“We have nothing to Fear but Fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

Since the financial crisis began, Americans are experiencing a new dynamic in their everyday lives - they are living with fear. This feeling is present in every area of our lives and creates new challenges for business leaders and professionals of all levels.

Beyond the current losses in Real Estate and on Wall Street, we have lost something much more valuable. Our peace of mind has been irrevocably altered and we will never be the same again. The up shot for business is that our risk tolerance has been significantly lowered, and this effects everyone in a company from the CEO on down.

This feeling takes some getting used to (not that we want to do that). Living with fear changes the way people behave in every aspect of their lives. It effects our ability to “be professional” and makes us reorient our priorities. Frankly, it’s irritating being in fear, it’s like being in a lawsuit - it can suck the life out of you.

Fear effects our productivity, our communications, our ability to create and our emotional well being. In order for us to deal with this new threat, we must first and foremost learn to identify its existence. Without the ability to identify the problem, it will only get worse and weaken the structure of our lives and businesses. Living in denial will only hold us back, and it will create a country that stops functioning because everyone is angry and scared.

In order to decide what to do about it, people have to be encouraged to talk. Our lives are being permeated by words like “Meltdown, Depression/Recession and Bailout.” People are afraid to spend money, or even leave it in the bank and businesses are closing daily.

The Business Community is in a position to do a great deal to alleviate fear. The first step is to make it safe for your people to talk about what they are feeling.

This may sound “touchy-feely”, but there is a real bottom line payoff to understanding how this is effecting your business, as well as your life. With the highest unemployment in decades, people are in fear of their livelihood as well as their basic survival. If you can’t see how that would effect your business, then you’d better take some time and think about it. The decisions you make now will affect your company, your life and the lives of the people that work with you.

Anyone who has run a company for several years has seen a few downturns. In some small and closely held businesses, staff are kept on even during difficult times because people in them relate as much like a family as they do a business. In the majority of private and almost all public companies, decisions about layoffs are based on the bottom line and staff members know it. If you don’t get them talking, they will act out their feelings of fear and could unconsciously make or avoid decisions that effect the entire company.

Getting the process started may be the biggest challenge. It’s the old “400 pound gorilla under the table” syndrome; we all know it’s there and we can’t escape it, but we can’t bring ourselves to talk about how it really makes us feel. Taking that step requires some finesse, and it may not be something anyone in your company feels comfortable doing.

This may be an instance where bringing in a professional counselor is a company’s best choice. Most HR professionals (although very capable at their jobs) may not have the skill set to deal with this kind of intensity. Bringing in a professional also allows everyone in the company to participate in dealing with the issue by freeing up the CEO and HR department to partake in the process, rather than facilitate it.

But first things first, get your team talking and do some talking yourself. Verbalizing feelings really works. There is no question about it, so stop wondering and start the dialogue. Think of it as an investment that has an immediate payoff.