Death Lessons

Over the last 14 months our family has endured the death of three family members; a parent and two siblings. Despite the temptation to assume such experiences should best be left out of work related discussions there are some very important lessons we learned that are quite appropriate for any work situation.

A death is in essence a crisis. It is a sudden event that despite our best attempts to prepare for it comes upon us when we are not expecting or ready for it. In the case of my father’s death, we knew that it would come, but we had no idea it would come so fast, that more deaths would follow and that there would be so many practical details to attend to. What we accomplished as a family was amazing in retrospect and can be attributed to a couple of key skills.

Communication:

From the outset, we knew there would be a lot of emotion involved in the numerous decisions we would have to make and we did not have the luxury of time to discuss and come to consensus on everything. Each of us had to take pieces of this complex process research and make a decision on what was best. We were successful because we agreed from the outset that we would not second guess each other, and that in the event someone did the decision maker had a metaphorical FU! Button they could push if it happened. Crass? Maybe, but it helped introduce some levity into a very stressful situation. (More about this later)

Teamwork:

We recognized immediately that there was no way any one person could do everything, so we would have to work together to get this done. In families this can be very complicated as the old grudges and recriminations can make cooperation difficult. We were not immune to this risk, but the team work was successful because of the next two critical skills.

Clearly Understood Goals:

We were only able to accomplish everything because in this case we knew we had a lot of practical details to accomplish very little time to do it in and we all decided that our family relationship was not worth sacrificing for the process. Yes, there were seemingly insurmountable tasks that had to be completed but no one forgot why we were doing it and never hesitated to ask for help.

Attitude:

This is quite frankly the most essential to success on any project. As strange as it might seem, a sense of humor was one of the most important skills necessary for us to be successful. In a situation like this it is so easy to let the stress and gravity of the situation narrow a person’s vision. We had to develop tools as a family to keep the individuals from going into unproductive places; we did that with humor but also by individually making the conscious decision to remember that this was not some sort of contest to see who could be the biggest hero or the most thoughtful or caring. We also gave each other the benefit of the doubt when it came to motivations and actions. I will not say that every aspect of this experience went smoothly, but when we did encounter an issue, attitude was the only thing that made it possible to solve it.

Anyone who has gone through an experience like this will tell you that it changes everyone involved. In the end each individual determines how it will change them by deciding how they are going to participates in the process. That individual decision has an enormous affect on the outcome.

Action-Intention-Trust

I saw a recent post about a company who's boss is demanding the ability to access and read all employee e-mail. It sparked a lively discussion about privacy, control, trust and morale.

The reality is that all correspondence on the company's e-mail system is admissible in court. This means that all the mail can be used in the discovery process in a court case. I have personally had to fend off questions from plaintiff's attorneys while on the witness stand and it can be embarrassing and expensive for the company if employees are not careful in their email correspondence. A good rule to live by: Don't write anything in e-mail you would not want your Mom to see in the paper the next day.

In this particular case the boss (being the owner) sees it as his right to have access to this. Although he does in fact have that "right" he must be careful not to completely ruin any spirit of trust, cooperation or creativity that will likely be crushed when employees find out he has been clandestinely reading this mail.

As the boss, if you are going to do this you need to tell people you are doing it and why you feel it is necessary. If your concerns is company liability there are much more effective ways to manage this. Begin with developing a policy that makes clear why it is important to be careful while writing e-mail. If you are trying to keep a pulse on the employees it will not be effective when they find out you are reading their e-mail. If it is a control issue the victory will be pyrrhic. You may have won the battle for the illusion of control but you will have lost all the support and trust of the employees.