Jun 10, 2019
- Gale Nichols
I think it's important to meet someone where they are and to also recognize that not everybody's path is the same some; people's paths through grief or through illness or family illness are kind of a straight line, but many people's paths or maybe even most people's paths are not a straight line.
Intro
Today’s episode is packed with nuggets of managerial wisdom. My guest is Gale Nichols. She shares about the death of her father. Yet, Gale’s insights range widely. I first met Gale as she welcomed me and my classmates into the Kelly MBA program in 2010. In her role as the Director of Student Services and Global Programs at the Kelly School of Business in Bloomington, Gale regularly finds herself sitting in a room with men and women who are experiencing sudden, painful, disruptive life events. She shares wisdom and actionable tips on how to respond well when faced with disruption.
Gale is bright eyed and quick with a laugh. In her work with global programs, she travels widely. Earlier this year, she sent me a LinkedIn response that read: Would love to catch up; I’m in Indonesia this week…”. She also exudes care,
- Gale Nichols
The students kind of joke amongst themselves and with me that I'm the MBA mom and I think that actually captures my role fairly well. I'm responsible for a lot of the programming and student life that happens from the time that students decide that they're coming to the MBA program. They sign their paperwork so to speak virtually that they're coming here from the time that they graduate from the program.
Gale works with student leadership, does academic advising, and is responsible for all of the global programming (hence her many travels). Beyond academic advising, Gale welcomes students into her sunny office, wooing them with the overflowing candy dish that sits, perched, on the corner of her desk.
- Gale Nichols
I do a lot of personal advising of our students too. They often come in to talk with me about academic struggles, personal struggles, things that are going on in their lives that might be affecting their career or their studies here in the MBA program.
Gale practices empathy daily. One reason that she does this so well is because she was well cared for in her own journey of grief.
- Gale Nichols
Well, my father developed metastatic colorectal cancer and he was doing fairly well with it for several years after the diagnosis but not too, too long after I came to work at the Kelley School, his condition really began to deteriorate and he began going through treatments again and things slowly went downhill for him. And back in think 2006, late 2006/early 2007 after I'd been working here for a couple of years, he really went in to his final decline and ultimately went into hospice care at home and finally died. In fact right around this time of the Year in 2007.
- Gale Nichols
So in his in his final couple of months it was also the final couple of months of the school year the academic year and I was trying to juggle visits to Philadelphia where he lived every few weeks with fulfilling my responsibilities here at Kelly.
- Liesel Mertes
That sounds like a lot to manage, both logistically and emotionally. What was really helpful to you that Kelly was able to do or your community here as you were going through that back and forth in the spring time of 2007?
- Gale Nichols
My supervisor, who was the director of the graduate career services office where I was then working, Pam Roberts was really wonderful and I had two colleagues in particular at that time, Nina Canfield and Eunice Donovan, who were incredibly supportive. Everyone in the office was very kind. But Pam and Nina and Eunice were really great about, first of all, allowing me space to leave when I needed to. Pam said to me, do what you need to do. Go visit your father. Don't worry about a thing. And Nina, in particular, would say to me: we've got it covered; don't worry. Don't think a thing about what's going on here; we'll take care of it. And I so much appreciated that because she gave me the freedom to go visit my father, to be fully with him when I was there, and not be thinking about things back here that weren't done or students who needed attention. I knew my colleagues were handling that.
- Gale Nichols
The other thing that they did that was really kind was my stepmother would often call me in the middle of the workday with some kind of update about what was happening. For instance, I remember the day that she called me in the middle of the afternoon to tell me that my father's doctor had said there's nothing more we can do; we're gonna turn him over to ask hospice care, and my stepmother didn't really fully understand what that meant. And I was trying to balance sitting there in my cubicle, how to explain to her what it meant that my father was in hospice care and leaving it alone and letting her understand what what that was about in her own way.
- Gale Nichols
And I was able to get up out of my cubicle when these kinds of things would happen and go talk to one of my colleagues and say, well
- Liesel Mertes
I imagine it's difficult because you're then trying to go back to work after integrating this news. What was that like for you? Did you have anything that helped even bring a modicum of attention back to what you were doing in the day? And, it seems like it would be really hard.
- Gale Nichols
It was really hard. I don't think I had a good way of doing that honestly because, after getting a piece of news like the oncologist or the gastroenterologist thinks there's nothing else to do. Well how do you how do you go back to looking at somebody’s resumé or doing some ordinary work task?
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Gale Nichols
I was really lucky to be working with colleagues and a boss who were so kind and sensitive. I also have to say that my students were wonderful and I have some funny memories. In fact, it's sort of weird to think about funny memories of that time, but I remember in particular that my father died just before graduation and I was, I'm I'm Jewish and I was sitting shiva for my father. I was observing the traditional Jewish mourning rituals. So I was at home and couldn't go to their graduation and some students wanted to come and pay a shiva call to pay respects to me while I was in my mourning period. And one of the international students came over, he was,
- Gale Nichols
he was a student from China who hadn't been in America for very long but he wanted to come over and he walked into my house in the middle of the prayer service the shiva minion and he just had a look on his face and he, what's going on? Of course he didn't. This is a new experience to him and someone kind of plopped a yarmulke, a Jewish head covering, onto his head and their prayers were going on in Hebrew and this Chinese student it was just kind of looking around wide eyed.
- Gale Nichols
And I so much appreciated his coming over, getting a friend to drive him, drop him off at my house and putting on his yarmulke and being a part of what was going on too to be there and to support you. It's really sweet.
The grounding rhythms of ritual were important for Gale as she felt the weight of her father’s loss.
- Gale Nichols
I really believe in the wisdom of Jewish ritual, especially when it comes to death and mourning. It's something that I've read a lot about, I've studied over twenty five years or something like that and I believe the Jewish tradition brings a lot of sensitivity to the grieving process that people go through.
- Gale Nichols
And prescribing certain rituals at different points in time, you know are rituals that we are supposed to engage in during the first week after the after the loved one has died. And then at the point a month from the time of death and then throughout the first year and then on the anniversary of the person's death each year; there are certain things that we're supposed to do, prayers that we recite, lighting a candle at home and things like this. And I think it's very wise that our tradition prescribes these, these rituals because naturally, most people remember their loved one on the anniversary of the loved ones death where they're thinking of them at certain points throughout the year.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
Gale was shaped by her own encounter with loss; she was well-cared for, and she has been very intentional about shaping a culture of caring in her capacity at the Kelley School.
- Gale Nichols
For each person that comes for support, one really important thing that I want to create is a space for students to come talk about what's going on in their lives or in their families or their their close circle, whatever that is for them. Whenever the student feels the need to do that. Not every student wants to come talk about what's going on. The minute they find out that, they might want to come talk about it days, weeks, months later. But sometimes, they do want to come talk. Right at the moment that they find out. So I have an open door policy here. I tell students at the very beginning of the program that my team and I are here to talk with you. I give them my phone number they give them a little, a little card with it a tag that they can hang on off their key ring. Sort of like those grocery store frequent shopper
- Liesel Mertes
Its the Gale rewards program.
- Gale Nichols
That's right.
- Gale Nichols
So they have my cell phone number and I joke with them about how they should use it. If they need a late night ride home, this is not the number for them to call but.
- Liesel Mertes
That's your Uber app.
- Gale Nichols
Yeah exactly. But they can call me anytime if they need something; if they need help. If they have a problem and I tell them also that what they discuss with me or with my staff remains in confidence unless they give us permission to share.
- Gale Nichols
So I think that the students feel comfortable coming in and talking about things and I understand that the word has kind of gotten out there to that students have come to tell one another that they should come talk with me that I could help them with their problem and so I try to do that.
- Gale Nichols
Sometimes just giving them the chance to air whatever is going on is enough and sometimes it's not. And so I can refer them to other resources around campus: the counselling and psychological services office or the Dean of Students Office or the health center or other resources that we have here or in the community.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Gale Nichols
I have to say I am so proud of the culture here at the Kelley School and how supportive everyone, from the deans to the faculty to the staff to the students, are of everyone else. When there's been a significant problem that a students had: a health problem or something like that or a family situation, sometimes I'll tell the Dean and the deans will often say, well keep us posted; whatever we can do, let us know how we can help. Which is great. Deans are really busy.
- Gale Nichols
They've got a lot going on and I so much appreciate that they want to help the students and that they want to help someone like me in, and in my job, to be a better resource for our students and faculty are amazing and really understanding.
- Gale Nichols
So if a student goes in or I contact a faculty member directly and to let them know that a student is ill, the student has had a family emergency or something, the faculty are completely flexible, accommodating, kind
- Liesel Mertes
I found that to be true in my own experience; I would echo that.
- Gale Nichols
That's great. I have also had, and I I think this is extraordinary, I've had faculty members contact me out of the blue and say, I'm really worried about this student: the student hasn't been to class in a few sessions or the student came in to meet with me and seemed very upset. I wanted to let you know, Gale, so you could follow up or do you know, do you know what's going on with this student? I think that is so kind and so sensitive and unexpected
MUSICAL TRANSITION
When Gale talks about the broader culture of the business school, I cannot help but reflect on how connected and invested the entire organization is in the care of students. In many organizations, a member’s disruption is seen as something to be quickly handled. “Her problems aren’t my responsibility…why can’t they just get it together?” This sort of silo-ed thinking is the opposite of what Gale descried at Kelley: from the Dean to the professors to the office of student services, student well-being was seen as an important task that everyone took part in. And this intentionality around care has created new movements in the graduate student body.
- Gale Nichols
One thing that I'm really pleased about and proud of that we've launched here in the MBA program this year. It's called Kelleys helping Kelleys and it's a kind of support group. It's student facilitated, just for the students who are going through a family illness or have experienced a death in their family or their close circle. And, at any given point in time, we have six or eight students something like that who are participating in this group. They meet every other week and they're just helping each other and talking about what's going on. What they need. They're checking in on each other in between meetings and they've really valued that connection. The genesis of that group was this: for whatever reason, back in the fall, I had what seemed like an unusually large number of students coming in to tell me about difficult situations that family members who were seriously ill or family members who had died recently. And the students were often saying, I don't want to tell any of my classmates about it. I don't want to burden them. Everybody's so busy or they wouldn't understand or what have you. But yet, they really needed somebody to talk to, somebody who was in the same circumstances with the courses, with the job search, with all of the things that MBA students are going through. And I wondered what it might be like to form a support group of students who are going through or have recently gone through these same kinds of situations and I tossed the idea out to some of these students and they said I would love that. And it's taken on it's taken off and I really don't have any role in it at this point except for arranging a room for them to
- Liesel Mertes
And maybe snacks.
- Liesel Mertes
It touches on the feeling that can be unfortunately common is the sense of isolation. Oh I, there's no one who would understand this and what that can do within cultures. And then, as individuals internalize that I am alone in this, and touching on that. So this sounds like a great initiative.
- Gale Nichols
Yeah. I wonder what it would be like in a workplace to organize such a group to have that energy. Yeah yeah. HR or some function, sort of organizes it and creates the space for it but doesn't manage it, doesn't facilitate it, just lets people know about it. Yeah. And if they care to join the group, great, if not: great. I see how it's helped the students. And it doesn't need a formal facilitator or a psychologist or anybody to be part of it.
- Liesel Mertes
Now you have the experience and I'm struck that different managers or coworkers could really benefit from this because, as you sit across the desk, these are not always people that you know well; you don't know what story or personality or emotional-like moment is walking through your door with that person. What are things, as you reflect on how you care for them, not knowing what moment that they're at. What are things that, is there anything that you think everyone benefits from this or, in those moments where you're sensing, Oh this isn't going, this response isn't necessarily what I had anticipated. How you pivot in that moment to really be what that person needs?
- Gale Nichols
I've drawn on my coaching training a fair bit in helping students in these moments. One of the most important things that I try to keep in mind is asking questions is about the best thing that I can do.
- Gale Nichols
There is a piece of coaching advice that I got from a book by a coach named Michael Steiner and it's in the form of a haiku and I really love this, and I think it applies to this situation too. So that the haiku is: tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good as you think it is. Applying that wisdom to these kinds of conversations with students who were having a disruptive life event is really valuable. I could tell them all I wanted to about what happened with my father and here's what I did when my father was sick and you should do the same thing. But that probably is not the right thing for them. And so just asking them questions. What do you think you should do? What are you concerned about right now? What's on your mind? What have you heard from your family so far? Who do you have to support you at this time? What can I do to be most helpful to you? Or what can we in the in the community do to be most helpful?
- Gale Nichols
Sometimes students will say things that I would expect: I really need help figuring out what to do about my classes and my coursework right now because I really feel like I need to go home and visit my family member. OK. I might have anticipated that and know how to do it. Sometimes a student might say something I don't expect. And then we just work through it. I ask more questions, possibly, to, to try to understand where they're coming from and then we go from there.
- Liesel Mertes
What is one of the biggest challenges of trying to provide care across a diversity of experiences to all these different students?
- Gale Nichols
The biggest challenge is this is this is just an issue within myself. I want to fix everything and learning that I can't fix everything has been harder than I might have anticipated. I can't make their loved one healthy. I can't do their classwork for them. I can't make decisions for them about whether they should take time off from school to go be with their loved one or stay here and reduce their course load so they can free up some time. I just, I can't solve every problem and I don't know how to solve every problem.
- Gale Nichols
The tendency for a lot of people like me in and in roles like mine is to want to want to fix it all. We just can't and shouldn't.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Liesel Mertes
And as I think about my own story, as we are sharing stories in this, I'm, what I so, there's a lot about the birth and death of Mercy where I have clear memories but they're pretty focused on just surviving to the next moment. I remember you came to Indianapolis; you were there in the hospital room. I think that you brought a handwritten letter from the Dean and a gift that I really appreciated. You came to the funeral as did a number of actually students that I was in the program with, and I think it was during spring break or at the close of spring break, so I...It's something that, each year, we take out the guest book from the funeral and I'm, I'm always, surprised is the wrong term, but thankful or gratified as to how many people showed up and then the continuing care and checking in. That is what I remember receiving as a student. I wonder, as you think back on overlapping, what were you thinking, from a support sort of a role, as you showed up or gave support within my own story?
- Gale Nichols
Well, you and I had talked a number of times while you were pregnant with Mercy. So I had a sense of what was going on, how hard this was for you and for Luke and and your two children. You had, at that time in your extended family as well, and you had been keeping the blog as well. So I was following, following that too. So it just felt really important to me and to others here to know that we cared about you and your family and that we wanted to be an active part of your support system as you were, as you were going through this time. I remember sitting at the funeral service with our faculty chair at the time; he went too, and I remember those students who were there they were sitting right behind us. But it felt absolutely crucial to be there to support you. We were part of your community.
- Liesel Mertes
You were, well, and it was it was especially meaningful because it was a new community. You know I was only my second beginning part of a second semester and I think I must have told you at some point along the way I think you asked, you know, is it okay if I let people know? But I didn't actually realized how helpful, in some ways, that was because upon returning, I wasn't having to explain or translate my story to every member of the faculty. I'm still appreciative when I come back to IU to realize that people remember, like, they have held my story and that's something I look back and I'm glad that I didn't have to go to everyone and say, hey this really awful thing has just happened. I felt like they had been given a heads up to be attuned to that in a way I appreciated.
- Gale Nichols
And that's something that many students want me to do, to share it with with faculty or with classmates or people and in our office or the career services office. Other students don't want it shared. And that's that's their choice and I respect that.
- Gale Nichols
So whatever the student wants or needs, we will follow.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Liesel Mertes
As you think about any other just general words of advice that you would offer to someone who is managing someone in the midst of a hard time, anything that you would offer beyond what you already have?
- Gale Nichols
I think it's important to meet someone where they are and to also recognize that not everybody's path is the same some; people's paths through grief or through illness or family illness are kind of a straight line, but many people's paths or maybe even most people's paths are not a straight line. They're looping around or going back and forth between different feelings and sometimes it can be baffling to meet with someone and find that they're just bereft on a given day when last week when you spoke with them they seemed like they had it all together. And it's, one can think what happened between last week and this week that you had it together last week and this week? You're so upset or weeping or something. It's just part of the process. And as a person who's supporting, helping, advising, it's important to just go through the, go with the flow and just meet them where they are.
- Gale Nichols
Today they're really sad; I'll be with them in their sadness. Next time, they might feel differently, I'll be with them
- Liesel Mertes
But always they need candy
- Gale Nichols
Well many of them do need that. It's not a bad thing.
Three primary lessons emerge from my conversation with Gale
- Learn to listen and ask good questions. Resist the urge to first offer a quick answer or the solution that worked within your own story. In the words of Steiner’s haiku: tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good as you think it is. You can practice this question asking now, even before a disruptive life event affects someone close to you. In your next social interaction, resolve to talk less and listen more. Pay attention to how much air time you take up during the encounter. You will build the skill of listening and question asking through practice.
- Take an honest look at how connected your organization is in providing care. What are your current support systems? At the Kelley School, an interconnected web of stakeholders, from the Dean to the professors to the office of Student services exist to help students thrive. How about in your company? In your community or place of worship? How are people cared for? Who is falling through the cracks? Are there processes in place? Is care and empathy seen as the responsibility of just one individual or department? If you don’t know, take time to ask. Or bring on a professional. In my role as a workplace empathy consultant, I conduct interviews, administer surveys, and assess support systems in order to to give you a comprehensive picture of your existing cadences of care.
- Recognize that not everyone’s path through grief will look the same. As Gale said, there are ups and downs, the person who seemed fine in the morning could be weeping by noontime. If you are walking through something hard, be patient with these upheavals, allow yourself to feel the big emotions. And if you are a caregiver or a manager or a friend, in the words of Gale, “go with the flow and meet them where they are”
Outro