Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone would just stop their drama? If it wasn’t for county government, your boss, and your employees things would just sail along, right?
But…is it really your boss? Is it really county government? Is it really your employees?
What is Drama? I get all kinds of answers, from “we work with all women, therefore we have drama,” all the way to “you ought to meet my employees,” and even “my boss is a jerk!”
The problem with these statements is that we are looking outside of ourselves and blaming others for the drama. The first step in dealing with drama is to look in the mirror and stop blaming.
Here’s your tip for the week:
Whenever you find yourself judging someone else, and you make a statement (whether it’s true or not) you must repeat the sentence, “Just like me!”
Here’s how it goes:
My co-workers are lazy….just like me.
My boss is a jerk…just like me.
Everyone I work with is clueless…just like me. My employees avoid responsibility…just like me.
You see, as long as we point our finger and look out the window at what everyone else is doing or not doing, we sit on the sidelines.
From the sidelines the answer is always easy. In fact, one of the things I’m famous for saying is that “we all know the answer when we are in the workshop.”
So…get out of the workshop and step into life.
In life you will experience drama. (Heck you may even BE the drama.) You will make mistakes. You will feel vulnerable. You may even look stupid. But, once you make a commitment to stopping drama it is in life where the change and growth happens, not in the workshop.
Office gossip, absenteeism, low morale, and power struggles are not the problem, but symptoms of drama in the workplace.
What are you doing in your life to be the change?
Marlene Chism is an executive educator, consultant, and author of Stop Workplace Drama, (Wiley 2011) and No-Drama Leadership (Bibliomotion 2015). She works with executives, and high-performing leaders who want to transform culture in the workplace. To explore opportunities please email marlene@marlenechism.com
