People get attached to their roles at work. Their job becomes an identity for some, and ownership for others, and for some their job may even go a long way to defining who they are. As a result, restructure, redundancy, dismissal or personal injury or illness can have a major impact on individuals due to profound feelings of grief and loss.

Psychiatrist and best-selling author Elisabeth Kübler-Ross pioneered the understanding of the stages of grief and loss for the health sector, and in many ways turned an entire culture around. Before Kübler-Ross's work, hospital staff, including doctors, were ordered to never discuss death or even the possibility of it with their patients. The results of this misguided practice, particularly for terminally ill patients, were shocking. Patients felt loneliness, frustration and a lack of humanity as they endured their last days on earth. Thankfully, Kübler-Ross's work brought about change and has made the health system significantly better for it.

Unfortunately, the corporate world still works like a 1950's hospital. We don't talk about the big three: restructure, redundancy and dismissal; we don't talk about the pain and disruption they cause — but we should. We need to map grief and loss better when people's work worlds are tipped on their head. It's time for change.

Mapping the journey

Change is a constant within the workplace, but the extent of disruption created by restructures, redundancies or dismissals warrants a closer look. These disruptions bring with them inevitable tough conversations, uncertainty and disorder. As a manager and a leader, it is often your role to be seen as being in control, and yet the decisions are often out of your control, and you have to maintain a semblance of balance between chaos and confidence. This chapter explores some ways of navigating through this rough terrain.

This rough stuff is big and causes significant emotional upheaval, but the big three all have one thing in common: transition — a passage or journey from one form, state, style, place, context or reality to another.

Before we get specific about how we can employ strategies to help us manage the rough stuff with our staff, it is worth exploring the transition process in some greater depth.

The common denominator: transition

We deal with transitions every day: from being asleep to being awake, from leaving home to entering the workplace, from being with others to being alone. Certainly, these transitions are smaller and less challenging than the three rough-stuff challenges explored in this chapter, but the fundamental principles remain the same. According to developmental psychologist Richard Harmer, who specialises in helping executives and organisations find their purposeful leadership, all transitions have a start, a middle and an end. He defines them in the following way:

• Start. First, we have to acknowledge that one reality is ending and that certain roles, expectations, perspectives, responsibilities and benefits or challenges are likely to end with it.
• Middle. Second, in letting go of this (now old) reality, there will probably be a feeling that something is missing, which may result in you feeling both concerned by the uncertainty and excited by the new possibilities.
• End. Finally, there is the creation or embracing of a new beginning or reality with all of the roles, perspectives, responsibilities and benefits/challenges that come with this new experience.

The process of transition is shown in figure 9.1.

Mindset makes a difference

There is something else common to all transitions: the attitude or mindset that is brought to the experience. The mindset that a person chooses to adopt during times of transition is the key to coping or not coping. As a manager, your ability to influence the mindsets of others is also crucial to successful transitions. Let's explore further the role of mindsets.

We have all been there: the sense of hurt and loss at no longer feeling as if you're in the driver's seat of your work or career. In our experience, more than 80 per cent of people who have experienced transition, by a change in role or responsibility at work (through restructure), losing their job (through redundancy or dismissal) or no longer being able to do their job (through injury or illness), have been happier and more satisfied six months after they commenced the transition journey than they were at the start. That is a massive percentage and far greater than we would have expected. The 80 per cent who were happier were those who adopted a more positive mindset during the experience — especially in the start and middle phases of the transition.

You may be thinking, ‘That sounds all well and good for you guys, but I am in the middle of this transition journey right now. How can I stay positive when I'm faced with so much uncertainty about my future?'

We agree. We felt the same when we were in the middle of it too.

Here are some of the things that work, regardless of where you are in the transition journey. These suggestions are designed to build on what you already know, open up a space of possibilities for new opportunities to be created for you and by you, and provide you with the confidence to create an energising pathway towards your new post-transition reality. Our suggestions fall into the following three actions:

• Talk yourself up: it's all about translation.
• Hit the pause button: it's all about relaxation.
• Create the pathway to your new reality: it's all about adaptation.

Figure 9.2 shows how the transition model might change when new mindsets are used.

Talk yourself up: it's all about translation

Taking the best of your past and what you really enjoy doing and repurposing it to support, inspire and enable you (and others!) to create your new reality is at the core of translation. It's about doing a personal and professional audit, and working out what you really want to do and what you're good at; letting go of the old, owning your strengths and talking up your passions, perspectives and performance within the new reality in which you find yourself. These are the four steps of translation.

Step one is taking some time to look for the best in your past experiences and successes. Ask yourself:

• What do I really enjoy about the work that I do and what am I really good at?
• What comes naturally to me and what feedback from others have I received that reinforces this?
• What knowledge, skills, experiences and attributes do I have, and what successes have I had in my career using these?
• What aspects of my previous roles have I been really passionate about?

In step two, you need to let go of all of those aspects of your current job and behaviours that no longer serve you as you work to create your new reality. Ask yourself:

• What are the aspects of my previous role or roles that I did not enjoy and no longer want to do?
• What attitudes or mindsets do I hold at present that are not useful to me as I commence this transition journey?

In step three, you need to own up to your strengths. We often downplay our strengths because we don't want to appear overly confident or arrogant to others. But, in times of transition these social rules don't apply. We no longer have to try to fit in with others — after all, we're no longer going to be working with the same people. Now is the time to own what you're good at. You have to fully believe your own hype for others to do so!

In step four, talk up your passions and performance. There is a really basic law in psychology that explains much of human behaviour: we're attracted towards what makes us feel good and we avoid what makes us feel bad. Simply put, we pursue pleasure and avoid pain.

The same goes when translating your old reality into the new reality you're creating. Talk up what you're passionate about to get others excited about you and what you can do for them. Also, showcase your past performances to others. Think about the last time you went to look at a new car in the showroom. The salesperson would have quickly identified your basic needs in a new car, and would then have talked up the performance aspects of the car they were selling in ways that matched your needs. Talk up your past performances in ways that address the current dilemmas of your new audience.

Hit the pause button: it's all about relaxation

Often we start the transition journey feeling exhausted. We've either been feeling stressed or worried in the lead-up to the transition we now face, or we've been working to our limits just trying to keep all of the balls in the air in a situation that had become untenable.

When we start the transition journey — and especially when we're in the middle phase — we may experience emotions that often arise when we're uncertain about our own and others' future. This is a natural experience (part of the pursuit of pleasure, avoidance of pain rule mentioned earlier).

In these situations we often try to force a decision or a solution: ‘If I could just get some clarity about the situation, I would know what to do next!' Obviously every person's situation is different. If possible, however, avoid rushing into the next role or job. Take some time. Slow down. Hit the pause button. Try something new. For example, read a book from a genre different from your usual preferences, talk to different people, get out of your daily routine, watch different television programs or spend some time alone in new surroundings.

Why? It's hard to create a new vision for how you would like your new reality to be if you don't have any new experiences to feed into this new vision. If you fail to have new experiences you may find yourself recreating aspects of your old world that you wanted to let go of. And, more importantly, you should get some rest and relaxation before commencing the next leg of your career journey.

Create the pathway to your new reality: it's all about adaptation

Imagine that you are at the edge of a vast plain and on the horizon you see a distinctive landmark that acts as a signpost to your ideal future — your new world. There is no obvious pathway to this destination. What do you do? Obviously, you start walking. And in so doing you forge a path to your destination.

The passage of transition is often like this. We are often explorers of what can feel like uncharted territory. We need to improvise, experiment and adapt our way towards our new reality. Learn by doing. Try something, then measure your progress, refine your approach and try again. Create the map to your new world through the journey itself.

There is no single perfect way to traverse the unknown. Perseverance, self-belief and personal dedication are all aspects of yourself that you have at your disposal.

Some other important activities you should add to your travel pack for the journey include the following:

• Be true to yourself. What's the point of journeying to your new world if along the way you lose a connection with who you are, what you stand for and what you're deeply passionate about?
• Create a compelling vision of the new reality you are heading towards and make it high definition. Remember the pursuit of pleasure, avoidance of pain rule we spoke about earlier? Your vision for what you want to experience in the new world needs to be compelling enough to you (and those important to you) to risk leaving the safety of your current reality in order to obtain it.
• Experiment, improvise and adapt your way through the terrain to the new world. A mindset of experimentation is critical when you're trying new things. We're not likely to get it perfect first time (if at all!). Sure, we want to enjoy the journey as much as possible, but in the game we call transition it's the end that counts. Lay your foundations deep, build rewarding and supporting relationships, ask the questions that make you tremble, dance with the unknown, trust that the way forward will become clear to you, say yes to opportunities that you feel will help you make progress, proceed until apprehended — and then proceed some more.
• Celebrate your successes — both great and small. We get so fixated on the end result that we fail to notice and celebrate our successes (however small they may feel) along the way. However, these celebrations are important in sustaining the transition journey. They are like markers indicating progress along our journey. They also provide us with a point to return to if we feel we have become lost somewhere along the way. Celebrate alone. Celebrate with others. Celebrate often!

In the discipline of psychology there has been extensive research into the factors that underpin successful transitions. According to clinical psychologist Charles Snyder, author of The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here, one important factor in navigating life and career transitions effectively is the psychological condition of hope. Snyder describes hope as having two key elements: the first element is willpower, which he defines as self-belief and a willingness to be the agent of your own destiny; and the second element is ‘waypower', which he describes as a clear vision of a desired future, coupled with a clear pathway towards it.

Richard Harmer offers a third element, which he calls ‘wantpower', for dealing with the rough stuff: regardless of the situations or circumstances we may find ourselves in, each of us has boundless persistence and tenacity to follow the path towards what we're truly passionate about. Staying connected to your ‘wantpower' when dealing with the rough stuff (and helping others to do the same) will result in creating an experience of transition that can be liberating rather than scary. Perhaps you have had someone say to you, ‘Changing jobs was the best thing that ever happened to me' — essentially they are saying, ‘I have made the transition'.

Gaining a better understanding of transitions and how they affect us (and our staff) is a cornerstone for handling the big three conversations well. Gaining a level of empathy (see chapter 7) is a powerful tool in these rough-stuff conversations. By examining your own reactions to transitions, you become attuned to others undertaking their own transition. Let's now look at how we, as managers and leaders, can specifically deal with the rough stuff of restructure, redundancy and dismissal.

Moments of truth: having the termination conversation

Conversations about termination are often called moments of truth for a leader of others: because of redundancy or dismissal you are now in a position where you are called upon to terminate a member of your team. Time to take a deep breath.

This conversation requires high levels of emotional sensitivity, as well as courage. Interestingly, the word ‘courage' is taken from the Latin word cor, which means ‘heart'. So, this is a good place to start when you need to have a rough-stuff conversation to end someone's tenure in your organisation. Monitor your heart rate. When your heart is racing, it usually means you are stressed, worried or even scared. These emotions are completely natural for the situation you are facing. One quick technique when you notice your heart racing is to start to count the beats. How many are there? In your mind, try to get your heart to beat at the same time you take a breath, or close enough to it. In matching your heart rate with your rate of breath, you naturally slow down both, which will result in you feeling calmer and more focused.

When preparing for a rough-stuff conversation involving termination, you need to do four essential things:

• prepare yourself
• keep it real
• stay on message
• maintain the other person's self-esteem.

Prepare yourself

If you can, take some time to prepare yourself for the conversation. What do you need to do in order to remain as relaxed, attentive and empathic as possible? This may mean having a good night's sleep the night before, or talking the conversation through with a trusted (and objective) colleague, or having some time by yourself immediately prior to the conversation to calm your thoughts and ground yourself. Whatever you need to do to connect with your courage, boost your emotional sensitivity and remain true to yourself and your message, do it.

You need to be centred and grounded within yourself for your rough-stuff conversation to be the same.

Keep it real

Remember that you're going to have a conversation that will result in the other person feeling like they are losing control of their present situation. And when people feel like they are losing control, they can react in some unpredictable ways. For example, they can get defensive or angry, or upset or quiet.

The most important thing for you to do is provide the person with all the information they need to make some informed choices about what the decision means to them. Often we sugar-coat the message to the person receiving it because we're trying to look out for them, and sometimes even protect ourselves, but this disempowers both of you. Be real. Tell them how it is. Include the facts of the situation as well as the relevant details of what, when, how and whatever else. You may even like to write down the answers to these key points for yourself in preparation for your conversation.

For people to make informed choices about their future life and career, they need to be aware of the reality of their present situation.

Stay on message

Following on from being real, make sure you stay on message. As we mentioned before, when people feel like they are losing control (fast!) they can act in unpredictable ways — they may want to enter into a debate with you about the relative merits of your decision, or bargain with you about lifting their game in return for not being terminated.

Imagine you are in a carriage on a set of railway tracks. Either side of the railway tracks is a swamp. Imagine that the place where the tracks meet the horizon is your objective and the carriage you are standing in is your key message. In reality, if you were facing this scenario, the safest and smoothest place for you to be would be in the carriage and on the tracks. Rough-stuff conversations are just like this: if you stray into the swamp it can get a little bumpy. Ask yourself these questions:

• What is the outcome I want for me from this conversation?
• What is the outcome I want for the other person involved in this conversation?
• Given the outcomes, what are the three key messages I want the other person to take from the conversation?
• What am I not prepared to discuss with the other person as part of the conversation?

Know and stick to your desired outcome and key messages to ensure your rough-stuff conversation stays on track.

Maintain the other person's self-esteem

In delivering the messages of your rough-stuff conversation and ending a person's tenure in your organisation, you will be challenging their feelings of self-worth. In these conversations, you play an important role in helping to maintain the person's self-esteem so they leave the conversation thinking: ‘I am upset by the message, but my manager was really good about it'.

In our experience, if you follow the three points we have already mentioned for conducting a rough-stuff conversation you will, by default, maintain the other person's self-esteem. A good rule of thumb is to imagine yourself in the other person's shoes and remember to offer the words you would most like to hear, in ways that are also true to the situation they face, as well as being aligned to your desired outcomes and key messages.

A good mantra to adopt is to offer hope and a way forward from your rough-stuff conversations.

True transparency: give them 100 per cent

In a situation such as a restructure, respecting others enough to tell them 100 per cent of what you know is the art of true transparency. Remember, it's not your role to own others' emotions. Imagine if you changed the reality for someone in your team by not telling them the full picture. This clearly says that, as a manager, I don't think you can handle the real situation. Or worse still, that I can't handle your potential anger. It's only ever half the story if you only tell half of what you know. Likewise, it's always 100 per cent of the story if you tell everything that you know.

Management and leadership practices that are based on espionage or on, ‘Let's hold it back until …' are relics of a long-gone era around military models where keeping your next move under wraps was important. When it comes to restructures, the keep-quiet strategy — the strategy that says, ‘Let's do it all in the room and hold it back for six months and then go “Ta da! Here it is”' — needs to be rethought. We've been unable to find any research that suggests this process actually works. Often it's the result of an executive team being scared of its own emotions and fearing it will not be able to handle the fallout.

It's never your job as a leader or a manager of people to determine their future. It's their choice. Whether they want to leave or want to stay, you can't chain them to the desk. In fact, if they feel as though you have done just that, guess what they're going to do? Pick the lock. When we communicate our message clearly, openly and transparently, the vast majority of people say they would prefer to be informed of a restructure or a potential restructure. Even if it upsets them, they would rather know, so that they can deal with it, than be kept in the dark.

Stepping through grief and loss

At the heart of change, individuals often feel a sense of grief and loss — loss of a hoped-for future, grief over changed relationships with others, and the loss of a job and financial security. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's work on the stages of grief provides a useful framework for understanding the emotional journey that we and others go through when faced with grief and loss as experienced through restructure, redundancies, dismissal, or personal injury or illness.

Kübler-Ross's model outlines five stages that individuals go through in the process of dealing with grief and loss. The extent to which an individual experiences each stage and the length of time it may take them to move through a stage varies greatly. If people are particularly stuck in going through the transition, this model can be useful to consider.

According to Kübler-Ross, the five stages of grief are:

• denial
• anger
• bargaining
• depression
• acceptance.

The denial stage

In the denial stage people are likely to say things such as, ‘I feel fine', and ‘This can't be happening to me'.

Denial is usually only a temporary defence for the individual, and it's usually replaced by a heightened awareness of the impact of the change on them and their family.

Ways to manage this stage include the following:

• Provide a forum for questions if they come up.
• Communicate the message consistently and through various media.
• Let people know clearly what the next step is.

The anger stage

In the anger stage people are likely to say things such as, ‘Why me? It's not fair!', ‘How can this happen to me?', and ‘Who is to blame?'

Once they are in the second stage, they recognise that denial can't continue.

Ways to manage this stage include the following:

• Depersonalise the situation (go back to the strategies offered in chapters 4 and 6).
• Direct the conversation towards solutions rather than problems.
• Rather than focus on what the end step will be, just focus on what the next step needs to be.

The bargaining stage

In the bargaining stage people are likely to say things such as, ‘I'll do anything to keep my job', and ‘I will take a pay cut if …'

The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay the change. Psychologically, the individual is saying, ‘I understand this change is going to happen, but if I could just do something to buy more time …'

Ways to manage this stage include the following:

• Be clear on what can't be changed.
• Encourage the possibility mindset that comes from this stage — there may be a viable solution that you hadn't considered.
• Link people up with supports, resources and websites that may be relevant.

The depression stage

In the depression stage people are likely to say things such as, ‘I'm so sad, why bother with anything?', ‘This is the only job I know. What's the point?', and ‘Who else will give me a chance?'

During the fourth stage, the person begins to understand the certainty of change. For this reason they may start to disconnect with the workplace and their relationships there.

Ways to manage this stage include the following:

• Show empathy and understanding for what they're experiencing.
• Reconnect people with hope by exploring other times when they have successfully navigated change.
• Allow time for grief and loss to be processed.

The acceptance stage

In the acceptance stage people are likely to say things such as, ‘It's going to be okay', and ‘I can't fight it, so I may as well prepare for it'.

In this last stage, people begin to come to terms with the change and are more open to what the future holds.

Ways to manage this stage include the following:

• Guide people into action. Action precedes clarity and helps with making decisions about the future.
• Provide assistance to plan future options.
• Support their choices.

Gaining a greater understanding of the stages of grief and loss is important for any manager or leader who is mapping staff through the rough stuff. For example, when you're managing a team undergoing restructure, be a little forensic with each member of your team. Where is each individual within the stages of grief and loss? Are some angry? Perhaps some may be deflated, whereas others are eager to move on. Each individual stage requires specific strategies — get clear to get the best out of the transition you and your staff are going through.

Disruption creates innovation

Restructures, redundancies, dismissals and personal injury or illness can all create seismic disruptions to the workplace. One of the side effects of disruption at work is the need to do things differently. What worked before may not work in this changed landscape. Leading organisations are going out of their way to actually create disruption at work because they recognise that through disruption innovations are born. Once people have reached a stage of acceptance, they find ways to embrace and capitalise on the disruption and chaos. Consider what may be possible that we had never thought of doing before. This is where thought leaders are born.

Disruptions have a way of shaking up our lives and getting us to consider these questions: ‘What do I really want to be doing?' and ‘What is really important to me?' Consider the employee who has been in the same job for 10 years, not hating it but not loving it either. Being faced with restructure or redundancy may be the big jolt that gets them to finally pursue the career they have always wanted.

When faced with the transitions that are created by the big three, consider how the future may be better because of this experience. Consider the following useful questions:

• What things are possible in this changing landscape that I hadn't considered before?
• What have I put off that I now may be able to achieve?
• What if we were to get rid of ____________? What would happen then?
• Who could I connect with who would give me a fresh outside perspective on this situation?

Conclusion

The level of disruption created by the big three — restructure, redundancy and dismissal — is major. It's often your role as manager to be the messenger, to be seen as being in control and responsible for things that are totally outside of your control, but talking through the pain, disruption and frustration of the big three is often not as scary as we think.

Taking the time to walk alongside others through these transitions will support both them and you to navigate the rough terrain. Be true to yourself, celebrate the successes and instil hope for what may be possible in the future. What could come out of these experiences may be better than anything you had imagined.