Joe Patti published a spectacular article on 9/18/2013 titled Drama Is A Choice that, among other things, examines the long term impact of becoming conditioned to operating in high drama environments. He suggests that even though there are no shortage of reasons why arts groups are operating in extended crisis management mode, that doesn’t mean some of it isn’t brought on by choice.
Patti’s post reminded me of an article I published nearly a decade ago titled Seeing Past The Anger that examined how managers can actively filter out unnecessary drama. The article is old enough that it predated reader comment functionality (can you imagine it?) and I recall being surprised at the number of email messages from managers taking issue with the post and asserting that there was value in listing to vitriolic complaints.
I had more or less forgotten about that post until reading Patti’s opening paragraph (emphasis added):
You may have heard the phrase, “He who yells first, loses.” This is a rule that is often used in beginning acting classes because anger is an easy emotion to go to when faced by the obstacles presented by the other people in your scene or exercise. In order to force the student to explore and exercise all the options available in human interactions, anger is often removed as a choice.
Certainly, it is one thing to remove anger in an exercise but something entirely different in real world conditions. Nonetheless, everyone in the field has a responsibility, doubly so during the Season of Discontent, to make an extra effort to refine the skills needed to see past the anger and remember that drama is a choice.
But now that comments are a reality, I’m curious to know what you think; but first, go read Patti’s post and my post from 2004. Yes, that’s a good bit of reading but you’ll be glad you did.
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If you are operating in extended crisis mode, you can control the urgency and the situation – for instance, deficits must be dealt with NOW, this fiscal YEAR, instead of having constructive and rational (and calm) discussions and working together to deal with the new situation. See any parallels?
It is a choice to be in solution mode instead of problem mode. The problem mode is what mainly creates all the drama. “Woe is us” only will work for a short time. Constantly wanting to be bailed out will only work for a short time. Positive, becoming self-reliant, solution mode is the better way to go!
Much of my own job amounts to delivering bad news of various kinds to businesspeople, which sometimes leads to nasty conflicts. But to do my job effectively, I don’t get the luxury of disregarding someone’s words just because they’re having a bad day, were caught off guard, have a fat ego, or whatever else it is that’s causing them to be yelling at me.
So, I agree with both Patti’s article and your blog post: we do have a choice to avoid drama, and should strive to remain calm in heated discussions for all the obvious reasons. And it’s equally true that if we really want to resolve a conflict, we can’t tune out legitimate (or otherwise compelling) points that are being obscured by someone else’s inability or unwillingness to remain calm.
Punishment (e.g., locking out the workers, or refusing to submit any counter-offer) has no useful role in adult conflict resolution unless you already hold all the cards, in which case “engaging” is just window-dressing anyhow.