Pain vs. Harm

Posted by Rich Crowley in Change, management, psychology

I only listened to a portion of the audio book Necessary Endings as I found the content quite repetitive.  However, one of my key take-away’s was the distinction the author makes between pain and harm.

Pain isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  In an anatomical sense, it is the body’s warning system to alert us to problems needing attention.  In a business sense, the author suggests that while there are lots of scenarios where people and teams undergo pain, these are sometimes part of the march to better things.

For example, a job loss is often painful for the person affected.  However, if the person being let go was in a role not suited to them, the job loss opens the door to the possibility of them finding something that is a better match.   For the organization this person is cut from, there may be some pain co-workers feel at the loss of a the person being let go, but if this person was impeding the team, it can be a net gain for the team to be without this person or to have this person replaced with someone who is a better fit.

Avoiding pain can lead to longer term harm whereas the infliction of pain can sometimes produce the opposite of harm longer term.