Episode #37: How to End Drama – 10 Steps to Shifting You and Your Team out of Drama

Drama is toxic and contagious. It’s also completely normal. Yet it is up to us as conscious leaders to mitigate the drama and empower ourselves as well as our teams, which can be honestly difficult without the right tools and mindsets. Even with these tools and mindsets, it’s something that does involve a lot of effort, and practice and commitment. The 10 skills I’m about to share with you, get right into the details about how to actually see if you’re willing to shift out of drama yourself. And then, for you managers of people, how can you help your teams learn to end drama on their own as well. This is one of the most requested skills and trainings that I have on offer. And as you know from listening to previous episodes, the first step is always knowing if you’re in drama at all to begin with. We sometimes refer to this as knowing where you are, are you above the line or below the line?

So if you want to refresh yourself or learn for the first time about what these concepts mean: drama, above and below the line, how to know where you are and locate yourself. I encourage you to go back and listen to episode six and seven, where I talk about the drama triangle as well as the converse, the empowerment triangle. I also go even deeper into the villain, the victim, and the hero roles on the drama triangle in episodes 12, 13, and 14. And we will link to all of those easy access for you in our show notes. You can easily find the links there at allowedpodcast.com or just click the link in the episode description right there in your player. Now the audio I’m sharing with you today is actually audio from a 10 video skill-building gift, that I gifted to a Fortune 500 client of mine after giving them a series of in person leadership trainings.

And I was so requested, give me even more tools. How can I train my teams and learn this, to learn this stuff. Because I was training more top leaders and there was a lot of layers underneath them, they really wanted to roll this out through the whole organization. So I figured I’m going to make something for them. But it’s also something that I’ll be able to share with you guys. Most of these are lessons that I go in depth with, with my top paying clients, and my Forward Fearless online group coaching. But I’m always trying to find new ways to teach even more people. People who may not have personally experienced the value of one on one coaching themselves, or have never been in a group coaching program like Forward Fearless, or maybe you are someone who’s curious about coaching and what it has to offer. But you would like more of an understanding of what someone like me, an executive coach actually does for someone like you, a leader, a manager, a founder, a CEO.

So these videos are just a sneak peek into some of what leadership training especially around conscious leadership could offer in terms of skill building. And putting these foundational concepts that I cover here on Allowed into practice. I’m really excited to share them with you. So again, I encourage you to go to allowedpodcast.com, there you’ll actually get to watch these 10 videos that outline a process for what to do as a leader or manager when you suspect that yourself or an employee is in drama. These videos are free for you to use, they are free for you to share. I really would love you to do that because this is such important work, this is my life’s work, this is my mission. And you really are helping to raise our collective consciousness when you share what’s inspiring you with your friends.

Add this to your own leadership toolkit, bring it into your team, have at it. I also would love your feedback, please always get in touch with me. You can leave a note for me and a review on iTunes. You can contact me on my website caneel.com. However, you get in touch with me I’m always listening and partly that’s how this series itself got created. So these videos are short, they’re one to five minutes each. It’s a useful onboarding tool, it’s a skim across the surface. But as you know, it’s about practice, it’s about commitment, it’s about mindset. So you can’t just slap a bandaid on a bunch of drama and use a tactic or a tool and expect the drama to go away because the source of the drama is always us. We are the source of drama because drama is about our perception, our mindset and our belief system is activated at that given time.

So please do pause take notes, and don’t forget you can watch the actual videos that can really help. But don’t skip over the … what is essentially a spiritual practice, a consciousness practice of really examining yourself and the role that you are playing in perceiving drama, creating drama in your own life. That’s really where the action is at. Alright, without further ado, here are the training.

I’m Dr. Caneel Joyce. I’m an executive coach and I work with leaders and managers in really stepping into allowing themselves to lead as a whole person. And to lead others around them into being their whole selves. So that they can be the highest performing, most present and most powerful. I work with teams, I work with leaders on communication. And a big focus of mine is helping leaders and organizations to shift their culture out of drama and into presence. So I’m really happy to bring these lessons to you today. Though, these are the ones that I found to be the absolute most valuable that I’ve ever learned personally.

Completely transformative and I know that if you give them a shot, it’s going to make a huge difference for you. Let’s get started. All right, so let’s say that one of your employees or maybe even your whole team seems to be below the line in drama. You’re seeing people blame each other, criticize each other, maybe even criticize themselves. You’re seeing people hero, trying to hustle and fix things and solve problems without really getting the space to genuinely solve the problem permanently. And you’re seeing people not take 100% responsibility. You’ll know that they’re drama when people are asking the question of who’s to blame? Or how do we make this go away? Specifically, you’ll see they’ll not be curious about what’s my part? What can I create here? Alright, so that’s how you identify if your team is in drama. The first thing you need to do when you notice this, is to slow yourself down.

Why is this so important? Well, we’re looking for you to first identify where are you. And then to find the space to shift. If not, at least to get as present and grounded as you possibly can. So the first step is just slow down and breathe. I’m going to teach you a breathing technique that is very, very fast and easy to do. And you can apply it in the moment and believe me, this is a really key management and leadership skill. So hands on your belly, which you can even do at a meeting. Just one hand on your belly and take a nice deep breath into your belly while you feel your feet on the floor. If you are stressed or really below the line, you might find that it’s actually difficult to get your diaphragm to drop that much. In that case what I … you feel all your breathing happening in your chest. In that case, what I suggest is doubling the length of the exhale.

So you can breathe in for two, and out for four. In for two, out for four. That’s it. So your feet on the ground, now you’re grounded and ready to support your team. Alright, so skill number two, when you find yourself or your organization or your team in drama is to locate yourself. There’s some fantastic videos on the conscious.is website, and I’m going to talk about how to locate yourself right now. So number one, ask yourself, am I trying to be right about something? And I believing that there is a right and a wrong answer, a good and a bad way to do something. Number two, does it feel like there’s some threat here? Some threat to our collective safety, belonging, status security.

Am I in a scarcity mindset? Is question number three. Do I feel curious? Question number four. I’m just going to keep listing some questions for you. Do I feel tense? Because when I’m in presence, I’m not in drama. I’m in ease and flow. But when I’m in drama, I’m going to feel tense in some way. Or I’m going to want to be tuning out, am I heroing myself and tuning out? Am I blaming somebody or myself? Am I criticizing somebody or myself? Am I feeling like a victim? If any of these are true, then Welcome to the human experience. You are below the line. It’s totally normal and completely okay. What’s really awesome is that you as a manager being able to recognize and own when you are below the line, is going to empower you to support your entire team. And here’s how.

One, if you find yourself below the line that means that your deepest work is actually to see if you might be able to shift. I want you to be really, really conscious also that you don’t infect the rest of your team with your drama. Which is so, so easy to do. When every victim needs a hero and a villain. So be thoughtful about what you’re going to communicate and how you’re going to communicate it if you find yourself in drama and you’re unable to get yourself out. Please also seek the support of another manager who understands how to coach you to see if there might be a creative way for you to feel a shift out of drama yourself. Now, let’s say that you are not in drama, you are curious, you are interested even if things don’t go as planned or as desired. Everything is going to be okay, all as well. You’re going to feel a sense of ease and flow actually in your body. There will not be any tension there, you’re not going to be in blame and you’re not going to be trying to do it right.

Instead, you’re going to be really, really in touch with your preferences. Which might be, I prefer for my team to shift out of drama. It might be for us to hit our goals, it might be for us to avoid this hostile takeover. Whatever the case may be, there still may be things in your environment and your imagination that you are aware of that you’d like to avoid or move toward. And that’s very healthy, you can do that in a conscious way. It’s only when it feels like a threat that we start going below the line. So if you find yourself up there, awesome. You are in a great position now to lead others out. And the rest of this series is going to teach you how to do that. Skill number three is seeing if you’re willing to shift above the line. Alright, so let’s say that you found that you are in drama. Pay attention to this because you understanding how to shift yourself, is going to really inform you being able to support your team and your employees in shifting.

And you can even impact your whole culture this way. So here’s how it works. So I find myself in drama, I’m trying to be right about something. For instance, I’m trying to be right that my team should have hit a certain goal. My number one task is to say, okay, what am I trying to be right about? Now identify one thing, is there anything else I’m trying to be right about? Yes, I’m trying to be right that my team should be the best performing team in our division. Okay, great. That’s one more thing. What’s another one? I’m trying to be right that I can control that outcome on my own. And I’m feeling pretty right that if I am not the top performing manager on this team, it means something pretty bad about me as a human being. So there’s a lot of things I’m trying to be right about. We could go after any one of these and I’m going to start with a simple one, which is that our team should hit the goal.

So here’s what I do next. Now I say, what is the opposite of that story? The opposite of that story, simply put would be, my team should not have hit their goal. Crazy to even hear and say that. Another opposite might be, another team should hit that goal. Another opposite might be, this is not my team’s true goal. So any of these is fine. Pick one, I’m going to pick my team should not hit their goal. Now I’ve identified what I’m trying to be right about and I’ve identified the opposite of that story. Here’s the flip, am I willing to believe that the opposite of my story is at least as true as my original story itself? This one often gets confusing when you hear it the first time, it just sounds so bizarre and so not what you’re trying to get done. But here’s where I want you to just play with me. So am I willing so believe that the opposite of my story, which is that my team should have hit their goal is at least as true as my story itself.

So the opposite of that story would be my team should not hit their goal. Can I see how that’s at least is true? How is that true? So here’s some possibilities. One is, well, my team didn’t perform as well. And them hitting the goal may have given them a false sense of security around their capacity to achieve future goals. Another possibility is that by my team hitting their goal, they are going to lose some motivation to continue to strive. Another one might be, if we’d hit our goal I wouldn’t have realized that there are a couple of opportunities to really improve the way that we are performing and pursuing our strategic goals. There are lots of possible learnings here. So I’ve just identified a bunch of ways that the opposite of what I thought was really really right, actually might be just as true. It doesn’t mean that it is true. It’s just both the stories, we can’t prove either one.

Now that I’ve done this, I’m feeling actually a lot lighter, I’m starting to see some possibilities, some places where I can be a creator. Where I can take responsibility for some things that are actually in my control to take responsibility for. So the final step here is, am I willing to get curious about what’s mine? What’s mine to take responsibility for? So if I’m below the line and I’m in drama, I’m not going to be taking 100% responsibility for the things I can control, I’ll be taking more or less. But here above the line I want to take 100% responsibility for the things that I can control. So I’m going to start looking for those things and I’m going to do so with a desire and a curiosity to find out what they are. Because that every time I identify a new area that I actually have control over, I am bringing in more of my own power to change the situation and resolve any issues permanently.

Got it. Let’s review. So first identify that I am below the line. You can watch that in the video prior to this. Second, I ask myself what am I trying to be right about? Third, what is the opposite of that story? Fourth, am I willing to see that the opposite of my story is at least as true as my original story itself? Five, what is mine to take responsibility for? Can I get curious? Great. Now if you can make your way through these steps, you may find that you shift above the line and you’re in a great position now to go out and coach, and lead, and challenge and create what you want in your team. And if you don’t shift by the end of this process, that’s okay. You are a human being, it’s not wrong to be below the line. It just means that there are some different challenges you’ll be grappling with. But if you’re interested in shifting, all you need to do is go back to the beginning of the process.

What else am I trying to be right about? Am I believing in scarcity? Am I believing that I’m not enough? You might find some pretty deep work to do here. But you don’t need to get too crazy or spiritual about it, you can just simply say, “Can I loosen up my thinking a little bit and see how the opposite is true and take some responsibility for what I can control.” You can do that, you can lead from above the line. Skill number four, for leaders who want to lead from above the line and help their team get above the line as well, is to get super curious. And I have a really great skill that can actually improve your ability to get curious in any situation. And as you know curiosity is key to being above the line. So if you’re a little confused at this point, what we’ve covered so far is, first, slow down, breathe and ground. Second, locate yourself, where are you? Are you above or below the line?

Third, see if you’re willing to shift. Now we’re in skill number four, asking open honest questions. What I love about this skill is that you can apply it to both help yourself get curious, and to help others get curious. And you can start doing this right away. You might love it so much that you might decide this is the only way you want to ask questions. Here’s how it goes, open honest questions. An open question, as you probably know, is a question where the answer can take the answer anywhere they want to go with it. It’s not a fixed set of closed answers. It’s not yes or no, it’s not green or blue. It’s not I did or I didn’t. Instead it’s something like what was your experience of this? What was this? What are your thoughts about this? Or tell me about your background? It’s open, so they can take it and read a story. Second element of open honest questions is that they are honest.

An honest question means a question that you genuinely have. What does that mean? It means that when you ask the question, you’re asking it because you have authentic curiosity. You’re going to feel it. This is something that if you don’t have curiosity, you can just sit and wait. And see what am i curious about? What am I curious about this person? Alright, third element of this, which really helps stitch it together is in an open honest question, you don’t know the answer. And you don’t have any preference for what the answer is. So often, I see teams and organizations that say we’ve got a great coaching culture, we lead through inquiry. We are always asking coaching questions when we see an employee struggling. But if you listen to their coaching questions, you’ll find that they’re actually leading questions.

They’re questions that are advice or feedback with a question mark at the end. I think you know what I’m talking about here. And it doesn’t feel great on the receiving end of that. And it certainly doesn’t evoke curiosity. In fact, it can make someone feel pretty defensive. And it’s usually coming from a position of defensiveness as well. So if I’m really tempted to ask a leading question, where I have a really strong preference for what they’re going to answer, because I’m trying to guide them in a certain way manipulating them. I am not feeling curious at that moment. I’m feeling very closed minded, I’m imagining what the future will look like if it’s that answer. So open honest question is I’m going to sit here and wait and I’m curious, and I’m going to ask you a question that you can take anywhere you want. I don’t know the answer, I don’t have a preference for the answer. I’m asking because I’m curious.

I taught a workshop and I heard someone say I’ve worked with him for six years. And after this two minute exercise, I know him better than I knew him after the whole six years. This is such a powerful skill and when a person is hearing you ask the question where they really want to know you, it feels awesome. So superpower skill for managers. I invite you to put it to work today. How many open honest questions can you find and ask? Skill number five, for managers who want to help their teams shift above the line is being the creator. There are two essential skills to being the creator. And what I mean by a creator is being willing to experiment, and play, and get really creative, innovative, original. And flexible in my thinking. And I’m going to apply that creativity specifically to areas where I have 100% control. Getting creative is actually my responsibility in those areas.

And in fact, only in those areas. I only need to be responsible for what I can control. And that typically for most of us is a lot more than we thought we could control. So just be aware of them and hunt for what else is out there. What are the other opportunities. So here are the two essential skills of being the creator. Number one is the vision, setting the vision. How do you do this? You know what you want. You feel what you want, you can really feel the desire for this future state, for this thing that you want to create. The second skill of the creator is to stay in reality. So creators are great at identifying what the facts are, about what’s present here and now. And by being grounded in reality, they can dream really big dreams and have a really crystal clear vision for where they’re going to go. And guess what, it will be more achievable.

Because if we are grounded in reality we can take stock of the situation without going into panic or victim mode and we can create a plan. Which might just be one or two stepping stones from where we are right now. But we’re going to identify some concrete actions that we can take baby steps, that are going to help us get closer to that the mountaintop that we envision. So to summarize, as a creator the two big skills are number one, feeling and creating that vision. That super compelling vision. Number two, staying grounded in reality. Now, let’s get into skill number six of how to lead a team out of drama. We just covered the creator role and skill number five. The creator role, the coach role and the challenger role are the three roles in the empowerment triangle. Which is the opposite of the drama triangle, the hero, victim and villain. So above the line those transmute. And we have creator, challenger and coach.

And the coach has a very powerful role here. The power of the coach is they are able to through curiosity, inquiry, loving support and clarity to invite those who see themselves as victims to step into the role as creator. Now essential skill of a coach is the ability to see others as creators. As coaches one of our mantras in co active coaching is we see others as creative, resourceful and whole. And I think that really summarizes this quite well. So keeping the faith in other people’s resourcefulness and ability to surprise us, is the essential skill number one of a coach. Skill number two is to curiosity. How can I ask questions that are open honest questions as we covered in skill number four. Open honest questions to help a person who may be in creator role, they may be in a victim role to see what the possibilities are here.

And how can I get those questions to actually help people to stoke their sense of desire for what’s on the top of the mountain. So as a coach I like to imagine that I am the partner, I’m hiking partner with my client, and or my employee. And my employee and I are down here at the base. We’re down at the bottom of mountain, we see a big climb up ahead that we’re going to take on. And it looks pretty challenging to us. And there’s a lot of hazards on the way, a lot of rocks. So as a coach, I want to say first let’s get into reality here, where are we now? Where do we want to go? What do we want? And then to remember that that person is creative, resourceful and whole enough to help draw their attention up away from the rocks, away from the tactical challenges that might be distracting them from the goal that’s up there at the top of the mountain.

So to summarize, I can hold that space seeing others as creative, and resourceful and whole. So that I can invite victims into creator mode. Second is, I can get really, really curious. And I can lead and coach through curiosity. Third, I’m going to keep my employee or my team member, or my boss or my client, I’m going to keep their focus on where are we going? What’s at the top of the mountain? And I’m going to help draw their focus away from the rocks. So we’re going to be curious about what are some baby steps I can take, what are some actions I can take that are going to get me up there right now from here where I am. The third and final role in the empowerment triangle is the challenger.and this is essential for any manager who interested in leading their team up and out of drama. Get ready. Challenger mode can be tricky to take on, if you are in a culture that is really homogenous in how much it wants everyone to just be nice to each other all the time.

We sometimes have this idea that being nice means not giving challenging feedback, or not putting pressure, or not pushing. Couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it’s a great act of kindness. So the first thing that a challenger does is they see others as, you guessed it, creators. They see others as creators even if they don’t see themselves as a creator. They see what’s possible inside a person who’s feeling like a victim, and they challenge them with loving pressure to bring that forth. Challengers are great at creating clarity. They might create clarity by showing somebody the mere, showing somebody reality. Reflecting back what they’re seeing or what they’re hearing from that person, they might also challenge that person’s assumptions. They love to challenge the status quo. So challenging somebody’s worldview, perspective, belief system, any limiting beliefs that’s a great thing to do as a challenger.

And in so doing what that helps people in victim mode to do, is to see that they actually don’t want this current reality. They get really clear on here’s what I don’t want, here’s what I do want. So this loving pressure may be a bit difficult to take on. But if you’re doing it from the stance of, I see something in you that is a creator, that I want to bring out of you, and I know that you can do it and I will not settle for less. That feels good. That feels good. So that is kind. To summarize, the challenger sees others as creators. As creative, resourceful and whole. Same as the coach. They put loving pressure on that person to bring forth the creator in them. They show them reality. They challenge assumptions and self limiting beliefs. They challenge the status quo. And they say I know you can do differently, you can do better, you can do more. I see a creator in you that I want to come out.

Lastly, I want to make a distinction for you. This is a little bonus round. There are actually two kinds of challenges that we may be confronted with in life. So challenge it could be a person, it could be you or it could be a circumstance, an event a moment, an organization, something … some situation that you encounter. If I am above the line, I’m going to perceive those challengers generally speaking, as they’re for me. They’re there to teach me something. So when a new challenge comes my way, I say to myself as a creator, “I wonder what you are here to teach me. I wonder what I’m going to learn.” And I stay really connected to my curiosity about that. Now, I might find that it’s very easy and that that challenger is really, really constructive for me, the learnings are super clear. I feel myself building, I feel myself getting stronger, getting more aware, becoming more alive and joyful, or finding more ease.

On the other hand, I might run into what’s called a destructive challenger. A destructive challenger is one that we typically did not invite, that often actually takes the elements of our life or self concept apart from each other. It breaks them apart so that we are forced to look at them and be, oh, geez, now I’m in reality and I don’t want this, and I do want this. Plays the same role, but it doesn’t feel as fun at all. And examples of this might be getting into a car accident or a really large business mistake or a fight. So all of these things may be destructive. If we can see them from above the line, even though it was destructive, we didn’t invite it, it tore some things apart that we love. We can look for what is the learning available to me here now. So whether you run into a constructive or a destructive challenger in your life, either way, there’s learning available. And that is the name of the game.

And I really encourage you to share this distinction with your team, because your team is going to encounter both kinds of challenges. And if they can understand that curiosity and seeing yourself as the creator is the key, they are going to stay out of drama a lot more of the time. So this is a great role. It’s super fun to play. And I encourage you to take it on. number eight on the list of the 10 skills for managers who wants to lead their teams out of drama is, to speak unarguably and to create clear agreements with your team. What do I mean by speaking unarguably? Unarguably means I am only speaking facts. I’m speaking things that are objective and unarguable. And that includes a few different categories of things that I might speak about. One of the most common is observations. So I saw this happen and I heard this, I heard that this happened, it could be. But the other categories are often internal.

This includes your body sensations. So I have feel tight in my shoulders. It includes your emotions, such as I’m feeling a lot of desire right now to move forward. It also includes thoughts. So my thoughts are any thought I have, I have an idea, I have a question, I had the thought, I noticed I had a judgment, I noticed I wondered something. Now, we talked about our thoughts all the time. But the problem is we’re not unarguable because we’re not labeling them as thoughts. When we fail to do so, we begin to buy into the idea that our stories are right. And boom, then we go down below the line. And we’re in drama. And we invite others to be in drama too. People might buy into your stories or they might go against your stories. Either way, there’s drama because you’re dealing in the land of fantasy, a land of stories.

So speaking unarguably means I’m really going to stay grounded in my speech, in what is objectively true. And I’m going to lead from there. Now, this is a game changer if you are approaching feedback that feels challenging, a confrontation, any negotiation. This is a game changer in mediating and coaching. It is one of the easiest ways to resolve any argument, is to speak unarguably. The other person doesn’t even need to know what that means or what to do. But if you ask questions, inviting them to speak unarguably and speaking in the language of facts not stories, then they too are going to be able to see more clearly what is our opportunity here to create something together? And what are we responsible for? And there, you’ve just led your team out of drama.

Speaking unarguably, language of facts. Might be observations, things I saw, things I heard, things I felt and a lot of this is internal. I had a body sensation, I had an emotion, I had a thought, as long as we’re being clean and we’re labeling everything. You’re good to go. Okay, managers ready for skill number nine. Skill number nine for managers who want to help lead their teams out of drama, is being the resolution. We’ve all heard the Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And it couldn’t be more true that this is genuinely the way to create change. So at the beginning of this video series, we talked about the importance of this skill of locating yourself. Knowing if you are above or below the line. We talked about how to shift, talked about some different skills to use once you’ve shifted and some different roles that you can take on coach, creator, challenger.

And any of those is going to be useful in you being the resolution you want. I want to give you some specific examples here. So let’s say that I am leading a team, I’m noticing they’re in a lot of drama because there’s a reorg coming, and we know it. And we’re feeling a little bit threatened about what that’s going to mean for our team and for each of us individually. So how do I be the resolution I want? One is I say, what is it that I want? So there’s the creator skill. I’m able to feel authentically, my desire for something different. Now I know what I want. And I say how can I be that thing I want? So on this in this example, I might want my team to stop gossiping and focusing on the drama or the fear and stop spiraling and wasting time in cycles on that state of threat.

Instead, I’d love to focus their attention on the opportunity ahead. And on some resilience skills. So I want to see them start being resilient already, not letting anything faze them. Sticking together even though they know they might be torn apart. How can I be that change, I can simply do those things. I can keep bringing the focus back to the opportunity in every conversation that goes into drama. I can keep bringing the focus back to what’s ours to control and I can be really, really calm. If that’s what I’m wanting to see in them, then that’s what I’m going to be. Similar to training a dog or parenting a young child. Your team is going to pick up on how you are being and they are looking to you to make sense of change. So in particular, if you have a lot of change coming up, it’s super important that you remember that you need to be the way that you want them to be in the change.

They’re looking to you to make sense of, is this something we can trust? Or is this something really threatening that we can’t do anything about? So invite everyone else to also take this on. You can talk about it as a team, how can we collectively be the change we want to see here? This is the most powerful leadership skill there is. It’s one that is a game changer, is also sometimes really not easy. So I really encourage you to use all the skills in videos one through eight, to build you up to this place. I know you can do it. If you want it, you can be it. Congratulations, you’ve made it to the finish line of this little mini series training for managers who want to lead their teams out of drama. Skill number 10, is to accept that drama is an essential and valuable part of the human experience.

Drama is always an invitation to learn and to grow. And that’s true for your own drama and that’s true for others drama. When we make it wrong, which is easy to do when we first learn about this in this model. If we make it wrong, we are further going into drama. I like to call it meta drama. Because remember how you get below the line, you believe you’re right. You believe there’s a right and wrong. So what’s really, really important here is to remember that each of us has our own journey. There is something valuable about every single phase of the human experience. If I’m in hero mode, I have the opportunity to learn how costly it is for me to seek temporary relief and avoid resolving my problems permanently. If I’m in victim mode, I have the opportunity to learn that I wasn’t owning my full power, there was tons of stuff in my control that I wasn’t being responsible for and being creative with.

And if I’m in villain mode, I have the opportunity to heal. To stop criticizing others, to stop criticizing and blaming myself. Now all of those opportunities are there and it may take several tries to ever find that learning. So you as a manager, if you see that your employees are in drama, number one thing work on yourself. Work on yourself. There’s a pretty good chance that if one of them is in drama, you might be in drama. So really, really examine it and assume that you are and that it’s totally okay. Now, you can only shift if you’re willing. So this is another reason why it’s important to remember how human and lovable it is to be in drama, and how much we learn when we’re in drama. It doesn’t mean we want it we might not prefer it. But it’s super important not to blame. Not to blame yourself it’s not your fault.

Not to blame them, but instead to support them. When you see drama around you, work on yourself and step into that empowerment triangle, coach, creator and challenger. Ask some open honest questions, get super curious, figure out what else is in my responsibility to control. Look at the opportunity of your team being in drama. Wow, this is really going to give you a lot of learning and growth, you might not even know what that’s going to look like here. So super cool, congratulations on making it this far. And good luck. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed this summer short skill-building series on how to shift your team out of drama. Let me know what you think. And if you’d like any more skill-building series from me, I would love to hear your ideas. Don’t forget to see these videos and share them with your team at allowedpodcast.com. The link for you is right there in the show description, right there in your podcast player. I’ll see you next week.