.instagram.com/findyourharbor/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/margo-fowkes-ontarget-consulting/
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching:
https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Supporting a Grieving Coworker
00:00:01
Speaker
What's really important is for the team that works with this grieving coworker to get some guidance on that. And the best way to do that is to either have the manager or a close friend of the grieving coworker talk to that person about what helps and what doesn't in the workplace. So for example, you might go back to work and you might feel very comfortable having your coworkers come up to you, even if they fumble. And, you know, as you said,
00:00:29
Speaker
stumble over what they say, say the wrong thing, whatever. That expression of condolence and sadness for what's happened is okay with you. Whereas other people, there is nothing that you can say. They do not want to talk about it at work.
Podcast Introduction: Exploring Grief
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:53
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:09
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Interview with Margo Folks
00:01:30
Speaker
On today's episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing Margo folks. She is the founder and president of On Target, and she is the author of Leading Through Loss, How to Navigate Grief at Work. And I am excited to have this conversation with you today, Margo. Welcome. Thank you so much, Kendra. I'm a huge fan of your podcast, so I'm very excited to be here.
00:01:55
Speaker
I appreciate you saying that and thank you for being here and now sharing your own journey. And then this book that you have that, you know, this is a first, this is the first time I believe I have a book that is about really navigating grief in the workspace. So thank you for this beautiful piece of work that will help other people
00:02:20
Speaker
as they themselves are grieving, if they have coworkers, if they're the boss, if they, you know, just any type of work
Personal Grieving Experience as a Boss
00:02:28
Speaker
dynamic. And before we started recording, I said, wait, you know, I was like, I've been the boss and had grieved and I just had realized, I'm like, when I had my miscarriage, I actually owned a children's gym at the time and I was the boss. And this would have been very helpful for me to have read then. So thank you again.
00:02:48
Speaker
Oh, you're welcome. I mean, I think it's something, if we don't have a resource and we're in the middle of it, I think we just soldier through, right? We just sort of figure it out. And sometimes, depending on the circumstances, we just kind of put it out of our mind once we either eventually change the job or just feel like we're kind of mostly back to our old self.
00:03:10
Speaker
And so in one way, I'm not surprised that you don't remember because you probably just got through it as best you could. As we probably all do in life, right, as you said, in any of these circumstances, it's the first time we are, even with parenting, it's the first time we are parenting a child that is one, the first time that we're doing it. And we're just kind of going through it and we don't have a manual for everything. And again, because even, I believe you say this in your book,
00:03:37
Speaker
You know, grief is as unique as your fingerprint that it will be unique also. So even as someone that might be in the workspace and you have a manual, you might encounter something that is completely different than you even thought, right?
Grief's Unique Impact
00:03:56
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, think about it in the context of, you know, if a coworker were to die.
00:04:02
Speaker
that even though everyone on that team in that workplace is grieving exactly the same loss, the same person, they will grieve the absence and the death of their coworker in very different ways. And especially too, because for each individual, it may bring up different things. So someone might remember even the loss of someone in their family as they're grieving the loss of the coworker. And you might be like, why is this?
00:04:32
Speaker
Why is Kendra crying so much? She barely talked to that person. But you don't know what other things might be even bubbling up in that experience of that grief, right? It kind of just opens up the door for all these other emotions. And the other thing it opens up the door as well when we go through that is of our own mortality.
00:04:54
Speaker
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And in particular,
Margo's Personal Story: Family and Loss
00:04:58
Speaker
I mean, you think about it, if you're a young person in particular and you lose someone that's close to your age or even younger, and maybe you haven't had a lot of experience with loss, or at least people that are younger who've died that you knew, that can be pretty terrifying to realize that this young person has passed away, particularly if the circumstances are such that it's not something where you can think, well, that's not gonna happen to me.
00:05:24
Speaker
Now let's talk about your own life and your journey. So tell us about you. Where do you live right now? In Sacramento, California. Is that where you grew up? I grew up in San Jose, actually. We've lived in Sacramento. When my husband and I got married, we moved to Sacramento and then we spent 10 years up in Portland and then moved back to Sacramento when our son started college.
00:05:54
Speaker
as we're recording this is just during the time of a lot of flooding and rains. Were you guys okay in your area where you were at with all the? Yes. We had a number of trees come down, but up here we're a little bit higher because we actually live to the east of Sacramento proper. And so with the elevation, it's muddy and we have some spot flooding, but nothing like what they're experiencing down in Sacramento proper.
00:06:22
Speaker
in other areas. Okay. So take us into your own family dynamics. You mentioned your husband, so tell us about your own family circle, and we're going to talk about your own personal experience with grief and how that also inspired you now writing this book. Sure. So my husband, Dan, and I met in college and got married about five years after we graduated.
00:06:52
Speaker
And we had two children, our son Jimmy, who was first, and then our daughter Molly. And until Jimmy's early teen years, we were a pretty normal family with two kids. And when he was 13 and a half, we were on vacation in Hawaii and he had been getting these increasingly intense headaches.
00:07:15
Speaker
And I'd been on the phone with the pediatrician's office and they kept saying, Oh, we think it's dehydration. You know, it's probably nothing, but bring him in when, when you get back.
Jimmy's Battle with Brain Cancer
00:07:25
Speaker
And so after a week of trying to figure out what it was, the pediatrician eventually ordered an MRI just to rule out anything. And we discovered that Jimmy had a brain tumor and that that's what was causing all the problems. And so over the course of the next eight years,
00:07:43
Speaker
he went through the initial treatment, he had a year off, and then the cancer returned. And then he spent the remainder of that time on and off different kinds of treatment. And for most of those years, he actually did fairly well in terms of being able to be in high school and graduate, and he went to college for two and a half years. But in that final year of his life, the combination of just the, I think the
00:08:11
Speaker
accumulation of all those intense treatments and also just the impact of the cancer growing more aggressively had him come home for his final year of his life. And then he died in February of 2014. So we're actually coming up now on the nine year anniversary of that, which I can almost hardly believe.
00:08:31
Speaker
Isn't it just so odd, like this concept of time to within that, right? It's like, what? Nine. You can remember certain things as if they were yesterday, probably, I'm sure, in that journey. Thank you for sharing and thank you for sharing Jimmy with us and for him probably being this catalyst for you to now do what it is you do in your life.
00:08:57
Speaker
So when you were navigating your grief, were you in the workspace at that time? I was, but not for every moment of it. I worked up until he got into the later stages of his treatment and his journey with cancer. We got to a point where the combination of
00:09:23
Speaker
his need for treatment and how he was feeling and the need for me to do some research on different options because there's so few children in the situation that he was in with this kind of brain tumor that I wound up putting, pushing pause on my work. And then I went back to it after, a couple of years after he died, I went back to work.
00:09:45
Speaker
And for your husband, the same, did he have flexibility to be able to do that as well as you were navigating grief or how was it for him? We basically, we sort of balanced it back and forth. So in the first year of his treatment, the initial treatment, I continued to work and Dan had been in the process of changing jobs and decided that he was going to take a bit
Balancing Work and Family
00:10:11
Speaker
of time off so that if
00:10:12
Speaker
Jimmy, when he was at school, for example, suddenly started not feeling well and needed to come home, Dan wanted to be available to him. And he also wanted to spend more time with our daughter since he works in sales for startups. He'd been traveling a lot and he really wanted the time with her as well. So he took off a year and stayed home. I continued to work, then he went back to work and then
00:10:40
Speaker
Towards the very end of Jimmy's life, he did take a leave of absence from his company to be home for that as well. So it was kind of almost a flow in and out of the workplace for both of us during those years.
00:10:54
Speaker
What a blessing to some extent that you had that flexibility to be able to take time for yourself because again, not everybody does. Tell us some facts in terms of what most companies give people in terms of grief time. What are some of the regular hours that most companies give? Two weeks, a week. What are some of these statistics that you've come across?
00:11:21
Speaker
So after someone dies, and this assumes that someone is someone defined as close, meaning a child, a parent, a sibling, the average in this country is three to four days of bereavement leave, which is nothing. And there's still companies and organizations apparently that don't offer any leave. Although I have to say in all the conversations that I've had with the people I interviewed and other people I've talked to about the book,
00:11:49
Speaker
I have not run across someone who said to me, my company would not give me any time off, but officially it's three to four days. And then it's up to the manager about how much time they're able to offer off. Sometimes it's not even within their control. So I don't want to make it sound like it's, you know, it's purely just a person making this decision. You know, it's sometimes there's just, there's constraints and they're not able to offer much time off at all.
00:12:17
Speaker
That is just amazing to me to think that it's just that short period. Now, for some people, work does become the way that they cope. I know that I have a friend's husband who, after his dad died, he didn't even tell his coworkers and he went,
00:12:39
Speaker
to work the next day that he needed that. He needed that routine in his own grief journey. That is what that person needed. Everybody's so different again, but some might need so much longer. In three or four days, you're barely even able to do some of the business or administrative things that have to do regarding even
00:13:02
Speaker
the process of someone dying, like a home, a burial, this, that. It's just incredible that it's only that few days. It is. It is. There are a few companies that are giving more time, but we should mandate more time off for folks because it really isn't enough. Then with the option, as you said, of course,
00:13:32
Speaker
There were people I interviewed who said I took a week, maybe two, and then I went back to work because that's when I needed. I needed the routine, I needed my coworkers, and some of them talked about their loss at work, and some of them said it was the place I could go for nine hours, eight hours, where I didn't have to think about it. I knew no one would bring it up, and I could just be there and try to focus and get some work done.
00:14:01
Speaker
right? And then for some, that even that in itself, when people go back into their workplace, there's still so much judgment sometimes too about it, right? Oh my goodness, how can she be here already? Like there's just so much judgment regardless if we take too long to grieve, if we do it too quickly, if we go back into
00:14:24
Speaker
our routine. Talk about that aspect of judgment and what you've noticed even for yourself and as you were interviewing these different people, did that come up? Oh, it did. Absolutely. I mean, if you think about it just with any loss, even in our personal lives, we have this habit of humans is thinking, oh, Kendra just lost her mother. Why is she doing this? I wouldn't do that, right?
00:14:51
Speaker
as opposed to allowing the other person some grace in making the decision
Judgment of Grief Responses
00:14:56
Speaker
that's best for them. So I agree there's absolutely different kinds of judgment. And what gets layered on top of that is the ways in which we judge other people, other losses, meaning that we each have this sort of hierarchy, I think, of which losses are worse than others. And when my son died, of course,
00:15:19
Speaker
Most people would say that to lose a child is the worst possible loss. And so I never experienced any of that, of course, because it was my son who had died. But a year later, when my mother died, I got a lot of people who meant it with all the best intentions, saying things like, oh, but she had such a long, full life.
00:15:43
Speaker
And while that was true and had she died without my having lost my son, I probably wouldn't even have thought about it. But inside what I was thinking is that my son is dead and my mother is one of my most important people and now she's not here either. And so this loss was so much bigger than it would have been had the circumstances been different. And it's not that people should know or understand that.
00:16:10
Speaker
But we bring that kind of judgment and ranking into work, often unintentionally and sometimes without even being aware of it. And then we layer all that on this person who has come back and we judge them, basically.
00:16:26
Speaker
And that happens to even more when it's, as I'm petting my dog here who just came to say hi, when it's a pet, for example. A pet, somebody could be like, why
Supporting Grieving Coworkers
00:16:40
Speaker
would they need time off if it's their pet? But that pet could have been the only companion that person had.
00:16:47
Speaker
in their life as well and what that pet meant to that individual was much more than any other even person sometimes in their life because that was their person quote unquote that you know not a person their pet but I you know what I
00:17:05
Speaker
I mean by that. So yes, it is something we have to all be very watchful of. And though for us, it may not be that big, like even with my miscarriage, I remember me reflecting how I had felt for my miscarriage and when another friend had her miscarriage and she's like, Oh no, I'm fine. And I'm like,
00:17:22
Speaker
Oh, okay. Because I was projecting how I had felt for mine, right, onto her. And for her, it was a different experience, or at least she said so. So yeah, it is very tricky. Now let's talk about some of those things. If someone's in the workspace and one of their coworkers has had a loss, you give a lot of tips of the things to say or not to say, what are some things that we should
00:17:52
Speaker
I'll just say the word try because of course we never know what's going to come out of our mouth. I never know what's going to come out of my mouth. I still say the wrong things even if I know the right thing to say. Me too. Because we get flustered, we get nervous and sometimes those emotions get in and we just say it without thinking. But what are some of these tips that you say in the book of things not to say?
00:18:20
Speaker
So I want to step back actually one step before that, which is one of the things I talk about in the book too, is that what's really important is for, is for the team that works with this grieving coworker to get some guidance on that. And the best way to do that is to either have the manager or a close friend of the grieving coworker talk to that person about what helps and what doesn't in the workplace. So for example, you might go back to work
00:18:48
Speaker
And you might feel very comfortable having your coworkers come up to you, even if they fumble. And, you know, as you said, stumble over what they say, say the wrong thing, whatever. That expression of condolence and sadness for what's happened is okay with you. Whereas other people, there is nothing that you can say. They do not want to talk about it at work. And one of the mistakes I think that leaders make sometimes is they don't get out in front of that. And so what happens is the grieving coworker comes back to work
00:19:18
Speaker
and they are at the mercy of what people say to them and when. So imagine you're going into a meeting, you're about to give a presentation, and one of your colleagues pulls you aside and says, oh, Kendra, I heard about your miscarriage, I'm so sorry. And while it's lovely and meaningful, now you're thinking about your miscarriage, you may cry, you may get emotional, and you've got to go in and give this presentation. So I think what's most helpful is to get
00:19:47
Speaker
some advice and direct counsel from the person who's grieving and then share that with the team. And people will still make mistakes because we're human and we do that. But at least you can avoid the bulk of them by getting that kind of counsel. And then I think beyond that, as you know, the thing that's important is just to share your sadness that this has happened. If the person feels comfortable sharing a bit about the person they've lost,
00:20:17
Speaker
then that's a lovely thing to ask about as well. I think one of the things to stay away from are questions about the circumstances. Because then, I don't know about for you, but for me, when people asked a lot about how Jimmy died or what that was like, I felt like we were focusing on his death instead of the way he lived and who he was as a person.
00:20:41
Speaker
And in that moment, too, it becomes more about the curiosity of the individual is sometimes more than kind of meeting that curiosity that we have in our mind, that thing of like, oh, I wonder what happened and kind of numbing that out rather than really about the grief of the individual that's going through that.
00:21:00
Speaker
And it's normal to be curious, right? But sometimes it's normal. It's part of our human nature to be curious. But that in itself can minimize sometimes also just the experience itself of the grief of the individual. And you're more focusing on the how. How it happened and what happened. Thank you for that and for going back and going through that aspect of explaining that the boss should
00:21:26
Speaker
call the boss or project manager, call the individual, get a sense for what it is. They feel comfortable as they come back to the workspace so that then they can talk to the team and be prepared as to what it is that you will be approaching and how to approach the situation for that. Exactly. Which makes everyone feel more comfortable because you and I live in this space of grief and loss.
00:21:56
Speaker
It's not that I still don't get nervous about talking to someone who's had a terrible heartbreaking loss, but I've done it enough that I'm going to do it even if I'm nervous. But for many of us, the thought of talking to someone who's been shattered by something is really terrifying. And so to have to go into that with no guidance at all, what tends to happen is people don't say anything.
00:22:20
Speaker
because it is just too scary. And the fear of saying the wrong thing or upsetting their colleague at work is greater than the feeling of I need to do this. And they actually oftentimes will make the judgment that it's better not to say anything because I'll get it wrong. I might upset her.
00:22:39
Speaker
And then that person then is sitting there at work knowing everyone knows and no one's saying anything.
Grief's Workplace Impact
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah, make things worse than we thought. One of the tips here towards the end, contact your employee as soon as you hear the news. And you mentioned about different forms of communication, not just assuming that if they got the voicemail or the email.
00:23:06
Speaker
sending different types of messages to make sure that they know you've tried to reach them if you're the boss. Were there different stories like that that might have occurred in which somebody might have just assumed that the employee had received, let's say via email, but they're probably bombarded with other emails they never got, then come to the workspace probably and they're like, my boss never reached out, but you really didn't try enough as a boss.
00:23:35
Speaker
You know, I didn't hear that so much as I think when someone reaches out to us by a certain medium, the expectation is that we respond in the same one. So if you call and leave me a voicemail, I'm going to call you back. And if I don't feel like I can talk on the phone very easily, then I may, you know, it's hard for me to return the phone call. Whereas if you reach out in a couple of ways and maybe you use Slack or text or email and phone,
00:24:06
Speaker
then the person you're trying to get a hold of has the option of what's more comfortable. And I always think phone conversations are better because you have that live interaction where the other person might say something, it might spark a different question, it's a richer conversation, but your grieving employee may not be able to handle that.
00:24:26
Speaker
at that point. And so then you've sent a message, no pun intended, that, you know, that texting is fine as a way of sorting out the details of the return to work.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for clarification with that. It's more about whether the individual feels actually comfortable responding in a text or a call. So you're giving them the options of responding in any of these forms by reaching out in several ways as well to them. Exactly. So that's a great clarification. Well, and the other thing too, Kendra, just one other thing to add as well is that
00:25:04
Speaker
is because we don't get a lot of time off. And then we are also trying to grieve this loss. Our days can get all upside down. And so your employee might want to get back to you at one o'clock in the morning when they can't sleep. And that might be the first time when they feel like, oh, I've got to respond to that email or that text. But if you have only phoned them and they feel the need to return the phone call, then unintentionally you've limited them to calling you
00:25:35
Speaker
during those work hours, which may or may not be a good time to return the phone call. So again, it just gives people more flexibility.
00:25:42
Speaker
Very important, especially for a grieving person, which time, as we know, has really no concept in those moments at all. Let's talk about the education of grief in the workspace, because how often, even though, yes, let's say it's your new boss, you're a new boss, it's a new company, and it's a first time someone
00:26:09
Speaker
has a loss and all of a sudden here you are, oh my goodness, this is something that's not in my manual, I've got to navigate. What resources do I use and who do I get to come and talk about grief in the workspace that's go into that place of how can a person that's in that position, project manager, you know, or boss be able to educate their staff about grief.
00:26:40
Speaker
So I think it's helpful to bring in someone like me to talk about that because I think there are questions that potentially are more comfortable to ask someone outside of the workforce in that way so that it doesn't put the onus on the boss. I also think it can be really helpful to reach out to other people that you know who've dealt with something similar.
00:27:05
Speaker
and use them as the resource. And they may also be, depending on the circumstances, they may also be a good person to come in and talk to the team. You know, their experience is not going to necessarily be broad in terms of the grief aspect so much, but if they have experience, for example, in how to support a grieving team or a grieving employee, then that practical experience of, you know, here's what we did well, and boy, here's where we made mistakes, and these are the things I wouldn't do again,
00:27:35
Speaker
That's so useful because it's, you know, I think we sometimes get this notion that we're supposed to be perfect as we're navigating grief, whether it's inside or outside the workplace. And as you know, that's just not possible. So it really helps to learn from other people and what they've done that's worked and what hasn't.
00:27:56
Speaker
So as you're saying, someone like you, so just again, because let's talk about what it is you do, because you are an author, but let's talk about your business and how it is that you are able then with your company, support companies or things like that to educate about grief. So I've been a consultant now for almost 25 years. And I think part of my unique experience is that I was doing work around grief and loss.
00:28:26
Speaker
before I would have named it that because I started my practice in the late 90s and it was in the heyday of layoffs, which I'm sad to say we are in the midst of again right now, as if we did not learn anything from those days.
00:28:44
Speaker
And there was a lot of talk about right sizing and downsizing and trimming the fat as if we were not eliminating people's jobs and as if these people didn't have mortgages and children and retirement looming. And so I used to get hired by companies to go in and do trainings to work with the leadership that was left and the team that was left in order to rebuild the morale.
00:29:11
Speaker
which as you can imagine is shattered by a layoff because even if you survive it, you know, some percentage of your teammates are no longer there. You very often are friends with them, you know, their circumstances.
00:29:25
Speaker
So you're sad about that. You're grieving. You're grieving while you're grieving that your friend is not working there anymore. You're grieving the fact that, wow, that could have been me, too, not having a job at this moment. Okay. So yeah, so you definitely were dealing with grief just in a different way. But yes, continue, please.
00:29:47
Speaker
Exactly. And so I did a lot of work around that and it didn't, at the time, I'm sure I never used the word grief. I probably did use the word loss, you know, that it's a loss that the change has happened that, you know, you're now taking on more work, your friend is gone, et cetera. But I, I didn't really think about it in the same terms. But when I came back to my practice after Jimmy died,
00:30:12
Speaker
And I also, at the same time, I launched Saltwater, which is my online community and blog for anyone who's lost someone dear to them. I started to see those links much more clearly. And I started to find myself using examples from my grief experience when I was talking to organizations. So for example, during COVID, I did a lot of work with clients
00:30:37
Speaker
who were faced with cutting jobs, with cutting back on programs, with making significant changes because of the impact of everything being closed. And I found myself this time around using grief and loss and even telling some aspect of my experience with Jimmy as an illustration of what they were going through. And so I really started to see that connection more clearly
00:31:04
Speaker
And I think it's one of the things that I bring that's a bit unique in that I'm not a therapist or a psychologist. So if you wanted your team to have training on that aspect of grief, I am not the right person because I don't have that background. But what I have is all these years of experience, of working with people who have experienced all kinds of loss, both death for sure, but also the other losses that we experience at work.
00:31:34
Speaker
and in learning how to help organizations rebuild a team, rebuild morale, come back together in the face of it.
00:31:43
Speaker
No, it's so important. And I like, as you're talking about just in general, everything. You bring up this quote that I like. As consultant Alan Wise says, we don't have a personal life and a work life. We have a life. So all of these things just make up what our life is and how it says co-workers can become some of our closest friends.
00:32:06
Speaker
And so to not necessarily, even as someone that maybe you don't go into a workspace and you see, let's say, your spouse going through the grief of the loss of a coworker, to really know that for them, this is something important too. So even as someone that might not be in that arena, again, being very mindful that
00:32:33
Speaker
someone that might have shared a desk space with your spouse or with your friend was just as important as even you might be to them.
00:32:46
Speaker
Exactly. Respected to navigate that with them. Let's go into talking more about what led you then to write this book. What was that catalyst of like, I'm going to write a book now about it. I've helped people out. Tell us the journey about creating this resource. I would say it was a combination of two things that came together.
00:33:13
Speaker
One was that one of my pet peeves and one of the reasons I started Saltwater was that I am not a fan of these lists that people create that are titled things like the 25 things you should never say to a grieving mother because I read those lists and I think, okay, sure, you know, some of these are pretty heinous. Absolutely. But at the same time, I envisioned somebody who loves me reading that list and thinking,
00:33:38
Speaker
OK, well, if I'm not supposed to say these things, what am I going to say? And knowing that all they're going to be able to think about is what's on the list to not say. And it will silence them from saying anything because they'll be worried that whatever they do say is actually on the list. And I see that a lot at work, right, where it manifests in that fear that we've already talked about about people saying different things.
00:34:06
Speaker
So I would say that was a really big thing. The other element of this is that as I was working with people who were joining Saltwater and connecting with me, we would talk about their experiences going back to work. It would just seem to come up naturally because it's such a big part of our lives. And over and over again, the most consistent thing I heard, no matter how much time off they had or how wonderful their team was or their boss was, was I went back to work
00:34:35
Speaker
and no one said anything. And I thought, of course not because we don't know what to say and we don't know what to do. And so I got the idea to write a book that would help people navigate that without wagging my finger and without saying don't do these things.
00:34:56
Speaker
The book is all about what you should say, what you should do. And in most cases, I don't give a lot of advice about what to say. I encourage people to ask questions and to turn to the person who's actually grieving for guidance on how to proceed, rather than trying to figure it out in a vacuum.
00:35:17
Speaker
It's so well said. And yes, I think when I asked that other question before of what not to say, I literally think you only wrote like three little things of the knot. All the rest were like things of ideas of what it was literally so close. And you're so right. We get so caught up. It's like that saying like, don't, don't think of the purple monkey, you know, the purple elephant and the monkey sitting on its back. What's your brain going to do? Think of the. So so yes, we're so focused on the don't.
00:35:44
Speaker
We might either, that's all we think of, and it might just paralyze us, as you mentioned. Let's go over some of these things that grief, the impact that grief has in the workspace in terms of productivity and things like that as well, like in terms of individuals, because we go through so much as individuals that if we were to have
00:36:12
Speaker
a plan per se in place to be able to support a grieving person, it could also lower the impact even financially for a company, for a business. You talk about that in your book. Can you go over just briefly about that? Absolutely. There will be an impact. It will be harder for the grieving employee to focus, to concentrate. They'll be distracted. They'll make more mistakes.
00:36:41
Speaker
It's just a given that that happens. But the power of supporting that person is that they will navigate that period more effectively and they will come out of it sooner with the right kind of support. I also think that there are ways to help that person be more productive because if the person's back at work,
00:37:06
Speaker
whether it's because it's their safe place and they want to be there or because simply they have to be there because they are an important breadwinner for the family. There are accommodations that can get made for that person that can allow them to be more productive in certain ways that might be easier for them and to take certain things off their plate. And the example I often give is that, you know, for me, talking on the phone was really difficult after Jimmy died because I never knew when someone was going to say something
00:37:36
Speaker
that then would have me get upset, right? So offering your employee the opportunity to be on the phone less and do more work that involves either them working alone or with people that they know well in the workplace, for example, might enable them to remain more productive. Being flexible is really important. I mean, I mentioned that idea of, you know, emailing the boss back at one o'clock in the morning. I know for me, oftentimes I didn't sleep well.
00:38:05
Speaker
And so if I had something that was due and I couldn't sleep, I might stay up late.
Creating a Supportive Work Environment
00:38:10
Speaker
I might get up early when I woke up. And that kind of flexibility to get your work done as opposed to saying, no, you must be in the office from this period of time to this period of time and it must get done then. Those kinds of accommodations can go a long way. And then finally, I think providing some support. A number of the people I talked to said that someone would check their work for them
00:38:35
Speaker
just to make sure, you know, before the important letter went out or before the spreadsheet got turned in that the numbers were right or there weren't any typos. That kind of help is so welcome because it's almost when you're grieving, it's almost like you can't see the mistake because your brain is just not functioning the way it normally would.
00:38:55
Speaker
So I think that kind of support can be helpful too. And it's also good for the employee because then they don't feel like, oh, I'm back at work, but I can't get anything done or I can't do anything right. And then that also hurts their mental state because it's one more layer on top of the grief that they're feeling.
00:39:15
Speaker
And it's so important also to just check in back, like kind of loop back into it. You might've had that conversation with your employee or, you know, before they started to work and maybe they shared that this is how they'd like to be supported in their grief. Maybe things have, maybe things have changed. Maybe once they're back in the workspace, they realize, wait, I didn't.
00:39:35
Speaker
I had said I did want people to ask about my mom or about whatever, and now I realize I don't. So checking back in with your employee to see how it is they're feeling being back and whether the approach that the team is doing is helping support them in that process would also be super helpful too. Oh, absolutely.
00:39:58
Speaker
Absolutely. And it also calls to mind something important, too, that you're touching on indirectly, which is I think so often companies think, oh, this is going to be expensive to support this employee who's grieving. You know, they're not going to be as productive. I can't give them all this time off. But so often what's most helpful
00:40:19
Speaker
are things that don't cost money, which are things like checking in really frequently. And it doesn't mean that you and I have to sit down for a two hour meeting so I can see how you're doing. It might be a very quick five to 10 minute check in just to say, how are you navigating work right now? What can I do to support you? Is there anything that you need changed or anything like that? And sometimes there were examples in the book
00:40:46
Speaker
where that happened, and the person said, you know, I never took advantage of any of those offers, but to know that they were there was enough, that I had the option on a bad day to go home, even though I never did, was huge.
00:41:03
Speaker
And that is so important to make sure that this person, this individual is actually content. I'll just use the word content, let's say, with the process and how they are being supported because even though for an employer, they may think that it's expensive to support a grieving person, is it not more expensive to try to find a replacement when this person feels unhappy and leaves?
00:41:28
Speaker
Can you touch on that? How much does it cost for them to then hire someone to the one of these, what is it called? Are those things called that hire people? Search firms. You can know I'm not in that world where I'm like, what is that called?
00:41:45
Speaker
So, for example, how much would it cost for someone to put an ad or to find a search group to just rehire someone else? So it might take way less to hire someone like you to come in, educate yourself as an employer and your staff about grief and support the grieving person than to try to then find someone else to replace this individual that might have not felt supported in the workspace and leaves.
00:42:15
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
Cost of Poor Grief Management
00:42:16
Speaker
There's a huge cost to that, which is not just the monetary cost of retaining the search firm and paying the fee for that, but it's also the time it takes for that new person to get up to speed to the same level of productivity that the person was who left. But there's also, there's a secondary cost to that too, which is just as we are making judgments as humans about other people, we also watch very closely.
00:42:43
Speaker
And so if you come back to work grieving the loss of someone and our respective manager is not supportive, then what I'm going to think to myself is, Ooh, wow. So if this happens to me and my mom is sick, maybe, and maybe this, you know, it's not going to be that far off. This is how I'm going to get treated. Or even just looking at it and saying, is this the kind of place I want to work?
00:43:11
Speaker
where my dear friend who's back at work is grieving and she's being treated terribly and nobody's doing anything about it. So it has a big impact on the organization. And I think for the bosses sometimes who tend to look away or think, well, you know, I sent flowers, I went to the service, I sent a card. Now I just kind of don't really, you know, Kendra seems okay. So I'm just not gonna bring it up or mention it.
00:43:40
Speaker
they underestimate the cost of acting that way and the impact and the damage that it does.
00:43:50
Speaker
So, so, so important what you said. It's the ripple effect it has, yes, on the whole team if it's not handled the best way possible. Margo, is there something I have not asked you regarding the aspect of the workspace or the work you do that you'd like to make sure that our listeners take away? Any other tips that you may have?
00:44:17
Speaker
So what comes to mind is this new work from home hybrid workspace that we're all living in or most
Challenges in Remote Work Settings
00:44:25
Speaker
of us are. How do we handle on Zoom? Yeah. How do you handle on Zoom when you're grieving? Okay. Exactly. Exactly. Because one of the things that we've lost is the inability to both do a very quick check-in with someone who's struggling about anything that's going on in their life.
00:44:44
Speaker
And also, it's hard to notice when that's happening. So if I'm having a team meeting and there's 30 little squares on the screen, and you're either never looking up at the camera or your eyes are red, or maybe you don't even have your camera on, I might not even notice. Or if I notice the camera being off, I might think, oh, well, maybe Kendra got up late and, you know, it isn't really dressed appropriately for this call, but she's here, which is fine.
00:45:14
Speaker
I might not even, it might not even occur to me that you were struggling. And so what's important in this environment when you're, when you have someone who's, who's having a struggle about anything is to check in much more frequently. And if possible, particularly now where we're, you know, past those really awful days of 2020 and 2021 is to get together in person if you can, if you're close by periodically, because there's just a different conversation that happens when you're sitting up, you know,
00:45:44
Speaker
across a table over a cup of coffee, you know, in a, in somewhere in a corner of an office talking to someone one on one. There's a conversation that happens. It just doesn't happen as easily when you're on the phone or on Zoom.
00:46:01
Speaker
extremely important what you said and you're right it's this new normal quote-unquote that it's just become more common for work to be hybrid or to be completely from home and a boss might you might not even tell your boss sometimes because you might not even take time off because well you're on a computer
Complications of Grieving Remotely
00:46:22
Speaker
So you might not even take the time off you need because you're not going to the workspace and you're like, well, I have to go sit with my mom as she's sick, but I just take my computer with me. So, you know, even if you're traveling, you still might log into work. It just, yeah, it kind of separate. It doesn't give that separation of work. We talked about work-life balance, you know, a little bit too, because of the fact that you're constantly
00:46:51
Speaker
able to quote unquote connect. Yes, that's so true. And I didn't even think about that, Kendra, but that's such an important point, which is that if you want to keep the fact that someone you care about is dying, or even has died to yourself, it's much easier to do. And
00:47:15
Speaker
I can see how that might feel appealing, but the problem is that we don't have these separate lives. And so it will bleed into work and how you're feeling and how you're functioning.
00:47:27
Speaker
And you won't have that support, like you said, because if you have not mentioned and then who is going to check, like you said, there could be errors. And when you're sending an email to, and there's nobody to know to kind of double check your work as you're doing this presentation, there could be more mistakes just because you wanted to keep it to yourself.
00:47:47
Speaker
It doesn't necessarily mean it's the best thing for the whole company as a whole. It's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to share a little more about your personal life because it does have an impact in the work environment too. Sometimes people think that if I tell people I'm going through something, you're putting it on them, but the reality is that it will impact them if you don't tell them to.
00:48:14
Speaker
Exactly. Well, and they'll make a judgment about, you know, maybe you're slacking off. Maybe you're looking for another job instead of realizing that you're going through something. And that you need is support instead. Yeah. Thank you.
Anecdotes of Jimmy
00:48:29
Speaker
Margo, I want to go now back into personal, your personal life. And if you can share with us an anecdote or story or memory of Jimmy with us, please. Oh, let's see.
00:48:45
Speaker
Jimmy had had the best sense of humor and that's the first thing that comes to mind because he would come out with these really funny comments sometimes. And so this is sort of random, but it's what it comes to mind when I think of your question. So he had to go through a second round of radiation after his cancer recurred. And we were back down here and he was being treated at UC San Francisco.
00:49:14
Speaker
And so we would stay in this place called Family House, which at the time was about 10 fairly long blocks from the hospital. And I had this idea, which I think was right, that getting exercise was good for him. And so we would walk up there in the morning and walk back. And then a lot of times if he had a second appointment, we'd walk back up in the afternoon.
00:49:36
Speaker
And one day I decided that in between those two walks, we were going to walk over to the grocery store, which I thought was a lot closer than it was. And we wound up doing something like six miles that day. And he looked at me on the way back. He was so tired because he was going through a dream. And he looked at me and he said, mom, I think it's time we saw other people.
00:50:01
Speaker
I like you was like he was breaking up with you. It's over.
00:50:10
Speaker
Thank you for sharing that. And can you tell us also in that aspect of him having also come back from college and then taking a semester off, how was it for you guys to even notify professors in school and that part too as a parent of a child that's already grown leaving their environment and then passing away? Did he take off when he came back? Did he just take a semester off?
00:50:41
Speaker
or just when he came back from school? Yeah, he took a leave of absence for spring quarter of his junior year. And then he passed away the following year. So yeah, I did let a number of people that knew him at school, professors, advisors, people like that know. In fact, I did actually let them know before he died so that if they wanted to, they could send a note to him, which many of them did.
00:51:10
Speaker
so that we can share those with him. And even there in that type of workspace then too for educators when one of their students
00:51:19
Speaker
dies, that is also so impactful also for them too. That's another part to have into consideration in a workspace environment is if you're a principal of a school or a dean at a college to have in mind that it does have an impact on professors when students die as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:51:47
Speaker
Thank you and thank you for sharing a little piece of Jimmy's humor with us and again on your journey. Let's tell people how they can get a hold of you and I'll make sure to put all the links below and it's been so helpful. I didn't want to go too much into detail about the book, but I guess I still ended up going like, oh, tell us about this part of that.
00:52:08
Speaker
But people definitely have to grab the book. So Margo, let them know how it is. They can get a hold of the book and get in touch with you if they feel they need your services as well. So the easiest way is to go to ontargetconsulting.net because there's a page in there about the book. And then there's also resources on the resource page about dealing with grief at work.
00:52:32
Speaker
And then for those who are interested in connecting with me who've had a loss of some kind or want to support someone they love who's had a loss, they can find me at findyourharbor.com. And that's Saltwater's URL. Perfect. Thank you, Margo. I appreciate you so much. Thanks again for coming on, sharing your book, sharing Jimmy with us, and sharing a little bit about your life as well as everything you do. Thank you. Thank you so much.
00:53:06
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today.
Podcast Conclusion: Sharing Grief Stories
00:53:10
Speaker
I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:53:35
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.