Your coworkers are not family members, but this same cycle of overwhelm and negativity can happen at work.  We find ourselves hyper-aware of all that is going wrong, keeping mental tallies of all the ways that coworkers and clients are dropping the ball.

Or, when that mental accounting becomes too exhausting, we go numb, merely going through the motions of to-do lists.  

There is a better way. 

So, don't be surprised when grief sideswipes you - we live in a world that carries miracles and terror...and that grief, that ache, is a testament to love and to hope.  

You miss them because you loved.  You ache because you hope for a day when things are put to right.

Some very brief tips when their loss triggers yours...

How you care for your employees (and clients) during disruptive life events matters.

The company lost a lot that day - a promising new hire (whose moving expenses they'd already paid), all the work of the recruitment team, and they suffered a huge blow to their reputation as a place that puts people first.

Not to mention the new, added cost of having to find + hire her replacement.

All because one manager wasn't skilled at empathy and connection.

A sugary-sweet email landed in my Inbox this week, titled "A Mother's love never fails"...

Really?  I thought of the neglected children-turned grown-ups who read that title, feeling it as a gut-punch:  the adults still grappling with their mother's cruelty or her addiction.  

Because the truth is, Mothers Day can be complicated. 

Empathy PTO is a great example of a policy that makes values manifest.  Thinking creatively, Monique and her team provided a category of PTO that could be used with flexibility, allowing employees to take the time they needed during seasons of disruption.

Mr. Bush said it well – “don’t get distracted from what matters most”.
 
Which was another way of asking us, both personally and organizationally  – what are you for? 

I’m making a list and putting it somewhere that I see often – what do I want to be marked by?  When people spend time with me, in person or in virtual space, what do I want their energetic imprint to be?

One of the answers that consistently emerges, for me, is hope.

Helping, in the moment, does not mean that we never address the behavior of the skill-deficit - it means that we, as leaders, are clear-eyed enough to know that, when someone's brain is in a moment of overwhelm, they aren't able to learn or absorb new information.

The smartest organizations know the power of documenting their processes so they are replicable, equitable, and aren't dependent on just one person.

But we haven't applied that degree of intention (or documentation) for how we care for people during the inevitable, disruptive life events that will occur.

Empathy shouldn't be the only "leg" that governmental or company policies stand on, but it certainly deserves a seat at the table.

Not a bug - but something that can bring out our best.

• I'm too empathetic - it's exhausting sometimes!

• I know that if I ask them how they are doing, it's going to be a whole thing

• You don't understand - they enjoy being stuck in drama (or sadness)

These are some of the reservations that I hear from clients.

And their apprehension comes from real life experiences.  Perhaps you've been there too, as the conversation seems to get stuck in an emotional morass.

Especially at work, this can be difficult for managers and coworkers to navigate.  Which leads them to avoid conversations about disruptive life events entirely.

This was the year of the break-up, the death, or the deep loneliness - and today is a reminder of the disruptive life events and the world that is not-how-you-want-it-to-be.

I hope you have some good people around you, ones that can look up from their own plans or chocolates to give you a hug, a coffee, or just a listening ear.

And while we can’t, ultimately, know who we would be until we are in the moment, I know that empathy and kindness and courage don’t emerge from a vacuum. These traits are forged (or not) in a hundred small moments.

Moments where it would be easier to turn away, to just keep going in the other direction or onwards with the task instead of caring for the person.

It's hard to know what you haven't been taught.
Most of us didn't receive any purposeful instruction on how to be empathetic and connect with others.  We seldom teach it in our MBA programs or our onboarding.  

And yet, we need our leaders, managers, and team members to operate in this skillset again and again.

Maybe solstice is the invitation you need – if you don’t feel abundant or generous - if this year was hard and cold and only looks to be more of the same. 

The end of the year is a naturally reflective time where we set revenue goals and resolutions.  For forward-thinking companies, it is also a time both to celebrate and to mark loss.

At it's heart - empathy demands that we value people enough to sit with the gravity/impact of their stories/perspectives - to be affected.

Violence is awful, reforms are necessary when systems repeatedly fail people.

And there is definitely room for reform + increased empathy within these systems.

Holidays can be hard: instead of being marked by Hallmark charm/glowing gratitude, they can be an aching reminder of pain.

You can choose to spend a lot of time and energy in judgment/annoyance - or you can engage your curiosity and wonder

The reality is, in the working world, you are (probably) going to have to continue to be in contact with people who vote differently than you do. 

And, I get it, you might be so emotionally flooded right now that curiosity and relationship seem out of reach.  However, I encourage you not to burn bridges.  The way that people change their minds is through relationships with real people who think differently than they do.