Navigating Crisis – What Happens to Us and How to Respond to Grief, Loss, and Distress

Few people are truly prepared for a crisis. And when we’re in the middle of it, it can feel overwhelming to climb out of it, seek help, or even make sense of the situation. Here’s a quick guide to navigate crisis: understanding how we react, coping mechanisms to deal with it, and tips for supporting others.

Psychologist Suzy Madge guides us through the basics for understanding and dealing with a crisis – irrespective if we’re going through it ourselves or supporting someone close to us:

Resources:

• Learned Optimism: Book Summary
• The Stress Test: Book Summary
• Dealing with grief -podcast: Psychologist Brené Brown talks to the world’s foremost grief expert David Kessler, who shares his experience as a child witnessing a mass shooting while his mother was dying in hospital

Resources:

• There is No Good Card for This: Book Summary
• How to Talk with Sick, Dying and Grieving People: Book Summary
• The Six Stages of Grief and Finding Meaning – The Purpose Centre: A short description of the five stages of the classic Kubler Ross model to grief, with a sixth element added.
• TED-talk – “We don’t move on from grief, we move forward with it”: Author Nora McInerny miscarried a child and lost her father and husband to cancer – here she talks about how sadness and joy can coexist
• Personal stories of loss and grief: from losing a child or a parent, to suffering loneliness over the holidays, this selection of real-life stories curated by psychologist Adam Grant is sure to touch anyone

Resources:

• Empathy is Your Best Creative Tool: Video Summary
• Wired to Care: Book Summary
• Pause. Breathe. Choose: Book Summary

Resources:

• Lead. Care. Win: Book Summary
• How to Be a Memorable Manager: Podcast Summary
• Leaders in Lockdown: Book Summary
• Leading in a time of crisis
• Managing through crisis
• Managing when the future is unclear
• Crisis Communication: Lessons from 9/11: Lessons from company leaders on managing crisis during and in the aftermaths of 9/11

Resources:

• Growth after Trauma – Five ways to facilitate post-traumatic growth by Richard G. Tedeschi, Harvard Business Review
• Don’t Just Lead Your People Through Trauma. Help Them Grow – Two key insights for managers to facilitate post traumatic growth in the organisationby by Jamie Zaki, Harvard Business Review
• Organisational psychologist Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg discuss dealing with loss after Sandberg husband passed. Key moments: post-traumatic growth (from 14:28), Finding gratitude (from 20:00), building up moments of joy (from 25:00), helping children find resilience (from 33:40), and grieving at work (from 45:00)

Click the picture to download the slides