The Injured Teammate: I

You're leading a team — an executive team, a project team, or a group of some kind. Even if you aren't formally supervising the team members, you are nevertheless responsible for the work they do together.

One of the team members — call him Andy — has been severely injured or has been stricken with a serious illness. His condition is not work-related. His teammates don't know about it yet. Some have worked closely with him for years. Everyone knows him personally and when they hear the news, everyone will feel loss or worry.

A team meeting is scheduled for 10:00 AM. Nearly all will be in the room with you, but one team member is on vacation, one is traveling, and two will be phoning in. It's 9:20, and you just now found out about the injury. What do you do? What do you say?

You do have some responsibilities as team lead, and they do require care. But even more important are your responsibilities as a human being. Here is Part I of some guidelines for dealing with severe injury to or illness of a member of your team, emphasizing preparation before you talk to the team. In Part II, we'll continue with suggestions for the meeting itself.

Follow company procedures

Check with Human Resources to determine exactly what your responsibilities are. Understand clearly what constraints apply, especially with respect to Andy's privacy.

In some rare cases, HR will provide little if any guidance. If that happens to you, use your own discretion. For instance, if Andy faces criminal charges, or if his injury is the result of his own drunk driving, you might want to withhold that information.

Talk to the team members' supervisors

Contact the supervisors of your team members. Some of them might already have spoken to their subordinates. If they have, frame your own message so as to be consistent with what has already been said, if you can. Conflicting messages tend to exacerbate the problem.

If some supervisors haven't yet spoken with their subordinates, explain to them that you intend to do so, explain what you intend to say, and ask them for confidentiality until after your meeting.

You do have some responsibilities
as team lead, and they do require
care. But even more important
are your responsibilities
as a human being.

Consider suspending the work schedule

If you think enough people might be upset enough, consider suspending work, for two reasons. First, compassion requires that you give people some time to deal with their emotions and help each other. Second, the quality of the work done under these conditions is suspect. It's possible that by pressing on, people will do more harm than good.

If you do suspend work, you'll need a schedule adjustment and possibly a budget adjustment. Be certain that sponsors, managers, and business advocates understand this, and enlist their support to make it happen.

Some organizations permit none of this. If the work must go on as if nothing has happened, check the work carefully, and be prepared for rework.  Top    Next Issue

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Reader Comments

Lois Bergstrom

One additional thought on employee retention: there has been a lot of research done around the idea that people take a job for the company and leave a job because of their manager. It would seem then to follow that training managers to be better managers would reduce employee turnover. I can tell you that in my own organization, I support two groups that do very similar work, but turnover in one group is much higher than the other. Since benefits, pay, perks, etc. are identical, one of the clearly differentiating factors is the two different managers.

Keep the good stuff coming!

Rick: Certainly sounds right to me. And sometimes managers who report to different managers get different direction and face different constraints. So even though one seems to do better than the other, the source of the differences can be higher in the organization. In some sense, nearly everyone who gets promoted is a "first-time something" and needs training or mentoring to do that job well.

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More articles on Emotions at Work:

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Creating Trust

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A Review of Performance Reviews: Blindsiding

Ever learn of a complaint about you for the first time at your performance review? If so, you were blindsided. Reviews can be painful. Here are some guidelines for making them a little fairer.

Not Really Part of the Team: II

When some team members hang back, declining to show initiative, we tend to overlook the possibility that their behavior is a response to something happening within or around the team. Too often we hold responsible the person who's hanging back. What other explanations are possible?

See also Emotions at Work and Project Management for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming January 29: Higher-Velocity Problem Definition

Typical approaches to shortening time-to-market for new products usually involve accelerating problem solving. Accelerating problem definition can also help. Available here and by RSS on January 29.

And on February 5: Unrecognized Bullying: I

Much workplace bullying goes unrecognized. Three reasons: (a) conventional definitions of bullying exclude much actual bullying; (b) perpetrators cleverly evade detection; and (c) cognitive biases skew our perceptions so we don't see bullying as bullying. Available here and by RSS on February 5.

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I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmhXARWRMUvVyOdHlner@ChacxgDmtwOKrxnripPCoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

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