Lost (But Not Missing) at Work

Abstract

This article draws from the psychology of lost person behavior, established from wilderness search and rescue missions, to suggest that employees experience the condition of being lost within organizations. Data from wilderness searches, survivors, and organizational actors suggests that lessons from lost person behaviors apply in organizations. Reactions to being lost in an organization follow predictable patterns and include five specific stages: separation, isolation, deviation, deprivation, and realization. In defining the construct of organizational lostness and differentiating it from stress, coping, and resistance, we suggest an organizing framework to understand employee behaviors that would previously seem idiosyncratic. This article offers propositions about the causes and consequences of becoming lost in organizations, describes its relationship to sensemaking, and discusses reunification as the positive resolution to being psychologically lost. This micro-level theory enables early identification of lost individuals, strategic interventions, shortened periods of disorientation, and increased chances of resilience for future change. Being psychologically lost in an organization, as defined herein, has not been identified as a workplace issue nor explored as a reaction to change.