The Human Factor in Corporate Change: Insights from a Critical Incident Stress Management Expert

Speaker: 00:00:00

Maartje van Krieken: Hey, thanks for tuning in. I'm glad you're here today. We have a very exciting episode planned of the business emergency room. I'm talking today to Elaine Belson from acid therapist on YouTube. She has been working as a psychotherapist for over 30 years and now has her own coaching practice. There is much in Elaine's background that you'll hear more about in this episode that's relevant, and I was very intrigued to learn that she joined the army at age 42 as a social work officer. She's had a deployment to Afghanistan after that as an XO for Medical Command, and has worked in many different environments. So very welcome. Elaine,

Elaine Belson: 00:00:43

thank you very much for having me so.

Elaine Belson: 00:00:45

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, diving straight in, you have quite an interesting story to share about a business emergency that you were called into to support. Can you tell us a little bit more about that situation?

Elaine Belson: 00:00:58

Yes, I was called in for one thing, and it turned out to be something quite different. So one of the things that I do is what's called critical incident stress management, where we go into businesses when there's been a critical incident, it could be a bank that's had a robbery, or it could be a death, you know, on site, or employee that died, but you know, it's impacting the people that were working there. And so we usually do, like, what's called a debris thing, which is, you know, a meeting where we go around and talk about the incident, and people fill in the gaps for each other, which can be very helpful. And so I was called to go to a major healthcare organization, and it turned out that they were located near the Pentagon, and they saw the plane that hit the Pentagon. They saw it flying by and, but at the same time they were also going through a merger. So this was 911 this was 911 sorry, thank you. Yes,

Elaine Belson: 00:01:59

Maartje van Krieken: there's people young enough who might not have made that correlation, right,

Elaine Belson: 00:02:03

right? Right. After 911 I was called in to do a lot of critical incident stress debriefings at that time. And so in this case, when we had the debriefing, you know, sometimes we may not get anybody to show up, especially in a corporate environment, people are a little wary about, you know, talking about mental health. And in those cases, I usually will go around and introduce myself to them. But in this case, we had so many people show up that it was standing room only, and it was a large part because of the merger. And there was so much uncertainty. And I think that the crisis of, you know, 911 just really brought all that to the surface, and middle management felt literally put in the middle between corporate heads and the directions that they were giving them, and then all of the complaints and concerns that he they were hearing from employees. So I ended up meeting with them as well, and I ended up what was supposed to be a day. Ended up staying there an entire week, and yes, and one of the things that I got out of that was sometimes how little corporations think about the human factor when they're making decisions. And I, in the middle of that assignment, I went to the bookstore looking for some help with that, and I couldn't find anything. It was amazing how much there was about, you know, success, financial success, and mergers and acquisitions and whatnot. But I found this one only, this one little book that was about a half an inch thick, called the change monster, that actually addressed this issue. And I came away with the thinking that what they really needed was, you know, someone may be in HR to do more morale building. So, yeah. So that was my, yeah, that was my business emergency.

Elaine Belson: 00:03:52

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, it's half very typical, right to come in for one thing and find something else that, yes, definitely usual.

Elaine Belson: 00:03:59

The irony too. I usually say this for the end, but the irony is that it was a healthcare company,

Elaine Belson: 00:04:07

Maartje van Krieken: yeah, oh yeah. It's intriguing, right? How sometimes Yeah, what we

Elaine Belson: 00:04:12

lose sight of yourself,

Elaine Belson: 00:04:16

Maartje van Krieken: yeah. So I often talk about what leads to business emergencies or to chaos is equivalent to black build up in the arteries, right? And yeah, it's so clear from all the examples we hear and we see and that the places where I work that that build up is so much stronger if there is more uncertainty and more unclarity in the organization, right? And I think we we know that if we look at our own personal lives, we kind of know that, right? We know that when there is too much changing and happening in our own lives, and we feel out of control, because we feel like we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle, or we don't get all the information, or. We feel that we have to do things with others, and they're not treating us, maybe totally fairly, or they're not sharing everything with us. So we feel like we're not, yeah, information is being withheld and or we may be being not being trusted with information that builds up in us. It builds emotion in us that at some point has to come out, and it soups up energy and capacity to do other things.

Elaine Belson: 00:05:27

Absolutely. Yeah, one of the things I find is I joke that, you know, human beings are control freaks, and yet, you know, we can't predict every outcome. We can't control every variable, although I think it's, you know, part of the role of businesses to try to provide as much information as they can. But what ends up happening when there isn't that information is that people start worrying, you know, they start ruminating blanks themselves. They fill in the blanks themselves, exactly, yeah, and that leads to more anxiety.

Elaine Belson: 00:05:57

Maartje van Krieken: Oh, yeah for sure. And typically, what people come up with is so much worse and more varied than maybe what really

Elaine Belson: 00:06:03

exactly right? That's right. Yeah.

Elaine Belson: 00:06:05

Maartje van Krieken: So I often talk about emergencies. If a business is very healthy and everything is going well and going glorious and perfect, and there is a single major emergency, right? It could be very drastic, but it's a single major emergency, so part of your business burns down, or something like that, right? It's definitely disruptive. Typically, a business doesn't really need the kind of support that I would provide, or consultants like me, right? They need help, but they typically very well able to turn that ship around and deal with the disaster themselves, because there is a single, very focused thing to work on, and they band together in the face of adversity and manage to use that healthy culture and collaboration they have to address the issue, right? And so listening to your story, I would compare that to is very clear to organizations when there is a major external disaster, like a plane flying in the building next to you, or somebody dying in your organization that you need, maybe mental health support and bring somebody in, yet when it's actually more convoluted, but you're still going through Something quite drastic, like a lot of significant change, somehow we don't end up providing the same assistance and support. So from where you sit, why do you think that holds people back and or organizations back doing that, and what are they missing out on by not doing that?

Elaine Belson: 00:07:39

Yeah, I think that they tend to think about the bottom line, and they forget, though, that human element actually contributes or has an impact on the bottom line. I'm sure you experienced that in your work, you know. And so it's actually beneficial to both the company and to the employees, you know. And the other thing is taking into account what people might be experiencing or going through at home, you know, that may not be related to the job at all, but, you know, and a company is a collection of human beings. And so, you know, I, like I said, I took away from my experience that there really should be somebody there full time, especially if you're, you know, large enough company to address these issues. I know they have what's called Employee Assistance Program, and you may be familiar with that. For those who know aren't, basically, that's an opportunity for someone to access a short term seeing a therapist, short term counseling through their business where they work, or they don't even have to go through their insurance company, and they pay for it 100% and sometimes they will also, and I've done this before, so bring people in to do presentations or workshops and The like, yeah, yeah. So

Elaine Belson: 00:09:00

Maartje van Krieken: I often also talk about, if you want to be able to activate the people around you in the moment when the going gets tough, you need to train yourself in seeing your staff, because they shouldn't have to share things with you that they don't want to share. But if you create a culture of openness and transparency and you see your people, you should at least be able to see who is currently for whatever reason, right might be stuff that's going on at home or at work, or a combination of the both just whose cup is full and who's not in a position to take on more, and there's others who may So from where you sit, if I'm a leader, who would like to get better at that, right, and who would like to see, see more, what are some of the signposts to look for in individuals or in my team or in my organization, that there is actually a. So much going on that's disruptive to my employees, that I might need to plan something differently and provide more assistance around that. How will I start to see that?

Elaine Belson: 00:10:14

Well, I think to start with is to really try to set up a kind of relationship where people feel comfortable coming to you in the first place, right? And that really starts with communication. I actually have a model, what I call 16 principles of communication, which just gives you an idea about how complicated communication is. But you know, some of those principles are involve. You know, what I call perception and intent and so and neither one is, both are valid. And so sometimes our perception of something is based on what we're receiving, and that's not the person's intent. And so just as an example, if you have open communication, you can talk about that, and you can say, you know, this is the way something came across to me. Is that how you intended it, without making any assumptions and vice versa, you can say to someone that, you know, this is you have a complaint. What is it that I'm doing that's giving you that impression, even though you may know that that's not your intent. And so if you're open to what we call empathic listening, and also to not making assumptions, you know, just building relationships based on that and you know, and opening that up, you'll start to get a better idea of what people are going through. I but you know, also just looking for things like calling in sick and just a drop in productivity, I think people know when they're see it, and that's when they'll refer people to me, like for EAP,

Elaine Belson: 00:11:57

Maartje van Krieken: more and more gossiping rights and more people hanging around bad coffee machines and chatting to each other, and more buzz going around of not necessarily the positive kind, huh? Yeah, I am. I've actually worked with some leaders, and I've done that myself too, where communication was around complex or difficult or emotionally charged subjects and situations, and you really need to communicate with large groups to kind of test your message beforehand a little bit, or ask somebody specifically to give you feedback on how it came across after you did a tunnel or a communication session to make sure if there was stuff that potentially left on the table or didn't address well that, you know, I typically advocate that if you do something face to face, and you communicate that you also follow up with a message to make sure that you provide it in different modalities. If you if you do that and you take the feedback, then you have a chance to fine tune in your second iteration, right and to make sure that it's really clear your joy,

Elaine Belson: 00:13:03

I think that we live in a society in which, because in general, we don't talk about feelings, and we don't place a lot of value on them, particularly, you know, in the corporate world, it's not something that people talk about, but we are motivated by emotion, and Then reason steps in. You know, our critical thinking skills to manage that emotion and to make decisions, but we're motivated by emotion first, and so we have to remember that and not forget that. You know, people are being impacted by their emotions, whether it's in something going on in the workplace or at home, and to be willing to address that in some way, shape or form, in a corporate setting.

Elaine Belson: 00:13:49

Maartje van Krieken: So we often talk about tools and tactics, right? The bigger the bag of tricks you have that always helps to deal with the unexpected. So thinking about the scope that you were brought in in the example that we started with, right these, these incidents, and the tools you bring to those sessions, or other tools from your profession. What are some of the is there some tools or tricks that people can walk through, or steps to our handhelds you talked about your 16?

Elaine Belson: 00:14:20

Yes, yeah, communication, principles of communication that really apply across the board, whether you're talking about couples or families or businesses, absolutely, I'm just trying to think off the top of my head which ones might be best applied here. You know, I talked about not making assumptions and checking in with people and wanting to when you get feedback, wanting to know more about it, saying, Help me to understand. Tell me more before you just respond, which I think is really, can be really hard for people, because, again, we're human beings first,

Elaine Belson: 00:14:55

Maartje van Krieken: but you also have a step process, right?

Elaine Belson: 00:14:58

Yes, I do. So I. Yeah, that's a little bit different, but it's, it is in some ways drawn out of my my principles of communication, but it's what I find happens a lot, is that people start coming up with solutions before they really identify the underlying needs. And part of what happens when they do that is it creates power struggles because of that, because it's like, no, let's do this solution, or let's do that solution. So I have this process. It starts with, I call it nbei, so that's needs, brainstorm, evaluate, and then implement. And so you start with assessing what the needs are of that company. And this is where it gets a little tricky, because when we think of needs, we might think, well, I need to make more money. But the question is, why do you need more make more money? Do you need to hire more employees? Do you need to produce more of your gadgets, whatever it is? So the underlying need, right? We have to be aware of and not confuse needs with solutions, because that's what happens, is people go right to solutions. So getting to those underlying needs, right? If you need more money, that's not really a need, that's a solution. What is the underlying need? Right? Even if you say you need more employees, right? Why is there some other way? So that's that's doing that. And then the brainstorming part is really important, because you want to get people to think outside the box, which is often something that doesn't happen. And so you want to encourage there's no bad ideas. You don't interrupt people in the middle of ideas. Everything that comes out, you write down, and then evaluating means, then once you come up with these ideas, evaluating whether or not the company, what resources does a company have that can serve those solutions, and what might they need to bring in to serve some of those solutions. And so that's the evaluation process. And then implementing sort of speaks for itself. But you want itself, but you want to be flexible enough that you're able to adapt and tweak as needed. Yeah,

Elaine Belson: 00:17:10

Maartje van Krieken: yeah. So we here talk a lot about decision making and decision making tools and processes. So I love that you use the word needs, because I think that's a very useful term to use in your problem definition. So when we're talking about decision making or decisions not being made, a big chunk of where that goes awry is is that it's actually not clear what decision you're trying to make, and so people are trying to shove through actions when there is an actually alignment on what the decision is that has been made, or what decision needs to be made, and what else it ties into, right? So I think that might be a useful filter to apply if you're then stuck in saying, okay, hold on. What is it we really need in this situation? Right? We need to operate more efficient. We need to find a way to keep this business going with less people. Or, you know, whatever it is that, what is it that we need to resolve or need to address? And, yeah, I agree with you that in that process, you need to make sure that everybody who deserves to be heard in that space. Absolutely does get heard and at least gets their views out, right? If you should, you choose to do stuff in a very small group for expediency or whatever reason, right? That's typically what you can see that people say, oh, let's do small group because we don't have time. Or if you bypass people who for whatever reason, right? But you can you know who these people are, because it is their job, because they used to be historically involved, because it will affect their future role, because it will affect their bottom line. If you bypass them, go through the whole process and then only share the outcome that you have a complete uphill battle implement.

Elaine Belson: 00:19:08

Oh, yeah, and that's just human nature. I mean, I see that all the time. If you include people in making the rules, they're much more likely to be invested in wanting to see those rules carried out and, you know, and successful. I mean, that's true even in parenting, right?

Elaine Belson: 00:19:25

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, it still may mean that they are not, ultimately, in the room the whole time, but if you heard me, you let me say my thing, yeah, and took it away, and then it went into a black box. And I might not and I don't like the outcome, but with the outcome, you come back to me and you talk me through the logic, and you say, and we heard you, and what you said was this, and it went in the process here, and we talked about it, but ultimately we came up with this for x, y and z. I might still not like it, but if you took the time to. To show me that you listened and that you realize I might love the outcome. I can still be on board, right? I can still work with it, because ultimately, you hired me as a professional, and you know you, if you're the decision maker, then I have to live with that. But if I don't, if you don't create that feedback loop, then you have one no speed in trying to do right, right?

Elaine Belson: 00:20:25

And you raise a good point. So my MBI, it's not just for, you know, corporate leaders. It's for everybody in the business to be involved in that process. Yeah,

Elaine Belson: 00:20:38

Maartje van Krieken: yeah. It's not so different, right? How we deal with each other in the workplace, and personally. So, Elaine, I love that you were here today. I think we could talk for a long time, because I think this is a very important subject, because it's all about the people and the dynamics, right? And how do you bring your team along, and how do you keep things working when the water starts heating up. So if, after hearing you here on this episode today, people are like, I want to know more about Elaine and what she does. And where did they find you? Where do they go?

Elaine Belson: 00:21:12

So you can go to my website, which is Elainebelson.com, and you can also check out my YouTube video. If you have employees that you think might benefit from listening to some more mental health topics, then it's called Ask the Therapist with Elaine Belson and I answer your mental health questions in under a minute.

Elaine Belson: 00:21:37

Maartje van Krieken: Oh, fabulous. What a great resource. So yeah, a few takeaways for me from today is thinking of your problem definitions and your decision statements in terms of needs, the fact that, yet again, we see that there are tools that are truly defined for crisis and emergency situations, like the reviews that you provided to this health company after 911 that actually have a place and a usage much wider than that, and in a very dynamic business environment, can be used when you're going through major organizational changes or other upheaval, right? So, yeah, for these situations to take back

Elaine Belson: 00:22:19

and we talk, we call that emotional intelligence,

Elaine Belson: 00:22:22

Maartje van Krieken: yeah, yeah.

Elaine Belson: 00:22:24

In the workplace, yep,

Elaine Belson: 00:22:25

Maartje van Krieken: some very practical things to take away. Thank you very much for that. In closing, do you have a final parting wisdom with us to share a chaos theory?

Elaine Belson: 00:22:37

Sure, the only thing necessary to solve a problem is wanting to, because if the will is there, the rest will follow.

Elaine Belson: 00:22:46

Maartje van Krieken: Fabulous. I love that. Thank you for tuning in today. Listeners, Thank you Elaine for being here, and I hope to see you here again on the next episode. Buh bye.