Organizational Trauma and Healing

Organizational trauma is pervasive across nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and businesses. However, the phenomenon has received scant attention or been misidentified. Much work on organizational trauma ignores the systemic nature of traumatization and the insidious, negative consequences to organizations once trauma becomes embedded in organizational culture. In fact, organizational trauma and traumatization seriously harm organizations; impacts may be drastic and long lasting. Organizational Trauma and Healing is the first book about organizational trauma using an organizational lens. Organizational trauma is a collective experience that overwhelms the organization’s defensive and protective structures and leaves the entity temporarily vulnerable and helpless or permanently damaged. Traumatic events can be sudden, shocking, and throw the organization into turmoil. Organizational traumatization may also result from repeated damaging actions or the deleterious effects of the nature of an organization’s work. Unaddressed organizational trauma – whether sudden or cumulative – causes serious harm and can be catastrophic for organizations. It negatively impacts service delivery, compromises work with clients, and weakens the organization’s ability to respond to internal and external challenges. Over time the unhealed effects of trauma and traumatization compromise the organization’s fundamental health. Organizational Trauma and Healing is written for organizational leaders, consultants, and other practitioners interested in helping organizations become stronger. It gives them concepts and tools to strengthen their organizations and to help the organizations to heal from organizational trauma. The book describes the inherent influence of organizational work on organizational patterns and culture and connects that influence to trauma and traumatization. It introduces a framework to analyze organizational realities in broad and deep ways and strategies to avoid or mitigate danger of traumatization as well as improve organizational health and sustainability. The authors offer theory and practice based on more than thirty years of work with not-for-profit and government organizations. The book covers: ‧ Definition and detailed description of a traumatized system‧ Typology of different kinds and sources of trauma and traumatization‧ Interventions for organizations in the immediate aftermath of trauma and for those that suffer from long-term traumatizationOrganizational Trauma and Healing is a timely and urgently needed book. Although the authors focus on highly mission-driven nonprofit organizations, much of what they say is applicable to understanding and consulting with for profit corporations and for understanding our wider culture. There are few work places today that are untouched by organization-wide trauma. – Howard F. Stein, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center