Lives Lost and Leadership Found - Panel Discussion

This is Leadership Beyond, your community of conversation. But this is the first time in my professional career that everybody, 100% of us, are consciously aware we are engaged in the change initiative. Yeah, everything. I mean, COVID caused us all to go through change, right, at the same time, but our experiences were so different. Facing these unprecedented times in isolation is pure insanity. Joining us today is Ian Ziskin. Ian is the lead author of the recently released book Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies. The idea of a panel discussion rather than a solo interview with Ian came about because our own Adrienne Guerrero, co-founder of this community, recently lost her father, and she shared many of her learnings with us from this loss. The fact that this subject is resonating so strongly in our little community makes us hopeful, in fact confident, that your world has been touched by the loss of a special somebody or some great change, and that you are eager to integrate your learning as painful and difficult as it is, into personal thriving as individuals, but also to touch and help and guide the communities you lead. A special thank you to Marie Pawlik for moderating this conversation and to Michelle Holm, a person for whom this topic is in fact a life mission. Enjoy the panel as we welcome our leadership panel on Lives Lost and Leadership Found. Well, welcome everyone. First, I'd like to introduce myself. I am Marie Genevieve Pawlik. I will be your moderator for this Leadership Beyond, and I would like to have each of our wonderful panelists introduce themselves. So we'll start with Ian. Great to be with you, Marie. Thanks for having me. I'm Ian Ziskin. I am the president of ExecExcel Group, which is a coaching and consulting firm. Also the lead author of the book Lives Lost in Leadership Found. Lessons from Special Somebody, which we'll be talking a bit about today during our conversation, and co-founder of an organization called the Consortium for Change, which is a collection of a wide variety of independent coaches and consultants in the leadership, talent, organizational change space. Great to be with you today. Thank you. Michelle, please introduce yourself. Well, it's a pleasure to be here today for this really important and meaningful conversation. I'm Michelle Holm. I'm a licensed professional counselor. I'm an athanatologist with the accreditation through the Association for Deaf Education and Counseling. I have worked in the grief support space for over 15 years now, both for families and individuals and community mental health. I'm the founder and lead facilitator for Grief Connection Space. And I'm also a clinician in private practice. So it's great to be here today and partake in this conversation. Thank you. And then Adrienne, please introduce yourself. Hi, everyone. It's great to have you all here on the— for this very important Leadership Beyond episode. Of course, I'm Adrienne Guerrero. I am usually one of the co-hosts for this episode. But today, we're turning the tables. We've asked Marie to join us. So I am representing both the Leadership Beyond but also my business Positive Delta, which is a change leadership consultancy. We help lead businesses through change with foresight and clarity by looking at their people and their processes and performance. So I'm excited to be here today and in this capacity. We're excited to have you in this capacity and thank you all for introducing yourselves. So we're here today to sort of explore explore whether it's personally or organizationally what we can learn around loss. Moreover, the courage, the compassion, the clarity around it, and how grief can be transformational. So I'd love to begin because I think each of you have a story that connects leadership to loss. So I'd love to begin by understanding a little bit about your, your story. And how that experience has really defined what your leadership is now. That's a lofty one, isn't it? Who would like to begin? Well, we're all going to be overly polite, right? You bet. Well, Ian, you wrote the book. So why don't we have you begin by really— I think, and this is sort of an interesting conversation because it really is sort of the basis of your book. You literally wrote the book around loss and leadership? Well, yes, thanks for the question and the opportunity to share that a little bit. So there's some history here I'll go into because people do, you know, quite often unsurprisingly ask, you know, why write a book about the combination of loss and leadership? In my case, it goes back a couple of years to 2023 when first my brother and then my mother passed away within about 6 months of one another. And of course, in my brother's case, he died very unexpectedly, very suddenly from metastatic cancer. It was about 8 days from diagnosis to, to death. And at age 60, of course, you wouldn't necessarily expect somebody to pass away like that. 6 months later, in my mother's case, she was 93. But I'm fond of saying she was fine right up until the time she wasn't. You know, one of these situations where she wasn't feeling well, went to the hospital, and then within about 4 or 5 hours passed away. So, in both of those cases, obviously anybody who's been through some type of loss like that goes through whatever their version of grieving is. But also in my case, I very quickly found myself thinking about What did I learn from them, you know, both in their life and in their passing away? And what were the lessons that might translate to me as a leader? Which then quickly led me to realize that, of course, I'm not the only person on the planet who's ever lost a loved one, and starting to think about what other people have been through and the lessons that they learned from lost loved ones and was there a connection to leadership. So, I started reaching out to a number of people in my network. Lo and behold, discovered that there was quite a bit of interest and a lot of stories that people were interested in telling about somebody that they'd lost at some point in their life, what they learned from them about life and leadership, and hence, the book was born. So, we can talk a little bit more about the book, I suppose, as we get into the conversation. But that was really the origin of what led to this book, Lives Lost and Leadership Found, being written in the first place. And so, for you then, and again, I'm very sorry for the losses that you've had, what are some of the lessons then that you took from that experience? You wrote a book, but for you personally as a leader, what has this defined your leadership to be now? Well, you know, as I was thinking about the things that I learned from them, you know, there were 3 primarily that really kept coming up over and over and over again. The first one being the importance of facing reality and dealing with it, right? Because we all have this, I think, limitless capacity to to deny, deflect, dismiss, explain away, you know, things that we prefer not to have to face. And of course, when you're dealing with somebody who's, you know, very sick or, you know, passes away suddenly or even not so suddenly, there's a natural tendency to shy away from reality. And for me, I learned from my mother and brother in their lives, but also with their deaths, facing reality and dealing with it was really important. Another thing as a leader popped up for me from this experience was the fact that in many ways, you should spend some time thinking about, you know, who you care about. Make sure that you tell them that you care about them and make sure that there's a connection, if you will, between the words and the deeds. So, you know, telling people that you love or respect or care about them is very important. But also demonstrating that you love or respect or care about them is also really important. So those were a couple of lessons among many that I'll emphasize here for purposes of our conversation. Thank you. Those are really beautiful lessons for sure. Adrian Michelle, would one of you like to share the lessons that you've learned and how it's defined your leadership? Sure, I can go next. So, well, I was writing my TED Talk when my father passed away in January this year. And so that was the— I think it was all of that swirl, like the devotion to and the focus on writing a TED Talk, which ironically or not was about pause and slowing down in, you know, this world that we live in that is so highly reactive and we don't, you know, slow down enough to have real thoughtful responses. And I was at the library, you know, heads down, focused, do not disturb everything, writing this TED Talk. My husband was the only one who could reach me because he had to call a couple times, right? And it was similar to your story, Ian. It was a sudden passing. My father was 80. He was not well. We knew that there were some health conditions that we were exploring and starting to deal with, but we did not anticipate that he would pass so suddenly. So it was shaking. Right? It just, it shook me to the core. And I think the going through that immediate grief, this and that, that just that, you know, that intense feeling of grief upfront along with requiring the focus, like the TED Talk, I could not get it moved, right? Like, I didn't have the kind of power to say, my dad just died, so can we just stop the world from spinning? I still have to submit the, submit the, the speech, you know, and, and follow the deadlines and all that. Of course, I got extensions, and I had very graceful and gracious, you know, speaker coaches. But to have to balance those two things, I think, was something that, that that I wanted to bring forward here for this conversation was, you know, being in the midst of that grief, but also having to almost compartmentalize it at times is really hard. You know, it's, it's really hard. And so what I found was the— what outlets could I find to honor that grief, to honor my dad. And that came out in, uh, I dedicated my February newsletter to him, right? So when we speak of the lessons I learned from him, he was a U.S. Marine. He served two tours in Vietnam that he did not talk very much about. So all veterans and active soldiers know what that means, right? And he lived that identity his whole life. And, and it, and it was in the writing of, of the newsletter that, you know, I had— there were plenty of things that you go through wanting to just not like about somebody, and so you, you feel all of it, right? You feel all of it. Like, we didn't have a super close relationship, but, but But in his death, I could understand that almost better because I had some perspective of really being able to think through, like, well, we weren't close, maybe not because he didn't want to be close, but we weren't close because of what he was holding quietly, right? Um, so I would say perspective, and then that That has made me a better leader, recognizing that, you know. And, and he, he lived with so much honor and courage and just integrity and commitment. And so I bring all of those were really his leadership lessons. And he would never call himself a leader, you know. He, he was, you know, in his career he was blue collar, you know, but he was a foreman, he was a leader, but he would never see himself that way. So those were the things that I bring in and kind of, you know, all over the place a little bit, but, but, you know, both those sides of just what did I learn, but then how did I sort of manage at the same time. That, that was really beautifully said. And again, sorry for, like, a stream of consciousness a little bit, but no, no, really was beautifully said. And I think the, the thing that I took from that is a beautiful reminder about grace. Which is such an important leadership quality and that you possess. I happen to know Adrian personally, so I feel like I can say that. But I think your ability— what I've noticed about you over the past few months, especially more now, is your ability to give people grace in terms of recognizing what they might be going through. And I think that is also part of that lesson that you've gotten from your father. That, that sense of that grace. So thank you for that. Yeah. Michelle. So my journey with loss personally, you know, when I was young, my grandparents had died and I grew up in a family where going to the cemetery was something that we did often and we would go as a family and we would get out and we would run to my family's gravesites. I knew as a child where if I died, where we would be buried. And, you know, I always thought that was kind of, everyone knew that. And I've since learned that's not really the case. So I grew up not having some of the stigma and the taboo and things around death that, that is so popular in our culture and in our society. And it wasn't until about 21 years ago, a little over 21 years ago, that the death of my brother really informed a lot of my trajectory forward. So he died in a car accident. So the 3 of us, we all have fairly sudden, unexpected, you know, in terms of deaths and that there Every death is different and they're nuanced in their own way. And at the time I was teaching and so it was summer and then I returned back to school. So I was lucky that I had kind of the grace of time being summer to kind of process a lot of that. But I was a social studies teacher. I was a history teacher. And I remember teaching one lesson one day and I don't know what it was about, but I just kind of was really overwhelmed with whatever we were talking about. And it was the students in the class. That were like, oh my gosh, like my so-and-so died and my person died and my person died. And they like really provided that comfort. Shortly thereafter, I pivoted and was like, I think I'm in the right building, but maybe the wrong room, and went back to grad school to get my master's in counseling. And it was during my internship that I had students that came in, and one had a brother and her father had died. And then she's like, can we talk? Because in the city of Chicago, you kind of, you don't always go to high school in your neighborhood. And so those that are around you in your elementary school or in your middle school, and even, you know, and across the country, those are smaller schools. And as we get older, the schools get a little bit larger. So people knew her story, they knew her history. And so when she went to a different high school, people didn't know her story, they didn't know her history. And so that transition was really hard, not only into a new school, but also into a new phase with No one knew her, her, her story. And so a couple of weeks later, she brought somebody to lunch and then a couple of weeks later they brought someone else. And I knew nothing about grief from the education that I had had, just my lived experience. And then, you know, life kind of goes on and I, I really feel like this field of grief has really opened doors for me. And so that was my first kind of foray into grief support was during my internship. And then I worked in community mental health. With a family-based bereavement program. And so I've always been able to honor my lived experience and those experience of the students that helped inform that in, into the work that I do and kind of keep pivoting. But every time I pivot slightly, it's still along that trajectory. I like to think of like a roadmap, right? And we have, we have off-ramps, sometimes we have construction, sometimes we have stoplights, sometimes we have those cloverleaf exits and entrances that we can just kind of get into spiral loops on. But I've been on that same path. And so my lived experience definitely influences that, but it's opening that space for stories. And then in terms of leadership, I think that there's so many more doors that can be opened in leadership to allow for people to share their stories, for that grace to be shared, for that connection, that empathy, that compassion, because we know that grief impacts people like Adrienne, you said it shocked, you know, it shook you to your core. But we expect, here's 3 days of bereavement leave and like, go on and come back to work. And, you know, in your, your book, you talk about like brain fog and how the brain and so many different things. And so I think where I intersect with leadership is helping to unlock some of those doors so that we can walk through that path a little bit graciously. Thank you. That was really beautifully said. And, and again, sorry for your losses as well. We've just been talking a lot about the personal lens, and I'd like to take it a little bit wider and talk about it in the organizational space. And Ian, in your book, you talk about leadership as a response to loss. And in organizations, what are we collectively grieving when major change happens? And then all of you are part of change. Adrienne, change mindset and change management is really the core of your work. So I'm curious, what is it that we are collectively grieving in organizations, do you think? Ian, we'll come to you. A subject that was really interesting to me because actually my last book was about leading transformational change. So I was looking— Oh, OK. I was looking for a connection, if there was one, between this whole idea of transformational change in organizations, let alone people, and grief or loss. It turns out there actually is quite a bit of overlap. Let's go back for just a second. Michelle mentioned a minute ago about some of the neuroscience-related aspects that popped up. And one of the things that really caught my attention, if you combine neuroscience and neuroleadership, you know, David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, for example, who are experts in this Space, they talk about change is pain and focus is power. And they literally mean, you know, physical pain as well as mental pain that comes from change. And that's change in life, like a loss, you know, somebody passes away who's important to you. But also similarly, in the organizational context, you know, most people who work in organizations also are in pain with the change that they go through that they're not prepared for, that's not well communicated or explained or justified. And a lot of that pain comes from the uncertainty of what's next, as well as the loss of what you might be giving up. And then, of course, if you want to expand that from the organizational to the societal context, you can see all kinds of examples in society now of people, you know, losing certain things that they've been used to and comfortable with over many years, and now they're scared, and that's where a lot of the pain comes from. And I think organizationally that's also true. We find that people are asked to embrace new things without knowing whether those new things are going to work. You know, there is a difference between doing something differently and doing something better. Uh, and sometimes leaders could be accused of changing things just to show difference rather than improvement. And so most people who are affected by those changes are sitting around to some degree with their arms folded, waiting in judgment to see if the change is going to actually yield improvement or just be changed for the sake of change. But the last piece I'll mention is that most people really don't want to give up what they know, even if it doesn't work, right? So, even if they know things are failing. Even if it hurts. I mean, it's actually very interesting because what I find is that, you know, people often ask me the question, in the context of change. Is it really true that most people hate change? And from my last book, I would say, without sounding too cynical, I do think most people hate change or at least afraid of it, but they actually hate failure even more. And so, if you want to appeal to people's willingness to try something new and see if it works, I think you have to couch it in the context of, you know, we're not winning, we're not succeeding, in whatever it is we're doing right now. So therefore, none of us wants to fail. Let's give something else a try and see if that works any better. And I think that applies equally well, by the way, to working through the grieving and loss process when you lose a loved one, because most people are hanging on to what was, you know, they're very nostalgic about, you know, how it used to be and what their relationship with this person was when they were alive. And there's a whole set of steps you have to go through to, you know, not ever forget them, but to start to let go of some of the comfort that comes from that nostalgia and face into what's coming next, which is much less well-known and well-understood. Yeah, I would agree with you. I think it's that fear of the unknown is really what people are afraid of, not necessarily the change. It's just what we don't know what's different. We only know what's in the past. And I love the way you put that because there is a reality around our ability to change really is connected to our ability to let go of what was. Yeah. And if I could, just one additional point on that, particularly back to the neuroscience of all this, which really got my attention. I think it applies to loss of a loved one, but also to loss and change in the organizational context. And that is that there are all kinds of, you know, physical and emotional responses to loss, you know, whether it's blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol levels, stress levels, and the brain fog that we were talking about earlier. And memory loss and various other kinds of physical and emotional responses. But there's also this element which was really kind of new to me, and that was that when you lose a loved one, for example, that person's existence is coded into your brain, and therefore your brain actually goes through a rewiring process, literally and figuratively. As you're dealing with the loss. I think in an organizational setting, when people are asked to let go of certain things that they're historically comfortable with, they experience loss and they experience all of those neuroscience-related aspects that I just mentioned, including the fact that people's brains start to rewire as they let go of certain things and grab on to other things. All of that is painful. All of that is uncomfortable. All of that is uncertain and ambiguous. And most people don't like any of this, that discomfort. They have to work their way through it. Yeah, absolutely. And Adrian, that really leans right into your wheelhouse. You do a lot of work of not just managing change, but also the mindset, which goes back to what Ian was talking about, the neuroscience. Speak a little bit about that in terms of What does really happen in an organization with— Yeah, so I've thought of a few things came to mind, Anne, as you were talking through all of that, in that it's often I say, we don't— some of us are more OK with change than others, but it's really the changing, right? It's what we have to go through. Through, you know, if you understand the end goal, right? And you can take that from both perspectives of organization or from I have to learn how to live without this loved one, right? That's the, that's the end. I'm— if I'm choosing to continue to survive, then I have to do that without this loved one, right? If I'm choosing to adopt this new way of working, let's say, any way of working, a restructure, a new system, a new to anything, right? You have— there's a— there needs to be a desire to accept that end game. And if we don't have that desire, this is much harder, right? So that's almost like your first step, both, I think, with with grieving a loved one, that letting go, and that— and an organizational change, a lot of that comes from just— honestly, I think a lot of it comes from sitting with it, sitting with what is that, that end state that we're getting to, and finding peace in getting there, right? Because If you think in an organizational change, if you can't make peace with where the company's headed, you do have choices. You can leave, right? I mean, that might not be an easy choice to make, but it's— it is a choice, right? There could be all sorts of reasons why that's just not feasible, especially in today's market, but it is still a choice. So I think reconciling that I am choosing to continue to be here. At some point you have to accept that, you know, and then that maybe can turn into, okay, a desire now to, to keep going, right? And then that maybe is the momentum that you need. Now I think both in an organization perspective and with the loss of a loved one, what we need in order to do that is support and resources and someone to help us understand how to get there, right? So that changing is what needs the support. Once you've kind of gotten to, yes, I accept that at some level I, I want to get to the end state, but what's the support to do that changing, you know? And For years I have used Kübler-Ross, you know, the journey of transition, and that's rooted in grief, right? That, so, you know, we borrowed that in, you know, when we apply it to organizational change, but it really, it's the stages of grief. You know, it's downplayed now. We've got lots of other organizational change models that we refer to, but I remember when I started teaching a lot of this, we did— we pulled Kubler-Ross. So, and it's tried and true, right? So there are connections. Even in— no, no, go ahead. I was actually going to lead you into this by talking about resources, so go right ahead. Ignore me. No, no, no. But, but even like with Kubler-Ross, right? Like, so people often identify with that with death, and that's not what her her, you know, her stages were attributed to was the process of dying. And then, you know, it's misinterpreted and layered over things. And so even looking at, yes, we go through all of those different emotions. It's not linear. It's not time-limited. We don't get to a point of really where, like, where we accept something and we're like, oh, you know, there's a nice bow on the end of this. Change is inevitably going to happen. In the world of grief, we— there's You know, I use Stroebenschutz's dual process model a little bit more, or a lot more, where we have like loss-orientated on one side and restoration-orientated side, and we vacillate, we oscillate back and forth between that. And I think in leadership and in organizational change, we do that. We visit what existed and what we had and where we're going. And in order to understand where we're going, we have to understand where we've been. And then in those understanding things through that grief lens too. We've talked about collective grief, and that's when a group of people or a community or, you know, a population is grieving a loss. And so, when new policies, new procedures, new systems are introduced, there is that collectiveness of that. But there's also cumulative because oftentimes change isn't just one component, it's many things that are layered on top of that. And so, and if, if somebody's been at an organization for a long time, they might be like, this is the third time we've done been that. And so they have that history and that accumulation of that grief is really important. So as leaders, we need to be really mindful about what have we done, how have those other changes gone, what emotions or what reactions do that, did that invoke, and how can we mitigate that going forward and acknowledging and looking through the lenses of that and like disenfranchised grief. Somebody's always gonna be left out of that change or not included in that way. And Even as we grieve the loss of people that are significant to us, be family members or coworkers, or, you know, there's so many different areas in non-death loss as well that kind of like layer on top of that and looking for that. So I think in terms of like those resources, it is looking at the history, it is looking at where we want to go and how we wanna get there and what tools do we need to do that? How do we communicate that? As Ian was talking, like, this isn't working. And so if this isn't working, this is what we want to change in order to get to this outcome. And then kind of along that lines is that continuing bonds theory where we don't have to put the pictures away. We don't have to never talk about that person again, or we don't have to talk about that policy that existed that maybe was great or wasn't so great. We continue that through. The thread. It's the thread that continues on. And so using all of those components of grief education and in applying those to our leadership experiences in our workplaces can be really impactful. Yeah, Michelle, that really, you got me thinking around that too. Two points. One, as we talk about organizations and turning those reflections into action, right? Then also, as you were talking about, we shall never speak about that again, it reminded me of the Harry Potter Voldemort, "You shall not be named." I think a lot of times we do behave in that way when we talk about change, whether it's the loss of someone or a loss of a policy or procedure or a system within an organization. We have this sense of we're not allowed to talk about it anymore because it no longer exists. And so with that, I was sort of thinking about, Ian, in the— I think it was like around Chapter 8, you sort of talked about the tensions of intentionality and how leaders can use those tensions, right, to both be decisive and also to, to really still stay within their humanity. Tell me a little bit about that in terms of your definition of that tension and how it relates to what Michelle was, was talking about in terms of when we sort of say we can no longer discuss things, how do we help people recognize that that's not part of what that means? Well, yes, the, this whole idea of the tensions of intentionality started to emerge largely because, you know, in addition to whatever I've contributed to this book as the lead author. It's also a compilation of 35 essays from a variety of different contributing authors, all of whom have different stories to tell about a special somebody, essentially a lost loved one who they learned from. And there's obviously a lot of differences in each one of these stories, but there's a bunch of common themes. And one of the common themes was about the importance of intentionality. There's this woman, Giselle LaBarra, who's a a social media influencer who has this way of thinking about this that I really appreciate, which is she says that life is a paradox. First, uh, or in order to heal, first you must hurt, right? And there's an inherent paradox between the hurting and the healing, and there's a process of paradoxes, or what I call tensions in this book, that most people end up having to pass through as they're dealing with loss of a loved one or loss in the organizational sense in terms of change, like we've been talking about. And there's, you know, there's about 7 of these. We won't have time, obviously, to go through all of them, but one of the ones I want to underscore, because Adrienne brought this up earlier when she was describing the loss of her father, is this idea of compartmentalization, you know, which turns out to be— even though not every person talks about that overtly, almost every person who wrote for our book was displaying some version of that, you know. And basically, you're transitioning from compartmentalization at the beginning of the loss to eventually what I'll, what I'll call integration, you know, which is realizing that there's only for so long can you not speak about this, or can you not think about this, or can you not refer to the person you lost or the process that got changed. Eventually, you have to come back to reality— there's that word again— and reintegrate yourself, but also reintegrate all of these other aspects of your life that you're dealing with at the same time. So it turns out that, for example, most people who deal with loss very effectively, intentionally or unintentionally, but I mostly think intentionally, are very good at compartmentalization. They're very good, therefore, at working through a process of dealing with the loss And they're very good at coming out the back end by reintegrating all these other aspects of the life and the loss, including the things that they didn't feel like they could think about or talk about originally because they were concerned about not being able to move on with the rest of their, their life and didn't want to be obsessing or overly focused on the loss. You have to do Both. So one of the lessons learned for me in all of this, to tie a bow around what I'm saying, is, you know that old expression, time heals all wounds? As a result of writing this book, I actually think that's wrong, or at least partly wrong. I don't think time heals all wounds. I think time and intentionality heal all wounds. You know, yes, time has to pass, but I think you need to use that time in intentional ways to think about the loss, process the loss, accept and come to grips with the loss in order to come out the other end a fully functioning human being who's able to continue on with their life in a productive way. And that's true of loss of a loved one, but I think it also applies to loss of things that you might be uncomfortable with in terms of change in organizations. I, my, my reaction to what you said about time heals all wounds is because when I was going through loss myself and people would say that, I got to a certain point that I, I actually started saying out loud, I'd like to find the person that, that originally said that quote and, and have them executed. So, so I have a real visceral reaction to that one, so I apologize for— no worry. What is time, right? Time is unique to each of us, right? So it's, you know, everyone's journey is different. And so it could be decades, it could be never, it could be 3 months. It's— everybody's going through, you know, goes through grief. And, you know, it's not even like you have a grief personality. It's each exposure to grief is different, right? Well, you know, one place where I really learned that lesson, I'll say the hard way, at least in terms of how much it surprised me, was all of these contributing authors to our book, because some were writing about losing a loved one a matter of months or 2 or 3 years prior to writing their essay. Other people who were contributing essays were writing about somebody who they lost 10, 20, 30, 40, and even 50 years ago. Yet the level of emotion that they put into the process, the level of the learning that they got out of the process and their relationship with this person, and the level of catharsis, you know, in terms of the release they felt of actually writing about somebody who was important to them and honoring that person by virtue of writing about them. That was exactly the same irrespective of how long ago the loss actually occurred. And I, I probably should have anticipated that more so than I did, but it really surprised me and definitely got my attention. To your point, Adrian, about time, you know, is relative and varies rather substantially from person to person. Yeah, I appreciate that immensely. So just kind of going back a little bit to that point about the tension and really helping leaders to find their humanity in change. I'd love to hear a little bit more from the ladies around that concept. Well, I mean, I think it starts with you It's, it's essential to lead with empathy. And we've said grace already, right, to show grace. But it's, you know, when I think of leaders in organizations, especially who, let's say, either have peers or direct reports, colleagues who are grieving. The loss of a loved one, or, you know, and easier probably to recognize with the loss of a loved one. I feel like we can be more empathetic perhaps when it's a human we've lost than an organization. It's the, you know, a way of doing something that we're losing. But in both cases, it's essential to lead with that empathy and, and really understand to the point of everyone's journey is different and in a different timetable, right? And so the work that, that I do with change leadership is helping those— the directors of the change in an organization to really understand almost at an individual level, or if it's a huge organization, how do you break that down and work with work with teams, but team leaders understanding for each individual having to process through and learn and adapt and transition to a new way of doing something, taking it very individually, which, you know, in an organization, leaders don't have patience for that. I mean, they just don't. They're like, yeah, okay, Adrienne, that's fantastic. We've got 10,000 people who need to do this, right? They need to adopt this. Employee self-service system. Okay, but we just like keep breaking it down, right? Because everybody has a manager, and if your organization is structured well, there's not more than 10 people that somebody is managing. If not, then we should talk and work on that, right? But so there is a way with enough patience and enough importance put on that empathy and that grace and that realization that we are in fact each individual. You know, we are still humans for the time being. We'll see what's with biometrics in 100 years or 10 years. But, you know, really focusing on that, you know, that empathy and that grace and the individual journey. You know, one of the quotes in the book, it's, you know, it says grief is a demanding companion and it is. And I think leaning into that and understanding that it's going to take up people's time, it's going to take up people's energy, it's going to take up space. You know, you talk a little bit about Sheryl Sandberg with personalization, perseverance, and permanence. You know, you can kind of look at that somewhat with some adaptation, maybe even with like micro, mezzo, and macro and where those changes need to take place. But we know that grief from an economic standpoint in organizations is in the billions with a B, billions of dollars. And that's just what we can quantify with bereavement for the most part. That's not ends of relationships. That's not sociopolitical grief. That's not so many of the different types that we're holding. And so if we fail to address grief and we have failed to recognize that it does take up that space, we're leaving a lot of opportunity on the table. And so it is that, you know, we hear sometimes, well, we can't adopt that policy because everyone will do this then. Then we have other problems that we need to look at, right? Like not every, you know, everyone's going to come up with all these bereavement days, but 3 days that we, you know, there's new studies coming out with the Social Security Administration, like only 40% of those that are eligible to get the benefits are actually taking advantage of those benefits. And one of the biggest reasons people don't is because they don't have the time off of work to go to the appointment. And that's really what starts that, that mechanism for that funding. And so as a leader and as an organization, if we're not giving people that time to take what they need to get those other supports and systems in place, then they might leave our organization. And we know it costs more oftentimes to replace somebody than it is to retain them. And so we really need to look at how grief impacts our bottom line. And it also impacts the culture of the organization. And I think to your point too, it's the loss of the human, the relationship, and also the loss of the system and the processes. That's that same cost that we're just not accounting for. In our last few minutes, I'd like to find out if you could leave one leadership lesson from your own experience of loss, what would be the message you'd want to give to others? Who'd like to begin that one? I'll start. I have a sense of this. I think, Michelle, I'm so glad that you brought up the mental wellness benefits and resources that organizations can or don't offer to employees. And I mean, that's the beginning layer, right? To your point, there needs to be the support in that to reinforce the use, right? To not have a stigma of using those resources, to not have the pressure of Sure, you can take your 3 days. And again, that's time. What are 3 days? What, what does that even mean? My, my mom passed away. That was suddenly many years ago. And, uh, and I don't think I spoke to anyone at work. I returned to work after like a couple weeks because I, it took that long to drag myself out of bed. But, but I didn't speak to anyone for a month at work because I couldn't face the I'm so sorry, right? I could not face it. So like I'm at work, but I worked from home back when we didn't do that. And, you know, heads down. I didn't take meetings. I did like, you know, it was a very different way. And so I, my, my leaders gave me that space, that container, you know, a month. I couldn't have taken an actual month off with pay for bereavement. Right. But I, so I knew I had to return to work, but it was the leaders that wasn't a policy. Those were the leaders. Who allowed that. Like, we understand, we empathize, let's work together. How can I support you in coming back to do some of your work? What does that look like? Can I take some work off your plate? Can I, can I go to meetings for you because you don't want to face the people in that room, right? So again, I think the bottom line message for me is, is empathy, and have that support system both from a policy perspective, but also just from a cultural perspective. Thank you for that, Adrienne. That's beautiful. Ian, Michelle? I'll let Ian have the last words on this. So, recently in an organization, there were, the employees were impacted by the death of people in the, in the greater organizational community. And they were talking about how to acknowledge the death with the staff. And And when that conversation came up, the response from the leader was, "Well, we've never done that before. So I don't know if we can do that." Just because you haven't done something before doesn't mean that is the reason we don't start doing it. We have to start somewhere. And if that is a place of empathy, compassion, grace, you know, all of those words, healing, support, Just because you haven't done something, really take a look at why you haven't done that, but also take a look at why we're not going to start doing that. Build that. That is important. That builds a culture, it changes the culture, and people want to be there and they feel respected. And if it's even from a policy standpoint, you know, having conversations, dialogue, drop-ins, things just— but yeah, I guess my bottom line is if you haven't been doing it, It's okay to start. Well said. Ian? I'll circle back to something I said a little bit earlier in terms of the lessons learned for me, but it also seemed to resonate with a lot of what other people who contributed to the book had to say, and that is face reality and deal with it, because all of the things that we are talking about here, if you look at it from a leadership perspective, the reality is someone has passed away. The reality is some change has happened in the organization that people might not like or be mourning or be resisting. And the more you pretend it didn't happen or spend a lot of energy trying to resist the fact that people might talk about it and either be emotional or be negative in some way, if it was a change, for example, that people didn't like, the more you're fooling yourself in terms of the fact that it doesn't exist. It does exist. It has happened. And so, I think as leaders, the more we can create an environment where it's okay to give people the time and the space and the opportunity to process what they're going through, express it openly in whatever way they choose to express it. And make it okay for people to have that expression and that catharsis, the higher the chances are of successfully dealing with a loss of a loved one or dealing with an organizational change that people may or may not be fully excited about or embracing. So, for me, bottom line is face reality. And deal with it. That was also beautifully said. I want to thank the three of you for the opportunity to have this really beautiful conversation. Wrapping up, as you were all talking, I was thinking grief changes people. And it's up to us as leaders to decide what we do with that change. And I think I want to thank Ian for writing a beautiful book that really embodies that first step of what we can do and beautiful stories of people really talking about how their leadership has been affected. And Michelle and Adrienne, the work that you're doing out in the world around change management and also around grief support, um, has really benefited many people. And I want to thank you all for taking the time today to have this beautiful conversation. Thank you again. Thank you. Thanks, Marie, for facilitating for us. Great to be with you all. Thanks for the invitation. Yes, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Beyond podcast. We hope you benefited from this conversation as much as we have. We invite you to join our community of conversation. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to sign up at aleadershipbeyond.com. Aleadershipbeyond.com for free materials and updates. That's a-leadership-beyond.com. 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