The Covid Era and its economic and labor market impacts have certainly created challenges for those of us who need workers (as in warm bodies) to function in our workplace. Among those challenges has been an apex in what I’ve come to call the Perfect for Me Workers, who simply job hop to the next place desperate for help if work conditions aren’t perfect. This has had employers treading on pins and needles in the Covid Era, often avoiding employee confrontation at all costs for fear of workers walking, a result of which in our observations coaching the coaches has been tolerating employee conduct unbecoming.
Among that conduct unbecoming is drama. Workplace drama is nothing new, of course, but in the Perfect for Me workplace, employers have definitely been more willing to tolerate it.
We’ve written and talked a good bit of late about the so-called Great Return of workers to the workplace, and we’re seeing this coming to fruition in a fair number of practices and places. As we experience the economic domino effect of stimulus money, labor shortage, consumer demand and supply, resulting inflation, resulting high interest rates, resulting inevitable impact on small (and even big) business and likely resulting unemployment increases to come, it seems we can anticipate a Transitive Property effect. If A above equals B and B equals C which equals D, E and F, then A equals F. And a silver lining in all this is we’re likely coming to a time when workers will again value jobs that will be a good bit harder to come by. And those pins and needles on which employers have been walking will likely be getting less sharp.
Which brings us to this month’s topic, workplace drama. It has been amazing to me how quickly and resoundingly the tendency by employers to tolerate workplace drama increased with the Perfect for Me workplace of the Covid Era, and despite the temptation to say that is what it is, a more productive and vastly more joyful strategy is to make a decision that it’s time to put a stop to it.
As we often do in the THRIVE blogs and podlectures, this seems a great time to share some recent Help Desk consulting with colleagues who have made or are ready to make that decision. We’ve definitely had opportunity to crystalize thinking and coaching regarding workplace drama in the past couple years, and we’re glad to share a little of that in six recommended chronological strategies.
Drama Reduction Step #1: Make the “No More Drama” Decision!
As with all matters of improvement, the first step is simply to make a decision. No more drama. The fact that work situations can be challenging and even downright hard at times, which we all recognize, doesn’t mean anyone gets to make it miserable for us. Period. A great workplace culture is important to and for all of us here, and no one gets to make life miserable for the team. If someone is compelled to make challenge and difficulty become misery and toxicity, no matter how good they are their work, it’s simply better they move along. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear and heed teammate inputs on improving our workplace, practice and patient care, it simply means that from this day forward, inputs will be helpful rather than destructive. They will be for purposes and in spirit of improving life in our workplace, not perpetuating negativity and conduct unbecoming. We have the opportunity in our small businesses, our practices, to establish and abide in the culture we DESIRE here, not something we’re stuck with. So as CEO, make the decision that we’re done with drama, and stand by it.
Drama Reduction Step #2: Make the Practice’s Position on Drama Clear to the TEAM
As with all decisions, once we’ve decided this is how it’s going to be, it’s a simple matter of putting it into motion.
The first step in doing that is making crystal clear to the team there will be no conduct unbecoming. We make clear that although we’re keenly and on-goingly interested in hearing teammates’ suggestions for improving our work and workplace, we’re equally uninterested in drama. We indicate our appreciation that challenge will always be part of meaningful work, but that we’ve made a decision that a joyful workplace and team culture is too important for us to allow challenges to make our workplace something we don’t want it to be or team members to conduct themselves in a way not consistent with our desired (and hopefully stated) culture.
Simply put, nobody gets to turn challenge into misery or toxicity. Nobody gets to be a culture torpedo.
That said, here’s exactly how we planned, scripted and presented that last week in a Leadership Team Huddle in colleague’s practice where emotionally charged venting (“going off” on things without any helpful suggestion of action), negativity and behind-doors criticizing has become more and more the way of things, particularly by a specific team member (who is talented in the work and by that was holding the practice hostage):
After conversations with several team members last week, it’s clear we’ve allowed the challenges of the last couple years to at times derail our team culture, and therefore our work. We realized in our reflections the most important thing we can do for one another as teammates is contribute to a positive, joyful workplace we can all value and enjoy, and to be worthy of faith by our teammates that we’ll contribute to that even when the going gets tough. …As a practice and as individuals we’ll have our days, but no matter how challenging they are, we’ve made the decision our conduct as team members will reflect who and what we want to be, not what the day’s challenges drive us into being. We can all contribute to making the practice better for our patients and our team, but we’ll do so in a spirit of teamwork in identifying and taking initiatives to do so, not by criticizing and venting. …So I wanted to share this with you all, and I welcome and am glad for your thoughts …
Our good old Rule Number Two in action once again, right Colleagues? …If you want someone (including your team) to know something, tell ‘em.
Drama Reduction Step #3: Take the CULPRIT(S) to Task!
It’s a fine thing to make clear the way for the entire team, but much to the discomfort of many practice CEO’s, doing so is not a substitute for taking the individual culprit(s) to task.
The case above is absolutely one such situation. There is a main culprit, who of course is good at her technical work and with patients but is (I don’t think by intention) the main cause of the drama. In a relatively short and to-the-point meeting, it’s time we make this clear to her under no uncertain terms (fully supported by the Leadership Team and with a few specifics ready), indicate the specific change in behavior and course expected and indicate when we’ll next meet to discuss progress to those ends. So it’s time to run that 4 A’s offense we discussed a few blogs back – Appreciate, Address, Action, Account.
Drama Reduction Step #4: Make Clear and Systemize the Policy and Procedure for Addressing Improvements Going Forward!
The first role of a great leader is to deliberately establish the team’s reality. The second is to systemize that.
Great leadership is about is about positively influencing the way individuals and the team think. Great management is creating system that enables the team and makes and keeps that thinking deliverable and sustain it over time. So leadership is influencing, management is systemizing that influence.
Here’s how we’re systemizing (managing) the influence (leading) in our colleague case study starting this very week:
1. We made a decision on team conduct – No more going-off with solutionless venting and other team conduct unbecoming.
2. We shared this decision and its origin in a Team Huddle.
3. We will be having Weekly Practice Vitals Review the first three Wednesdays of every month to conduct the business of the practice and ensure critical team dialogue.
4. We will have a Monthly Team Development Meeting the final Wednesday of each month in which we will focus 100% on policy/procedure and training.
5. When team members identify needed improvements and desire change accordingly, they will request this topic be included in the Policy and Procedure portion of Monthly Team Development Meeting. They will be invited at that time to summarize the issue at hand and suggest initiatives/actions to bring about improvement.
And there it is, colleagues … the leadership we need to stop a team’s developing tendency toward unproductive, team-damaging drama; the management needed to make positive influence deliverable and sustainable.
Drama Reduction Step #5: Hold Everyone, Including Yourself, to Account
Great culture is not about crossing your fingers and hoping everyone gets along. Vastly more deliberately, we define as a team (we’ve talked and written a great deal about the importance of team input in this) the specific culture we desire and clearly state that in what we at THRIVE call a Culture Statement. This Culture Statement is not just dreaming or wishful thinking about how it is in our workplace. It’s not a when you’re in the mood to be a teammate guide. It is our absolute team true north. Our team’s deliberate and collective answer to the question, “What do we want it to be like here?” Something we not only deliberately define, but also something to which we compel ourselves, and we require that all team members abide in it. That doesn’t mean no one ever has a bad day or we never have team conflict. It doesn’t even mean we don’t screw up now and then. But it does mean that we’re always mindful of our conduct in how we treat team members, no matter what.
Drama Reduction Step #6: Be the Sherriff or Designate One!
A decision to be the team without drama, to not let challenge and difficulty make life miserable, is a serious team life decision. A total team game changer. But the decision has to be real, and to be real, it has to be enforced. Not enforcing the rules means not taking the rules seriously, and always leads to the “team eye rolling” that comes with a culture of saying but not doing.
Again, no drama doesn’t mean teammates can’t have a bad day or even that they can’t at times be emotionally charged and even full-on ticked off about something (even Jesus turned over the tables in the temple!). But it does mean we don’t allow our challenges, emotions and disagreements to get the better of us in how we treat one another. It simply means there will be no team conduct unbecoming, and someone needs to enforce that.
If you’re willing to do that, Doc, to be the enforcer, great. But if you’re not going to do it, I suggest designating someone else (a partner, office manager, Chief Communication Officer, etc.) and fully and openly supporting their doing it. We need to be together on this.
Friends, how much sweeter would practice life be without the drama? (…sweet enough, in fact, that when we recruit new team members these days, we nearly always mention in the post that “we love team spirit and we don’t do drama!”…) As we think about a fresh new year on deck and our resolutions for it, how about top of the list is NO MORE DRAMA?!