In the realm of business, we often underestimate the emotional toll it can take. When we confront unexpected challenges—economic downturns, restructurings, or closures—we're not just dealing with logistical hurdles; we're grappling with grief. In this episode, we explore the profound connection between personal loss and the business world, examining how the five stages of grief identified by Elizabeth Kubler Ross—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—resonate within the entrepreneurial landscape.

Denial: The Initial Shock

In times of crisis, such as economic downturns or unforeseen disruptions, small business owners may find themselves in a state of denial. The overwhelming changes in the business landscape can be hard to accept initially. Consequently, denial is not an uncommon response; it's a defense mechanism, a shield against the harsh realities we're confronted with. Picture a restaurateur witnessing a decline in footfall—denial becomes the initial refuge, a way to make sense of the nonsensical.

Anger: A Valid Emotion in Business Grief

Anger, often suppressed in societal norms, is a crucial part of the grieving process. In the business context, it manifests as frustration, directed at challenges like declining foot traffic or increasing competition. Additionally, we must acknowledge and work through this anger, understanding its role in the healing process. Bottling it up only prolongs the inevitable confrontation with this powerful emotion.

Bargaining: Seeking Solutions in Business Turmoil

As denial diminishes, business owners often transition to the bargaining stage, searching for solutions and compromises. This is a phase of false hope, where the mind crafts scenarios to avoid the impending problem. However, guilt, an unwelcome companion, accompanies bargaining, leading to numerous "what if" scenarios. Consequently, it's crucial to recognize bargaining as a natural part of the process and, when possible, channel it towards productive solutions.

Depression: Navigating the Depths of Business Challenges

Depression, a weighty stage in the grief cycle, manifests as sadness, withdrawal, and a sense of emptiness. Business owners, faced with significant challenges like bankruptcy or restructuring, may find themselves in a state of despair. Consequently, it's essential to acknowledge the various degrees of depression and seek support when necessary. Embracing a safe space for help is crucial in navigating through this emotionally taxing phase.

Acceptance: Embracing a New Beginning

The final stage brings acceptance—not necessarily of business failure but an acknowledgment that life continues. Emotions stabilize, and clarity emerges. Additionally, acceptance doesn't signify surrender; rather, it marks a transition to rebuilding and moving forward. Consequently, business owners often experience a cathartic release, lifting the weight off their shoulders and paving the way for a new chapter.

Typical Symptoms of Business Grief:

Recognizing the signs of business grief is crucial. From crying and headaches to disrupted sleep patterns and increased stress, these symptoms mirror personal grief experiences. Consequently, understanding these manifestations is key to supporting oneself and others through challenging business situations.

Conclusion: Navigating Business Grief for Resilience

As business owners, we are emotionally driven beings. Consequently, recognizing and understanding the stages of grief in the business context equips us to face challenges with resilience. Consequently, the Kubler Ross grief cycle serves as a valuable framework, allowing us to navigate the complex emotions intertwined with the entrepreneurial journey. By acknowledging, understanding, and embracing these stages, we can emerge stronger and more resilient in the face of business adversity.

When we talk about personal loss and grief, we tend to think of those events that happen in our personal lives, like the loss of a loved one, the breakup of a relationship, divorce, the loss of a pet, as those circumstances and situations where grief is experienced. However, in the world of business, business owners, people who work within businesses, also experience loss and grief, albeit of a different magnitude.

But those stages of grief that were identified by Elisabeth Kubler Ross are also applicable to some extent in the world of business. Those five stages of grief identified in 1969 by the Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler Ross. are summarised in the mnemonic DABDA: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

And in this week's podcast episode, I'm going to explore those five stages, see how they resonate in the world of business, what the common symptoms are that we should be watching out for and what we can learn from those five stages of grief.

You are listening to the I Hate Numbers Podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

Now in terms of background, the Swiss psychiatrist Kübler Ross, when she was working with terminally ill patients, observed five key stages that people go through that typically experience when dealing with loss and grief. Now it has to be said, those five stages are not linear. It's not saying that everybody will experience those stages in equal magnitude.

It's not saying that you go from stage one automatically to stage two. Some people can go back and forth and vacillate between those different stages, but it's still a good framework in which to observe that. And if you're thinking, Mahmood, what relevance does this have in the world of business? Well, grief is experienced in many different situations in business.

When we have a new business operation, a restructuring, people's jobs, roles may change. When there's some degree of new direction in the business and we leave the old business behind when businesses cease trading, close down when that business owner has no choice but to close the doors in any sort of change management, those elements experiencing grief also manifest themselves in the world of business. So let's dive a little bit deeper now to explore what those five stages are. The five stages are as I said earlier denial anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Let's start with the first stage in terms of denial. Now, small business owners may experience denial when faced with unexpected challenges such as an economic downturn, unforeseen disruptions, witnessed over the last few years when we had the lockdown. That was a massive event there as well. And in the context of denial, we think it's not making sense.

The world around us is changing. It becomes quite overwhelming. We don't necessarily accept it at face value, what's occurring. We proceed regardless. We think something's not quite right. And that initial shock that we've experienced gives it its way to denial. And again, that's not uncommon. And many people experience that in business when unforeseen events derail what's going on.

That's restauranteur, for example, that experiences a decline in footfall traffic. The art gallery that sees nobody's coming to visit its exhibition. The theater where nobody comes in through the door. Not quite sure what's going on here. That's denial. Now, as denial diminishes and fades, the next stage that comes in is anger.

Anger is a valid emotion. Many of us will try and distance ourselves from anger. We don't think it's actually an emotion that should be there. We're taught as a society to deflect, to become more even balanced. But it's important that, as a psychiatrist would say, we step into that anger. We acknowledge it.

We don't embrace it because we actually think it's a good trait. But if we don't work our anger through, then it's going to be there, it's going to be still bubbling under the surface. It's a necessary part of the grieving and subsequent healing process as well. Keeping things bottled up is not a good way to conduct yourself.

And that anger could manifest itself in terms of rage, frustration, directing that rage at inanimate objects, or maybe in frustration at individuals as well. We come back to our small business here, that footfall traffic that's declining, faced with that increasing competition here, the frustration can manifest itself and transfer across the staff that we're using, those people around us, our friends and our family alike.

Stage three is bargaining. Now this is where we often look for solutions and compromises. An independent business owner may wish to negotiate and discuss with local community groups, looking at partnerships whereby they can increase foot traffic and increase sales. Bargaining, to some extent, is false hope.

You make yourself believe that you can avoid the problem. You think in your mind about, Oh, if we had done this, or we had done that, perhaps we could have avoided the situation itself. Guilt is often going to be felt at the bargaining stage, and guilt, to my mind, is an emotion that's there, but it's a non productive emotion.

We might find ourselves going through a lot of what if scenarios. What if we had done this? What if we had done that? Again, recognise it as a natural thing. We now come to the last two stages in the grief cycle. And I'm not sure if you're feeling this, if you've been faced in your business with a decision where you might either have to close your business down, make people redundant, restructure things, a loss of a major customer, a loss of a major employee.

When we feel that grief, we feel that loss comes next. And remember, as I said at the beginning, these are not necessarily linear. It's quite possible that as you're going through your own personal grieving process in business, you may not necessarily experience depression, or you may experience it to a large extent.

People view the world and react to the world in different stages, in different complexities, in different depths, and at different levels. With depression, as the weight of the challenges facing you become more apparent, then depression has manifested in terms of sadness, withdrawing in, a state of emptiness, not quite sure what's going on.

We might even feel ourselves going in some form of daze. That's going to be there and by depression, by the way, there are various degrees of depression and by no means am I putting myself as a medical person. If your friends and family, those around you are aware of what's going on and obviously it's important that way you can, you seek a safe space and support and access that help that you might need.

Don't keep things to yourself. If your wellbeing is at risk and you might be moving down towards the clinical depression route, it's really vitally important that you seek support and help for that. You may feel those periods of emptiness thinking what's the point of continuing and again that's not unnatural when business owners are faced with those extreme situations. The final stage in the growth process is acceptance. It's not to say okay,

the business is failing. I accept it's all going but I myself will be okay. There is life, there is beginnings after endings you may find at this stage that your emotions become more stabilised. You connect more with what we might call reality. You come to terms with things here. You may even find it very cathartic that once you vocalise that your business is in distress and you find there's nothing you can do, more of that at the end, you may suddenly see a weight lifted off your shoulders and you can see clarity. With clients that I've dealt with over the years where their businesses have gone into bankruptcy or liquidation, they typically exhibited these signs.

They see that as an emotional failure. They feel that they've let other people down, themselves down. Once these things are resolved, once things are organised, there is a way forward for them and they feel a massive weight coming off their shoulders and they can rebuild their lives. You can move forward, certainly.

Now folks, you might be thinking to yourself, Mahmood, what would be the typical symptoms, the signs, that potentially somebody's going through this grief? Well, it comes in many shades and forms, from crying, to headaches, feeling empty, feeling anxious, your sleep patterns are being disrupted, you're not getting enough sleep, you may find yourself more irritated with people, you may feel a sense of guilt, your appetite may be suffering, you're going to become more stressed, all these things are natural occurring things.

As human beings that we exhibit with personal grief and are also finding themselves in the sense of business grief and loss as well. Now folks, in summary, the Kubler Ross grief cycle is a good way of examining and recognising that ourselves as business owners, those members of staff who may be also impacted will go through a stage of grief.

We as human beings who drive businesses forward, you know, we're emotionally driven animals and if we can understand then it's easier to navigate and face the challenges that come our way. Folks, I hope you found this podcast of use. What's your own personal thoughts? Have you experienced that sense of loss before in your own business?

How did it make you feel? How did you cope and do you recognize some of the elements I've gone through from the Kubler Ross grief cycle? Until next week, stay sanguine.We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it if you shared the episode.

We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.