Loss can be painful—it can also be transformative for leaders

Loss is one of the most painful human experiences.

But it can also transform people, and their approach to work and leadership, according to Adrienne Shoch, founder of 5 to 1 Consulting. Shoch, who contributed to the anthology Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies, shared with HR Brew her personal experience with loss and how it helped her become a better leader.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is the book about?

It’s representative of a number of stories of personal experiences with the loss of an individual and the impact on the business…I lost both of my parents in a span of two years, one from cancer, one from Alzheimer’s. I also had an experience of a hurricane in Nashville a year ago. I got divorced after 25 years, and what I was really looking at is, “Man, what happens when we experience loss, and when we lose people in our lives, and what can I do differently?”

One thing that I know and that I’ve learned very clearly, both inside an organization and my personal life, is, as a culture, we do not do loss well. We react to it, and we tend to hang on to it. We hang on to what we’re losing, which is exactly what the brain and the nervous system loves to do. It doesn’t like change. It doesn’t like surprises. So, really the question becomes, “How do we really prepare ourselves for this life that’s filled with change and uncertainty and loss?”

How did these experiences help shape your career?

There’s this concept called the appropriate response, and I learned it from the hospice workers…when a group of people are not sure what’s going to happen when someone’s going to pass, people talk about things, and say things, and want things to happen that may or may not serve the situation…This is something that the hospice nurses did so masterfully, which was they held space and they didn’t offer something from their own personal wish or experience, but it was what was in service of this experience.

The other thing…is what happens when we really lean into pain? What happens when we lean into the suffering of other people? What happens when we lean into our own suffering?...When I dropped in, and I suspended my desires and my wishes for something to look a particular way…It was compassion. I had access to compassion that I never dreamed of before.

What will HR pros learn from your story?

My personal situation is a microcosm for this larger issue of change and transformation…In order to put ourselves in the space from which someone else is experiencing something, that’s empathy. Empathy has a very important part in any kind of organizational change…A lot of people don’t like it, and that’s how we’re designed. That’s how the nervous system is designed. It’s designed because we don’t like change…In HR, really looking at a reorg or a layoff…it’s the way that we communicate with others and the way that we’re sharing compassion in this change that’s going to change people’s lives in one way or another.

When people are seen and witnessed in their transition, they show up differently, but when they feel like they’re going through it alone and there’s a wall, they react to it differently…What we’re doing is we’re accelerating a learning curve, so people can understand how to manage, and experience loss, and transition differently, more effectively, so that the outcome can be better.