S2E57: Answering Your Workplace Drama Questions

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your workplace. I'm Cy Wakeman. Welcome to a very special episode of the No Ego Podcast. I have the VP of People Evolution, Alex Dorr, with me. Thanks for having me. And absolutely, I'm putting you to work because we Well, first of all, you're in a little bit of trouble.

What? What happened?

So I wake up this morning and somebody put out on our Facebook page, any questions you have for Sci's podcast, and we have over 100 responses. So I'm like, wow, pent-up need for Sci advice.

So I did that yesterday and I was like, just, I was helping with that and just left it be. And I didn't realize that was the response. It's amazing.

It's fantastic. So the good news is we have so many questions that we are going to use for some of these episodes with Alex and I to refresh some of the information. Some of you we'll be responding to on video. We'll do some special clips for you. But basically, we have a lot to cover. I think we have enough information, or enough questions for like the next 2 years of podcasting.

Exactly.

So, we have just a little bit of time today. I wanted to do a quick version and just answer some of the ones we just kind of scrolled through. But I'm gonna just go through, we're gonna pose a question. And I think we wanna start with kind of This could be my quiz for you to see how fluent you are in the philosophy. See if we're learning anything at all, you guys. Good job, good job, Facebookers. So here, I'm gonna read the first question from Susie. She said that, I don't always have 10 minutes to ensure that I don't react with emotion, and really sometimes feel like I need 10 hours to respond to a situation with grace, yet the response is often needed in 10 seconds. Thank you for any guidance on how to maneuver these right now, Situations. So, it's like how in the moment, 2 things, to defuse the drama as a leader, that's what our job is, but also to not add to the drama, and to respond with some toggle-up, high-minded leadership. What ideas are coming to mind for you to help Susie out with this?

You know, with each of these, I always, and I don't know if this is your approach, I guess if I went back and looked at more, but I always start with myself first before I jump into trying out a reality-based technique. And so for me, the first thing that comes to mind is I feel that stop judging, start helping is always our first— Always. Just, you should feel that first where you have a question. And what came to me there is when I think of stop judging, start helping, it's what story am I believing that I have to have the perfect response or a response in that 10 seconds? And this is something I'm working on in my own development, and as I practice Reality-Based Leadership, is this story about I have to have the right technique in that moment, the perfect technique.

I only get one shot.

It's so hard.

There's one thing I could do that would totally change the situation. Those are all ego things.

This whole, basically you play out a movie in your head that's in the future, that if I use this technique, the person's gonna totally toggle up into high self, we're gonna work through this situation perfectly, and all is solved.

Yeah, what would Sy do? I'll be Sy. I'll totally control the toggle switch, and I single-handedly can save the day.

Yeah, and so I think, like, before you even jump into what you might do next time in this situation, 'cause another thing I know about reality and the universe is you're gonna have a new opportunity at that, probably every day, if not weekly. And so I would look at editing that story a bit, and this is a technique we can talk more about if we need to, that, you know, I have to have a great response as a leader in that 10 seconds, you know, is it true? And with that, I know a technique that I love is that you always, after you edit that story, and you'll, what I've found out is you don't always have to have that perfect answer. In fact, saying that at times can be really authentic as a leader, depending on where you're at with this person in your relationship, and you can have some standard responses, which is the first piece of advice. That gives you a little boundary. I think we've called it a micro-boundary before. It's like, you know, wow, good to know, or, or thanks for letting me know about that. But then as you work through that story that you don't have to have the perfect response, and you realize that's not always true, that I have to nail the response every time, then you can be honest and say, you know, you've given me a lot to think about. I actually would like to take, you know, a couple hours and come back to this this afternoon if you have time. Or can we schedule another time after I've given this some thought so I can wrap my hands around, you know, how I'd like to help you with this? And so my first response is, and I don't know if I passed the quiz, is first always—

9 out of 10.

Stop judging, start helping. I missed something. And so as I work through that, then I get more familiar with when that comes. I'm more comfortable with it, 'cause I've reflected on it a bit, but then also I think you have these standard responses, Absolutely. And I tried to give a couple of them. You might have some better ones that feel natural to you, to give you some space there, because I think the reality is, you won't always, or you won't always be able to have that perfect response if it's a situation that truly surprises you, or something you haven't dealt with before.

Absolutely, absolutely. So, that's where I'd go. No, very, very, very good counsel, Alex. And I think there's always components into this as we go deeper into the philosophy. And you're talking about, like, what's my immediate reaction? So, I think there's a couple of dimensions, Susie, to this kind of what's my magic reaction. And so I really like, Alex, where you went with the pre-work. The pre-work is for you to really question your own story and thinking around, I have to have an answer, or an answer is the perfect response, or just because somebody's urgent about it, I need to match that urgency. Because a lot of times in my life, people will come up to me and they're like, you know, Sai, how would you code this? And I would rob them from their own development by having a quick answer. Or, Sai, what should I do in this situation? urgent. And so I think doing that pre-work of really asking yourself, do I always need to be ever-ready, on the spot, and am I reinforcing people's victim mindset that they need to bring all these emergencies to me? Oh. And so anytime that something comes your way, your first responsibility is to get yourself to neutral. And I love your stop judging, start helping. And notice whatever pressure you have, like, I have to know the answer. No, you don't. I have to respond immediately. No, you don't. Just because the request is out there doesn't mean that that dictates your response. I think it was—

It moves to top priority. Exactly.

And I think it goes back to kind of this open door concept. So it was Martin Luther King that said, I think, just, I don't have to answer to what you call me, right? You can call me whatever you want, but I don't have to answer to it. And I think that is a way where we get out of this, unhealthy relationship with folks. And so my response is exactly like Alex, start with always kind of your own personal work so that you can, as quickly as possible, stop judging and start helping. Get yourself to neutral, then ditch the drama, and then bring people higher in their consciousness by self-reflection. And put lots of pauses in there, be intentional, just really move away from that. So some ideas that I would have, I have some go-to responses that Alex already mentioned, Like, people come up to me and they're like, hey, Sy, do you have a minute? And I'm like, sure, what's up? And they tell me a story, and a lot of times they just, you know, are telling me a story, but they're not focused where I want them to focus. And so I love, wow, good to know, thanks for sharing that with me. Here's what I would like you to focus on next. Because when you have empathy, you also need a call to greatness. And so that's where you missed the one point. Yeah. It's like responding to it, but having people put energy either into self- self-reflecting or into putting their energy elsewhere. And a lot of times people in the moment, the reason I get, that you get riled up is in the moment they get you kind of trapped. And so a lot of leaders need memorized exit strategies.

Yes.

How can I get out of this situation? So I have some memorized exit strategies that's like, wow, you've given me some things to think about, why don't we get back together in a half hour and I'll kind of give you my best shot at that. So when you're a novice, when you're not able to just move pretty peacefully through the world, the best thing a novice can do is some pre-work to unhook from always having to have the answer, question that thinking, and then some memorized framework or routine responses.

You know, a teacher of mine said, once you have that exit strategy, so to speak, you won't be as afraid to get into stuff. So then you're not, you know, as a leader, fearful all the time. I just wanted to add that.

Absolutely. So I would memorize some, go-to responses. And then some of the responses can even be like go-to techniques. So if somebody hits me up in the minute, I can start to say, here's what I know, right? And here's what I'll get back to you on. Here's what I know right now, and here's what I'll get back to you on. Or here's what I can do for you right now, and here's what you can do for me.

Oh, wow.

So that we start to make those agreements that people have shared accountability. And here's what I can come back later with, and here's what you you can come back later with, right? And so those are like the immediate responses, but I would tell you, long-term, you need to start upping the skills of your people so that they bring you processed work rather than unprocessed work. If you're reacting and feeling like you can't stay neutral, Yeah. it's probably because people are bringing you unprocessed work, and so shared accountability is they really need to process it. So you're a novice, get yourself to neutral. How do I get to neutral? Is when somebody comes to me, instead of reacting like, I can't believe this is happening. I just go, there it is. I'm a leader, and people bring me stuff all day long, and there it is. This is exactly what I was expecting. Yeah. And so that you get past the shock, and also you listen for the details, so you're always translating. So people are like, we got 3 projects dumped on us. I'm like, we have 3 new projects, continue. Well, environmental services doesn't give a damn. Environmental services isn't showing the urgency we would like. Yeah. And it's a practice to really— It's still new travel. fill things in with neutrality. And so have some responses, good to know, here's what I'd like you to focus on next. Have a technique where I'm gonna listen through and repeat back to you what neutral would look like. And as I do that, hopefully you'll respond with more editing of your own story. But long-term, you guys, you've got to get the control of your open door. It becomes the portal for drama. And many of you don't have doors anymore, but it's the concept of I always have to be available to everybody all the time.

Approachable, yeah, open.

And that they don't have any responsibility for it. So what I found when my, um, I was approachable and I wanted to add value is people used me as like Wikipedia. They're like, Sy, how do you do this? And I would just tell them instead of saying, what have you considered? What are you unsure about? Where could you find that information? So instead of—

And that becomes a game because you felt like you got a lot done that day, didn't you? So you're answering a lot of questions. Oh, that's a great point.

Yeah.

But then you looked at your work You know, that you were supposed to do that day, and you're like, oh my gosh.

Yeah, I was firefighting all day, I have a legitimate reason why I didn't get the hard stuff done. But your ego loves a legitimate reason. Yeah, so I think you have to just really help people, if you can acknowledge with empathy what they're saying and toggle them into self-reflection, you can help build their confidence and help them grow, and to be able to handle more of these things by themselves, like, where have you checked for information, who Who do you think you need to talk to? And then long-term, teach people the tool that we have in the No Ego book called the SBAR. It's the best. Yeah, because when people would bring me unprocessed work, and I would get riled up because it was such heavy lifting, these are big problems. And people would come in and they're like, oh my gosh, things are falling apart, and this just happened, and I just don't know what to do, and I heard this, and I speculate this, and I think this. And so what would happen is they would bring me their big story, And I would be the one that would start processing the work. I'm like, I doubt that happened 8 times. Let me check. Let me call Frank. Let me see if that— and then I would start processing, and then the person who processes is the person who then takes action.

So true.

So it was always kind of a trap when people brought things to me, especially with some emotion. If I got drama triggered, my next act after I'm drama triggered is I will go fix this. I have solutions. I, I know best. I'm a genius. I'm activator. But when I do that, it reinforces the person who brought their work to me that they're a victim. It reinforces their ego's mind. It endorses the drama, right? Yes. So you endorse the drama, and it takes me away from my high-value work, and I basically have reinforced their belief that you're not capable of this, that things like this always need to come to me. And so it starts to really rob them of their development, and it feeds the drama, and it reinforces the victim mindset while endorsing the drama. You leave people toggled down.

Yeah, heavy hitters there.

When people come to you toggled down, your job is to toggle yourself up first, and then use self-reflection to toggle them up. So I just noticed that when people brought me the work, that the issue they wanted to talk to me about, it wasn't processed. And so one of my calls up to greatness is to say, and you don't teach this always in the moment, Right, you teach us preemptively to say, in the future, as you bring things to me, I would like you to use a tool for self-reflection so that you aren't bringing me unprocessed work. And that tool's called the SBAR, it's S-B-A-R.

Acronym.

And it's a clinical tool that I learned from some nursing professionals that I had the privilege to work with. And basically, it's fill in the blank. The S, the person bringing you the issue needs to fill in, in one sentence or less, what's the situation? Your job as a leader is to listen for the drama, right?

Same translating technique.

Same translating technique. And a lot of people, when they bring you the situation, it's 4 pages long. The situation needs to be 1 sentence long. You force self-reflection when you require people to write short rather than long, really boil it down to the essence. And these need to be written, you guys. It needs to be pen on paper, because the act of that, or PowerPoint or whatever, the act of that helps people reflect. And then the B is, what's the relevant background? And a lot of people believe they work for the History Channel, so they will give you like this long background.

Court cases long ago, you know, merging.

Yeah, well, we merged in 1989, and you have to go back to when we started. No, you don't. Relevant background is how does this relate to where we're going in the future? How does it connect into strategy? And then the A is your analysis, your assessment, your critical thinking. Is this fake news, or did you fact-check? Did Did you talk directly to the person you had the issue with? Have you reached out and, you know, looked at our— Crowdsourced. Crowdsourced, looked at the resources we already have. And then the R is come to me with recommendations. You might not know the solution, but I want recommendations. I want them plural because that builds mental flexibility. If you come to me with righteous indignation, what we have to do is the only right thing, you're in ego and preference. And tools like the SBAR are Another way that we can help people toggle up, they may not toggle up in the moment to our question for self-reflection, but assignments over time get that toggle switch loosened a little bit. Yeah, interesting. So it may not work the first time, and even when you come to me, I may say, let's take a moment, I'm gonna listen differently. And right in front of somebody, I take a piece of paper and I write S-B-A-R, and I say, so what I hear from you the situation, one sentence or less, is this, and here's what I pulled out as relevant background. What would you like to add to that? And here's where I think we need to be analyzing this, because we right now are without recommendations, and you're looking to me for those recommendations, I think through your own analysis. Now, this works over time. It's not the instant fix, because you need to be in relationship developing your people. So you start off with neutral yourself, calling people to greatness. If you can't If you can't call 'em to greatness, at least call time out, right? And be very clear about what you know right now and what you can come back with. But don't fall prey to, I have to talk to you immediately, because situations are rarely that urgent. They are often that emotional, but the emotion is fake emotion 'cause it comes from fake news, which is what drama really is.

It's a story, yeah.

And so, yeah, so I think, you know, Susie, hopefully that helps. Claim space, don't fall for, I need an answer right now. Call people up in short ways, small ways, like, where have you checked, what have you thought about? At least get them toggling a little bit to shared accountability, and then go for the home run. Teach people this process of the SBAR, and then start to really insist on shared accountability, that if you stop me in the hallway and you ask me for a minute, I will ask you for your part in this, which is the SBAR, the shared reflection.

And that, you know, last thing I'd add to that is, I forgot about the SBAR, to throw that in there, where that And that becomes such a predictable way that we've agreed on we're gonna communicate these tough situations or challenging situations, that that is just soothing to know your leader is going to use that. So it's both ways where it's, you have this agreed-upon way to talk through some challenges that is really concise, and then we can agree on next steps forward. So we've seen—

And standardized processes, standardized mail processes are soothing and relieving to folks. It really is caring about people. When people come to you and they just jump in and they want an answer, they just want relief.

Yes.

And it's not growth. And so stop relieving people and grow them instead, and whatever that looks like for you. But you've got to stop the dynamic where, you know, I can insist on something and I get it immediately, when long-term it's not what's good for me, and it's not what's good for the customer or the patient.

Yes, absolutely. Because I knew when you hear that, that at first sometimes people are going to be like, that's going to, you know, You know, be rude, but over time, it definitely develops a different—

And all this stuff you gotta do with open-heartedness, and even if you don't send them away to come back with it, you can say, let's think our way through this with a better process, more systematically. And so that's when you're a novice, for all of you out there, you don't have to know 100 of these, you have to know a couple of these. With your people, you need to be predictable, and what needs to be most predictable is that you ditch the drama, and then you defuse the drama with a call to greatness. And that's just a routine that you can always be going through. So, Susie, I hope that helps. You let us know. We want to know more about how you're using some of these techniques. So I have another one from Angela. And Angela, who I adore, who's an amazing reality-based leadership practitioner. Angela, shout out to Angela. She's a fan. and we love her. Angela's a great leader. So her question is, you know, Cy, I've got people that are— you got it? Okay, what's the— read it to me. Is

it this one? How do I coach the highly engaged but low accountable employee, especially when there might be a group of them in a certain area?

So whenever people tell me there is a group and they want to know about coaching, I say don't do group coaching. Yeah.

Right?

Interesting. that when you're meeting with folks, you go in with a plan and a tool, and you do work together, but the tool guides your energy away from why we can't to how we could. But for this type, you also need to look at individual coaching. So I'll start out on this one, Angela. It's curious to me when people say that we have highly engaged but low accountable people, because what that tells me is that somehow you're bending reality for them in order to be engaged, Somehow you're lowering the standard. I mean, if I'm a low accountable, but I love my workplace, I might not be being challenged enough.

Interesting, yeah.

Yeah, so we sort of—

When I first read that, I was like, you see, I was interested where you'd go with this.

Yeah, because a lot of times we confuse engagement with morale. Morale is how it feels to work here. Engagement implies like productivity, like motivation. Impact. Impact. And so, So as a leader, one of our main requirements is turning talent into productivity, and we accelerate talent and turn it into productivity through definitely engagement, right? But also through motivation. And we as leaders can't motivate others, but reality can motivate others. And so there is some way in which this group is being incubated, protected, coddled— Enabled. Enabled. Like, we're bending reality for this group because if it is is easy to engage at work, for a low accountable, we're pleasing the wrong people. So the same behavior can't please a high accountable and a low accountable, but a lot of leaders think that engagement and accountability are mutually exclusive, like if I really call my people up to greatness, I'll kill their engagement. Yes. And yes, you will when it comes to low accountables, but you don't have to force everybody to quit, Angela. What I want you to start doing, and you do this titrating, right, you're just upping the dose a little bit, is that you start one by one, Increasing and clarifying expectations. And you, if you do that in a mass form, like we're gonna have a big come to Jesus and everybody, and you have a big group of low accountables, We're gonna have a big come to Jesus. Yeah, you're gonna wreak havoc. And so what I want you to do is each month or each quarter, just say, we will be working on a new project or a new massive improvement, or we will be upping our game in the following ways, and that each month you're just moving this, You're moving up the challenges in the workplace, not all at once. Incrementally. Incrementally, while you're growing the people to meet those challenges. So map yourself out the next year, and just in your mind, what are the monthly challenges that you're gonna be putting forward to the whole group? And then individually coach people on where they need to grow next to be able to step up to those challenges. And so you're working the individual, and you're working the group, but the main piece here is you can up people's accountability, And maintain their engagement, those separate for a little bit where people get a little in pain. Hopefully then you can bring them back together where they're thrilled about how they can move forward. Yeah. But what happens in this case is a lot of people are having too few challenges at work. I remember this because I had an administrative support person once and she was like, the poster child. She loved the health system we worked in. She loved coming to work. She was the happiest person ever. She loved her colleagues, and eventually she would never retire because why would she stay at home when she could come in and in the meantime—

Still make good money. Yeah.

I would think about her doing my PowerPoint. I think, oh my gosh, that's such a hassle, so I'll do my own. And I would think, oh my gosh, I should ask her to arrange this, you know, event. And then I'm thinking, oh my gosh, that would be just like, too unbearable. And as a young leader, I just quickly did things myself. And so, of course, her engagement stayed high. She had very little expectations. And then the longer she was in her career, the more I took off her plate. So every year when it came time for her to wonder, what, should I retire? And she's like, should I give up X amount of money and be, you know, and go home? She's like, well, I make a lot of money for doing very little. Why would I retire? That's good. And by the time the next year came around, I'd taken even more off her plate. And so I believe that you might be confusing engagement for satisfaction or for contentment. And I want people— true engagement, sustainable engagement, is that people choose to engage given reality in kind of difficult times. Mm-hmm. So be really careful when people are like, well, I couldn't get this done because of this reality, and use that word given, given this reality, how will you deliver?

Yeah.

Well, I'll enjoy my job less if those are my requirements. Well, I can't dumb down the standard and change your requirements, and the enjoyment of your job really is a choice you need to make. So this is really false engagement if it's without accountability. It's really entitlement, and it's really, instead of worrying about keeping people's engagement, I think you need to see where you've lowered the standard, where you're enabling the people, and where one by one you have to start the weaning process and grow the people, because somewhere And there is a gap between what the patients need and what the organization needs and what the people are willing to deliver. If people are too comfortable in this current reality, then that engagement, you've purchased it with some currency.

It's temporary.

It's temporary.

And I think this goes back all the way to the source we don't talk about a lot, which after you get that set up, it's those 4 factors of accountability and a lot of coaching on those. You've, you've mentioned them with the given that. It's, it's back to first step commitment. So once you've laid out what, you know, the requirements are, the little challenge, it's, you know, can I count on you?

And that's where you test, that's where you test true engagement, because if the standards are, here's what I need, and I go, can I count on you, and people are like, no, then quit calling it engagement.

Yeah, as long as conditional, listen for the conditions, and then you, the given that piece would be factor 2, just to sum this up, which is that's then when we can teach and test true resilience, where it's, you know, those excuses that you just said might come in, you know, well, priorities changed. Given that priorities are always going to be changing, what could you do to stay the course, or who could you reach out to to get better ideas on how to navigate changing priorities?

Who's really great on this? And if you don't know the answer, how can we crowdsource this? That's resilience.

And then that's where third factor, ownership, comes in, which The true test of this I've found really powerful that you say is just in the conversation around ownership of results. Is it a nice easy conversation or is it a ton of blaming and blaming other departments? And then that would be the third factor is you'll have some different conversations once the standard's up where it should be and now we're asking, you know, what's our part in these results? And then you can see if your team is both engaged and highly accountable. Yeah. Those are some good tests. I

love it, I love it. It's going back to our basic accountability model. I mean, that's accountability 101. 101, 101. And so people have asked for some refreshers in that, and we'll do that. I think, Angela, like, a final answer, getting back to your question, is I would really question what you've labeled engagement. So if you say you have low accountables who are highly engaged, you either have coddled them from reality, you're enabling them, or it's not real engagement, because engagement is the willingness to be all in with the knowledge that there'll be some challenging circumstances. Otherwise, it's not really engagement, it's contentment, complacency, comfort, you know, I've gotten comfortable. That's true. It's enjoyment, and I see so many times where leaders confuse morale and motivation, or morale, which is what it feels like to work here, and true engagement, 'cause engagement says, I will bring extra parts of me to work, I will recommend this place to others, I will rise up to the challenge, And so I think it's— your real question, Angela, is how do I deal with low accountables in my workplace and take out the condition, but they're engaged? Because I think when you add that they're highly engaged, you're strapping your hands a little bit with the unspoken truth of I don't want to hurt their engagement, but this isn't real engagement. This is emotional blackmail, like, don't change anything, I'm super comfortable right now.

That's as you get deeper, that could be an extra source Yeah, we're gonna

think more about that.

That's powerful.

That's powerful questions. You know, your questions are so helpful to me because when I hear about your real questions and what you're dealing with out in the real world, I can come up with new tools. I, I'm working on that next book, and I'll know what you need from me and our thinking and what's really working out there. So in this podcast, we jumped on and we answered a couple quick questions. Trust me, there'll be many more podcasts sprinkled in with our regular guests, that Alex and I are thinking about these questions. So there are 100, over 100 out there. That's not enough, folks. Go out to our business Facebook page and tell us what you're dying to know.

Join the party, there is a bunch.

Join the party. So that's your assignment, is think about your questions. And when you ask your questions, if you ask me, you know, how to solve the problems of the world, you know, it's a little bit, if I knew that answer, I wouldn't be sitting here doing a podcast for you. just appoint myself as God and move on. But have your questions, give me, you know, some of your tough ones, but make 'em a little bit specific. And if they aren't specific, I'll try with my background to pull out what I think you're asking. We'll get there. So, we love you being involved. We hope that you are sharing what we offer with others. Don't just keep this stuff to yourself. If you know people not listening to our podcast, get after 'em. If you know people not getting getting our newsletter, you know, get after them, get people subscribed.

That invitation. That invitation. You just invite someone else if they're struggling to podcast.

Absolutely, absolutely. And again, one technique won't work, but over time, a whole different approach will work. I recently heard a great quote or story I'll leave you with, is there was a student who was a monk, and he kept asking his teacher, like, how do I get totally absorbed by this? How do I be soaked with this knowledge? And he wanted, like, the answer. And what the teacher said to him is, you know, if you walk through the mist long enough, your sleeve will become saturated. So the sleeve of your garment will become saturated. Mm-hmm. So even if you're out there, you're not dunking it in water, but if you are out engaged in trying these things long enough, you will become so much more fluent, you'll become more organic and natural. It will live inside of you. The work will live inside of you, as Byron Katie likes to say. Love that. So stay with us. We don't have the, the answer that will solve all of your world problems, but we have a lot of information and ideas that you could try. So have a fantastic week out there, NoEgo listeners, and if nothing else in the world, be kind to people, Love 'em up, stop judging, and stay in there and keep helping.

Yes. Love it. Thank you.

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman.