Are You in Pain?  Before and after most surgical procedures, a medical professional will ask you to describe your level of pain. Usually with little or no instruction, they want you to position your pain on a threshold scale from one, meaning pain-free, to 10, meaning unbearable. Your ability to identify your pain level in words and phrases is critical to receiving enough medication to make you feel better.

Since no two people experience pain the same way, some patients with chronic illnesses have created their own pain level charts to help better communicate with medical professionals. However, some patients have been suffering so long that they may be unaware of how much of their own pain they have grown to tolerate or defer.

For those of us lucky enough not to experience this kind of pain, it seems unfathomable that this condition could exist, but it does. Some living with continuous pain have unwittingly moved the scale of unbearable pain down a few notches, if only to survive one day at a time. This condition of deferred pain is not relief, but transference materializing in other forms. Anger, dissatisfaction and irritability are only a few of the conditions indicating deferred pain.

Never Feel Quite Right but Don’t Know Why?  Many organizations, institutions and corporations experience deferred pain of their own. The underlying condition that causes such institutional pain is usually from a variety of chronic corporate conditions: acquisitions that resist acquisition, mergers that don’t quite gel and accelerated growth without adequate preparation, to name a few.

In most cases, the principals managing these affected organizations are unaware of how the deferred pain disguises, even sustains, the primary cause of the condition. Innocuous as this may seem, detection and treatment are critical to survival. Using the latest numbers, over 80% of all acquisitions and mergers do not succeed. They don’t fulfill their promised expectations. Of those that do survive, half never again experience the growth and vitality evident before the condition.

Take Two, and Call Me in the Morning?  While there are not always cures, the next generation of super-meds properly administered can provide some relief from individual pain. However, the issues of clashing corporate cultures, incompatible technologies and the crippling burden of too much debt cannot be eliminated with a new trademark, mission statement or electronic newsletter.

By developing an internal and external communication program that is strategically positioned, tactically delivered and financially sustained, enough goodwill can be generated to provide the time needed to initiate corporate rehabilitation. With time and patience, a proper diagnosis can occur and serious treatment can begin.

The principals of Essex Two have 35 years experience in “communication triage.” We understand how to quickly get our corporate patients stable and ready for the procedures and treatment necessary to ensure recovery and a positive, long-term prognosis, stat. Visit the Essex Two website for case studies that demonstrate our ability to stimulate the success of our clients.

Worth your time:  The principals of Essex Two were asked to teach a series of classes at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. Our focus was Professional Practice, the preparation and application of one’s education and talent toward success in design and communication. While at the end of the course the students were genuinely appreciative, we were the real beneficiaries. Preparing to teach others what we have learned over three decades created an opportunity for us to reexamine and affirm those practices and processes that have guided our success. If you have such an opportunity, invest the time and energy—you will be the big winner.