Inside JLC: Drama IS Everywhere!

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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. My name is Ray, this is Colleen and this is Terry. They are JLC associates. I had the privilege of founding JLC some years ago and we look forward to this one. I look forward to this one today. I don't want to speak for them. I'm sure all of us know people who have been put in situations where they have been wrongly accused of something. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about a story that lives in a movie that I believe everyone has seen. Then I'm going to tell you a real life story and talk about all of the unintended consequences of that person having to live through that real life story. So my intention here, once we go through this story, is that you guys will develop some understanding about how drama plays into our lives all the time. So at the end, each of you will be able to apply this little story and these ideas in your day to day practice. That's it. So Colleen, what are you hearing me say?

Sure. What I'm hearing you say is you're going to tell us a story that demonstrates how the drama triangle really is evident in our day to day life. And hopefully we'll develop a common understanding of what that is so we can recognize it and hopefully moving forward, you know, we'll be able to keep drama out of our lives. At least be able to recognize it and handle it in a more productive way.

Well said, Terry. Did you hear anything more or different?

I would just add what I also heard was unintended consequences of that victim triangle that might, that comes into play and for us to have an awareness of that.

Two little vignettes to start us off. And that's perfectly said by both of you. I was a brand new assistant principal at a junior high school and back then we didn't have middle schools, we had junior highs. So it was 7, 8, 9 and I experienced something called a slam book. Did you ever hear of a slam book, either one of you?

No.

So here is something where they took the idea of teasing someone and turned it into something much more. Here's what they did. They would have a blank textbook, a little notebook or something like that. And on the outside they would put slam book. S L A M Slam book. And inside in the front piece they would put down someone's name and they handed it around to different people in the school. And everybody would write down very uncomplimentary comments about that kid. And after a week or so of people writing down These really awful things. Somebody would deliver it anonymously, deliver it to that kid so that kid could read the slam book and hear all the things that kids said about them. Well, how do you think that fell on that kid?

Crushed, crushed, crushed him, I'm sure.

Oh, absolutely. Terry, what are you thinking as a player and as a coach? Because as a player, you were coaching others. How would that slam book impact your kids and your colleagues and your teammates?

He had terrible, you know, and, you know, I'm not worthy. I'm not good.

We already have these issues inside of us where we don't think we're good enough. So now somebody's helping us get to that next level. It's a really sad thing to see it unfold. And at different times in my life, I have been one of the people that did tease others. I eventually had a dramatic revelation that I needed to stop doing that because it sat right on the edge of persecuting someone and bullying someone. The movie that comes to mind is my cousin Vinnie, where those two kids were arrested for shooting somebody and stealing from the Soapy Suds or something like that. And they ended up going to jail. And there was a big trial. And as it turned out, everybody was absolutely sure that they had done it. That were right around that particular, you know, stop by shop and place. And it wasn't until Vinnie figured out these people really saw a different car and different people that they were exonerated. So we all know these stories. And if you. I don't play on social media very much at all, but my grandchildren do, and some of my children do. And they talk all the time about things that are said about people that are essentially horrific and nobody really checks. They just either agree or say, what a jerk. How could they have done that? And so this idea of the slam book and my cousin Vinnie lives in our society right now in a big way. And what happens to the person receiving this information is they feel like a victim. And typically, depending upon their age, they may not know how to modify those feelings so that they can move on. It can truly, to Colleen's words, crush someone, and it can become very hateful for that human being. With that said, I'm going to tell you a story. I have a colleague that was a military officer. He was 20 or 19 years serving our country, serving us. And he lived in the D.C. area. He was married, had three kids, got a phone call that there was one of his relatives, I think it was an aunt, was close to death. So he quickly called his C.O. said, I need to take emergency leave. It was granted. He loaded up the kids and they took off from the D.C. area southbound toward Jacksonville. They got into the Georgia area and they stopped at a shop and stop, stop and go. And they got. They used the restroom, got some snacks and continued down toward Jacksonville. Well, about 40 minutes later, police cars behind him, lights flashing, and pull them over and they don't say anything. They come up to the side of the car. Step out of the car, sir. He stepped out of the car. The other officer told everyone in the car to stay in the car. And they pushed him down to the ground and they handcuffed him, held him there and began to, in a very aggressive way, ask him questions about, did you stop at this place? Did you steal, did you hurt this woman? There was an altercation, and apparently somebody that kind of looked like him in a car that kind of looked like theirs did show up there and go through that process. Well, he was arrested. They went down, had to go to the downtown, to the jail and all that stuff. And it was awful. And as it turned out, wasn't him. It was someone else that kind of looked like. Kind of looked like the car kind of looked like him. And the hardest thing for him in dealing with this was dealing with his children who were under the age of 12. And he had to figure out how to talk to his kids about this. His wife was beyond upset. And of course, when he got back tohe went took care of family business. Finally late, but he did take care of family business, got back to his assigned post and he had to military requirement, let the commanding officer know that he was arrested on his way to Jacksonville. Well, as Terry will explain to us, that's an immediate call for we need to investigate this. And of course, that's in his file. All these things happened to him. There were to terrorist point before unintended consequences. And as it turned out, this gentleman did absolutely, absolutely nothing. Nothing other than drive to Jacksonville and stop for snacks. How does that story land on you, Terry, as a military officer?

Well, you know, the word profiling comes. Comes into play for me from that story. I think him coming back and to his organization and reporting, reporting it is what you have to do. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't make a phone call ahead of time to let them know. And then the facts need to be laid out. And I'm, you know, and then how do you support that officer, that individual and then. And the family. Right. And so with the resources that we would have in our organization, you know, mental health insight, dealing with the chaplain, dealing with those kind of things. It's a whole family. How do you help them through this.

This incident, to get past this? And it's interesting you say that his first phone call back to base was to the chaplain, who he knew very well, and the chaplain advised him on his steps in terms of letting the boss know. And, and, and of course, there was an investigation. Has to be part of the deal. So now he's going through reliving this particular horrific event over and over and over again.

Yeah.

When the he was really didn't do anything other than stop and be who he was and look like who he was. And you're right, it was a profiling game too, because this was a gentleman, was an African American military leader, and all of that kind of played into the responses because people sometimes think we all have biases and all of a sudden, wow, wow. So he ended up getting bullied. And that's what happens in this social media world. It happens every day on television. People, you have really no idea what they did. These are allegations. And people speak about allegations as though they are absolutely the in quotes truth. Colleen, what are you thinking?

Yeah, no, I'm also, you know, what's resonating with me is what you just mentioned. You know, where is the assumption of innocence? Where is that sense of, well, I need to, you know, find out more. I know this person, I know he's a man of integrity. And if he states he didn't do it, where's that sense of, you know, coming behind him and as Terry mentioned, providing the support. And yet, to your point, right, we have a victim talking about the drama triangle, which you clearly stated. Right. It was assumed he was innocent. From his perspective, he didn't do anything. I would beg to say even his family and his young children in that vehicle who witnessed this whole situation go down were also victims. The other part of that triangle, you know, is the persecutor. And the persecutor in this instance could be the policeman. It could be the system itself. Right. That sense of, you know, profiling, as Terry mentioned, and also, you know, the rescuer, it's like, who is going to rescue this particular person? And perhaps in his mind, he's hoping that the system itself will play out and will produce the evidence of his innocence.

And it did. It did prove it did. When the investigation was completed, it was obviously stated he was, he was not involved in this. This is not so. There was somebody who was a victim at that particular shop and stop Right. And that person then alerted the officials, I'm a victim, I need help. And so right away, the rescuer shows up, grabs this gentleman and arrests him right there in front of his family. So this, the idea that this happens, these stories is interesting because they do have dramatic edges and there's multiple drama triangles going on. What's interesting to me is how can we develop the necessary restraint not to run up our ladder and get sucked into these conversations, sometimes on social media, sometimes over coffee, sometimes at lunch, get sucked into these conversations where it's so, so horrific that we are already blaming the other person and kind of piling on with all of those that were saying, wow, this is awful. How that person could have done that. Well, we need to go get them, we need to do something, blah, blah, blah. So it creates a very strong, strong current of anger judgment that just keeps pushing forward. So as we come to the end of that story, you know, we did a podcast just recently and Colleen and I have been speaking about this for a couple of months now about balancing curiosity and judgment. How in God's name could we do that in this particular situation? Are there other things that could have happened? And is it all about me and how I see the world that's most important? So what's landing on you right now, Terry? Your shot. What are you thinking, brother?

Yeah, I'm going. I was thinking for us as leaders is we have to be aware of the drama triangle all the time. Right. And every conversation you have, you're sort of thinking, where am I at in that conversation? And just having that awareness. And I use, I use that a lot with my sister in law, you know, in the family dynamics. Right. Don't let yourself get sucked into the drama triangle. Right. Let them solve their problems. Of course I do the same thing. But understanding that is the first step in my mind.

I think awareness is everything. This is a part for the work we did just recently, Colleen and I, on you can't self regulate unless you are self aware. So things like the drama triangle and even this podcast, those of you listening are probably thinking, wow, when do I do this? And my answer would be, I do this all the time. And how do I keep myself in a space where I can be aware of something and aware of my own leaps into victim, support the victim, sympathize with the victim, rescue the victim, or persecute the person that persecuted the victim? Right. So leaders are always in this space. And I have heard these conversations in my office. As a leader, you just got to do something about Mr. So and so and Mrs. So and so. And what they want me to do is go beat them up and say, stop treating the person that way. And over time, by the way, I thought that's what I was supposed to do early on in my leadership career. Over time, through learning and learning, this kind of information around the drama triangle brought me to another level of awareness where I've got to look within. What is it about me that's making me jump up my ladder and think this person is a victim? Is there more to this story? What am I missing? I didn't do that very well in my early days. Colleen, what are you thinking?

Yeah, well, I think that, you know, just kind of what you said, where sometimes you just want to help. And we've worked with a lot of senior leaders, and that's just intuitively what they want to do. Right. They want to fix. They want to jump in. Well, Terry's overwhelmed. I'm just going to jump in and take care of that for him. Where that in and of itself is creating a drama triangle, because if I'm swooping in to support him, it shifts the relationship in a different way. So I think many times, and you mentioned this before, Ray, there are three scripted roles that we've already discussed a little bit, and many times they shift around. And many times with your story that was very complex about the gentleman. Right. And the officer who was arrested, there are layers of drama triangles. So sometimes it's not as simple as, you know, three simple roles of persecutor, you know, victim and rescuer. Sometimes it's multiple things going on simultaneously. So I love this sense of self awareness and recognizing how am I showing up in this situation? How am I continuing the roles to spin, or how can I show up in a different way and not make a leap based upon missing data or faulty data, but pause and really seek to understand in that space of curiosity, not judgment.

Yeah, yeah. I could actually feel very close to unconditionally love this person, even love them as a family member. And sometimes they're the ones that suck us into this even quicker because we do love them. Oh, that you couldn't have. It must be. They must have been bad to you. They must have done something awful. Blah, blah, blah. So I think that's really great. Terry, how's this? What's your thinking right now before we do a checkout?

Yeah, I think as a senior leader, and we were talking about that. I like that word pause as a senior leader to sort of sit back, reflect for a Minute of what's going on. Where am I at in the drama triangle? And get the facts. And then that story, you know, there was an investigation. That's not a negative thing. That's get the facts so that we can evaluate and then decide clearly based upon the facts of what needs to be done. So as a senior leader, things always don't reflect how they might appear. So get the facts and pause.

Yeah, I love that. Get the facts, Jack. It's such a critical component. And again, I loved your pausing. If I pause, then there is an opportunity for me to reflect before I react. Typically, the reactions are what get us. And then the reactions can become almost like a sea of reactions that are part of me because I made a comment. I'm with you. I'm piling on. People's careers can be ruined by things like this. They can be totally destroyed. So as our checkout, and I love doing this in our checkouts, we have all these folks listening to us. What's one. One recommendation that you would invite our listeners to act upon? If you had your way, what's one thing you would give to our listeners that they could act upon right away? Colleen, want to start?

Sure, absolutely. I think one thing to think about as I'm reflecting really on the drama triangle is that sense of self awareness. Many times it's so much easier for me to just say, terry's not doing his job. Terry won't show up. You know, and showing up to work on time, he's missing all of our safety meetings first thing in the morning versus how. What am I doing? How am I showing up in that conversation? What can I do differently in my conversation with him about this issue, et cetera. So I think that sense of self awareness and how you show up and how you might engage with that individual you might be having some drama with in a different way, and I'm out.

I love it. Colleen. If you're, like, agreeing with Colleen, we have a whole piece that you can hear on one of our podcasts on when this happens. How do I cannot. I cannot self regulate unless I am self aware. How do I design feedback loops so that I can begin to learn how people are seeing me in this situation? What am I missing? And that's a great point. We do not. We never have all of it. We have some of it. We never have all of it. Terry, what would you tell our listeners?

Yeah, in addition to being self aware, I think the word react is a key word for senior leaders or a leader. Right. Be careful in your reaction and pause and get the facts so that you can respond to the situation, not react to the situation. So critical.

Thank you, brother. So there's a difference here. And I don't want you folks that are listening to be mixed up about the fact that if there's a 91 1, we do react and we practice so that we can react well. And you know, our school systems are working on what happens if we have a shooter around us and everybody practices this. The military practices this in their bases, in their command centers. What do we do if they 911 active shooter? We practice and then we react to that. We're not talking about that. We're talking about somebody comes to you and says, let me tell you what happened and that we automatically get on board with whatever they told us without taking a pause to reflect and not react. And of course, we know what overreaction looks like too, so we want to stay out of that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. I think this one has lots of legs. There's probably someone you're thinking of right now who has been either beaten up in the media, allegations made that were not true, but you're guilty until proven innocent in today's society. The places on social media where people actually destroy someone else. Like my little slam book example, there are so many ways people get sideways with their work, community and family. And sometimes these particular getting sideways situations can be devastating to a family and to a career. So grateful you listened to us today. I hope you enjoyed this one. I know I did and I love the comments of my colleagues. So take care, be well. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to offer enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.