252: Work and Grief With Margo Fowkes

Margo Fowkes is the president of OnTarget Consulting Inc., a firm specializing in helping organizations and individuals act strategically, improve their performance, and achieve their business goals. Margo helps organizations and leaders create a more compassionate culture by speaking openly about grief and loss in the workplace. After the death of her son, Jimmy, in 2014, she created Salt Water, an online community that provides a safe harbor for anyone grieving the death of someone dear to them.

Margo believes that Grief needs to be acknowledged and witnessed before it can begin to heal.

She has known grief when his son, Jimmy, was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 13 ½. Jimmy passed away at the age of 21. Eight years after he was diagnosed.

The first 2 years after diagnosis, Margo’s family were confident as they were sure to get the treatment. Then the first year of treatment came. She counted down until they were done. The initial surgery to remove the tumor was done. Then came six weeks of radiation and nine rounds of chemotherapy. Then the cancer was gone.

But when the cancer came back, Margo’s family would live from scan to scan every quarter. They get quarterly MRIs. And if that MRI is good, she learned to lean on that 90 days. Hoping that nothing could happen in between those scans as they are savoring those good scans. This time, she worries constantly as Jimmu is so vulnerable to infections.

Jimmy was very good at living in the moment. That helped me. There will be a good friend or a family that helps. There’s a little bit that rubs on you that helps support your mind and body through this experience. Movement helps. Walking or running, or just being outside. A good workout helps but a lot of it helps when you’re in nature.

Margo shared a non-verbatim thought from The Last Lecture, “Listen, I’m not gonna die at this moment and we’ve had a very good day together. Let that be in this moment is enough.” This made her realize that Jimmy is here and he is not gonna die in the next hour. So, just breathe and don’t waste this time by just being or letting yourself be in that mind.

The notion is why should employers care for their grieving employees since the death of someone is grief that we can’t hide, especially in the workplace. We wear it in our bodies. If we go back to work even if people don’t know that something has happened, they only need to look at us to know that something is going on. You can see it in someone else's face and in their body language.

When the employee comes back, we act like everything’s okay and don’t bring it up. Somehow that's going to work. But it's not. Because people cannot navigate work without help after the death of someone that they care about.

She gets that it's very scary. It’s part of other reasons, one of the biggest reasons, why Margo wrote the book. Because there’s so much conversation about it. But there's nothing written about what you do as a leader when you first learn that one of your employees is grieving or you've lost one of your team members. You have to face it. There's nowhere around it. You can’t avoid it. Your employee may not quit, they may not leave, but they will never change and they will be not as productive as they once were if they don’t get some support from the employer and the rest of the team.

It's not a choice. Do lean in, and ask a few questions. Employers have to ask what their employee needs. It doesn't have to be big. Sometimes it's just acknowledging the loss and giving some space for the employee to navigate work a little differently.

A few suggestions for someone who is newly grieving to help them navigate work again. If they can, before they go back to work, or early days after they get back, have a conversation with their boss about what they need. Do you want people to bring up your loss? Do you want people to ask you how you are? How you’re doing today? Do you want people to offer you help? Or will it be helpful to have a point person, have someone you’re comfortable with at work to check in with you?

This is a thing too that people are staying silent not because they don’t care or they’re not supportive. But they need some guidance about when and how and where to do that. Particularly at work.

It's our job as the grieving person to educate others about grief. I'm so exhausted, I'm so tired, I have zero energy to give to those people to try to explain how hard this is and what I'm going through. But on the other side of it, you just take that little step. And you might get so much more support and help. Then people will know how to support you and they’ll know what they can do too. They're just so scared, they don't know what to do.

For employers, It's so important to ask. They may assign a point person. Someone who’s the grieving person comfortable talking with. In the first year of grief, maybe they can have a place where they can cry. It's important that the employee have somewhere that they know they can go and that they have permission to go to. Can be a small private meeting room or even a solo/private comfort room in which they can be alone to release their emotions.

A point person can do a little navigating and coaching with other co-employees too. A point person is a safe place where the grieving person can talk and share her concerns with.

When your workplace or boss is not as supportive of what you’re going through, sit down and figure out what it is, if you can, that you most need. Script out what you want to ask for. Have some alternatives that will work in some ways in case your boss says no to the first one. Script out what it is that you want. Request a meeting with your boss. Set a time that you’ll have his full attention, that he’ll not be distracted. Depending on what kind of person you’re dealing with, you go in and basically have a business pitch, if you will, for what it is that you need. It may or may not be successful. But sometimes when bosses are challenged, it’s because they don’t understand the situation.

It is important to continue to check in with your grieving employee over time. We get grief wrong in so many ways. One of the ways we get later is that we assumed that when we see someone grieving, we laugh, joke around, and do things they used to do. They are past it. They're over it.

We will never be alone as we think we are. Sometimes what we miss is we’re looking for support from the people that we expect to support us. Support sometimes comes from unexpected people. Look around a bit, cause there might be people who you've missed.

More and more companies have support groups now. It's worth checking out. Especially if you don't feel support from your immediate team.

There is so much power in people remembering or messaging you. Being remembered and being cared for. And it means so much to the grieving person.

Links to the mentioned book titles:

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (YT Video)

Transcript of speech

Links to where you can reach out to Margo and know more about her work: