Eliminate Stress and Drama at Work
Often the biggest breakthroughs that occur in my clients’ personal lives and careers happen when they bring awareness to how they are navigating their relationships and commit to improving the quality of their relationships.
In this article I share with you a valuable principle called the Drama Triangle that will help you step out of drama, take radical responsibility, and build relationships that are powerful, connected and stress free.
Understanding how and why stress and drama builds in relationships and organizations and how to shift out of it will allow you to skyrocket your interpersonal awareness as you step into a powerful state. This, in turn, is how you create influence, build powerful intimate relationships, and transform your overall performance to advance in your career.
Work gets done more quickly and more effectively when there is conscious leadership being demonstrated and colleagues practice effective communication. Everyone on the team benefits when people are working in a supportive environment and are able to use their unique skills to contribute to the task at hand. Unfortunately, this is not the norm.
The norm is victimhood, gossip, bad mouthing, legal suits, confusion, frustration, tearful nights that feel lonely and leave employees dreading Monday morning.
Use this new tool to navigate your relationships in a meaningful way, create your life by design, advance your career, and contribute more fully to your relationships and community. As you begin to apply this framework you will step out of the norm and into a powerful state. It will be easier to reach your personal and professional goals if you are unburdened by the weight of other people.
The best part of this is that not everyone needs to change for change to occur. Although it would help if everyone in your organization practiced bringing awareness to the drama, it is NOT necessary for your own career development, profitability and ultimate fulfillment.
No matter how dysfunctional the dynamics between teams, senior management, middle management, or individual contributors may be - this framework will allow you to step into an empowered state and start creating experiences that you truly desire.
Starting today you get to be the one person in your environment that everyone wants in the room and on their team. Teaching this principle is how many of my clients have been able to get promotions, raises, increased productivity, fulfillment at work, more effective and profitable businesses, and recruited by top companies.
The first step is to recognize that you are in drama and how this drama is affecting your ability to communicate effectively, step into leadership, and get work done.
You want to advance in your career. You want to be able to contribute to purposeful work in an environment that is supportive and inspiring. Here is your ticket to being the one who stands out among your colleagues and in your field.
Although it seems to be the norm to go through your workday feeling disappointed, frustrated, and overwhelmed by your workload and the people you work with, this does not need to be your reality. So, let’s dive in.
Understanding the Karpman Drama Triangle
The Karpman drama triangle is a tool often used in psychotherapy and leadership development that will help you learn how to communicate effectively, create loving boundaries and co-create with others to increase productivity and have a stress-free environment.
The drama triangle model of human interaction demonstrates how people play out one of these three roles when they are feeling disempowered. Think of the drama triangle like a baseball field with first base playing the victim, second base the hero, and third base the villain.
• The Victim: When people act overwhelmed by their own vulnerability and don’t take responsibility for their situation. Playing the part of the oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, ashamed, and confused. They have a “poor me” mentality and are often unhappy, finding it hard to achieve insight.
Here is an example: “I never get any praise or acknowledgement from my boss. I feel like he is always changing his mind about what he wants, and it makes it impossible for me to deliver. It makes me question whether or not I am even good at my job.”
• The Hero: Acting out the rescuer. They often feel the need to “save” people they see as vulnerable, offering “help” unasked for. Rescuing takes the attention off their own issues. They will often feel guilty for not rescuing; they have the answers and want people to follow them.
Here is an example: “My team messed up. There are a few people around here who don’t know how to do their job so I’m going to stay up late to fix what they did wrong. Everyone else went home. I can do it. I have to, we will present in the morning.”
• The Villain: The role of the persecutor, bully, or challenger. They are unaware of their own power and therefore discount it. This act often comes out of resentment at their rescuing being unappreciated and their actions become controlling, blaming, critical, angry, entitled, and oppressive.
Here is an example: “I’m so sick of this job. I think I just need to quit. No one listens to anything I say. I hate everyone here and I’m sick of having to do everyone else’s job.”
Anytime you are playing the bases know that you have invited the person you are interacting with into your drama. If they too are operating from a disempowered place, they will be left playing out your drama and picking a corner without even knowing it.
When you play the victim, you have unconsciously asked the other person to play the villain or hero. When you play the villain, you have invited the other person to play the hero or victim. Same goes for when you play the hero. While you do your best to save the day, you have asked the person to step into your drama by playing the victim or villain.
You both will continue to keep moving around the drama triangle until one of you steps out and into a clear and empowered state.
Here is how you move out of drama and into an empowered state:
Be aware of when you are playing the bases
View yourself and others as 100 percent powerful and capable
Learn to speak and live by your truth always and practice effective communication
Allow other people to have their own experience.
Take radical responsibility
Source your own love by honoring your non-negotiables and making time for yourself.
This is what will keep you out of drama and what will also allow you to step effectively into leadership. When you are in an empowered state, you are self-aware, curious, self- compassionate, easily able to commit to what you care about doing and experiencing and surround yourself with a supportive environment.
Begin to think of how drama is affecting you at work. Once you open up this can of worms you can’t go back. You will begin to see drama playing out everywhere you go; with your family, friends, the person you talked to at the grocery store.
The more honest you can be with yourself and the role you play in your interactions and relationships the more they can improve.
When working in an organization it is much easier to blame the boss and gossip about the person on your team who is not as good at their job as you are. It is much harder to look at yourself and see how you have been contributing to the drama around you. If you are the one who is used to rescuing everyone, it will not be easy to step out of drama and begin to view others as 100% capable and powerful while you speak your truth. This is the work ahead.
In order for you to step into a powerful state in your workplace, you must break the habit of blame, passivity and criticism and take empowered action regardless of your circumstances.
This is no small task, I know. Disempowerment is the norm. It shows up in the following ways leaving you with feelings and experiences that are not desirable, including:
Feeling inadequate
Feeling helpless
Uninspired by work and lacking pleasure in your life
Feeling unfulfilled
Contributes to loneliness
Stifles creativity
Leads to exhaustion and depression
Contributes to self-sabotage and self-betrayal
Skills in Practice
Here is a question I often ask my clients and one I want you to ask yourself now:
“Where in my life am I playing the bases?”
Take time on this question as you take inventory of your relationships. I encourage you to not only look at your relationships at work but also friends and family members that you interact with on a normal basis as well. You may notice commonalities and further insight; since how we do one thing is how we do everything.
Ask yourself which role you tend to fall into depending on the different conversations and situations. Take a pause now to do this.
Where are you playing the victim; with who/what:
Where are you playing the villain; with who/what:
Where are you playing the Hero; with who/what:
I am going to ask you to step out of the norm and do what most people are not willing to do. I encourage you to take your focus off what is out of your control and begin to get curious about what is possible. Do not waste your energy on what you cannot control including the past, the future or other people. You will need to practice having crucial conversations and asking clearly and directly for what you need.
Take time by yourself or someone you trust to get clarity on what you need to move forward with empowered action using the skills in practice that I provide here.
Employers and organizations are looking for leaders who are fully empowered in the workplace. This is how you will stand out as the expert, advance in your career, contribute to more purposeful work and build better relationships and community.
If you would like to get further support or have questions about how to apply these skills for your own personal or professional development, book a connection call using the link below.