Building grief-literate workplaces.
Grief doesn’t wait for permission, and it doesn’t stay at home. Every year, hundreds of thousands of working-age Australians experience significant loss , and at any given time, around one in four people across an organisation may be carrying grief of some kind. They’re sitting in your meetings, answering your emails, serving your customers.
Yet most of us, leaders included, were never taught how to respond. We worry about saying the wrong thing, so we say nothing. We offer a card and a casserole, then expect business as usual. The grieving person learns to hide it, and the hidden cost shows up in wellbeing, connection, judgement, performance and turnover.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Grief literacy- knowing how to be with loss, in ourselves and others is a business issue. And workplaces that build it create cultures where people feel genuinely seen and supported through the hardest moments of their lives.
Registrations are now open for a one day Grief First Aid Training on 31 August 2026 (Public Program) where we practise exactly this: how to witness grief, and how to accompany it.
We’ll be on zoom so you can join us from anywhere!
We hope you can join us.
Grief First Aid for the Workplace Public Programs
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
The third story from the mountains – about grief, presence, and what becomes possible when someone can hold silence without rushing to fill it.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can offer someone who is grieving isn’t more words- it’s fewer.
In my first story from the mountains, I shared how Rita, a stranger on a bus, met me in my grief with one gentle question: What was your husband’s name? Rita’s open questions and her kind, generous nature were a teacher for us all. But that wasn’t the only way. This is David’s story.
David was our guide on the Tour du Mont Blanc- an Englishman married to a French woman, living in France for over twenty years. Guiding was more than a job for him; what he loved most was the connection that unfolds on a trail. He was around my age, and as a father and husband himself, he understood loss from that vantage point too. But it was more than shared circumstance. David had a quality of presence about him, a capacity to sit comfortably with long stretches of silence as we walked, step by step. And somehow, held in that, I found myself dropping further into the layers of grief within me, one layer softly giving way to the next.
What Rita and David shared was presence, and a willingness to hold space. What differed was what they did within that space: Rita with more words, though never a rush of them, David with fewer, and a seemingly natural ease with the tension that silence often brings.
I felt met and being met was what made it feel safe to keep going. On a trail you don’t walk side by side; you walk one ahead of the other. No eye contact, nothing to read on the other’s face, just the rhythm of our footsteps helping to hold the container, and the mountains themselves holding it too, the wildflowers emerging from winter in splendid colour all around us.
My learning was this: someone who is grieving never needs a barrage of questions. Often one is enough to open the door and then it’s about holding the silence that follows, fully present, not rushing to fill it. That discomfort you feel? It’s usually the very sign that you’re giving the person something they need.
And here’s what surprised me. As I shared more of my own story with David, it created fertile ground for him, in the days that followed, to share deeply about his own experience of life and loss too , mirroring exactly what he had offered me. I was able to be there for him, the way he had been there for me. Real conversations. Deep care, moving both ways.
I want to name something important here. Sharing your own story is not the role of a Grief First Aider in the workplace when you’re offering grief first aid, the focus stays with the person who is grieving, and turning to your own experience can pull attention away just when they need it most. But David wasn’t there as a first aider. He was giving me something different, and equally precious: the companionship of a fellow traveller who had known loss himself.
From both Rita and David, I felt witnessed and accompanied, her questions and his silence were simply different doorways into the same care.
If someone you care about is grieving, remember that you don’t need to find the perfect words. There may not be any. A walk, a silence you don’t rush to fill, a hand on the back if you’ve asked and it’s welcome, your simple willingness to stay, these can say more than any words could. Of these, the silence is the hardest. It takes courage to stay in it rather than interject and most of us aren’t wired for it. We want to fix, to soothe, to fill the gap. But that urge to rush in is often more about our own discomfort than the other person’s need.
I am so grateful to all the humans who were able to meet me on that mountain in those early months, who didn’t shy away, and who each showed up in their own unique way. This is how we integrate loss, not in isolation but through connection with others.
Never underestimate the power of simply being there.
This story is part of why I now do the work I do. Through Evolving Leaders, I guide people through life’s hardest transitions with 1:1 coaching and registrations are now open for my first public Grief First Aid for the Workplace program on 31 August, where we practise exactly this: how to witness grief, and how to accompany it.
I would love for you to be there.
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
The second of three stories from the mountains – about what often happens when grief is spoken aloud, and why it isn’t unkindness.
Before I ever set foot on the Tour du Mont Blanc, there was Croatia and Slovenia.
It was the first, solo leg of nine weeks I spent in Europe in 2025, hiking my way through grief, or so I thought at the time. My husband Jeff had died the previous October. It was a real leap of faith, the courage to walk that part of my own grief path, alone. It wasn’t only the boldness of venturing out alone. It was doing so without knowing what emotional state I might find myself in from one moment to the next and, doing it without Jeff, when every holiday we’d ever taken had been together or with our family. It brought its own anxieties. (That courage, and what grief does to us on the inside, is a story for another day.)
My first contact in the country was a young Croatian man who collected me from a pre-arranged taxi pick-up. He was generous with his stories, told me about his culture, and offered to be available if I needed transport elsewhere during my stay. He reassured me how safe Croatia was, and that I had nothing to worry about as a woman travelling on her own. My anxieties quickly eased.
He had no idea I was grieving. I hadn’t told him, and he didn’t ask why I was travelling alone. He was simply being kind to a traveller.
I spent that first week touring on my own, through Split and Zagreb, before making my way to Ljubljana, where the walking would begin. Slovenia stole my heart. The mountains were like no other, exquisite, almost too beautiful to be real. In the photo above I had a full “the hills are alive with the sound of music” moment, surrounded by mountains on every side. (Wrong country, I know, but the feeling was pure Julie Andrews.)
There is a particular kind of grace in walking through beauty like that while carrying grief; the two don’t cancel each other out, they sit side by side, and somehow the landscape made room for both. I would soon learn that not everyone could.
Over the eleven days that followed which was a long time to spend in the company of the same twelve people, the conversation turned, as it does among hiking companions, to who we are and why we’ve come. Jeff’s death was so central to my story then that I couldn’t avoid it when people asked about my life and I certainly didn’t want to. Yet it was never easy to say. Each time, I felt it afresh, often keeping tears at bay as I spoke his name to someone new. And each time I shared that my husband had died, I watched something happen.
Ten people looked away.
Not cruelly. Not obviously. It was subtler than that – a change of subject, a chosen seat further down the table when the group sat down to eat, a slight increase in the distance between us on the trail the next day. The warmth that had been there a moment before quietly cooled. The landscape had made room for my grief; these fellow walkers could not.
Two, though, did.
One was a GP. The other was a nurse who was, herself, a widow. They stayed. They asked. They let me speak about Jeff, and when the tears came, they didn’t look away.
There was a flow-on effect I only noticed later. When I asked the ten about their own lives and journeys, they stayed a little guarded as though closing the door on my grief had closed something in them too. I sensed that if they let their own guard down, if they were vulnerable with me, it might invite me to be vulnerable in return and that could bring Jeff’s death back into the room, the very thing they were trying to avoid. So, they kept themselves at a distance, and in doing so kept me there too. But the two who could meet me shared just as openly in return, about their own lives and losses. Real connection formed. It turns out that meeting someone in their grief doesn’t only help the griever; it can be powerful medicine for deepening human connection.
The ten who looked away were not unkind people. They were ten people with their own stories, their own lives, their own hearts and minds – each carrying who knows what themselves. I had already met that same ordinary human warmth in a taxi driver in Split, from a stranger who knew nothing about me. That warmth exists in almost everyone, or that’s how I choose to see people, anyway. It can however simply stop at the edge of grief because grief is the one thing most of us have never been taught how to meet, let alone hold.
When someone tells you they’ve lost a person they love and you have no idea what to say, the fear of getting it wrong can be overwhelming. So, people change the subject, thinking they are protecting you but really it is their own fear at work, and a quiet belief that saying the wrong thing is worse than saying nothing at all. They can avoid mentioning your loss so as not to remind you as though your grief were somewhere in the background and mentioning it would be what brings it forward again. They give you the space they imagine you want, and what you actually receive is isolation stacked on top of loss.
Grief can only be integrated through connection, never in isolation.
And the two who could stay? Look at who they were. Both had been trained by their work to sit with people at the hardest moments of their lives – one a GP, the other a nurse. And the nurse had been trained twice over: she knew the loss of a husband herself.
And here is the part worth pausing on – in a group of twelve, over eleven days, only two could meet grief with any ease and both had been trained to, one by her work, the other by her work and her own loss.
It should not take a medical career or a bereavement of your own to know how to be present with someone who is grieving.
This is what I mean when I say we live in a grief-illiterate world. Not unkind. Illiterate, untaught.
What I saw on that trip, I now see everywhere. It plays out every day in workplaces and communities.
Grief First Aid training points to a striking figure: on any given day, around one in four people in Australian workplaces is carrying grief or loss of some kind. Yet when a grieving colleague returns, whether from a death, a diagnosis, a separation, or any of the countless losses being human can bring, even those who deeply care might find themselves avoiding the desk, the topic, the name of whoever or whatever has been lost. And so, the griever carries it alone, unspoken, through the working day.
The good news is that grief literacy can be taught. These two kind humans didn’t get there overnight, one had years in medicine, the other had her own loss alongside it. I’m not claiming Grief First Aid training hands you that. What it does teach is the starting point: how to stay, how to ask, how to not look away. That’s the part most of us were never shown and it’s the part that makes the difference between someone carrying grief alone, and someone who isn’t.
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I kept walking. And a few weeks later, on another mountain, a stranger at a bus stop asked me my husband’s name.
The final story from the mountains is coming soon.
This is why I now do the work I do. Through Evolving Leaders, I guide people through life’s hardest transitions with 1:1 coaching, and Grief First Aid education for workplaces is now available so that meeting grief well becomes something we all know how to do, not a matter of luck. My first public Grief First Aider program is starting soon and bookings are now open to bring Grief First Aid training into your workplace starting in a few weeks.
I would love for you to be there. You can find out more here, lets talk or drop me an email nicola@evolvingleaders.com.au
Photo: Nicola in Slovenia June 2025 having a ‘hills are alive moment’ after a special dinner when we were invited out the back of the restaurant to find oursleves fully immersed in mountains on all sides
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
The first of three stories from the mountains about grief, loss, and what it means to truly meet someone in theirs.
Never underestimate the powerful impact you can have on someone who is grieving simply by being curious and asking a few gentle questions.
I want to share a personal story.
After my husband of 33 years died in October 2024, I took my hiking to a whole new level — a level I never thought I was capable of. It was a grief response: nothing else made sense in those months, but putting one foot in front of the other did. Alongside many hikes here in Australia, I was fortunate enough to travel to Europe to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc.
As I sat waiting for the bus transfer from Geneva to Chamonix, I started talking with the woman next to me. It turned out that she and her partner would be my walking companions on the very same trip. Rita asked why I was travelling on my own. I immediately dissolved into tears and shared that my husband had died seven months earlier.
Rather than turn away or shift to another topic, Rita stayed right there with me. She asked:
“What was your husband’s name?”
I was taken aback. Here was a complete stranger who cared enough not to shy away from my pain, but was prepared to witness me in my grief. Rita continued with other questions about Jeff’s life.
Over the next seven days, as we traversed massive elevations amid awe-inspiring, iconic scenery, held by those incredible mountains, Rita would find moments to ask me more about Jeff. She kept referring to him by his name.
And as we navigated our final descent, she looked at me and said, “Nicola, Jeff would be so proud of you.”
Rita, without even knowing it, was a natural Grief First Aider.
She didn’t try to fix me or rescue me. She offered genuine compassion, care, concern and interest. She asked gentle, curious questions that invited me to speak about who Jeff was. She validated my feelings and reflected them back to me. I felt actively attended to.
And Rita’s care didn’t end at the mountains — she followed up more than once after the walk finished and I had returned home.
Rita wasn’t the only one who held me on that mountain — but that’s a story for another post.
Rita became my teacher as well as a caring human. I have continued to pay this forward to others, and I can tell you the reaction is often the same: people are initially a little taken aback — and then they quickly soften and open, knowing it is safe to talk about their loved one.
Never underestimate the impact you can have by meeting someone in their grief. If you ever find yourself in that moment of not knowing what to do or say, I hope Rita’s story will give you a place to start.
This story is why I now do the work I do. Through Evolving Leaders, I guide people through life’s hardest transitions with 1:1 coaching, and deliver Grief First Aid education for workplaces — helping people learn to meet grief the way Rita met mine. If either of these speaks to you, I’d love to hear from you: nicola@evolvingleaders.com.au
The second story from the mountains is coming soon.
Photo: Nicola and Rita in Chamonix at the end of the Tour Du Mont Blanc hike about to have a celebratory drink!
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
There is a lot to navigate right now isn’t there? How are you holding up?
When Dan Andrews announced extensions of stage 4 restrictions for Melbourne Lockdown 2.0 on Father’s Day 2020, the news wasn’t unexpected. In some ways I let it wash over me that day. That night, however, I tossed and turned and did not sleep well.
Monday came around again and as I was looking down the barrel of another week of what felt at the time like Groundhog Day, I awoke feeling overwhelmed and not knowing how I or anyone else was going to endure several more weeks of lockdown. I felt heavy and stuck and I was unable, in that moment, to focus on anything other than doom and gloom.
To compound how I was feeling, I started to feel guilty about feeling that way. Given all that I have to be grateful for in my life I should be able to just think positive thoughts and get on with it.
How often do we give that advice to ourselves and offer or give that advice to others? It has its place but sometimes it’s not helpful and can even be harmful.
Not surprisingly this harsh inner-critic compounded how I was feeling. Luckily for me, with my husband working from home we had some extra time together over breakfast (one of the many gifts that isolation has given us). He was able to be present with me and just listened as I explained to him how I was feeling in that moment. I didn’t hold back and left no stone unturned. He didn’t try and ‘fix’ anything. He was present and he listened. I cried. He passed the tissues and he listened.
After the 10 minutes it took for me to do the offload, he said, ‘I am sorry that you are feeling that way’ and gave me a big hug.
You know what happened then? The veil of heaviness that had surrounded me began to lift. I felt so much lighter. I mustered up the energy for a walk and reflected on that little bit of ‘magic’ that had just transpired. I felt so much better in myself. I was able to refocus on my day and get on with what I had to get done.
I share this story as a reminder of how important it is that we acknowledge the full spectrum of how we are feeling and find a healthy way to express that. Especially at this time, but this is equally important in our day-to-day interactions, life and leadership.
We need to get rid of the story of judging feelings as being ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and learn to welcome and make space for them all. We need to re-frame this idea that we should always focus on the positive, especially when it is at the expense of putting a lid on our so-called ‘negative’ emotions.
I am not suggesting for a moment that we should wallow in self-pity and stay there. What I am suggesting is that if we simply try and put a lid on the things we don’t want to feel then they will stay stuck somewhere in our bodies, wreaking potential havoc there. And they will get a stronger grip on us and keep us stuck there for even longer.
If we can, on the other hand, give these ‘feelings’ what they need – which is often simply to be acknowledged – they can then move through us and we can regain clarity, calm and the perspective that we need to be able to move forward.
You can read the full poem here.
My questions to you:
Are you making space to express all aspects of how you are feeling?
Is there anything you can do differently in supporting others to help them make space for expressing all of how they are feeling?
Please take care. Look after your emotional landscape and of course at any stage you feel any emotion feels too intense for then please get professional support. https://www.ruok.org.au/findhelp
This post shares a personal story and suggests that every human being on the planet right now, in some shape or form, is facing into their own ‘growth edge’. It invites the reader to reflect on what they are noticing in themselves and others in terms of this personal learning and highlights that perhaps the luckiest people right now have leaders and organisations that are providing development and wellbeing support for their people.
Meet Elaine. She is my delightful 84-year-old mother-in law. Elaine left school at age 15 to help with home duties on the family farm and continued in that role all through motherhood and grandmother-hood.
In her lifetime, she has baked tonnes of lemon slice and the arguably the best chocolate cake ever. When she isn’t baking, she pours all her energy and focus into supporting her community and showering us – the family – with her love.
Throughout her lifetime, Elaine has felt no desire for, nor any reason to, use a computer or a smartphone. And so, in March 2020, as the world felt like it was closing in on all of us, we realised that that Elaine would soon be in total isolation. Without even the stilted connectedness the internet offers the rest of us, she would have very limited contact with her her family and friends, and we were concerned about the flow-on impact this would have on her overall wellbeing.
So, without further thought, we purchased her an iPad. In a curious way, one of the first questions she asked was, ‘Why is the keyboard not in alphabetical order?’ She had never used any sort of keyboard in her life, let alone an email address. How much we take for granted! This was completely uncharted territory for her.
The rest is history.
True to form, with her enthusiastic approach to a new challenge, she was up-and-running in no time. The pure delight we witnessed when Elaine had her whole family (across many geographical locations) in front of her on the first Facetime call is a precious moment that will stay in my heart forever.
If you had said to me six months ago that, in the year 2020, Elaine would be making Facetime calls, ordering her groceries and doing her banking online, I would have broken out in laughter!
But she was soon doing all of that. We are so proud of her.
Elaine’s story got me thinking about what the disruption of this year has meant to all of us in terms of the learning we have been somewhat forced to do or had to do in many ways. What became clear to me is that every human being on the planet right now has had to confront their own fear at some level and learn something new, or make some change that they would not have made without the pandemic.
No one is exempt. It has been, and continues to be, a true ‘growth edge’ experience for us all. (Read more about growth edge here)
Do you agree? Where have you noticed this happening?
What are you being asked to or forced to change at this time?
What is your personal growth edge right now?
Some examples from my own ‘growth edge backyard’ are:
- quickly getting up to speed and proficient at creating connection and engagement online so as to be able to effectively deliver team development via an online platform. Like many, I still really don’t like facilitating groups on Microsoft Teams, but at least I know how to do it.
- taming my voice in our family to allow each person an equal say in shaping the healthy boundaries needed for life in isolation in a household of five people (that is, learning to listen better and not assuming I always have the best answer)
- establishing a healthy and productive work rhythm by creating greater structure around my allocated working hours, which in my case means 90 minute cycles then taking a break (here is a great article on this topic).
Most clients that I am currently working with are struggling with many aspects of work and life – juggling home schooling, too many hours on Zoom and experiencing other financial and social pressures. It’s the norm rather than the exception right now.
What is being demanded of people by this pandemic in terms of growing and changing for many feels heavy and hard. I am also noticing, however, that the luckiest people during this time work in organisations and with leaders that recognise the need for, and are investing in, the wellbeing and development of their people. It is from this support base, that people can begin to make sense of themselves and their own experiences and begin to see some reward and celebration of their efforts on the other side.
The benefits flow on, as when this growth edge can be applied within a broader team context, it is even more powerful. As individuals grow and change and are able to be more vulnerable and courageous with themselves – as 84-year-old Elaine has demonstrated so well, and when they can do this with their teams as well, then team culture can grow in ways that are good for all.
Could you or your team do with support right now? Please get in touch to book your team development – delivered remotely of course.
This blog post introduces readers to a unique individual and team development experience – The Flow Game. The Flow Game gets to the heart of what needs to change in the way the team is operating and in doing so creates clarity, grows connection and grounds action. It is a powerful process for leadership and team evolution as it provides a much-needed space for reflection, expression and connection.
Where did the Flow Game originate?
The Flow Game (www.flowgame.net) has its origins in Denmark back in the 1990’s and is now being played across the globe for individuals and teams as a way of finding clarity together. There are eight stewards of the game across the globe, including three of the original founders (Vanguards) – Toke Paludan Møller, Monica Nissen and Jan Hein Nielsen.
I have been extremely fortunate to be a student of the Flow Game for several years now, and have reaped the rewards both personally and professionally that come with this practice. In 2019, I was formally accredited as a Flow Game host and this coincided with the release of the Team Deck of cards. Since then, the Flow Game has become an integral part of my leadership & team development toolkit.
Why you might ask?
Because quite simply put – The Flow Game surfaces what really needs to change (based on the collective question of the group), creates alignment and before people have even left the room many of the internal barriers to change are no longer there. A new lease of energy, connection and grounded action is available for the team. This is cultural change and leadership in action.
What is the Flow Game?
The Flow Game isn’t a conversational game as you might expect– it is more about reflecting and sharing and listening without the need to interrupt or judge or fix or justify or explain. The process helps us to slow down and fall into our true nature and helps us to learn a very different way of being together and interacting in a conscious way. From that place new awareness and insight is surfaced and the action that we need to take becomes clear. The flow game in its essence helps individuals, teams and groups to:
- Create clarity
- Grow connection (self, others & to vision, values purpose), and
- Define and agree action
- Create (desired) change
The Seven different perspectives in the flow game
1.Blue River of the EAST – Vision
The creative and visionary side of leadership and seeing the big picture
2.Yellow River of the SOUTH – Community
The ability to empathize, connect, inspire, engage, align and attune
3.Green River of the WEST – Action
The ability to bring vision into meaningful action and ‘get things done’
4.Red River of the NORTH (Red) – Courage
Having the courage to walk new paths, break new ground, lead the way
In addition to the four rivers – dimensions or directions of our personal leadership there are two more aspects to consider:
5. Above (Heaven) – heaven speaks to our highest aspirations and powers that are greater than we are.
6.Below (Earth) – earth below is our ground, the foundation we stand on. It gives us a sense of reality and demands our presence here and now.
7.My/Our Question/Intention –The focus or intention is formulated as a question, which sits in the centre of the game. Together we then explore and illuminate the intention/s from the other six perspectives of the game.
Source: www.flowgame.net
Three Versions
There are three different card decks that are used for different purposes:
- Personal,
- Team &
- Family/community
Within that context, there are multiple possibilities for the way the game can be played as it can be designed around an individual or group intention (question) or a combination of both.
As a flow host community, we are constantly evolving and exploring new ways to design and host the game for varying contexts and needs.
A Burning Question
The flow game is a process – and it’s a powerful one but it is important to note that it’s not the panacea for every presenting issue or challenge. The important thing is that the individual/s or team has a burning question that they are seeking clarity on and that the invitation to, and the design of the game is set up in a way that honors the people, the process and the situation/question.
The need and intent and the membership of the group first must be clear and we then design the game around that.
Different Applications
Three of the ways that The Flow game is currently being used in a business and community context are:
1. Team Development
When working with an intact team, a great place to start is with a shared/collective question or intention. This is where the Team Cards are used. This may progress to a round using the Personal Cards however in this context – a generic question would be applied for each member of the team. For example, “given what we now know about the team, what does that mean me? “would be applied generally. The design will of course depend on the need, intent and membership of the group.
2. Leadership Development
Depending on the need, intent and membership of the group (for example it is often easier to be vulnerable with people we don’t know than with people we do know) ,the flow game can be integrated into an existing Leadership Development Program at the start of the shared learning journey, midway during the experience or as a way of integrating and coming to closure and grounded action at the end of a Leadership Development Program. Team, Personal and Family/Community Cards can all be applied in this context.
In today’s hectic world at a time when it is so easy to fall into the trap of being overwhelmed by feelings of “busy and important”, the Flow Game offers the essential time required to reflect and do the important deep-thinking essential for conscious choice and action – Participant
3. Cultural Evolution
The flow game is a powerful way to create clarity and alignment at an individual and collective level and this is where it fits to support and enable cultural evolution. In one specific application, it is being used in the implementation of the cultural change journey. Stage 1 was one was about defining purpose, vision, values and strategy and stage 2 is about bringing that to life. The Flow game is being leveraged as part of the team and leadership development journey with the collective question: Given our overall direction, “What is our responsibility to bring this to life?. It is also being used with the leaders of this change to create clarity and alignment around leading this change.
How many people can play?
The flow game is typically played with 2-8 players – however that too can be flexible. For example, it can be utilized in an executive coaching session with one person all the way through to a conference with many people. It is possible to have multiple games being played concurrently and has been done with great success in many settings.
While there are many different applications of The Flow Game, the essence of what it delivers at both an individual and team level remains the same:
- Clarity
- Connection
- Action
- Change
It is from this place that we can live, lead and be together consciously and create healthy high-performing teams.
Evolving Leaders was established in 2014 with the purpose of evolving the consciousness of leaders to make the world a better place. The Flow Game is a powerful partner in this work. We are greatly indebted to the founders of the game and the international flow host community that continues to evolve this practice.
Interested in a Team Flow experience? Please get in touch.
