???? Work as a team to support one of your own.

Hey everyone, Seiden here.

Last week, I introduced the idea of Comfort Communications.?

Today I want to dive into it a little bit. Starting with how to provide Comfort Communications to a single team member, dealing with a single loss event.

Five years ago, when I went through a period of acute grief and loss after the death of my daughter, Elle, I couldn’t get the support I needed at work. Even at one of the best places to work for in the world, the kind of support I needed was a gap in capabilities. Yes, all the resources were in place. And personally, I had a good support group. What I needed was for my team to come together for me. I wasn’t in a headspace to navigate a benefits plan, let alone answer the same question 12 times in a row for each of my coworkers individually, field who/what/where/when questions from the 126 people I worked with regularly on project teams, or have a manager check up on me only when we had some heady topic we needed to discuss. Unless you’ve been through it, it’s hard to really get how isolating and corrosive poor communications can be, regardless of how amazing the benefits are. And to be fair, I also understand how brutal this was for everyone else. No one wants to deal with grief that’s not theirs. Gross. No thank you. Especially grief like mine.

To this day, when someone tells me they don’t know what to say in response to my news, I say, “Good! I hope you never gain enough experience that you know what to say.” I’m OK with that.

And that’s really where this idea of Comfort Communications originates: recognizing the need for a communication support layer to close the gap between peoples’ intentions and impact during day-to-day interactions. Something specific enough to be relevant to the person going through loss, positive enough to be accessible to those around them, and simple enough for everyone to be done with zero practice.

Of course, if my experience had been isolated, this would have stayed an idea that I talk about over drinks. But it’s not. One thing I’m good at is spotting trends, and lately, as I’ve been talking talking with people about their careers, and their personal brands, and their plans during this time of change, I’m seeing a trend that I really wish I wasn’t:?

The need for Comfort Communications is more acute than ever.?

My experience at Ultimate Software took nearly a year to unravel. For awhile, I was able to brush off a lot of the unintentional jabs I got… until I wasn’t. And it was a waste! All the investment they’d made in me, gone, for want of a coordinated communication response.?

Today I’m seeing things bottom out for people much faster. We all walk around with so much stress, and doing so much compartmentalization just to get through our days, that it really doesn’t take much at all to knock us off our game. On top of that, we’re working remotely, our political divisions have manifested in ugliness that hits us at home and in our communities, we’ve got a new generation integrating into the workplace, and collectively, we lost of two years worth of socialization. We’re not in a healthy place as a society. And now layer in a loss? This is a very unforgiving world in which to try to navigate divorce, illness, job loss, and yes, death, without help. ?

OK, so let’s get into it: how does Comfort Communications help??

Comfort Communications makes it possible for us to support our teammates given that we’re overwhelmed. And exhausted. And don’t always get along. And may not have a solid company culture to fall back on. And probably don’t know what to say, or how to say what we want to say. And—this is really important—probably working remotely. In short, Comfort Communications helps you support your team regardless of the team dynamics, regardless of where you all work, and regardless of everyone’s current state of mind.?

Today I want to walk through where Comfort Communications starts, and that’s with a team-level communication plan. I’ve put together a document to help with this, hit the link below and I’ll email it to you. (And yes, I need to send you a confirmation email and you’ll have to check your spam folder. It’s the world we live in.)

>>> Click here and scroll to "Resources." <<<

There are other pieces to this, too. There’s an organizational plan. And there’s content support. I spent some time this weekend with John Manley, who’s made his living doing high level strategy work for big agencies, and he’s been really helpful shaping a content plan for Comfort Comms—but that’s for another day. Right now, let’s just focus very specifically on how a team can start to provide Comfort Communications to a member who’s dealing with loss.

Let me be clear: Comfort Communications is a comms plan. When something happens externally, comms implements a crisis communications plan. Well guess what, when something happens internally, you’re going to implement a Comfort Communications plan. This plan alone doesn’t solve the problem of when someone has no empathy at all. But it does make that problem solvable. Here’s how:

Comfort Communications starts by documenting the who/what/where/when of what happened. Identify the original source of the information in case questions come up, and capture that link to the very first message that goes out, so again, if questions come up, you’ve got that original note and time stamp.

Second, you’re going to call a team meeting—without the person who’s going through loss. A fifteen minute huddle is all you need. And in that huddle, you’re going to do identify specific roles and responsibilities, which I’ll go over in a moment. Third, those people are going to execute the responsibilities they’ve been assigned.

Comfort Communications starts here because defining different roles simplifies the training and support needed to make sure interactions happen with real empathy.?

So the roles. You’ll want the following roles filled by people on the team. It doesn’t matter who—this isn’t a hierarchy thing, and one person can wear two or more hats. As long as the work gets done.

Role 1: Teammate Liaison. You’ll need someone to be responsible for updating the original information with all the stuff you need to know to even be of support: services, any rituals the person wants observed, addresses where to send gifts, religious affiliations or preferences so you can look up what to send or how to dress or behave when offering condolences, if they’ll be taking time off, if they want people to ask about what happened or not… all the basics. One person to own all that. ?

Role 2: Prime Response Liaison. This person is the liaison for the rest of the company for when they want information. If there’s going to be an external announcement, this person will coordinating with the comms team on that. They’re also the go-to-person for the internal comms team, C-Suite, or project team members who want information to provide timely support. Basically, this is the name to put into Slack or Teams as the embedded reporter who is the source of truth from the front line, who can serve as a buffer for when people just need information.?

Role 3: Performance Coordinator. to liaise with project teams and figure out what work needs to be delegated and for how long.?

Role 4: Family Support Coordinator. This person coordinate gifts, memorials, meal trains, etc. Now some of you will have a comms person or HR person who will do this for you. Great. Just make sure someone on the team has eyes on the process and is making sure it gets done.?

Role 5: Finally, a Resource Coordinator who can make sure the team—not just the bereaved, but the entire team—knows what EAP and HR and coaching resources are available, and for how long, and can bring that information to the team so y’all can make a decision about what you need.

After you’ve got those roles, the last thing you need to do is execute. The document I’ve shared includes spaces for check-ins going out a few months. On each line, there’s space to report back anything material that you’ve learned, so each week the conversation can pick up where the last one left off. That’s the kind of thoughtfulness that is appreciated by someone who’s struggling.

This is the start of Comfort Communications. The beauty of it is that by organizing around roles and responsibilities, you can focus on the content of what you want to say, which is… still hard. We’ll get there.

OK, that’s that’s all I got today. Love you. See you soon.