Healing Teams After Loss With Dr. Angela Fassaro

SPEAKER_00:
0:14

Welcome to Patty's Place, a place where we will talk about grief, dementia, and caregiving. I started the podcast in honor of my mom, Pat, who passed away from dementia about two years ago. So I want this to be a place where you know you can listen and not feel alone. So grab your cup of tea, your cup of coffee, or if you're really stressing out and having a bad day, your glass of wine, and we're going to talk. So today's guest is Dr. Angela Fussaro. She's an emergency medicine physician and startup founder who helps leaders understand what happens inside teams after things don't go as planned, drawing on experience from her high-stakes, medical environments, and early stage companies. Dr. Fosario explores how unacknowledged grief and real appreciation shapes communication, trust, and performance at work through a practical framework called the Healing Protocol. So welcome, Dr. Fassaro. Thank you to Patty's place. Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. Thank you. And we were just discussing. So can you tell us a little bit about your own experience, as you said, with your mom and with grief and that?

SPEAKER_01:
1:17

Sure. So, you know, my uh work with grief is really personal and professional. I would say that it was only through my own personal loss and the processing of that experience that I saw more transparently how often grief is encountered in the workplace. I um became a mom and within a couple of months very unexpectedly lost my mom. And I never anticipated being in a situation where I was a motherless mother, where I, you know, every moment of joy that I had with my son was uh it was impossible to uncouple it from um a feeling of regret and and sadness because I had this new compassion for her. And as I worked through that and did the work, and you know, one thing that I say a lot is all work is grief work in some capacities. So as I did my uh traditional grief work to process that experience, it became very obvious to me that in the workplace, in you know, all different types of settings professionally, we are uh expected to perform at our best while carrying grief that we often don't talk about.

SPEAKER_00:
2:31

I would agree with that 100%. And as you said, you talked about unacknowledged loss and grief at work. So what what does that look like, like in teams, just from your experience?

SPEAKER_01:
2:45

Yes, in in our language, when we use the word grief, we're we're often talking about traditional grief, the loss of a person through death. Uh, when we talk about it, or when I talk about it in a in a workplace context, I'm I'm really talking about anything that deviates from your expectation. And as you can imagine, in a world that is so fast moving with a lot of uncertainty, that's happening a lot. So, you know, for me as an emergency medicine physician, there was this sense of, you know, a patient has a poor outcome. And you are expected to compartmentalize that, reset the room, and and and take care of the next person. The, you know, but again, that's a little that that even that is is a little bit more on the along the lines of the traditional grief. When you when you think about in a startup setting or in in corporate, you're talking about failed launches, you know, restructuring, team members who literally are just there one day and not there the next, uh, you know, change in vision, missed targets, any effort that doesn't plan, you know, play out the way that you had hoped it would comes with trauma and grief. And I think one of the foundational problems is that we're not calling it that. And in addition to not acknowledging it as such, we're really not creating space to process it.

SPEAKER_00:
4:11

I would agree with that because especially in this day and age and from personal experience, uh aside from traditional grief as you call it, but when people companies reorganize, you know, people get let go, there is that grief that you've lost that coworker and people don't talk about it. It's almost like a taboo, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_01:
4:32

I I I agree. And I I think part of why we avoid naming these feelings as grief is we our work culture is so productivity focused. And I think there is this sense that if we acknowledge the hurt, we can't move on as fast. And I have seen that that's decidedly untrue. It's the reverse, actually. Once we create space to process the initial loss, we actually can move through the other phases of transition much quicker, right? Every transition, every change has multiple parts. And the first of all of them is the loss of something. And so if you try to skip over that part, the other subsequent steps are just thwarted and they take a lot more time and energy.

SPEAKER_00:
5:24

I would agree with that. Even when somebody leaves on their own, you you do, you have that loss.

SPEAKER_01:
5:32

So how I think sometimes that's the worst type of loss because you know, it seems like it's on your terms and you you have this narrative. Many of us have this narrative. Well, because I chose this, I shouldn't feel this way, right? We uh we have this forced uh it it's like toxic gratitude. We're saying to ourselves, well, I should be grateful, this was on my terms. And that that might be true, but equally as true is the fact that there's a change in identity there. And identity change is you know one of the most common disenfranchised uh, you know, griefs. And so, long story short, I I think when we choose for ourselves a change, that's oftentimes the most common place where we don't allow grief to live.

SPEAKER_00:
6:18

I would, yeah, I would say that I how would you why do you think holding grief and gratitude at the same time can change how teams function?

SPEAKER_01:
6:31

I when I when I think about grief and gratitude at the same time, I first reflect on the alternative, which is forcing ourselves to only hold one. And and what I mean by that is what I see most often is in an effort to get over grief, we remind ourselves that we should feel grateful. And it's that that forced positivity or or not allowing space for the two to coexist actually uh compounds the shame. So it's like not only are you feeling sad, which is a heavy feeling, and you're feeling a sense of loss and again misalignment of identity and all of these complicated feelings, but now on top of that, you're shaming yourself because you should feel happy. And so it's not that gratitude should replace grief. It's that gratitude helps us to stabilize grief, it gives it context. And it's if we can really hold the two at the same time, uh, like have the coexistence of disappointment and uh hope, that's really what allows us to metabolize that grief faster. And so that, you know, when I think about teams being able to hold the two at the same time, I think the first step is fighting the urge to utilize gratitude as a band-aid to get rid of grief. Because that, that in my experience is not the best use of that tool.

SPEAKER_00:
8:15

I I would agree with that. People tend to do that, you know. I think because people just in general have a hard time acknowledging and even talking about grief, whether it's, you know, somebody like you said, if they chose to leave on their own or was a reorganization or it's your traditional grief, they just it makes them feel uncomfortable and they don't know what to do with themselves with it. So I think they, you know, they do use the band-aid with it.

SPEAKER_01:
8:40

And and I think we're not used to when we see behaviors like cynicism, like blame, uh, like what we call burnout, we don't necessarily associate that with grief. So I think that's part of it too, is that we're watching the symptoms of grief without realizing that that's what's going on. We're not saying to ourselves as leaders, uh, hmm, that burnout behavior is accumulated disappointment. And that's we're we're we're saying, oh, I don't know why that person's underperforming. Let me put them on a you know performance improvement plan and keep it moving. So it I think in general, we tend to be a lot like really tactical about behaviors versus, you know, looking at perhaps what this that symptom represents underneath. And uh I feel compelled to say, I'm not suggesting that we turn all of our workplace conversations into therapy sessions. I don't think that's productive either, nor is that appropriate. But I do think it's helpful when we think about people's behaviors to recognize it as a symptom of something underlying, and oftentimes that is loss.

SPEAKER_00:
9:49

I would agree with that a hundred percent. That even when it's a traditional grief, uh from my own experience with my mom, I know that like those first couple months after she passed, uh, my brain was so I know I made tons of mistakes, you know, and I I don't think I think people forget, like they think, oh, well, okay, they should be over it type of a thing. And and then you add on different things that are going on at with work. Um, they they do, they do like tactical, like you said, uh, with it. So what do you think leaders can do or coworkers can do to help someone, like my example of so to speak, that's maybe struggling at work that you know maybe they have traditional grief, or like you said, maybe it's burnout and things, because people tend to have to do like three and four jobs at once these days. What are some things the leaders could do?

SPEAKER_01:
10:43

When I think about a playbook for grief in the workplace, uh I sim similar to the Hippocratic oath that physicians take, I do think there is a simple place, just like you know, first do no harm where we can start, which is a commitment to acknowledging what is already there. And it's it sounds very simple, but you know, and and I when I'm saying these things, I'm reflecting on my own shortcomings, not not trying to throw shade at others. Uh when I when I think about how often it was easier to hustle through that part of it. And it really took, like I said, me having an immense um trauma in my own life, in my own emotional life, to to slow down enough to at least acknowledge what had been lost, I I realized how often I didn't do that in in my professional life. And so, long story short, I think the first step, you know, for leaders, for teams, it's just acknowledge what happened. You know, where did we uh where do we have what what what happened? What what did we lose? Like keep it factual, but you have to name the loss. Because anytime you put tremendous effort into something and it doesn't go according to plan, there is loss. And just acknowledging that expectation shift is to me the the most simple but foundational part of it. It's naming what is happening.

SPEAKER_00:
12:14

I I would agree 100% with that. And I think that's sometimes the hardest thing for leaders because they they don't want to say dwell on the loss, but people want that validated. Okay, this didn't work out, and what could we do? But, you know, like you said, to talk about somebody's feelings, but not make it a therapy session, like kind of balance it all with it.

SPEAKER_01:
12:36

Um and I'm so glad you said the word validating because I have found that as leaders or as team members in a professional setting, we're never really going to know someone's full story, right? I'm never gonna understand completely how it felt for you when you didn't get that promotion that you felt you were really, you know, well positioned for, or when a team member didn't meet a deadline and that caught, you know, reflected on your reputation, et cetera, et cetera. So I I but I don't think as leaders, it's really about, I think what it's not really about knowing the full story. I think if we can embrace that, that's just a reality. We'll never know the full story. That's not really our place, but our place is first to acknowledge and to validate. And usually that comes with words more like, I can tell this is really hard. Right? Like I I might not understand, but I can tell this is really meaningful for you. And and leaving it at that level helps to again avoid the therapy session, but let someone know that you've created space for them to process whatever it is they're feeling and that they're that is valid.

SPEAKER_00:
13:48

Yeah, I think we in general, I think sometimes uh people events a lot of times not because they want somebody to um fix it, they just want to be heard. And I think that's important, whether it's something that failed or it's traditional grief, that the leaders, your managers just acknowledge that and validate and say, hey, I know you're going through a rough time. What are some things to help? Or you know, what's going on, those types of things. Uh, but we are so focused on productivity that we lose sometimes that that hum not the humanity of it, but like your feelings, so to speak, with it. And and I I do think grief is kind of a bit of a taboo. People just feel so uncomfortable they don't know how to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01:
14:31

Um I think one of the other parts of it, you know, when you uh if I think about the playbook, so it's acknowledging and validating. And I think the third part I'd add is normalizing. So normalizing the impact of whatever frustration or regret is being felt. And it's interesting because as much as we try to move through grief as quickly as possible for a variety of reasons, as we've just discussed, grief is also a great tool. It's it's excellent signaling for what is important to a person, to a team. And I think by trying to move through it so quickly, we lose the power of the grief, which is you don't have grief without love, without buy-in, without tremendous effort. So not recognizing that piece of it, that this grief is a reflection of how strongly you felt about something or how how you applied yourself to something, or even perhaps where the next product launch should head. There, there is information in that that grief that I think we're not harnessing because we're so apt to move through it so quickly.

SPEAKER_00:
15:44

Again, I would agree with that. Like even well, I I recently lost um my job a couple months ago, and I was there for quite a long time, but it is a loss, it's a grief. So when you do lose, you know, a job, people don't realize you have the same feelings as if somebody died almost, you know, and and you do need to acknowledge that and work through it and say, it's okay if I felt a little angry or I'm crying or I'm as you're trying to be productive and move through it and get to that next phase, but it is hard because that was a part of your life, you know, that structure that you had every day with it. Uh with it. Now you also have uh what's called the healing protocol. What is that?

SPEAKER_01:
16:27

So the healing protocol is uh as we have alluded to a little bit, is it's the it's the playbook of how do we uh handle and navigate grief in you know a high pressure setting. Okay. And we talked about some parts of it, you know, naming the loss, uh normalizing the the impact. And you know, I there are there are there are a few other parts of it that we we've touched on, but uh the third piece of it is how do you uh practice real appreciation and not have that become a uh something that ushers grief away too prematurely. And so, you know, the third step is really about how can you acknowledge the effort that someone made or that maybe had initially gone unseen? How can you focus on the work and the effort despite the outcome that was undesirable? And I, you know, a lot of what I I see in in our culture is what I call toxic positivity. It's cheerleading, it's external validation. I I am not uh promoting that necessarily, um, but I am suggesting that there is a way to acknowledge who was a you know who stayed engaged in this effort despite uh the the challenge and despite uh the fact that they were experiencing disappointment at the same time. And and I think that has what what from what I've seen, that is a really important part of this healing protocol, that you can't it's almost uh impossible to feel that your work is meaningful if you don't have some expressed appreciation for it. And again, not cheerleading, but actual acknowledgement of of what had previously gone unseen. And I think that's an important part of uh of navigating grief and and how it can coexist with gratitude.

SPEAKER_00:
18:40

That I I like your point about feeling appreciated because I think a lot of times employees they they don't always feel appreciated, especially when there's reorganization or you know, people leave and those positions don't get filled and they're doing extra work. And it sometimes it's it is, it's not that toxic uh positivity, like you said, but a genuine of that you appreciate that this person's doing all this, you know, with it. And and I think sometimes that's hard for managers to maybe express in little ways because they're like, oh, well, it's their job, and you're like, Yeah, it's my job, but you still don't want to feel taken for granted, that you know, finding that balance with it.

SPEAKER_01:
19:23

I would make the argument, you know, it's it's really interesting. Uh, one of the projects that I worked on recently, uh, I was interviewing emergency medicine physicians. And, you know, these are people who are literally doing life-saving work daily. And so many of them, when I was asking about uh, you know, burnout and things of that nature, expressed to me that one of the biggest dissatisfiers, if you will, of their work is that they feel they are made to feel replaceable. I thought that was fascinating because we're living in a time where to varying degrees, we have the you know, the birth and the evolution of AI. Yes. And in theory, every job, every person is replaceable. And so I would argue that one of the highest priorities for leaders, for managers, is to figure out a way to mitigate the reality of the fact that in theory everyone is replaceable and not and make people feel irreplaceable, that again, their work is truly meaningful and that the impact that their organization is having would almost be impossible without that person. Right? That's it that is going to become, I think, one of the most important skills of a manager is to keep people mentally engaged by making them feel irreplaceable. And to your point, I think right now we've swung a little bit to the other extreme where people are, for one reason or the other, being removed from teams and we just move on as if they were never there. So we're yeah. We swung to the other end of the of the spectrum. So how do we how do we uh get back to a middle ground where uh despite the reality of the fact that yes, maybe a technology could do some aspects of your job, or maybe another human could do some aspects of your job, but how do we get to a place where emotionally you don't feel that? Where you feel like the work you are doing is truly um truly relevant and irreplaceable in order for the organization to perform as it does?

SPEAKER_00:
21:36

Yeah, I think those are some really interesting questions uh with it because so much, especially in, you know, like in this day and age, there's so much people are feeling so overworked, so burnt out, so repl you know, feel like they could be replaced by AI or anything these days. Like, how do teams try to just genuinely care about people and not have that feeling that they could be gone tomorrow? You know.

SPEAKER_01:
22:03

Yeah, I I mean, one of the things that I have seen, I don't know if I have a great silver bullet answer, but I I have seen that cultural currency is different in every workplace. And so what might really resonate in one place could be almost offensive in another. That's true. And you know what I mean by that is I I uh, you know, I know during COVID, for example, I was, you know, I was a frontline healthcare worker doing during COVID, and uh my colleagues were doing extraordinary things in order to show up every day for work. Not only were they literally risking their lives because this was, you know, early on of the pandemic and didn't exactly know what we were dealing with, but many of them had to get separate residences so they weren't living in places with, you know, immune-compromised elderly parents or with young babies at home. There was a lot that was going on at that time, like real extraordinary sacrifice. And some of the thank yous that occurred were just tone-deaf, um, you know, on behalf of like the hospital systems, uh, tone-deaf to that level of sacrifice. So it's not to say that like a I'm just using examples here that I'm not, you know, calling anyone is out, calling anyone out in specific, but you know, a certificate or something like that in that setting, right? That seems almost um, you you feel extremely unseen, right? That's that's not the right alignment for for what was going on there in real life on the front lines. So while I don't have a uh again, a silver bullet answer, I do think it starts with understanding the cultural currency of what your team is dealing with at that time. Like for some people, it's Starbucks gift cards, and for other people, it's it it, you know, it might be recognizing that you need different parental leave policy, but there's something there that that can be done that that speaks the language of the culture of your team. I I think beyond actual actions like that, the it starts with the wording uh that leaders use when acknowledging people's uh contributions. And it really has to be that the acknowledgement directly links that person's effort, not their outcome, but the effort to something extremely important within the organization. And again, you know, the difference between like good job and thanks, Lisa, without you, you know, staying two hours late on Thursday, we never would have been able to take care of patient X or get them to whatever. Like that, that is the the difference, I think, from a from a language perspective and acknowledging um and making feel people feel truly appreciated.

SPEAKER_00:
24:48

I would agree with that. Yeah, sometimes it's just that little thing, the way somebody says it or how they say it, you're like, oh, I I did feel appreciated. I'm glad you noticed that I, you know, I did that. Because a lot of times I think people do stay in jobs uh because of flexibility or close to home or different things, or they do feel appreciated, even if the money isn't the same, you know, with it in this day and age with it. Now, as we talked about the healing protocol, is it available on your website or is it somewhere where people could like refresh and get those different things?

SPEAKER_01:
25:21

So I have started to lead workshops for teams. I do um offer some coaching in that space. So if you're interested in in learning more, even you know, practicing in uh in the wild uh with some supervision, yeah, please connect with me. I'm very active on LinkedIn and I can uh you know walk you through it and and and and coach coach it uh as as needed.

SPEAKER_00:
25:47

Okay. And I know since you are an uh emergency medic medicine physician, do you have any stories that uh reveal maybe something of like how people behave under pressure or something that you still learned a lesson or that with that? I'm sure you have lots of stories.

SPEAKER_01:
26:03

So I was gonna say it's like that's a dangerous uh kind of word. So we're always the most fun at cocktail parties because we we you know part of our job is just seeing the best and and the worst of humanity uh every day. I I think you know two things come to mind when I when I think of, I mean, I've learned a bajillion lessons in that in that setting, but I think I would say so much of an outcome is outside of our control. And one of the things that I would always say to residents, especially like in the setting of a cardiac arrest, if we were running a code, I was like, you do everything to the best of your ability, as as you know, as textbook quote unquote as possible, so that regardless of the outcome, you can feel uh proud of the effort. And I and I think that that is really relevant here. You know, I've I uh you know, I I I've seen a lot in the ER. I've I've been the first person, I've delivered babies in the ER, I've been the first person that someone has seen. I've been I've pronounced, you know, death in the ER. So I'm I've been the last person that they've seen. And uh that's you know, there's there were so many outcomes, you know, no everyone always wants a beautiful ending, and um that part's not always achievable, but I think knowing that you did everything possible to the best of your ability helps with some of the the grief that could be felt um in the setting of that outcome.

SPEAKER_00:
27:46

And I think too that people forget that not only are you dealing with the patient in the ER, you're dealing with the patient's family. Yes. And having to manage their feelings as well.

SPEAKER_01:
27:58

And I think that's another I mean that's another lesson that you know it's it was it it was more obvious to me in my work. But I think this could be true of people doing any work, really people anywhere. At any given moment, I was interacting with someone who was having the worst day of their life. And I really had to keep that at the forefront of my mind when I was interacting with them uh to to give the benefit of the doubt, to give grace that I I I I wanted to be able to come uh to that moment of like as my best self, because I I had to assume that that person in that moment couldn't be their best self. And I think if we think about that, I mean, again, it's it's more obvious when you think about the emergency department, why most people are there. Uh, but I think that's true when you're, you know, at the bank. I think that's true when you're checking out at the grocery store. We have no idea what people are going through. And uh I think as a humanity, it it's great if we can think, say to ourselves, maybe this person's having the worst day of their life. I mean, to your point, after my mom passed, I mean, there were several moments out in the wild where I was just like, I am a hot mess right now. And thank you to the grace of society and whomever, you know, kind of picked up the pieces and got me through that. Uh, you know, there was like a many weird moments where I was just like, I don't even know what I just said there. And someone found the strength to do that for me. And so I always try to think about like that's definitely something I saw on the ER. And I try to do that now out in, you know, in my civilian life.

SPEAKER_00:
29:41

Uh I would agree too, because like when my mom was when she had dementia and, you know, going to see her at the towards the end, I would go get her a donut every day because she would eat it. You know, at that point, I didn't care about, you know, nutrition, so to speak. I just wanted her to eat something. And sometimes I'd look and I'd be like, I just need this donut. Like, could you just hurry up? Like it wasn't for me, like, but she'd eat it, you know, like something silly. And you just don't know what people are going through when you're in line wherever. You know, they like I said, they could just be having the worst day of their life and you don't know that, or they're going to take care of somebody who's sick or or whatever. And it is just going back to trying to be kind because you don't know what someone else is going through at the time with it. Um, so if people want to connect with you, LinkedIn is the best way. I think that's the best way, yes. Okay. So I will definitely put a link uh on there for you. So uh thank you so much for joining us. This has been such an enlightening conversation for us.

SPEAKER_01:
30:42

Thank you. I appreciate what the work you're doing, and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00:
30:46

Oh, no problem. I I I think, like I said, it's definitely a topic that people we need to talk about more. So uh I hope everyone has enjoyed their cup of coffee, their cup of tea, or if it was been a bad day, uh a glass of wine for that. And also want to let you know that I did open up a Facebook group. So if you're interested in learning more, I I'm gonna post more about uh what we talked about today, but also in our Facebook group. So it is Patty's Place Podcast Facebook group. So uh I hope you enjoyed today and you don't feel like you're so alone and everything, and you will join us again for the next edition of Patty's Place.