Grief at Work -- a continuing discussion

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Tue Sep 5 07:43:23 PDT 2000


A short time ago, Peg Holman forwarded some of our discussion on
Appreciative Inquiry to the AI-List and then posted responses, one of which
came from Jack Brittain. I sent him a private note and that started a
conversation -- which follows in slightly edited form. Jack has posted the
results on the AI List, and I am completing the cycle by posting the same
here. Happy reading on this chilly Maine Day. Last Friday it was 97
degrees. This morning, as a result of a gift from our Canadian friends to
the North, the temperature was 39 degrees, with frost predicted for
tonight. Ah Sweet Summer -- how soon you are gone...

Harrison


************************************************
  I received the following comment from Harrison Owen, someone
whose work has played a big role in how I think about organizations and
how I approach organizational change. I am responding to his comment,
and I want to share it with the AI List because my response involves an
issue that I think deserves greater attention in discussions of change
and change methods: the role of power and how it is distributed.

Harrison Owen wrote:
 >
 > By a 'round about means your comments on Grief work and organizations
 > showed up on the OSLIST -- the list serve for Open Space Folks. We
 > certainly appreciated them, and Thank you. But I was a little curious
 > when you remarked:
 >
 > "Just maybe the fallacy of "dealing with grief" is that implicit in
 > the method is accepting powerlessness. Certainly relevant to dealing with
 > individual issues like death of loved ones, but I am dubious of the
 >  validity of this model for organizational applications."
 >
 > You may well have a point here, but that has not been my experience.
 > So, for example, when there is a death in a family, it is commonly
 > noted that  the process of grief commences to work for the whole
 > family. Shock. Anger, Denial... but then you may argue that a family
 > is not an organization. I could see the point, but would disagree --
 > at least by my definition of "organization" -- which is "two or more
 > folks gathered together to do something." At a larger level, I presume
 > you were  around when Jack Kennedy was shot. It seemed to me that the
 > whole country engaged the process. I can remember exactly where I was
 > when I received the first news, and the incredible shock that news
 > created -- followed almost immediately by deep anger and no little bit
 > of denial. It couldn't be true -- surely later reports would set
 > things right...
 >
 > In the corporate world, I have found that significant moments of
 > ending (plant closures, major lay-offs etc) produced exactly the same
 > results for the people involved. When the bad news arrives, the shock
 > is palpable, closely followed by denial ("They can never do That...").
 > I have found that knowing the pattern of grief-at-work has been
 > incredibly helpful to me as I worked to assist those in the middle of
 > their personal maelstrom, not only as a diagnostic, but more
 > importantly as a guide to specific sorts of interventions. II find
 > that there is no way the short circuit the process (skip steps, as it
 > were) but there are ways to speed the process and facilitate a
 > positive outcome -- ie folks get on with their lives.
 >
 > So -- does the model work? It seems to for me and if you are
 > interested in a fuller description, I have written about it fairly
 > extensively. The early versions are now out of print, but in two of my
 > more recent books, The Spirit of Leadership(1997), and The Power of
 > Spirit: How Organizations Transform (2000), I cover a lot of the same
 > territory, and hopefully explore some new ground. Both books are
 > published by Berrett-Koehler.
 >
 > Harrison Owen

There is no doubt that people in organizations experience grief and that
there is a process of grieving that is important.

What I am concerned about, and want to challenge, is the wide
application of what I term the "grief model" in organizational change.
My point is not that grief does not exist and does not need to be dealt
with, but rather that the emphasis on "accept the hand you were dealt"
is over applied in organizational change and is ineffective because it
emphasizes powerlessness on the part of those impacted by change. In
other words, what I term the "fallacy of grief" is that as an approach
to change it encourages acceptance of powerlessness rather than
mobilizing the total system in the change effort. I will go even further
and argue that the grief model -- when applied to organizations -- is
not about change, it about maintaining the power status quo.

An example. One of the most devastating experiences of my work life was
seeing a coworker maimed by a machine. While going to college, I was a
summer helper at a box manufacturing plant, where most of the production
process was printing the boxes. One of my coworkers was cleaning a
printing press preparing for the next job and had his hand and arm
pulled into the print rollers. It took about 20 minutes to extract his
limb from the machine, by which time emergency workers were on hand to
give him blood to keep him alive from massive blood loss and cart him
away to try to repair his crushed and permanently maimed limb. He was
alive, but would never be the same again. The work crew was absolutely
devastated, sitting in stunned silence looking at the trail of blood
leading out the plant door where Carlos was wheeled into the waiting
ambulance. Over the next few days we grieved, we listened to twice a day
updates on Carlos' condition, glad to hear he would not lose his arm,
and we sorted through the events to understand what had happened and
what it meant. I do not hold this up as an example of a company
effectively dealing with grief, but rather to point out that we
eventually accepted what had happened without anything really changing
in how we did our work or how the plant was run.
This is not to suggest that grief does not exist in organizations and
need to be dealt with. It does. When a coworker suddenly dies, there is
grief and respecting grieving is important. But this is about the status
quo, not change.

One of the aspects of appreciative inquiry, open space, and other large
system change models I find appealing is that they focus on mobilizing
power at every level of the organization. What they recognize is that
power does not have to be a zero sum game. Instead, by enlisting the
entire system in the change process, the total energy and power to
produce change is expanded and the likelihood of success is enhanced.
And these approaches do not focus on acceptance of what is, but rather
envisioning and realizing what might be.

I want to conclude with a personal reference. My grandfather, Walter
Gillette, was an alcoholic. He was able to find sobriety for 40 years,
but it was a lifelong struggle. He prevailed through active involvement
with AA. He is one of my heroes, as he was such an imperfect human being
who brought dignity to his life by accepting his demons and choosing to
rise above them. Something important in his life, and influencing the
life of his family, was the serenity prayer:

     God, grant me the Serenity to accept what I cannot change,
               The Courage to change the things I can,
               And the Wisdom to know the difference.

As I experience appreciative inquiry, and associated participation
models like open space, they are about finding courage and wisdom.
Certainly serenity has a place as well, but it is courage and wisdom
that are at the core of the change process. And I do not think these are
found in AI through the "power of positive thinking," but rather by
mining the strengths and triumphs of the human spirit in organizations.
And these are just as valid in the midst of despair as they are in the
midst of overwhelming success. They may be harder to surface, and we may
need to help along a grieving process, but this does not mean they are
not stories of courage and wisdom that are lessons in change that can
inform the organization's future.

=================== Jack <Brittain at Business.Utah.edu>

Jack -- Courage and wisdom are certainly essential for useful change and
transformation in the way we do business at all levels of our lives. But,
as you note, serenity has its place as well. However, I do not experience
serenity as giving in to hopelessness, but rather a clear eyed recognition
of  the facts of our existence. Hopelessness, at least in my life, is
anything but serene. Genuine serenity occurs only when I can take things as
they are, AND move on in some useful and positive ways. It is all about
letting go of what you can't change in order to open space for new
possibility. For me, serenity is the exact opposite of powerlessness -- it
may be the most powerful state of my life.

As for the Griefwork Cycle and its application to our lives, individual and
organizational, I don't think that is about powerlessness or hopelessness
either, although both can certainly occur. In my view, the appearance of
either or both is not a function of the cycle itself, but rather its arrest
prior to full completion. If completed, griefwork adds to our store of
wisdom, courage, and serenity.

There are a number of ways to describe the essential elements of the cycle.
My version is as follows: 1) Shock/Anger, 2) Denial, 3)Memories, 4)Open
Space as Despair, 5) Open Space as Silence, 6) Vision 7) New Life. 1 and 2
are pretty obvious and need no description. Memories(3) is what happens
when those involved cycle through the happenings before "the event." Some
times this gets ritualized as in an Irish Wake which is quite simply story
telling -- all about the dear departed and our relation to him/her. Despair
is the truly painful one. It comes at the moment of full recognition that
It is ALL over. The shock is gone, the anger subsided, all the stories have
been told -- and there is nothing left to hope in, hence dis-pair. The bad
news is that it hurts like Hell. But there is a positive side as well --
for in despair we have the opportunity to go through the cathartic moment
of finally letting go. Those who council that we not despair really don't
get the picture -- we either go through it, or spend our life in it -- and
we all know people who live their life in despair. But that I believe is
their choice. It is all about letting go, and should you choose to hang on
--- you must live with the results.

Once through Despair, and most of us make it, there is an incredible moment
of silence -- pure open space. It is all gone, but equally it is all
potential. Some folks choose to check out at this point. Those of us who
choose to go on do so, I think in response to a question which may be posed
in any number of ways. The question is: "What are you going to do with the
rest of your life?" One possible answer, of course is "Nothing." And that
is pretty much it. But another response is possible -- which usually shows
up with words like, "I wonder if...." I wonder if I can find a new job, new
life partner, new... When you combine wonder and imagination (if) Vision is
born, I think. And with Vision something new is breaking into view.

That is the short version, and for the full treatment, I can only refer you
to either (both) of my books The Power of Spirit, and The Spirit of
Leadership.. But now for some comments and observations.

First, I think that the grief work cycle is essentially hardwired into us.
We don't have to invent it, and most of us make it through. It is the way
we grow, emotionally, intellectually, as individuals, and I think as
organizations. And with that growth comes a fuller manifestation of our
power (not powerlessness or hopelessness). So we could just let it happen.

Then again, I find that there are some real advantages to be found in
actually making the process work for us, and assisting our fellows in the
journey. It is very much like the process of birth. There are a series of
un-skippable steps, and each one is harder than the one before, but at the
end you have a baby. If a mother knows the stages of birth, you can keep
track of where you are, and that is important, ' cause in the moment the
pain can be very disorienting. And precisely here is the essential role of
the midwife. she does not carry the baby, won't birth the baby, but just by
being there and acting as guide and witness along the way, she/he performs
an invaluable function -- or so I am told by those who have had the
experience.

When it comes to life, ending (death) and (hopefully) rebirth in
organizations, something like a midwife can be very helpful. Indeed that
would be my understanding of the deepest parts of the practice of a
consultant. It is not about taking power. It is not even about giving
power. It is all about creating the space and time (open space) in which
the full (renewed) power of life may be manifest. At least that is my
thought and experience.

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-469-9269
fax 301-983-9314
Summer Phone 207-763-3261
Summer Address
189 Beaucaire Ave.
Camden, ME 04843
website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh
Open Space Institute website www.openspaceworld.org
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