Tech Grief: Survive & Thrive Through Career Losses

By Denise Kalm

Tech Grief describes the many career losses IT workers or people who work for technology companies experience and then defines a roadmap to healing, one that embraces the logical/analytical brain while employing tools to engage and heal the emotional pain of loss. The underlying premises are drawn from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Kubler-Ross’ grief process and the latest in grief counseling best practices. The introduction of the book describes the phrase “Tech Grief,” which the authors coined. We isolated the concept from the general idea of grief because many people in technology jobs are so focused on left-brained, problem-solving methods that dealing with emotional pain can be incrementally more difficult, more prolonged and less successful.

The “Understanding”’ section defines a variety of circumstances that may trigger grief. Each situation is drawn from real-world examples facing people in this industry. This will draw people in because they are likely to see themselves in the examples. In ‘Working Through,” we give specific guidelines and processes to help people move through the process. “Moving Beyond” helps people move to a place that is even better than where many of them were before the loss event occurred. Just as the best doctors work to establish a condition of “health,” rather than simply curing illness, “Moving Beyond” helps one achieve a state of self-actualization, which is empowering and powerful.

Finally, we end with some helpful resources that can be employed during the journey. Tech Grief is a pocket self-help career kit for the technology worker and people who have other jobs in the tech industry. Although the examples focus on this population, the guidance and processes can be of use to anyone in other industries who has to deal with a career loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Denise Kalm
• Release date: Jan 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310856006

Denise Kalm

Denise P. Kalm is a Board-Certified Coach and President of DPK Coaching offering personalized transition coaching services and workshops. Recently, much of her practice has been around career management. Years of experience in the IT and scientific communities helps her engage with clients working in those areas. She is also the Chief Innovator for Kalm Kreative, Inc., offering marketing, speaking, writing and editing services. Denise is the author of the novel, Lifestorm. She is married and lives with her husband and house rabbit in Walnut Creek, CA.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING TECH GRIEF

What Is Tech Grief?

Grief and Maslow

Loss of Safety: Mergers and Acquisitions

Loss of Safety: The Layoff

Loss of Safety: The Dreaded Reorg

Loss of Belonging: The Loss of a Teammate

Loss of Belonging: A Forced Move Home

Loss of Belonging: Loss of a Supportive Boss

Loss of Self-Esteem: The Loss of Budget and Status

Your First Big Loss

Loss at 50+

PART TWO: WORKING THROUGH TECH GRIEF

Reactions to Tech Grief

Anticipatory Grief

Pacing Your Way Through Grief

Understanding the Stages of Grief

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Tips for Moving From Grief to Meaning

PART THREE: MOVING BEYOND TECH GRIEF TO MEANING

Why Meaning?

From Loss to International Success and Philanthropy

The Happiness Intersection

Making Peace with the Past

Attaining Self-Actualization

CONCLUSION

RESOURCES

Job-Loss Grief and Social Media

The Life Wheel

The Layoff Checklist

What to Do Before Cuts Begin

What to Do if It's You?

What Not to Do When You're Stressed

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Contact Us

INTRODUCTION

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

— Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, 161-160 CE

If you look at most of the leading technology companies and the technology organizations in other industries, you'll notice that they generally attract people who are intelligent, educated, self-motivated, and innovative. In these companies, people are driven by the excitement of working on cutting-edge technology and the ability to play a role in creating the next hot app or device. The culture is invigorating, and the rewards go well beyond the attractive paycheck and stock options. Some well-known tech companies provide free gourmet meals, along with on-premises daycare, car washes, salons, full-service exercise rooms with equipment and yoga classes, swimming pools, putting greens, game rooms, and other amenities. These companies provide the comforts of home and more, along with the privileges of being part of an exciting team. It's no surprise, therefore, that Facebook, for example, was ranked in 2013 as the number-one company in a Best Places to Work survey by Glassdoor in a 2013 article, Employee's Choice Awards. In the same report, Silicon Valley, home to five of the top 50 companies to work for in the country, was ranked number one in employee satisfaction.

Many technologists in a variety of other industries also enjoy exceptional benefits at their businesses and share similar personal attributes with their counterparts in tech companies. With these perks, who wants to leave the office at the end of the day? And even for those tech employees in less-generous companies, the excitement of working on the bleeding edge is often enough to bring significant job satisfaction. The feeling of making a contribution is a strong motivator.

To receive such rewards, people in tech need to be hyper-vigilant with their work. The bonus and stock option strategies of many companies offer incentives for employees to stretch as far as possible each quarter to deliver increasingly more value to the business, customers, and shareholders. Tech definitely isn't the place for C students. The A students must not only collaborate exceptionally but also compete against their own standards to look for ways to continue to raise the bar.

But what happens when things go wrong in this dynamic, almost Utopian environment? At some point, you are very likely to hit hurdles or even brick walls in your career. These obstacles will not only impede your ability to be successful but also may result in the loss of your job, regardless of your best efforts. They may lead you to decide you have no choice but to quit. It's not usually a matter of if such a loss will happen but when it will happen, even to the best of us. In many cases, you may be prepared, and in others, career loss hits you totally by surprise. So, how do you learn to see a potential career loss coming and then be able to deal with the circumstances and rise above them?

In this book, we'll discuss the warning signs along with other practical advice to help you move forward. We'll show you how to work through the grief process and find career possibilities that go well beyond the paycheck and lead to fulfillment.

You may have received early warning signs without even realizing their potential impact. Organizational or programmatic change may be more likely to occur more frequently in tech than in other industries because the business is so dynamic. Such shifts could include the loss of a budget, team, supportive boss, status, or job function, market share, or some other change that would have an impact on your career. In an environment where public companies are under constant pressure to meet Wall Street objectives, and start-ups must deliver products and enhancements at an unrelenting pace while trying to stay competitive, these types of losses are common. And if they impact you personally and you don't understand the implications or how to deal with the situation, such losses could set your career back many years. Such a setback can also erode your ability to enjoy your life and relationships if you don't take action to get control over the circumstances or change your perspective. We call these losses Tech Grief.

Tech Grief is a term that describes the impact of unwanted change or loss on your career, your emotions and your ability to function. The very essence of tech work is solving problems quickly, rationally and easily. The response of people to a challenge is to engage with their brain, drawing on long experience to apply an innovative solution. The kinds of takeaways and losses discussed in this book don't lend themselves to the rational, left-brain approach rewarded so highly in the world of tech. But when all the solutions you rely on fail you, where do you go?

How do you navigate through these losses to turn them and yourself around, maximize their positive aspects, and move on to even better opportunities that are more meaningful and enjoyable? When confronted with these challenges, you need to understand when you are experiencing Tech Grief and be able to work your way through the process efficiently but in a different method than your usual problem-solving techniques. Our book can help you to understand and deal with career-related losses that can jeopardize your financial well-being, stability, self-esteem, and overall mental health.

We focused on tech workers in particular because the fast pace of the tech environment and the need to constantly innovate makes people in this industry particularly vulnerable when markets shift, business models are redefined, teams change, skills become obsolete, and budgets shrink. For pragmatic, analytic types, dealing with emotional upheaval can be challenging. Although our focus is on tech-related jobs, or people who have other types of jobs in the tech industry, many of the principles discussed here can also be applied to gaining control over career losses in other industries. In manufacturing, for example, there is often a greater sense of tradition and permanency in companies and the surrounding community. That makes losing a job extremely difficult.

We've developed a strategy based on some of the key concepts for grief support related to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' principles of dealing with the loss of a loved one, along with Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to provide practical advice for coping with career loss, moving beyond it, and ultimately thriving. Even if you keep your job, this book will help you deal with survivor's guilt and other kinds of losses.

You may say, Kübler-Ross is focused on death and dying, not on losing a job. How can those principles be applicable to helping people heal from career circumstances? While nothing can compare with the tremendous loss of a loved one, losing a job can stir up many of the same painful emotions that occur when someone dies. The loss can be particularly intense if you've been with your company for a long time or have realized that you need to make a major shift in your career and you're not sure about what that shift will look like. It's the loss of what your future could have been at your company or the loss of a steady paycheck and financial security and how that impacts you and your family. Grief is common and you may experience a loss of identity, self-esteem, structure, belonging to a team, and more.

The situation can be overwhelming. The difference, of course, is that with death you will never see your loved one again. With a career loss, you may experience similar, sad emotions, but you still have the chance to find another job or create your own business opportunity. The process for making that happen, however, could be particularly painful if the loss occurs at a time when you are exceptionally vulnerable to other life stresses, such as relationship challenges, health issues, debt, and difficult family dynamics. The key principles of proven grief support processes can help you get through these challenges. This involves acknowledging the loss, understanding its impact on your life, expressing how this situation makes you feel, giving yourself permission to grieve, and ultimately learning to accept it and developing a plan to move forward. If you do not give yourself time, the loss will very likely permeate and impact other areas of your life. It could keep you from achieving your full potential. You must address it to move forward.

We'll explore how the coping mechanisms for the stages in the grief process — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — can be applied to helping people in the tech sector deal with unsettling or unexpected changes and other losses in their careers. Keep in mind that not everyone goes through all of the stages we discuss, and some may go through different aspects of them at various times. The experience is highly personal. There is no right or wrong way to grieve.

How does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs apply? When you haven't met your basic needs, it's very difficult to move forward with your life. Maslow identified a hierarchy of needs from physiological to safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization, all of which we'll explore in this book. For example, some of the basic physiological needs of sleeping and eating are often disrupted during the grief process. If your market changes, your company gets taken over, or you get laid off or fired, you may experience a loss of safety. By conquering the challenges that interfere with these and other basic needs, you can move up the hierarchy to become more self-actualized. That means that you will have a better understanding of what you can expect out of life and a career, and you can take actions to support those basic needs. We'll describe strategies to help you make that happen.

By combining the stages of the grief process with a hierarchy of basic needs, we present a holistic approach for dealing with Tech Grief and explain how to work through it more quickly and effectively. We'll also discuss ways to grow through a loss and how the experience can make you more open to even greater opportunities than ever before.

This book incorporates examples of how people can deal with a career-related loss, learn from their experiences, and move on to exciting new opportunities. It is divided into three major sections, and includes extensive resources to help you develop an action plan to prepare for a loss and focus on the future. Part One is about understanding Tech Grief, while Part Two offers specific strategies for working through Tech Grief as well as identifying your calling or passion so that you can transform your career and thrive. Part Three discusses transformation and self-actualization in more detail to help you move from grief to finding meaning.

The authors have a great deal of experience working in this area. Denise Kalm is a career coach, marketing consultant, professional freelance writer, and working member of the tech world. These capabilities enable her to understand how to live through the challenges and to help others navigate these challenges. Linda Donovan has extensive experience in strategic marketing and communications with technology companies. She is an experienced grief support volunteer who works with hospice clients and has helped many people to move through the stages of grief with compassion and expert guidance. Both have authored a great many