What if the biggest obstacle to change isn't resistance… but grief?
Most leaders are trained to manage performance.
Far fewer are taught how to manage loss.
When organizations restructure, roles change, teams dissolve, leaders leave, or familiar routines disappear, employees often experience something many organizations fail to recognize:
Grief.
In this episode, Mike explores the emotional side of workplace change and explains why people often struggle during transitions, even when the change itself is positive.
Drawing on research, leadership experience, and practical workplace examples, Mike explains how grief can appear as disengagement, frustration, confusion, reduced motivation, or what leaders mistakenly label as resistance.
You'll learn why acknowledging loss creates trust, how emotional intelligence improves change management, and why leaders who create clarity during uncertain times help teams adapt more successfully.
If you lead people through change, this conversation is essential.
Key Takeaway Quote
“Do not mistake grief for resistance.”
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- Why workplace change often triggers grief
- The hidden losses employees experience during transitions
- How grief can be mistaken for resistance
- The connection between change management and emotional intelligence
- Why acknowledging loss improves trust and engagement
- How uncertainty impacts employee wellbeing
- Five practical ways leaders can support people during change
- Why closure rituals matter during organizational transitions
- How leaders can create clarity during uncertainty
- Strategies for helping employees rebuild identity after change
Transcript
It takes two seconds and really helps us reach more people and constantly improve each episode. And on a serious note, if you subscribe, I promise that I won't let you down. Thanks again for being here. Let's get started have you ever changed jobs, changed roles, changed companies, or watched your work life change so much that you didn't even know what you were supposed to feel? You may not have lost a person, but you, I don't know, you lost a rhythm. You lost a version of your identity. You lost a team dynamic. You lost certainty.
shouldn't be grieving about [:You want to stay to the end here because this episode will give leaders practical ways to name change, honor what people are losing when change happens, and still help the team move forward. Now, I'd like to share a personal story about this because this has been something that I've been dealing with.
st wasn't happy with the way [:Um, a lot of it was because the name and branding was connected to my identity, so I couldn't separate the two, and it was just, it was just too much for me, actually. And the nice thing about switching over to Lovely Refinement, well, it's a women's mental health and wellness brand, so basically I am nonexistent in the actual products and services that we have.
, empowering my team to make [:And it's been going wonderfully well, but it's really been interesting for my identity. I still get to keep the Mike Vini identity when I do a speaking engagement, but it almost feels just, like, weird, like I'm part of this separate entity that's just, I don't know, just something I'm not connected to. But I am very connected to the mission and the work that we're doing, and we're putting out some great products right now that are truly helping people.
But again, it's something that I'm still grieving, and I think it's gonna take a while before it starts to feel normal. But what's interesting, though, is when I see, I don't know, uh, messaging from Mike Vini Inc. or a previous document or something, something in me gets a little irritated. Like, that's in the past.
g through. Work grief is the [:At work, it might include, like, leaving a company, changing roles, losing a team, losing influence, losing a familiar routine, losing a sense of purpose, losing the identity that came with a previous title or responsibility. You know, again, I just wanna say that, uh, I am going through this with Mike Vini Inc.
and now transitioning over to Lovely Refinement, where for over a decade, I was the face of this brand. All decisions on products were made with me and my personality and my personal brand in mind. It was actually just too much, actually. And I actually felt that one of the biggest barriers in our company was my ego because it had to be there with the way it was laid out.
everything got changed over. [:Work-related identity loss can happen when transitions affect a person's work memberships, relationships, or roles. Then there's, like, ambiguous loss at work. Sometimes people are grieving something that is just hard to explain. The person may still be employed, but the role, culture, relationship, or meaning has changed.
ryone knows their role, it's [:Organizational change has been associated with adverse psychosocial risks and poor mental health. So changing companies over the past year for me has been one example of this, but I've seen clients dealing with this left and right with all the changes in the world and all of the different geopolitical things happening.
ht identify with this, is the:t it-- life changed. The way [:All my speaking engagements got canceled, and I realized how much I was grieving being on the road traveling. And I'll never forget, I really learned this when I met up with someone in a hotel lobby and saw a hotel ballroom door, which is where they usually have conferences, and how much I missed seeing a hotel ballroom.
experience gave me a lot of [:Once we understand that people can grieve work changes, we can lead with more wisdom and less judgment, and it makes things easier to get done. So let's go into this further. The unspoken grief of work affects mental health, identity, and performance. So change can threaten someone's identity, 'cause work is not just a paycheck.
t transitions in work roles, [:You know, an example is a leader gets promoted but quietly misses being one of the team. Maybe they were a team member for most of their career. Now they're promoted to leader. Guess what? That's a huge change and a lot of grief with that. Or an employee moves to a new company but misses being known and trusted in all the relationships they had at the previous company.
e organizational changes was [:In plain language, what, what does this mean? It means when people go through repeated workplace changes, it can take a real psychological toll. A company says, "We're just evolving," but the employee experiences new boss, new software, new expectations, new team structure, new goals, new reporting process, and a new sense of uncertainty.
de uncertainty, nervousness, [:Gallup reported that half of employees in the USA and Canada experienced significant daily stress, the highest regional rate worldwide in twenty twenty-six. And that's insane right there. A leader might see an employee as less engaged, but that person might be grieving the loss of a team, a trusted manager, a familiar routine, a role where they used to feel confident.
So what do you do with all this? What do you do with all this? We know this. What do you do? Well, you do not need to become a therapist. Let me just say that. But you do need to become more emotionally intelligent about change and grief. So you can help people move through change by naming the loss, by saying it out loud, creating clarity, and making room for humanity.
[:Number two, do not mistake grief for resistance. When people push back during change, get curious before labeling them as negative or not team players. Ask, "What feels the hardest about this change? What are you worried will be lost? What do you need more clarity on? What part of the old way still matters?"
grief? Number three, create [:Mark the end of a project, team, role, or season. Celebrate what is being carried forward. And work-related identity loss involves just letting go and moving on after changes in roles, relationships, or memberships, and people often need to just reconstruct these identities after the loss. What ending deserves a moment of acknowledgement?
they rebuild their identity.[:Help people answer the questions, what strengths still belong to you? What relationships still matter? What skills are coming with you? What new contribution are you being invited to make? What part of your identity is evolving and not disappearing?
So think of someone on your team right now who may need help seeing that they are not starting from zero. When everything in my company changed, some of the Mike Veny team members came to Lovely Refinement in the Training Refinery, and some didn't. And I remember one particular team member who, uh, was a little thrown off because we got a new chief of staff, and was just a little, little thrown off by it.
nd and trying to clarify and [:If I just simply said, "Look, this is what we're doing now. Let's just focus on this," which is naturally what I want to do, being the Type A person that I am, I don't think that would've been good for the culture. But I'm glad I went about it that way, and it's something that as we move on, I'm going to keep being sensitive to.
To be honest with you, I think my assistant is still going through it because there's so many changes. She gets to see so much happening every single day because she's looking at my email and being a part of very sensitive conversations, so she sees it happening all the time. She might be used to just change at this point.
finitely be talking with her [:And if the show has helped you, please leave us a review. It helps more people find these conversations. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and leave a review on whatever platform you're watching or listening to it on. Coffee with Mike is published by The Training Refinery.
coffee with me. Let's do it [: