In this episode of Weirdos in the Workplace, host Erin Patchell welcomes back executive coach Eleanore Eaves to discuss her groundbreaking concept of "corporate grief." Eleanore introduces this new term, explaining how it encompasses the emotional impact of workplace events like layoffs, mergers, and even personal tragedies on employee performance and organizational success. Key topics include: The $8.9 trillion cost of employee disengagement How toxic positivity fails as a strategy in the workplace The importance of acknowledging grief and difficult emotions at work Similarities between corporate grief and generational trauma Practical approaches for leaders to address and manage corporate grief Eleanore also shares details about her upcoming executive retreat in Scotland, featuring experts in mental resiliency, mindfulness, and change management. Join us for an insightful conversation on bringing humanity back to the workplace and transforming how we handle difficult emotions in professional settings. Learn why addressing corporate grief is crucial concept for employee retention, engagement, and organizational success. #CorporateGrief #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeEngagement #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange   Stay in Touch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleonore-eaves Website: https://eavescoaching.com/   Script: We don't want to talk about grief. We don't want to talk about death. We don't want to talk about all these different aspects of life that is part of life. Toxic positivity is not a strategy.  And as you can imagine, that A shocked a lot of people. Stories last forever, right? The echoes of the bad experiences get passed down to the next group of employees. Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work. And I'm here with my friend, Eleanor Eves. Welcome back, Eleanor. Thank you so much for having me back. I'm super excited to have you back. And I'm really excited about this topic that we're going to be talking about. But before I get there, those of you who did not come or you haven't listened to Eleanor's previous podcasts on Weirdos in the Workplace with me, go back to season one and definitely listen to them because she's awesome. Eleanor is the founder of Eve's Coaching and couldn't in case you couldn't tell if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple Music or a podcast platform, you won't be able to actually see us. But it does say Eave's coaching right in the top right hand corner of her of her screen there. And that is the that is her business, Eave's coaching and Eleanor is an amazing executive coach and soon to be author. executive coach and soon to be author. Thank you very much. Yes, absolutely. So Eleanore, please introduce this topic because it is it is a quite it's a serious topic. It's a very human topic. And I'm really excited to talk about this with you. Yes, thank you. So it's it's a coin. It's a term I am coining as... Hold on, let me refresh that. Okay, I figured that's where she could cut it off, right? So yes, thank you very much. So corporate grief is a term I am coining to describe a range of actions of individuals who are processing emotions and events in a number of different ways. But all of these events and their actions as a result have real dollars and cents implications, both for their own career trajectory, but also too for the organizations within which they operate. So this is beyond looking at mental wellness or workplace culture and environments and all of that from an emotional or from a psychological point of view, that how does this actually impact performance? How does this actually impact very measured, tangible things such as dollars and cents. Okay. So corporate grief, this is a new term that you've developed or that you've coined. Okay. And this isn't, this isn't, this is not currently like a buzzword anywhere. No, I really haven't seen it around a lot. This is why I kind of came up with it. It's basically taking what we understand from the scientific aspects of the neurobiology and psychology of grief and trauma, but placing it within the context of corporations and how they operate, right? So I'm sure for the majority of your listeners, the most easily to understand approach is after a merger or after a corporate acquisition, when there are mass layoffs, or if there are mass layoffs for other reasons. What we tend to see is those who are left within their jobs or who are able to maintain their positions have some level of survivor's guilt, right?  Now, the survivor's guilt, as you can imagine, has runoff effects. In a very interconnected world as we are, it's not just a very isolated feeling like it maybe was in 30, 40 years ago, but it's a world where people are consistently engaging with fellow colleagues, right? Whether it be on social media, via text messages, WhatsApp, whatever the case may be. So they're never really separated from it. And so these feelings compound and in a world as well, where, you know, news is easily acceptable or accessible in any different environment. Okay, hold on. And as well, you know, in a world where it's very easy to, to continuously be in contact with, with anyone, these feelings compound and it does impact their performance, especially at a time where they could either have an opportunity to grow within an organization or where the organization really, really needs them to be doing additional work because now it's critical times, right? There are less people, there's more work to do, there are far more pressures. So we're looking at it from multiple different angles okay so just I'm unpacking all of the things that you've said and there's so much here okay so let me just let me stream of consciousness smart for a minute at you yeah if you don't mind love it love it so what I'm picking up I'm I'm thinking when as you're talking I'm thinking about generational trauma right yes and we know, I'm thinking about generational trauma, right? And we know we have a language for generational trauma when it comes to us as individuals, we're, we're beginning to have a language. Those of us who've thought about this have maybe gone to therapy, have done some personal development. Those of us, you know, we have a generation of trauma and we generally have a relatively consistent framework for that. We don't talk about this in the context of corporations. So I think this is interesting. You know, when they say, okay, let me process this as I'm talking. Cause you know, I'm an out loud thinker. Cause I don't, I can't think of it. Love it. So corporations, we always say that people aren't like human employees. What other kind of employees are there? AI employees? People are less, they're jumping from job to job all the time. They're less committed to one job, it feels like, right? But if you think about that, if you flip it from the employer perspective, over the last 60 years, since the 1960s, employers have also become less committed to their employees. Yes. Right? Absolutely. And so when I'm thinking about generational trauma and corporations, it almost feels like, you know, when you talk about generational trauma and people you're talking about, there's, you know, 20 to 40 years between each generation. Yeah. You know, if you look at, um, the way, you know, human being, human biology, um, changes over, you know, decades and millennia and centuries and millennia, like how slowly that our biology changes, how slowly we adopt like in an evolutionary way. When you think about like, you know, a cockroach or a small mammal, how they adopt in an evolutionary way, it's much faster because they have much faster reproduction, right? Yes. And so they can, their biology changes more quickly. They're more able to adapt to their environment because like their genetics change. You know, this is why we can breed show dogs or whatever, because, you know, well, we can be very intentional about breeding them and producing very specific characteristics because, you know because their biology, their lives are shorter essentially, right? And they grow adults so much faster than humans. So the way I'm putting this all together, it feels like we almost have like a generational, like a trauma evolution within the workplace, within a corporation that has been see this is me processing out loud it's not I'm not doing very well at it but you know it's almost like it's been condensed right in a way it's the the grief process the the trauma has been condensed you know because of this rapid turnover like the the build-up of this trauma among people in such a short period of time does that resonate at all with you like I'm you know what I'm I don't know if you're picking up what I'm putting down here I I think I am. And correct me if I'm not understanding what you're putting down properly. But no, you're absolutely right. And, you know, there's, when we talk about organizational legacies and cultures as well, we also have to understand that there are organizational storytelling and things that get passed down it's not just the good it's not just you know how do we operate and that sort of stuff but it is not the good right exactly um but these institutionalized um sources of grief also compound. And this is where you start getting, you know, the disengagement and disenfranchised sources of grief, right? So there are terms that we could take from, uh, from other studies such as thanatology. Um, so for instance, like disenfranchised grief would be when a person um does not feel as though their experiences are being acknowledged within their within their environment right so think of you know for those of us who own pets when we lose a pet who we could consider to be like a child a lot of people won't understand that. And so we're left to our own devices, right? We don't have grieving days for that, right? Or other instances within organizations. So you get this form of, as you rightfully said, generational trauma, but that generational trauma could also be uh the organizational culture depending on what that looks like do people feel that they have a right to treat others a certain way because they survived that yeah right and i intentionally use the term survived it doesn't mean that it was okay i mean to survive that um well like you say those stories last forever right the echoes of the the bad experiences get passed down to the next group of employees right yeah exactly and i mean you know when we when we try to put a number behind it i mean there was a great Lola Gallup report. I don't know if you had a chance to see it. It was just released at about 3 a.m. this morning here on the eastern coast. And, you know, they measured the cost of disengagement between employees as $8.9 trillion in American dollars. This is an American statistic. This is the United States. They yeah, global, but that's $8.9 trillion. Right. I mean, that's good chunk of change due to just low engagement of staff. Right. And I mean, I laugh because it's these things that a lot of times we tend to overlook. We tend to think that we're too busy to care about such things, that we have other pressing concerns. Right, performance. And so the, but you know, the, it's laughable when you actually think about what does this mean for employee retention? What does this mean for the war for talent, for succession pipelines, for, you know, actual sustainability of an organization? so can you tell me like a story can you can we put this in a narrative format of something that you've experienced or that you've a client's experience maybe without naming names yeah you know um well I'll give more of one experience that was a little bit more personal to me. But I think it definitely resonated or would resonate with your viewers here. I remember one of my earlier jobs, you know, in my mid-20s, I was working for an office and the manager had unfortunately committed suicide. Oh, dear. And as you can imagine that that a shocked a lot of people um it was it was so soon for a lot of people and uh you know but in hindsight everyone kind of thought they saw the signs right um and? And it's exactly that, though. What do we do with that? What do we do with the signs? How do we process our grief? How do we process our trauma? And just because we weren't, you know, his spouse and children doesn't mean that we also too didn't feel something. Right. Right. Yeah. And I'll never forget it when when you know the hr person at the time actually could not go into his office to collect his his things um so she asked me to do it and sure you know i i was able to to assist her in that but that again just shows that you know there are so many different aspects of one's job of one's life there are organizational stressors there are personal stressors we are all coming into the workplace with a past with a history that nobody knows about nobody needs to know about to be perfectly honest right that's your right to decide whether or not you want to share that or not um but it's looking at how can we manage the things we can manage what are our roles as leaders as individuals how do we show up and support one another what does this look like how do we maintain engagement?  So the organization was actually very forward for its time and, you know, ensured that there were counselors on site, you know, supporting anybody and provide free counseling for anyone who wanted to speak immediately. to speak immediately. But I also was fascinated by this line of work and by this corporate grief idea, because that also too, right there showed me how we, we have this almost toxic positivity around life in so many ways, right? We don't want to talk about grief. We don't want to talk about death. We don't want to talk about all these different aspects of life that is part of life yeah so if we live in a very sterilized way and approach such critical issues in a very sterilized way we get what we have right now so what would it look like if we actually not necessarily embrace it, but, you know, approach it with the normality in which it does exist? Yeah. Just pause for a minute to acknowledge that, acknowledge it and allow people to feel what they need to feel before then moving on, you know, to, you know, the next project or the next task or the next thing. We definitely don't take enough pauses. And I think a lot of that is, you know, us humans, we're really good at like distracting ourselves, you know, from stuff, right. From stuff we don't want to think about something that's hard, something that, you know that you know difficult conversations difficult feelings um sort of like airbrushing everything in order to just yeah move on and i'm just as guilty of that as everybody else you know um yeah of course i mean we we all are right there are times when we're more capable of handling that sort of thing and there are times when we're more capable of handling that sort of thing. And there are times when we're not, right? So whether we call it energy conservation or audits or, you know, you're right. There, you know, we all have our good days, our bad days, all of that. That's fine. But it's also to acknowledging that part of life is that bad, unfortunately. So if we acknowledge that it does exist and it will always exist, what does it look like if we actually try to approach it in a very strategic way? What does it look like if we say, okay, we know that this is a baseline within which we are willing to accept, you know, some level of, of grief. This is what we're going to do to ensure it doesn't get to critical levels. And even when, you know, it does happen, this is what we're going to do to ensure some level of, not just a safety measure, but, you know, ensuring that people are actually equipped and able to bounce back. For sure. Because that's really the critical part, right? Yeah. And toxic positivity is not a strategy. No. Had I done that, got the t-shirt, didn't work. Didn't work. No, it doesn't. Because, you know, emotions are going to bubble up no matter what right and the more you try to keep shoving them down and not acknowledging them the worse it gets exactly right and it also leads to the the disengagement that a lot of people feel yeah people can tell when you know if an organization says things like oh we're a family those are now very much red flags well I mean then there's everyone has a different definition of what a family like you know what is your experience in a family you know may not be someone else's experience so um and often isn't you know we talked about generational trauma so exactly yeah um okay so do you have like a framework developed yet or is that in the works on like what is like what is a what what belongs is under this umbrella of corporate grief. Is that starting to formulate itself? Absolutely. And I won't go too, too, too much into it, because I would love for people to read the book when it comes out. Yeah, hopefully soon. But essentially, it is approaching it from multiple different lenses, right? So first, we we understand that there's the personal side of things and the organizational side of things, right? The personal side, we list it in a way to encourage individuals to acknowledge that that exists, right?  So when you're engaging with other humans, and you're stressed out about your life, remembering that they are also stressed out about their own, whether it be their marriage their kids their finances whatever the case may be um you know we we all have a million and one things going through our minds so that's just a right check box i acknowledge that the part that we focus that on is the organizational stuff right so it's that as we mentioned earlier you know the culture the people the leadership um you know what does what does that look like and now there is no one-size-fits-all approach either right because every organization is different and everyone has their idea of what good is, right? Some of us have a very dark sense of humor. We're not going to be for everyone, right? Nope. But it's very much acknowledging that what might be okay for some won't be for others, and that's fine. But it's understanding what it means for your organization for yourself as a leader right what is the best standard for you your gold standard sorry i should say so then with that settled then we start looking at okay well what are your baseline measurements, right? Like, let's start putting some numbers into this. Are people, are your staff absolutely knackered of doing another survey because they don't see a value in it? Okay, then we have to start with trust-building exercises, right? If they actually do trust that the surveys will be responsibly managed and utilized, then great. Let's start doing some surveys. Let's start actually assessing what this means as a baseline target. And then where do you want to go? Right. There are countless studies out there now and of just showing that if you engage staff and actually ask them directly what it is you want to see surprise surprise it could transform an organization right i think one of the best case examples was uh i believe it's pronounced and now the uh behemoth american uh medical insurance organization who at the early 2000s was losing a million dollars a day a little bit of money was losing a million dollars a day. A little bit of money. So, I mean, that was an industry where they really should not have. And they did exactly that, right?  The CEO at the time actually sat down and interviewed, surveyed the staff, got their feedback on all of that. And they saw that the staff were actually really engaged. They actually wanted to do their jobs well. What caused the disengagement were other things that made the staff feel like they weren't being listened to, that they weren't being valued, all those different things. So even something as simple as saying, you know, staff disengagement, okay, well, what is the actual source of that? staff disengagement. Okay. Well, what is the actual source of that? Yeah. Right. So it's very much multifaceted, but it is a way of understanding all the complexities within a corporation, within performance measurements, as well as organizational goals, outcomes and finances, you know, putting the dollars and cents down into it and approaching it from that lens. Okay. So, so it sounds like a little bit of a manual. Does that sound about right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's, a working title for the book is a corporate manual. That's cool. Yeah. So I'm picking up what you're putting down, obviously.  So you're actually wanting to make this like a practical guide? Yes, very much a practical guide. And there will be online modules as well available to actually help work through the stuff. So the book will act more of like a primer, let's say. And then the online modules will provide individuals opportunities to actually think through and work through the different scenarios and apply it within their unique context. And then there is also the retreat in Scotland as well, in September. Yes, that's right. Okay, so give me an update on the retreat. So the retreat is for executives, senior leadership, team members, and really looking at, you know, getting 15 individuals in a room, and working through their unique problems. So there are going to be an amazing assortment of speakers out there as well. Everything from the likes of James Elliott, who actually created the mental resiliency program for the British military. Myself, obviously talking about corporate grief. My co-host for the event, Jody Wilding, looking at things like mindfulness, to other individuals who will be looking at topics such as emotional intelligence, tackling or overcoming resistance in change management, you know, really getting buy-in of individuals, mixture of everything from corporate to military and up and down and all around. That's very cool. I've looked at your speakers and they seem very impressive. And I love the direction of this because I'm like, why doesn't anyone realize we're at war here? Honestly, like it's crazy to me. Like we have, there's so many, so many like existential problems right now in the world. Like we need to put our armor on a little bit, you know, like look at like, seriously, like it's, it's, you know, if we're going to show our soft underbelly. Yeah. You know what I mean? If we're going to expose ourselves and be vulnerable, we also, we have to find the inner fortitude to be able to do that. Right. To me, that's like, that's essential for leaders today, isn't it? I cannot agree more. I mean, it's, it's absolutely essential.  And, you know, even when we use certain terms, it's funny how two different people will have a different understanding of that term. Like war, you mean? War, but, you know, A little more, but, you know, even to terms such as resiliency. Yeah. Does resiliency mean shut up and do the work? You know, stiff upper lip it? Or does resiliency actually mean, you know, finding strategies to actually be sustainable? Right. Yeah. Or vulnerability. It's another one. And, you know, again, how much vulnerability do people want to express? Right. What does it mean to be vulnerable? Right. And even these types of conversations creates that tension even between different generations, as we see, right? How much of yourself are you meant to be showing in the workplace? Yep. And in different given situations, you know, um, even within the workplace, we can't paint it with a broad brush. There's exactly micro cultures. There's relationships you have. There's, you know, you're going to have different relationships with different people, different scenarios, um, and being adaptable, right? This is the, probably the order of the day, I would think. Absolutely. There's, there are massive nuances between every location, whether it's cultural, linguistic, whatever the case may be. I mean, these sorts of things really need to be finally discussed, right? So how do you differentiate your work? So you're taking a very different angle towards this than other folks who are talking about, you know, performance, or wellness, or, you know, agility, like, tell me a little bit about like the why you decided to take this angle I take this angle because I feel like I I know that that grief response quite well given my my professional background and you know the the kinds of uh roles I've I've taken. So that has luckily and academically as well has given me a really good foundation to understand human behavior in very nuanced ways. Combined with coaching individuals from some of the largest layoffs that we've seen, you know, making front page news by the tens, by the dozens, I should say it, you know, it really has enabled me to see what works and what doesn't. So when people come back to you and say, wow, you know, that was far more transformative than I actually thought possible. And, you know, this is what I was actually able to do now with my life and my career it is incredibly rewarding and it feels like okay so there's definitely something in this yeah right and oddly enough it just starts with actually hearing people where they're at understanding that grief trauma all of that it's not linear it's very much cyclical and so understanding that a person could be very much okay one day yeah but they won't be the next and that's okay that's part of this process. And I mean, grief is one of the most profound emotions that we can feel as human beings. And it sticks around probably the longest, I would think as well. I don't know a lot about grief from a, you know, behavioral perspective, but that's how it's felt with me from a personal perspective. Absolutely. Right. And so it's understanding do do they have the supports and strategies to overcome it or does it become complex grief so complex grief is more of when it does linger um in a way right that is no longer helpful i'm not saying that grief in and of itself is helpful but as you can imagine um when the event is fresh, obviously it's going to still be a very raw wound. The question then becomes, you know, as it grows, are we looking at complex grief within organizations? What does that mean for their teams?  Right. Well, this is very valuable work that you're doing and research that you're doing and writing that you're doing and thinking that you're doing and all the actions that are coming from this. So I really, hopefully we can have you on back on the show, maybe this fall, winter, and you can talk about like the evolution of this project.  I would love, I think hopefully everyone would love to hear more about that thank you yeah it's uh it's fascinating work and it's really rewarding to also see the similarities even between different sectors right so this is why i chose this this kind of work um because at the end of the day we're all humans and for the most part our behaviors are pretty much predictable regardless of sector there's some nuances for sure but if we're looking at these larger systemic based issues and yeah it's we're all still humans we all still operate the same way our brains still operate the same way you know we still fire off the same chemicals the same way yeah and i can definitely see having this having even more of an impact in certain sectors for example i know that folks who work for different government agencies working on reconciliation are going through a lot of that grief and trauma work they have you know because it brings up so many feelings having to deal with you know missing and murdered indigenous women and children. It's awful, awful, awful. I can only imagine the kind of feelings that, you know, that would surface in that line of business. Right. Yes. And great work that they do, but so difficult. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But you know, that that grief and trauma also extends to even bankers, right? So even if we're looking at people with mass layoffs from banking, and not to, you know, belittle any profession or anything like that, right? Or say that one is exactly the same or akin to the other obviously they're they're massive nuances um but the range of experiences uh or emotions that we express and the way they they are manifested are are very similar and it's kind of like that that old saying um i have no idea where it came from but you know thieves don't need to identify each other when they cross at night. You know, a person who has gone through grief, if you have as well, you understand that intrinsically. Yeah. I mean, every single person on the planet will go through it at some point. Yes. Yeah. So there's no point trying to hide around it. But actually trying to understand what can we do with it now? Or what are we going to do to actually overcome it? Yeah. Awesome. Or support each other through it probably too, right? Exactly. Well, yeah, exactly. And you know, understanding too, that it's not you know a leader's role to take on the psychological burden or therapeutic role or anything like that right and i think that's another distinction that needs to be made um they are also sad they are also hurting right um it's not easy to be laying off that many people and the number of times i've interviewed people who've done mass layoffs they really struggle no doubt yeah right uh it's not easy on anyone obviously the person losing their their livelihood is going to take it very poorly obviously um but it's not a pleasant situation for anyone.  No, no. And so there are a lot of emotions attached to it. You know, it's especially for a lot of professionals. It's how they identify themselves. It's their ego. It's their sense of self. It's their identity. It is. It's a number of different things. Yeah. So many things to think about. Thanks for joining me, Eleanor. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.  Did you have any final words or words of wisdom or thoughts that you wanted to share before we sign off? Well, you know, thank you very much for having me here. And if anyone's interested in learning more or understanding how corporate grief could better assist them and their organization through changes, I mean, I also kind of view this as an evolution of change management practices and best practices. So if this is something that interests them, yeah, please do reach out, youthscoaching.com. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. interest them um yeah please do reach out eavescoaching.com Fantastic Thank you  Thank you  Don't forget to stay weird stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble! 

Ver todos los episodios