Grief: Brain Rules for Work Bonus Chapter

By John Medina

What does grief have to do with the workplace? It turns out a whole lot. Brain Rules author Dr. John Medina writes in Grief, an audiobook companion to his new book Brain Rules for Work, about how grief can affect our lives, including our working lives, and elaborates on what businesses can do when their employees are grieving. Grief is especially pertinent today, as workers across the United States have experienced loss in their lives and turmoil in their working lives due to COVID-19. If you’re an employee who has experienced grief or a manager who has bereaved employees on staff, Grief is a must-read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pear Press
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737072843

John Medina

Dr John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, has had a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organises information. He is the author of the internationally bestselling works Brain Rules, Brain Rules for Baby, and Brain Rules for Ageing Well. Medina is an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Book preview

WHAT A STUPID WORLD, an uncharacteristically somber six-year-old Calvin mumbled. He was talking to his best friend, Hobbes, a stuffed toy tiger who comes to sentience only when no one else is looking. I am, of course, describing the sometimes devious, occasionally philosophical protagonists of the old comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin had just witnessed the slow death of an injured baby raccoon. His family tried to revive the little creature, placing it in a box for several days, trying to nurse it back to health. They weren’t successful.

Calvin’s father broke the news gently. The little boy grieved, then grew as contemplative as a monk. In the panel just before Calvin declared his bitter judgment, he seemed to marvel at the experience of grief. The little raccoon, whom he’d just met days before, was now a jagged memory, composed only of an awful goodbye. Still … in a sad, awful terrible way, I’m happy I met him, he said to Hobbes.

What a stupid world.

The topic of grief, and reaction to human loss, is not generally covered in business schools. It should be. As the world slowly recovers from a viral rampage millions of deaths in the making, experiences like Calvin’s will be repeated many more millions of times. (By the spring of 2021, the New York Times estimated that one in three US citizens knew someone who died from the virus). COVID-19 had—and continues to have—a horrible ripple effect.

What do we do in its wake? How do we deal with grief—our losses or others’—in a professional manner at work? These are tough questions. After all, the role of business is not to provide therapy but to provide employment. And the ultimate role of your supervisor is not to be pastoral but to make sure you’re productive. How do we navigate loss in the midst of a company filled with perhaps caring people whose ultimate mission doesn’t necessarily include caring at all?

We’ll begin with the fact that grief usually hurts productivity,