Grief is a universal human experience, yet workplace culture is often inhospitable to people suffering profound loss. Managers come to work prepared to celebrate births and birthdays, and even to handle illnesses, but when it comes to death, they fall silent and avert their gaze. The default approach is to try to spare the office from grief, leaving bereaved employees alone for a few days and then hoping they'll return expediently to work. This article provides guidance on how to humanely help team members return to productivity. Grief rarely unfolds in a neat progression, and managers should understand the phases the bereaved will experience and the most helpful response to each. Immediately after a death, acknowledging the loss without making demands is the best a manager can do. After grieving employees are back on the job, managers should be patient with inconsistency in performance and attitude. And as workers eventually emerge from mourning, managers should support this opportunity for growth. In confronting grief, managers help fulfill their promise to bring out the best in their employees.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. The conventional models of organizational change present an unrealistic image of change as an episodic phenomenon in which corporate leaders develop and implement elaborate change programs on an occasional basis in response to specific, isolated environmental shocks. This type of change does occur, but more often the corporate environment is characterized by change that is open-ended, fluid, and less closely tied to specific shocks. In fact, continuous change is a cycle with four phases, each with its own dynamics and specific type of champion. "Evangelists" promote the value of innovation and creativity, influencing those around them so that new ideas spread and take root. "Autocrats" choose which ideas are translated into practice, using their authority to alter behaviors. "Architects" design and implement systems that embed change into the organizational infrastructure. Finally, "educators" create work experiences that increase employees' expertise and sense of mastery, leading to the generation of new ideas that extend and potentially transform the organization's direction, thereby keeping the cycle going around. An understanding of these four phases can help managers transform their companies into organizations that experience change, not as a tumultuous, anxiety-inducing event, but as part of an everyday routine.