This blog entry comes with a disclaimer – it’s a bit of a downer. I just need to get that out of the way.

Steve Jobs, whose death dominated last week’s news, was a visionary who changed the way we live our lives in both large and small ways. But he was also a boss, team member, co-worker, and a part of daily life for many Apple employees, even after he stepped down from the CEO position last month. Apple is well known for its secrecy around new product releases, and they kept the details of their CEO’s cancer under wraps as well. At One Infinite Loop in Cupertino, however, many were dealing with the difficulty of watching their boss or co-worker in obvious decline, which can potentially happen at any workplace. While it’s not something any of us think about a lot if we don’t have to, a serious illness like this affects the workplace. Some things to think about…

Even though it’s not family, it brings up dark stuff.
There are countless resources for people dealing with a life-threatening illness like cancer in the family, but it’s less covered ground in the workplace.  While we likely are less emotionally involved with most of our co-workers than our family and close friends, we are affected by watching a co-worker or member of the executive suite deal with a serious illness. Our own associations with illness and death, even those we didn’t realize we had, start bubbling to the surface, and it makes people do, feel, and say things they ordinarily would not. Anxiety, guilt, insecurity, and feelings of abandonment are common in this type of situation, and it can feel personal even though it’s in a professional setting.

Communicating to Clients, the Press, and Other Outside Parties.
It can be unclear what sort message should be given to outside parties when a key leader in an organization is ill. In the case of Apple and Jobs, the company’s well-exercised philosophy of privacy guided the clamp-down on most of the communication about his illness. When questions circulated about his health when he appeared at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference looking gaunt and ill in 2006 and again in 2008, the party line was that everything was fine. Companies need to decide, with that person and in accordance with company philosophy and guidelines, whether they communicate a simple “medical leave” message, or whether that person prefers a more open approach about his or her illness. As reported earlier this year by Stanford Graduate School of Business, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who underwent surgery for colon cancer in 2000, stated “if I have any serious illness, or something coming up of an important nature such as an operation or anything like that, I think the thing to do is just tell Berkshire Shareholders about it. I work for them.” In the case of a key executive leader or client interface, it raises ethical and perhaps even legal questions of what you owe to invested parties if the illness could have an impact on the performance of the company as a whole. It’s a tough situation with no clear cut answers.

Internal Communication.
When the executive or team member has not taken medical leave, it can be hard to know what is appropriate to say or do. Some might respond by being too inquisitive or offering unsolicited advice, while others will want to avoid the topic all together, ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s best to follow the lead of the person in question, as some will be an open book while others will guard their privacy more closely. If someone is on medical leave, think about keeping that person up to date on good news from the office, and channeling communication through a point person to avoid overwhelming that person and his or her family with updates from the world of work during a difficult time. Forbes online offered an excellent summary of how to sort through this sort of situation, from beginning to end, also touching on employment law issues around privacy.

Back to lighter fare, we hope, with next week’s blog. For now, just a simple thank you to Steve Jobs for all the ways he improved our lives and challenged us to “Think Different” Rest In Peace.