With all these exciting new changes which you are bravely taking on little by little: new home, new boss, new job, new teammates, you’ll probably end up finding a couple of not so nice changes, summed up as loss! Yes, you leave some family behind, that house which took so long to set up, your colleagues at work, perhaps other social networks: your gym, tennis or golf club partners, the friends you made with other parents from your kid’s school… even if you chose it, you may often feel as if you had lost instead of gained.
Oh, but I miss that!
It’s not so easy, but yes, it’s exciting, to change to a new world, a new culture, new food, maybe a new language (revisiting your Spanish or English that you probably haven’t touched since High School), but there will be times when you’ll get tired of making that extra effort to build new relationships, in such a short timeframe, making that extra effort to understand and use the new language, and understanding the new habits and customs.
Within all those new challenges, you start seeing the “I used to do this, used to do that”, you are missing all those small routines you had, missing how you drove the way back home from the office on “auto pilot”, … even missing the candies and snacks that you loved so much and you don’t have access to, or that little lunch or coffee place you went to with your past colleagues. All these things are expressions of loss, and as serious as this word may seem, there’s a science that studies this: Thanatology (the study of death and the griefs associated with it.) But let’s not think of it this way, this sounds too gruesome; more like let’s imagine how coaching can help.
It’s a science!
The global leader goes quickly through identifying these new feelings and painful little moments that are common for in these situations, accepting the new challenges and making the appropriate changes within themselves as soon as possible. This science of Loss can be translated for Cross-cultural adjustments from authors Pollock and Van Reken Third Culture Kids, Growing Up Among Worlds who set the process into 5 steps:
- The Involvement Stage is the first stage where one feels integrated and involved in a community and feels even comfortable
- The Leaving stage starts when one learns that they will be leaving and hence begins one’s mental and physical preparations for the transition. The Global Nomad begins to loosen their emotional ties and detaching from their relationships and responsibilities. There are some different forms of denial that are present in this stage: no feelings of sadness or rejection, no non-resolved situations, and finally no expectations
- The Transition Stage is the chaotic stage. With multiple changes in schedules, people and expectations, everything is new, stressing new routines to adopt, and lots of misunderstandings are lived, there is MUCH to be learned. This phase can trigger anger, unwillingness to try to integrate within new circles, and thus withdrawal, which logically doesn’t help at all. But this is where life starts to return to normal as we welcome the fourth stage;
- The Entering Stage is where the newcomer, sometimes ambiguously, begins to accept where they are and starts acting towards settling down and feeling part of the local community and lifestyle
- Finally, the Reinvolvement Stage arrives. It involves the acceptance of the new country, the new city, the new job, and the new community with greater feelings of belonging and security
Let a coach accompany you
All these stages take time and are filled of moments of uncertainty and contradiction, which creates a need for Executive Coaching by someone who can accompany the Leader into the “new everyday life” and quickly achieve their personal best in the new assignment. This is where I support the incoming executive leader: reflection and awareness of the changes before them, building skills to understand and handle these emotional challenges, reviewing situations that may trigger unwanted responses, and practicing basic intercultural effectiveness skills.
“In each loss there is a gain, as in every gain there is a loss. And with each new ending comes a new beginning.”
Buddhist Proverb
There is also much we can reflect on for the family that joins the Global Nomad, the spouse and perhaps young children, but I’ll leave that for another post. It is a whole new ball game and a quite an interesting one.
Further reading
- Pollock, D. C., Van Reken, R. E., & Pollock, M. V. (2017), Third Culture Kids, Growing Up Among Worlds, (3rd ed.). London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
