103: How Drama Multiplies

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Reality Based Leadership podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dorr, CEO of Reality Based Leadership. And this episode is one I've been meaning to make for a while, and I had it in my notes here. And I think it's a fascinating topic that many of you that are really, you know, getting into ditching the drama on your teams, you're going to enjoy. And, um, as you know, at this podcast, we are giving you the latest and greatest tools to help you ditch the drama from your teams. Build alignment and accountability in your groups and call people to greatness. That's what we do here. And so in each episode, I'm trying to keep it to about 15 to 20 minutes. We're going to talk about either maybe a question that came up in one of my recent speaking engagements. Maybe it's questions that came in from our fans that are, you know, saying, go deeper into this topic. And I like to bring those here and just have an outline of my thoughts, but just speak freely about what tools you might bring into that situation. What's some of the research, the universal principles behind it? What does reality-based leadership have to help you find clarity, to help you find maybe a different approach to be able to turn towards that person that's struggling or the team that's off track and call them to greatness? So that's what we do here. And in this episode, this topic that I've been meaning to bring up for a while, was around the idea of— really, it's a question. Does drama have a bigger multiplier than our 3x multiplier that we found in our second book? First, in this episode, I'm going to explain, if you've never heard of this concept, The idea of one drama, 2, it having a multiplier, 3, if your eyes got big there thinking it has a 3 times multiplier, you're thinking 3 times to what? What does all of this mean? And so many of us, I think we can understand that drama when it's happening on a team, it spreads. It gets us away from results and happiness. And that's what we study at Reality Based Leadership. And we found, uh, 25 years ago that the average person was spending about 2 hours per day. And in our most recent work, the average person is now spending 2.5 hours per day in drama. And so we're trying to figure out why, one, is that going up? Are leaders using the right tools? Do we have the right information out there? That's right now, it sounds like it's contributing to more drama and having our teams struggling to be able to get results and be engaged in this current work environment. And so that's what all of our work is, but definitely around this topic of the multiplier. In our second book, we looked at how do you measure performance of a team? And really, what are the ways we are currently doing that? And so a little bit of background before we get into this, this idea of it having more than a 3x multiplier is we wanted to try and figure out how can we, in a neutral way, look at the value that someone adds to a team, the value of their work. And for years, the main way, and even with many groups we still work with today, They're using performance reviews, the annual performance reviews. And these often are on a scale of 1 to 5, let's say. And as we dug in there and said, you know, how are your teams doing and what's going on and how are you measuring the value they're adding? Many people said performance reviews. And one of the groups I worked with early on in my career, everybody was 4s and 5s out of 5s. They were rock stars. They were, you know, 5 out of 5. My first career was professional basketball, so I was kind of new to this. And they said, this person's a 5 out of 5 in this specialty at this hospital. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, today you're saying today I get to meet the Michael Jordan of this specialty. And I don't want to start a debate in this podcast or in the comments on YouTube about who's like the 5 out of 5 basketball player. For some, it might be LeBron, some, some it might be Kobe, but I am thinking. Think of the best player in the world at this specialty. So the best in the world at what they do. So I had a chance to meet this person and I went up and tried to give her a hug and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I get to meet you. And for me, she had an aura around her and I think she didn't walk. She like floated into the room we were in. And they almost kind of kicked me out and said, Alex, you can't be, you know, hugging these random people. And I'm like, but that's, they're, they're best in the world at what they do. They're a 5 out of 5. They can't perform any better. And then they're on the same team. There was like a nurse that was a 5 out of 5, and I was, couldn't believe I got to meet her. And then I'm like, they're on the same team or in the same location. This is mind-blowing. And then I got pulled into another meeting and it essentially was looking at the results of this group and they're benchmarked really well. And what I found there in that meeting was they were really not hitting their compliance numbers. They weren't hitting their outcomes. They weren't hitting a lot of the The goals they were supposed to be delivering on as far as value, um, to their patients, you know, patient experience and all that. So I got to thinking, and we saw this trend happening everywhere, is how can you have all rock stars, top performers, but then they're not delivering the value that you need in your organization, your business, your firm, you know, whatever it is you do. And this is where we started to see this disconnect between performance. And there was another element that we often, because it's a hard conversation, Many people are overrating people's performance, which we'll talk about here shortly, and the total value that someone adds. We found there's more to the value of someone's work and how they contribute to a team. And in all of that, we thought we need a way with our research on drama to have a conversation about this. And this has gotten really exciting recently because some of my heroes that I really look up to, the Brené Browns, the Simon Sineks, the Adam Grants, they're, they're in our leadership space, amazing content. Definitely if you're a leader interested in, you know, growing your leadership, evolving your teams, all great people to also be following to mix with what we do. And I started to listen because they started to podcast together and there's been a couple different episodes. And what I thought was so fascinating, that's fascinating for today's topic, is as they're talking about challenges with the organizations they help support and speak in and talking about their leadership challenges. Each one of these podcasts by about the 45-minute mark, and don't quote me on it because I don't know exactly when it starts, but they started to talk about this challenge of when you have on a team someone that's a toxic genius or someone that is super good technically, or they have a lot of knowledge, but then basically my words, not theirs, they're super high drama. They have a high hassle factor. They're not a good team player. And they really, as they were talking about it, had, they were dancing around how to handle that. It was really a stumper. And I think it is for a lot of groups in the leadership development space is what are some ways to start that conversation with a high performer that's high drama? And I was so excited because this work we've had at Reality-Based Leadership, I think since 2015, where we started a conversation and started to try and quantify That drama quotient. And all of us have one and it's beyond our performance because there's really what we found is 3 components to the value you add on a team or really to the work. If you're a solopreneur, to the work you do, there's your current performance. Then there's your future potential, really your readiness for what's next minus, and here's the key, your emotional expensiveness. Drama. That's a minus. The first 2 are what you add to any interaction, team, project, or experience. The last one's what you take away beyond your salary, benefits, hourly pay. It's your hassle factor. It's your drama quotient. It's your freakout factor. And we all can't get around this. We all have the human condition. This is all part of the value we add each day. And this is the unspoken thing that we all know about. Because whenever we teach this, or whenever I bring it up at Reality-Based Leadership, people are like, thank you for naming the elephant in the room. And so let's look at this equation a little bit more detail, and then we'll get into the conversation of does it have more than a multiplier? Because you're still probably thinking, where's the multiplier? Well, current performance plus future potential, and then drama we found has a 3x the negative. It has a 3x the negative. So real quick, just going through it, current performance is on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 is low. That'd be like not performing. You're on a performance plan. Maybe I joke, you've been told to stop buying your company's logo wear because they're about to transition you out. That would be like a 1. A 3, which is different than how a lot of people think of performance in this equation. The 3 is, are you delivering consistently even towards your stretch goals? Like, are you currently delivering what the organization needs? Not what you like to do, not what you're really good at, not what you were first hired to do, not what you did 3 years ago. Are you doing what the organization needs now and delivering it consistently? And for some of us, with all the change and the restructuring and the uncertainty and how our businesses are trying to respond to the new marketplace and all of the disruption, that could be very different. So have you checked in and said, I, am I currently delivering and do I know what my organization needs me to deliver? That would be a 3. Now a 5 is best in the world, as I said, at what you do. Curve breaker. And these groups, if you have them, some of the organizations you all know that I get to work with, fortunate enough to work with, you do have the 5s of the world. They're inventing the future. They are breaking through. They are creating new products. They are finding new efficiencies that we never thought possible that transform our business. Now, if someone is a 5, they shouldn't be a 5 every year unless they're breaking through like that every year, then they would be a 5. But a lot of times someone was a 5 for something they did in 2009, and then they really haven't been compliant. They haven't been nice. They haven't been good to work with since. But as they're being a nightmare on our teams or they're being disruptive or they're resisting all change, we go, yeah, but in 2009 they did this awesome thing. And I go, that's great, but that was 2009. Like, didn't we already shore up the bonus and the salary? And, you know, we had a celebration and acknowledgement of that. Like, that was beautiful, but now we're in, you know, 2026. Like, what are they doing today? And that keeps that performance, current performance, and not resting on the laurels of the past. It keeps us in continuous improvement. So that's why I love this equation. And so that would be a 5. Now, another thing, sometimes it's, you get in trouble for even saying this nowadays, is if someone's a 5, truly a 5, breakthrough, curve breaker, we should capture them like they're a unicorn, study what they do, and their 5, if it's sustainable, becomes the new process and everyone else, that's the new 3. So then we all level up. But a lot of times that 5 is a 5, but they're working 100 hours a week. Or they have, you know, some certain element of brainpower that we all don't have to be able to handle certain, you know, taxing and annoying tasks like that. They can just power through it. And so that might be where that 5 is not sustainable and not everyone could do that, but that continuous improvement would be standardizing how they do that. And that becomes the new 3. So that is the current performance. Now, then comes future potential. Are you ready for what's next? Are your skills going to be relevant in 1 to 3 to 5 years from now? Are you keeping up with the times? Now, one is someone allergic to training. They're on your team and you say, hey, we got this awesome webinar speaker. Here's this opportunity to go to a conference. And their first response every time is like, do I have to go? Is this thing mandatory? Is there going to be a sign-in sheet? You know, is my leader going to know? Or the whole transactional thing. It's like, well, I'll only do learning or development as long as it leads to bump in pay, new opportunities. Like it's transactional. And that would be a 1. Now a 3 is someone who's keeping up with the times. They're most likely tech savvy. They're aware of trends in your industry or profession. They're aware or becoming aware of their conscious and unconscious biases. They're citizens of the world. Like I can't engage you at work if you're not engaged in life. They are leaning in. Now, a 5, I joke these are aliens sent from another galaxy to save us all. They're inventing the future. They are curve breakers. And it's not just about inventing. It can be efficiency and finding breakthroughs in our business, but that'd be a 5. And so thinking about that, as you just are maybe reflecting on your current performance and future potential yourself, I'll just be honest. I'm a speaker and a trainer, and I am a CEO of our company. Now I have some speeches where, you know, I just got some awesome feedback that I was so touched by that this was like, um, this client said, you know, we've been coming to these leadership conferences for 6 years. And for some reason, this one just hit different with practicality. And I just think this is really going to transform my team. And those messages just like warm my heart as feedback to make sure, you know, you're, you're, you're having an impact. Like we all love that. And so I get that message and I'll be honest with you. The ego starts to say, whoa, I'm getting pretty good at this. And then I think, oh my gosh, maybe I need to get paid more. I need some different benefits. And the human condition comes in and says, maybe I'm a 4 or a 5. And then I get honest because my competition speakers worldwide, that's who I'm competing against for these conference stages, these keynote stages. And some of the competition I'm competing against, one of our metrics is New York Times bestselling books. And I like to ask my audience, how many of those do you think I got? And they like to guess and they say 1 and I say less than 1, go a little lower. I'm at 0. Now my book I'm bringing out in September, which I'm excited to tell you guys all more about, that we're going for a bestseller. We hope you're involved in that. We hope you get it for your teams, all of that stuff, but I'm not there yet. So I'd say I'm giving some decent information, helping people think differently, giving some tools. I'm a 3 in my performance out of 5. Now, my future potential, am I ready for what's next? I'm studying how the adults like to learn. I'm putting out new content. I'm trying to update some of our products and the way we train, but am I in, you know, inventing the future of the speaking industry, doing some really innovative things there? I'm not at the forefront of that. I'd say I'm a 3. 3 plus 3, I'm a 6. You're thinking that's a lot of value, but then comes the drama quotient and it's a negative. And one would be low drama. These are drama diffusers. These are those individuals that we come in and we just have no clarity. There's absolute chaos. I mean, we can't see clarity at all. It's so foggy in what we're trying to do. And they swoop in and they're like, what's the goal here? And where are we off track? And how can we get there? And everyone gets on their best behavior. And all of a sudden we have like 3 action items that are going to get us to the goal. And we got commitments and you're like, Did I just have like a daydream there? Like, what was that? That's like a 1. These people float through the earth and just clean up the drama on our teams. Now, a 3, we cover this in The Equation, is the typical person who believes they have the right to vent pretty consistently. They judge instead of help. They resist change. They are not aligned with the organization and always want to be consulted on everything. They lack accountability and they withhold their buy-in. These are some of the sources of drama. Now, a 5, we won't even go there, is just kind of a hot mess. This is where we're on a call and everyone's smiling and we're like, someone's like, why is everybody so happy? It's like, oh, Alex took his first vacation over to Europe in 2 years and now we can actually move a meeting forward without answering 1,000 questions that we've already answered because Alex is out of here. So that's just giving you the scale. Now, to break this down, I'd say I am a reluctant 2. Even though I teach this for a living and supposed to be the best expert in the world on it. And I write about this, I write books on this, and I screw it up at Only Daily. So I'd say I'm aware of drama working my programs. So I'm a 2. 6 minus 2, I'm at a 4. You're thinking decent amount of value in this new equation, but that's where in that second book, there was a 3 times multiplier. Drama had a 3 times multiplier. One, because it spreads. 2, I also think about you have 2 top performers on your team. I want you to get them in your mind. Got them? Now say you need them to cover a project or someone's out sick, or just, we have to flex a little bit. Say, hey, can you cover this for us? Person A, top performer, is like, absolutely happy to help. I'll run over there, get a brief, you know, or if you give me a brief and I'll figure out how to plug and play. Others have helped for me. Happy to jump in and be resilient for the team. That's person A. Person B, also a top performer. You say, hey, Got an emergency over there. Can you cover for us? And this doesn't happen all the time. It's just a thing that's come up. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who else have you asked? And do you have an Excel spreadsheet of all the times you've asked me and not other people? And, uh, you know, is that like 2 miles on the other side of town? Are you going to cover my miles? And I'm kind of a Starbucks, not a local place. So can you get me a Starbucks and can you make sure it's on my stars? And, and which one's more valuable for the same request? And it's not that you can't have boundaries, not that you can't say no, I get that. But in this one flex we need for the team, those are different total in their value. But if you only measure performance, they're both high performers, but one has a bigger drama quotient. And so that's where the 3 comes in. So that 3 becomes, or my, my 2 becomes a 6. Now 6 minus 6, I'm a 0. And now 0 doesn't mean I add no value. 0 is the new ego-free number. I call it the work-life balance number. Like if you want a great career that's fulfilling, and then you have energy left over for family, friends, this word I'm learning called hobbies or pets or whatever it is you want to spend time with after work. I love a zero in that equation. I delivered a 3 at least. I gave what the organization needed, what our salary, our contract was. I stayed ready for what's next. I'm not falling behind for what the world needs. So then I have to resist change. So my, my future potential readiness is good. And then minus my drama quotient, I'm aware and really staying solid on that. So it is clean. We do a high five at the end of the day with my colleagues. I'm like, see you tomorrow. They're like, no, no, no, I'll see you tomorrow. And I'm like, we leave work even. And I often ask how many of us would like to leave work even with energy left over for all of those things with meaningful work. And we don't have to bring all the work home with us. That's a beautiful thing. That's what I'm passionate about. And that's why I love this equation. Now, that is a quick run through that equation. Now let's get to that really cool conversation around this I had at a session recently in New York City. This executive was pretty quiet the whole time, really reflective. You know, sometimes I'm not sure, is it resonating? Have they heard it before? But I'm just doing my thing. She comes up after and she says, you know what, Alex, I really love that equation as a different way to think through the total value someone adds and to make sure we're not doing what we call fuzzy math, where I'm like, oh, they're a rock star, but they resist all change. I'm like, what's your definition of rock star? What's your definition of a high performer if they are high in drama? And she goes, but I think at certain levels it might be more than 3x drama. And I said, what do you mean? It's not that it's just the different levels of your career, but leaders, the moment you get higher up in leadership, Everybody's watching. They're watching your nonverbals. They're watching how you react to something we weren't consulted on. They're watching how when someone brings you a disruption or an unpreferred reality, they come in low and what I call low self. Do you meet them down there and collude and say, oh my gosh, operations always does that to us. That's a nightmare. This is never going to be figured out. Do I spiral with them, especially as a higher level leader, as I'm working my way up my career? That might be more drama. You know, one bad day for something like a high-level executive or a CEO, and it's not as humans, we can have days that we aren't at our best, but really having one bad drama day, or we're not being intentional, that can have a ripple effect for a long time where people see that you subtly, as you communicate a change, they see that you're not bought in. You might say, you know, team, there's been a lot of talk about this. You know, I went to bat for you. I don't necessarily agree with it. Um, out of the goodness of your heart, so if you could follow this, it's just kind of what we have to do. One announcement like that of a change that's decided, but it's not my preference and I can't get aligned with it. My team knows that right away. I'm not bought in. And my responsibility is to have them buy in. So the lack of buy-in, which is a key source of drama in that equation, Is going to be rough. It's going to be hard to get it back. And so as a leader, I just want all of us thinking here, whether you're just starting as a leader or you've been working your way up the ranks, or maybe you're at the executive level, is that drama quotient might be even more important for how you respond to things, how you communicate change, how you model your alignment to the organization, or how in those moments where it's easy to point fingers, to take personal accountability and say, here's my part in it. Here's what I've done helped or hindered, and here's what I'm willing to do to make it right. All of this really starts to add up. And so I've gotten thinking about in my career, you know, both now that I'm CEO, this really sparked like, how am I responding to challenges within our small business? How am I supporting those that I coach in executive coaching to say, you know, some of the way you've had your friendships or the way you've gotten together and maybe Had a moment where you just unload some of the stresses of the month or the week with your, with some colleagues that now you're a higher level leader. Some of those dynamics you just have to be really watched for because just the dynamic has changed. And now at your level, everyone's watching. And I often say where the leader goes, so go the team. So if I'm having a toggle down day, if I'm colluding, all of that my team follows. And so I'm thinking myself in how to show up, you know, more neutral as things hit me. What I love is having 3 standard responses I was taught from my mentor. When there's drama that comes my way and I wasn't ready for it, I like to start with this response. Wow. Good to know. It just buys me at least 5 seconds of space to not say my first response when I'm like, how the heck did that happen? We've done this. We've talked about this 100 times. I like, wow, good to know. Thank you for letting me know. Hmm. That's good stuff. You're giving me a lot to think about. Those responses as a leader, just adding those can change everything. Standard responses to give you some space when there's drama to at least buy you 5 seconds to be able to respond in a better way and in a more, uh, neutral way. Will change your leadership. It'll help to not exponentially grow that 3x multiplier on drama and spread it to your team. But just be watching as well. I'm thinking a ton about nonverbals, you know, um, you know, in a meeting that we're talking about something that has got some back and forth and we're, you know, the spirit's good, but we're really having some disagreement. Am I hunching my shoulders? Am I breathing harder? Am I interrupting anybody, especially if you're in a leadership position? Am I making sure that everyone gets a chance to speak and say their part? Do I sigh really loud? I know this is, some of you are like, never would I do that. But just, uh, I've heard some leaders accidentally sigh when someone brings up, you know, something that frustrates them, or it's, you know, bringing up an issue that has a little bit of scar tissue, or they were on the team that already got through that and it's not perfect. It's kind of their baby project and now someone's poking at it. They're like, oh, you know, all of that. Your team sees. And I know it sounds maybe a little stressful. Maybe there should be some benefit of the doubt on the other side. I get that. If I'm coaching someone else that's upset that their leader's doing this, I might be thinking, how do we give benefit of the doubt? How do we recognize everybody's human? How do we have second chances? Um, you know, grace and tolerance, all of that. But as a leader, I want to do my best to show up and make sure I'm not contributing to a bigger point of that drama. So stuff to think about here. Um, and looking forward to seeing your reactions to this. It was a great thought provoker for me, and I wanted to get this out to all of you as my listeners to just get us thinking that as you're stepping into leadership and feeling that, that influence you have, let's just be mindful that we're not contributing more to drama than that equation already shows us. So let's keep ditching the drama, keep loving your teams up. And let's keep calling ourselves in this podcast and others up to greatness. I'll see you on the next episode.