Case Study 1: Jordan — What the Restructuring Revealed

Background

The conversation with his manager happened on a Thursday.

The structure was still being defined, she said. Jordan's role would exist; it would change. His team of six would probably become a team of four. Two of the six would be transitioned to other divisions or offered a severance package. His manager did not yet know which two.

Jordan thanked her, asked three clarifying questions, took careful notes, and drove home.

He did not feel calm. He had felt calm in the meeting because the meeting required calm — he had learned to modulate his presentation long ago. On the drive home, something different was happening underneath the modulation.

He sat in the car for ten minutes outside his building before going in.

The Stress Inventory

Jordan had been reading about Lazarus and Folkman's appraisal model. He tried applying it directly.

Primary appraisal: Was this relevant to his wellbeing? Clearly yes. Was it threat, challenge, or harm/loss?

He noticed something interesting in trying to answer: the situation contained elements of all three. The uncertainty about his team members was harm/loss — some of those people would be displaced, and he felt responsible for them. The uncertainty about his own role was threat — the gap between what he had built and what was coming was not yet clear. And underneath both of those, somewhat to his surprise, there was something closer to challenge — the possibility that the forced disruption would require him to answer the questions he had been avoiding about whether this was where he wanted to be.

He noted that having three simultaneous appraisals was more complicated than the framework suggested in its simplified form.

Secondary appraisal: What could he do?

He listed: - He could influence (though not determine) which team members were retained through advocacy - He could gather more information about the new structure before it was finalized - He could start thinking seriously about the proposal — the restructuring made clearer that waiting for perfect stability was not the right strategy - He could not prevent the restructuring - He could not protect his team members from all possible outcomes - He could not control the timeline or the ultimate structure of the new organization

The gap between what was controllable and what was not was significant. A substantial portion of the stressor was in the "not controllable" column.

The Coping Strategy Assessment

Jordan's default coping strategy, he had long known, was problem-focused. He was a fixer. When something was wrong, he gathered information, developed options, and executed.

For this stressor, problem-focused coping applied to the controllable portion (advocating for team members, gathering information, advancing the proposal) was appropriate. He made a plan. He scheduled conversations. He drafted talking points.

But for the uncontrollable portion — the ultimate outcome of the restructuring, his team members' fates, the form of the new role — problem-focused coping was not the right tool.

What he noticed was that he kept returning, in unguarded moments, to the uncontrollable portion. Rehearsing scenarios he could not influence. Running analyses that didn't change the underlying uncertainty. This was not problem-solving. It was something that looked like problem-solving but was actually rumination — the circular return to unanswerable questions.

Dev noticed it too. "You've been somewhere else all week," Dev said, gently, on Saturday morning.

"I know," Jordan said. "I'm trying to solve a problem I can't solve."

"What can you actually do?"

They spent the next hour going through the controllable list. Jordan felt the strange relief of having the uncontrollable portion separated from the controllable — not resolved, but at least properly categorized.

The Support He Actually Received

Jordan had read the research on social support — the buffering function, the physiological effects, the mortality correlates. He had thought of himself as someone who had adequate social support: Dev, a few close colleagues, his sister in another city.

What the restructuring revealed was that his support network was thinner than he had assumed.

Dev was genuinely supportive. But Dev's support had limits that Jordan found himself managing carefully: Dev worried, and Jordan found himself calibrating what he shared to manage Dev's anxiety, which was not quite the same as receiving support freely.

His colleague Priya, on his team, was herself affected by the restructuring and could not be leaned on without the dual obligation of also supporting her.

His sister was caring but lived at a distance and did not know the professional context well enough to be practically useful.

What he lacked was someone who understood the specific professional terrain — the stakes, the politics, the realistic options — who was not also a party to the situation.

He reached out to a former manager, someone he had not been in regular contact with for three years. He explained the situation. She listened, asked good questions, offered two pieces of concrete perspective, and said "you're going to be fine, and here's why" in a way that was specific enough to be credible.

Jordan felt — not lighter exactly, but cleaner. Like the problem had been sorted, even if not solved.

He thought about what that conversation had provided. Not the information — he had most of the relevant information already. It was the appraisal revision: someone whose judgment he trusted had assessed the situation and concluded it was navigable. That changed his secondary appraisal in a way that his own analysis had not been able to.

The Meaning That Arrived

The thing Jordan had noticed in the car — the element of relief — did not go away. It grew quieter, less prominent, but it persisted.

Over the following weeks, as the restructuring details became clearer, he continued to notice it. The forced disruption had done something his voluntary reflection had not quite managed: it had removed the option of indefinite deferral.

He needed to decide whether to submit the proposal before the restructuring was complete. Before the new structure made it either more or less viable.

He needed, in other words, to stop waiting.

He submitted the first full draft to his manager for preliminary input on a Wednesday morning. His hands were not entirely steady as he sent the email. The physiological activation was real — elevated heart rate, some anticipatory dread, the full stress response engaged.

He went for a run at lunch. Not to escape the feeling, but because movement was how his body processed it.

When he came back, there was a reply from his manager: "This is strong. Let's talk Friday."

He sat with that for a moment. Let it land, the way Dev had suggested.

The Analysis

Appraisal complexity

Jordan's situation illustrates that most real-world stressors involve multiple simultaneous appraisals — elements of threat, challenge, and loss in the same event. The simplified model is a useful framework, not a perfect description. The practical implication is that addressing the stress response requires addressing all three appraisal streams, not just the most prominent one.

Problem-focused coping applied to the right targets

Jordan's default problem-focused orientation is adaptive when applied to controllable aspects of the stressor and maladaptive when applied to uncontrollable ones. The separation of controllable from uncontrollable — and the deliberate choice to apply emotion-focused acceptance to the uncontrollable portion — is a skills-based intervention, not just attitude change.

Social support as appraisal revision

The conversation with his former manager worked not primarily through information but through appraisal revision — a trusted external perspective changed his secondary appraisal ("I can cope with this") in a way that his own analysis had not. This is the buffering mechanism: perceived support changes the experience of the stressor, not just the practical resources available.

The meaning that was already there

The chapter distinguishes genuine meaning-finding from forced positivity. Jordan's relief — the sense that the restructuring forced a needed urgency — is an example of genuine benefit-finding: not claiming the stressor was good, but accurately noting that it had a consequence he had been wanting without being able to initiate it himself.

Submitting the proposal is, in the framework of Chapter 11, a values-aligned action. The stress of the restructuring was the catalyst that moved him from consideration to action. That is not a comfortable observation, but it is an honest one.

Discussion Questions

1. Jordan's stress response included a primary appraisal with three simultaneous streams (threat, challenge, and loss). How should someone navigate multiple simultaneous appraisals? Is it possible to hold all three at once?

2. Jordan describes managing what he shares with Dev to protect Dev from worry. How common is this kind of support "management" in relationships, and what are its costs? When does it become a barrier to receiving genuine support?

3. The chapter argues that rumination is not productive problem-solving. Jordan was able to name this in himself and make the distinction. What makes this metacognitive awareness difficult to develop, and how can it be cultivated?

4. The former manager conversation worked primarily through appraisal revision, not information. What makes some social support more appraisal-revisioning than others? What qualities in a support conversation produce this effect?

Application Exercise

Think of a significant current stressor. Apply the Lazarus and Folkman appraisal analysis:

1. Primary appraisal: Is it a threat, challenge, harm/loss, or some combination? Be specific about which elements fall into which category.
2. Secondary appraisal: List what you can control and what you cannot.
3. For the controllable portion: what problem-focused action is most useful?
4. For the uncontrollable portion: what emotion-focused or acceptance-based approach is appropriate?
5. What is one person in your network who could provide genuine support — not just listening, but appraisal-revisioning? When will you reach out?

Write 200 words.