The best way to manage Work area Drama.

 Coping with drama on the job is among the worst parts of being an executive. It gets the potential to suck the life out of you, and to kill your motivation, and for a lot of my clients, it leaves them wondering: "Why did I choose this career?" The very best example of this is one my clients - we will call him John.

John may be the CEO of a production company. He hates drama. You can literally see his skin crawl when he covers it. His face scrunches up. His shoulders tighten and he winces when he covers the most recent drama of the day. "I recently don't get it. What's everyone's problem? Why can't they only do their work? It's like working with children." Then his body crumbles, and he looks defeated. Exhausted. Helpless. Weighed down.

We can all relate to John. We've all experience political situations that we would rather forget. Those times when we are caught in a top of workplace drama - one individual is upset, gossip in the business is rampant, and we feel such as for instance a ping pong ball as we bounce around trying to produce sense of the issue. So, what is an executive to complete? If you're caught in drama, how do you get free from this dark hole?

To start, let's talk about what to not do. John illustrates this well. Every time John experiences drama, he avoids it. He literally shuts down. His face goes blank. He starts to squirm, and he typically nods in a placating way. And in addition, the placating nod does the absolute most harm. When he nods, people feel understood, nevertheless when John he takes no action, they get mad. Final result? They attack John. Dramacool They whisper in the lunch room: "What's his problem? He doesn't do anything!" Some individuals get angry. The irony is that now people have a fresh issue to bond around - John's deadbeat behaviour. It is not surprising that John has 45% turnover in his company. Not good.

So, what was John doing wrong? Well, a few things. For starters, he distanced himself from the drama to the point he escalated the problem. By distancing himself, John became the main drama problem because nothing got managed in a constructive way.

One of many basic principles of working with drama at the job is to identify your emotional patterns whenever you encounter drama and to identify how your typical reaction plays a role in the problem. Does it escalate it? Enable others? Or diffuse it? If John was able to self-manage his reactions better, he could have taken a different tactic when employees stumbled on him about issues. He could have expressed confidence within their ability to take care of the situation constructively, facilitated the development of a behavioural code of conduct, or brought in a skilled 3rd party to greatly help them. Instead, he was so busy managing his own anxiety, nothing got done.

Second, he created a "drama triangle" - a seductive high energy interaction which include blaming, defensive behaviour, and rescuing. Drama triangles are recognizably consistent no matter what the details of the situation and they include these roles:

The Persecutor: "This company is this type of hole." "I can't believe the grade of management." "It is all John's fault." "That VP, Sales is really a real idiot." All the vitality goes into finding someone or something the culprit for all your company's problems. Blaming someone else makes people feel better and, obviously, this means other folks have to change, not you.

The Victim: "I tried my best." "I couldn't get through." "They did this to me." Here is the victim in the drama. They work with a helpless tone, and don't take personal responsibility. They could try to find someone to rescue them, or the culprit, to be able to eliminate their negative feelings.

The Rescuer: Rescuers need a victim to feel good. They are "do-gooders" without boundaries. "Let me fix this. Let me take this on." "I can save the day." "Let me rescue this poor person who was hard done by." Rescuers may try to greatly help people without being asked, or they have a twisted pleasure in getting their nose into other people's drama.

A lot of people learn the energy of being a persecutor, victim, or rescuer as children and they continue this behaviour within their career without being aware of it. Being an executive, if you participate in this behaviour or react to it, you will escalate the drama and there is a price to pay for - people won't wish to work for you, you will feel drained at the job, and you will produce a negative culture.

To break the cycle, you need to set the tone of personal accountability, respect, choice, and principled behaviour in your organization and work culture. Below are a few specific tactics:

- Be cautious about drama triangles and start to look closely at who's playing the role of persecutor, victim, and rescuer. Be mindful of which role you often play.

-Consider the payoff in your organization for taking on a particular role. Are people "bonding" together when they've someone else the culprit? Are they avoiding working with the complexity of issues by blaming one individual? Do the "victims" get pity? Do people feel sorry for them, or stay clear, thereby giving them power? Are you currently creating dependence in your organization by rescuing people? Self-righteousness?

- Explore what is being avoided by participating in the drama. Exist some deeper issues in the business that need to be addressed? In that case, what're they?

- Notice your reactions to drama. What are you doing? Not doing? What are you taking responsibility for? Maybe you have agreed to complete significantly more than you wish to?

- Once you get set off by a drama, focus on grounding yourself. Don't handle the drama until you may get involved without escalating your own personal emotional reaction.

- Facilitate a healthy outcome by emphasizing principles - respect, honesty, and making agreements that work. Know that the more intense the drama, the harder it will be to get individuals to develop a healthy outcome.

-If you are too near the issue available, get yourself a facilitator or executive coach to facilitate healthy dialogue.