What Can One Say When A Colleague Dies?

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From the Newsroom to the Boardroom to the Sales Room

In one brief spurt, from August 14 to August 22, we received notification
of the death of three respected journalists.

We speak of Allen R. Myerson of the New York Times; Neal Travis of the New
York Post; and Peter Martin of the Financial Times in London. Of course,
we send our condolences to their family, friends, and co-workers.

With this troika of sad news postings came a reminder of a call we
received from a major Florida daily about four years ago. The managing
editor, a youngish fellow, had died, and the emotions in the newsroom were
up for grabs.

One of the feature writers had just seen a blurb about our book on grief
and recovery. She chanced a direct call to our offices to ask for some
guidance on talking among her newsroom colleagues about the grief they
were all feeling, but covering up. Of course, we were glad to oblige. That
is what we do here.

Age, education, skill and success are not relevant to grief. Neither CEOs
nor dock workers nor Pulitzer Prize winners are immune to the impact that
grief can have on their productivity and state of mind.

We constantly receive calls from businesses trying to cope with a death.
They come from retail stores, from manufacturing plants, from executive
suites, and, of course, from newsrooms. It matters not if the death was as
the result of an accident or of a long-term illness or of a suicide. They
call to ask questions about dealing with the sudden appearance of an
emotional pink elephant in their workplace.

The questions always sound something like this: What do we say to the
family? What do we say to our customers or clients? And, what do we say to
each other? What words go with the feelings that we are all having but do
not know how to give voice to?

The answers are part of the overall education and guidance we provide for the
businesses and organizations that call for our help. Many of the answers exist in
our books and literature, all of which point out the specific actions that people
can take to help themselves and others.

We wish that we could offer some simple, bullet-point catch phrases in an
attempt to create an instant education and cure for the discomfort of
workplace grief. We can't. Human relationships are much too complex and
too important to be reduced to "seven easy things to say when a colleague
dies."

In a crisis we return to old behaviors and old beliefs. Grief is a crisis.
The death of a co-worker, especially in a close-knit workplace, can
produce profound feelings of loss and sadness. When those feelings arise
they awaken the ideas we have learned over a lifetime about dealing with
grief.

If we were taught that time will heal our wounds, then we will wait to
feel better. If we were told that we need to be strong or to be strong for
others, then we will not show our feelings. If we heard "laugh and the
whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone," then we will isolate
our feelings.

Just those three incorrect ideas are enough to create an atmosphere in
which people's verbal and non-verbal communication are out of synch. A
co-worker will say "I'm fine" with words, but his or her body language
will be saying the opposite. Truth takes a back seat to accidental deceit,
as people avoid contact and the rare opportunity that shared grief
presents to connect with co-workers on a much deeper level.

Talk may be cheap, but the absence of talk can be painful and torpedo
workplace productivity. When we do not have the safety within ourselves or
from each other, to talk openly about the emotions caused by the death of
a colleague/friend, then we compound the loss with an emptiness of another
kind.