One way of describing the small business manager’s typical day: organized chaos.
In clinical terms, however, it would be more accurate to say that for much of the time managing small business involves a great many frustrating episodes occurring among people who may also be angry because of other events and relationships not related to the workplace.

Consider the many daily events and situations that must be dealt with but cannot be controlled:

Phone calls from everyone in North America: solicitations, charitable causes, customers, wrong numbers, vendors, employees, and family members.

Persons walking in with no warning and no appointment.

Complaints.

Workers who arrive late or need to leave early.

Poduction and delivery snafus.

Reports that are overdue.

Requests for meetings.

Bills waiting for your attention and checks to be signed.

Consider the impact that grief brings to small business:

The census tells us that each year in the United States there are 2.6 million deaths with an average of five grievers per death: 13 million grievers.

There are 1.25 million divorces, each with two grievers not including children: 2.5 million grievers.

There are 7.8 million romantic breakups: 15.6 million grievers.

The total grievers from these events is 31 million or statically speaking about one in every ten persons. This does not reflect many other grief-producing and life shattering events such as wildfires in California, hurricanes and tornadoes, floods, loss of jobs, bankruptcies, families having a child kidnapped, robberies, assaults, identity theft, news of serious or fatal illness, and various other upheavals. It is a safe bet that you, the manager, or some of your workers, vendors, or associates are in deep grief at any given time.

Grieving makes management difficult. It is stress producing. The same is true for workers and associates. Generally speaking, persons in grief find decision-making difficult and are prone to snap judgments if pushed to make decisions. Emotions sometimes override clear thinking. There is a need to pull away and not interact. And there is always some amount of anger involved with grief. That is why doctors are advised to be careful in dealing with loved ones when the patient gets a bad result or dies.

Consider the impact that anger brings to the small business setting.

Anger is part of grieving. Grief is only one source of anger. There is the daily dose of frustrations. There may also be resentment over compensation issues, over performance reviews, over bids that do not work out profitably, or over customer disputes. Folks, including yourself who manages the operation, might come to work while still angry over traffic jams or some irresponsible driver who tried to cause an accident. Anger is part and parcel of human life. Nobody can live anger free. But not everybody is equally responsible or effective about managing anger, as witnessed by the massacres that sometimes occur in the workplace.

Management Implications

Assume that your workplace has its share of frustration, grief and anger. Some of this might be noticeable and much of it may not be visible. Doing nothing about these powerful emotions will likely breed trouble. The trouble might include arguments, hard feelings, conflicts, high employee turnover, absenteeism and even carelessness leading to accidents or poor quality of work. For the manager who ignores personal emotions, poor quality of work means flawed decisions and questionable judgment: the kiss of death.

It would be good practice to vent out your powerful emotions before beginning the workday and again when ending the workday. It would be good practice to encourage any and all who work with you to use time outs, perhaps to get off alone and emote or brood for a few minutes. Hospitals have grief rooms and rage rooms. That wouldn’t be a bad idea for the workplace! No manager wants their drivers to be on the verge of road rage or their associates to be snarling at the customers or at each other. It takes careful thought, however, as to the best way of providing space, time and encouragement to support people in their humanness. Consultation helps: ask your people what would work for them. Good example also helps: develop ways to work with your own frustration, grief and anger and don’t hide that from those around you.

One good way to promote a happy workplace is to take account of the human element. Yes, managers and workers are human!