Helping people through the times

One of the models I use in my own practice with clients who are facing life-changing events such as being made redundant, is something called R.A.G.E.

There are many comparisons made between dealing with redundancy and the grieving process; I see them as being very similar. People pass through a series of emotional stages that can be summarised as: Rejection, Anger, Grief and Enlightenment.

Rejection: People who have been made redundant often feel shocked and enter a period of denial and say to themselves: 

“This can’t be true” 

“It’s not happening to me”

“There must be some mistake” 

It is important to recognise painful emotions and to express and acknowledge them. In order to deal with emotions, they have to be faced. People may feel disappointed, embarrassed and confused as well as rejected. 

If one of your own job responsibilities involves making redundancy decisions, I encourage you to have the difficult conversation yourself. Everybody loses respect for the leader who has made the decision on who will be axed and then shies away from breaking the bad news him or herself, delegating it to the HR department to deliver the bad news instead.  My next article will address how best to approach these difficult and yet important conversations.

The more positive and professional the redundancy meeting, the less the person feels rejected, the less angry they will be afterwards and the better the outcome for everybody. 

 Anger: As discussed in my previous articles there may be strong feelings of outrage and unfairness. The emotion of anger may be expressed in many different ways; and it’s always negative. There may be temper tantrums, petty outbursts, sulking, sabotage and other irrational behaviour. Because the person feels like an angry victim, they behave like an angry child. Different strategies may be used to attempt to reverse the decision, these can include threats, bargaining and even begging. People will often cycle many times between Rejection and Anger until they move on to Grief.

In my experience, the best approach to deal with irrational outbursts of anger is to slow them down. It is really hard to be angry slowly. As the person slows down, they calm down and then they can begin to think more clearly. The objective here is to move away from anger and into determination or motivation to move forwards. 

Grief: In this stage, the realisation that the decision is not going to change happens; the flood gates open and the loss of the job is mourned. People may become depressed and detached from those who care about them. They may become isolated, withdraw from their normal life and spiral downwards into depression and the grief cycle. 

Again, people often move forwards and backwards through the three stages of Rejection, Anger and Grief for some time before they finally empower themselves and start to move forwards.

When they are in the grief stage, they are very much in a survival mode, they may be wallowing in self-pity and literally shut down. Trying to get them to focus on the long-term future is not helpful, instead baby steps work best; what is the next best step they can take or the most positive thing that they can do? Gradually they will start to pick themselves up and then we can start moving forwards. 

Enlightenment: On this stage, people let go of the heavy negativity and accept. This is when they are ready to start moving, to growing and healing. There may be significant personal learnings as they go through this stage, re-invent themselves and their own sense of identity through a process known as Post Traumatic Growth. 

This is where the magic happens, and the epiphanies take place.