Drama – Someone who craves drama loves stirring up passion, adventure, and controversy to make their life more interesting or to create problems to solve. A drama addict can smell potential scenarios a mile away. This person enjoys the producer role and likes to create new opportunities whenever possible. Drama is very seductive.

Obligation – This is an excessive and unhealthy need to do good, help, or even crusade for someone or something. I am not suggesting that doing good deeds for others isn’t admirable; however, some people seek out situations where they will be seen as a hero. They crave the starring role of rescuer because it feeds their ego.

Worry – When someone sees the possibility of problem or disaster in any given situation and allows it to magnify in their mind, it’s an extreme form of worrying. This type of stimulation creates a high degree of friction within the person, causing the adrenaline to flow freely. Everyone has worries in their life, but this is more than that . This type of worrying is done at the cost of joy, creativity, and peace of mind.

Busyness – Compulsive busyness has become an epidemic in our culture. We seldom hear anyone say the words I don’t have enough to do or I’m not busy. And while many people moan bitterly about how busy they are, some seem to wear it as a badge of honor. They judge their value by their busyness.

So how do we help ourselves and others escape from these unhealthy obsessions? Here are ideas for how to break free:

Instead of Drama:

1. Spread good news, not rumors or gossip
2. Choose to be compassionate
3. Stick to the facts—refrain from embellishing

Instead of Obligation:

1. Learn to say No
2. Set clear boundaries
3. Make time in your daily routine to do something for yourself

Instead of Worry:

1. Praise yourself when you do things right
2. Celebrate daily what is going well
3. Ask others to be specific about their expectations of you

Instead of Busyness:

1. Make white space a priority in your schedule
2. Under-promise and over-deliver
3. Give yourself more time than you think you will need

As coaches, we are in a unique position of helping our clients recognize and overturn negative compulsions such as these so that they can achieve their full potential. We also have a responsibility to evaluate our own needs in these areas and take steps as necessary.With a little bit of work, anyone can break away from unhealthy, negative pursuits and move toward a more positive future.

About the Author

Judith Donin is a Senior Consulting Partner and Professional Services Mentor for North America with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read Judith’s posts as a part of Coaching Tuesday here at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Continuing this theme, another primary dance we may find our clients in is between someone who may be the middle person in a situation who is torn between two end people—for example, a manager who is in the middle between someone on their team and a senior leader.

This challenging relationship can be made even more complex when there happen to be multiple people at each end.  Individuals or parties at the ends have their own agenda and will look to a common party—the middle person—to help support their cause by influencing the other end or ends.

If you are a coach, this scenario may sound quite familiar.  Managers often find themselves in the middle between a person or people on their team and a senior leader.  It’s important for us to know these patterns that emerge in relationships—especially when they aren’t helpful.

Here is a little more information relating to this second “Dance”:

People at the ends who feel unsupported may see themselves as victims. They can become inflexible and put their faith in the middle person to be a liaison who they think can get the best deal for them and their cause.

People in the middle often feel burdened. Interestingly, for some, this role may actually become somewhat addictive. Someone in the middle role may enjoy being needed by both end parties and may relish the trust and insight gained from both sides.  The potential danger is in not pleasing or helping either side, or even encouraging the toxic relationship, if the person in the middle is unaware of the dance they are doing.

As a coach, do you ever go into rescue mode before taking a step back to look at any game the client may unconsciously be playing?  Commonly, coaches feel the urge to take on an executive’s burden—sometimes working even harder than the client is working. The coach goes into rescue mode, creating a brand new end-middle-end pattern.  But the role of coach should be that of a human mirror. In this case, we may need to figuratively hold our clients’ feet to the fire to help them recognize the relational game they are playing. In doing so, we help them move toward healthier relationships.

Here are three tips to consider as coaches:

• Use your coach position in the middle to help the executive at one end uncover information about the other end—whether it be a team member, their boss, or someone else.
• Hold the executive accountable for owning the solutions and decisions.
• Remember that our role as coach is secondary. The primary focus needs to be the relationship between the middle person and the people on both ends.

When we can perceive the existence of these relationship “dances,” we can move to healthier interactions where trust and creativity are fostered for both the people we serve and ourselves.

About the Author

Judith Donin is a Senior Consulting Partner and Professional Services Mentor for North America with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read Judith’s posts as a part of Coaching Tuesday here at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

It’s a phenomenon that is quite common in many organizations—one that business author Barry Oshry describes as the “Dance of the Blind Reflex” in his book Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life.

Oshry’s contention is that leaders and direct reports can become locked into a dysfunctional, self-sustaining cycle when each group has behavior patterns that are the result of unconscious behaviors in the other group. For example, leaders complain about the burdens of extensive responsibility but cling to that power for fear that a planned system or change initiative will fail. And frontline workers complain about non-involvement, oppression, and lack of responsibility while they cling to the same things.

Might this dysfunctional dance be occurring in your organization? Here are some of the telltale signs.

At the senior leader level:

Leaders worry about losing control during change—that their team won’t feel as responsible, skilled, or passionate as the leader does. As the leader’s fears and responsibilities increase, they worry about letting their people down and compensate by taking even more responsibility away from direct reports. Signs leaders must watch for in themselves include:

• Checking up, not checking in, on team members
• Frustration in thinking that the team doesn’t care

As a result, these leaders lie awake at night thinking about what they still have to accomplish on a never ending to-do list.

At the frontline level:

The perceived lack of trust, respect, sensitivity, and insight from their leader frustrates team members and they yield responsibility quickly. They feel they have no role in the change and have lost their autonomy and their value. When this occurs, they begin to withdraw, self-preservation kicks in, and they simply keep their heads down and do what leaders say. Typical behaviors include:

• Increased scrutiny on what leaders are doing and not doing
• Anger and resentment at having things done to them—instead of with them

If these underlying beliefs are not surfaced and acknowledged, organizational culture can remain stuck in this cycle. But it doesn’t have to go that way. Here are some strategies to help interrupt this dance.

1. When a one-on-one relationship feels inequitable, each person needs to notice their language and thoughts as they converse and ask themselves: What is my intent and how might my words be misinterpreted?
2. Leaders need to think about how they are dragging the responsibility upward rather than across their team.
3. Direct reports need to think about how to repackage their message so that the leader recognizes their honorable intentions and willingness to accept responsibility.
4. Finally, both sides need to understand that these behaviors are often subtle and hard to self-diagnose and consider enlisting a qualified coach to help identify patterns and develop an action plan.

Note to coaches: Remember—you are not immune to the Dance of the Blind Reflex and can actually become an unwitting dance partner. Are you working harder in your sessions than your client is? Are you taking on their burdens? If so, you may want to consider changing the record and dancing to a different tune.

About the Author

Judith Donin is a Senior Consulting Partner and Professional Services Mentor for North America with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read Judith’s posts as a part of Coaching Tuesday here at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

I remember the first time my coach shared the problem of the why question with me. My eyes opened wide and I felt as if I had just been let in on a big leadership secret. I knew this new knowledge would help catapult my communication effectiveness to the next level.

I spent several months eradicating the word why from my language, and it did help. Challenging conversations were, well, less challenging.

Yet in certain situations, something was missing. I didn’t feel as though I was getting to the root of the difficulties some clients were facing. It wasn’t until I read Simon Sinek’s Start with Why, Edward Deci’s, Why We Do What We Do and, finally, Susan Fowler’s Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work—and What Does that I realized what the problem was.

The very reason we refrain from asking why questions is also the reason they can be so powerful: they engage both emotional and cognitive levels in a way that other questions don’t. Used carefully and appropriately, why questions can help clients get unstuck and cause a shift by identifying basic psychological needs of Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence.

When appropriate, here are five ways to mindfully use a why question:

1. When a person is stuck and helplessly procrastinating or placing obstacles in the way, ask a question such as Why do you think you’re holding on to the status quo? Use a caring, nonjudgmental tone.
2. Be prepared to ask a question starting with why up to five times. This is known as the Power of Why technique, which is helpfully described in Fowler’s book.
3. Listen for ways to connect values to the desired end state. Ask clients how they can reframe the situation so values remain intact.
4. Listen for psychological needs being undermined. Ask clients how they could be reconnected in a different way. For example, if the quarterly sales meeting has been canceled due to cost saving and your client is complaining about that lack of connection, ask how else they might get that relatedness with colleagues.
5. Finally, ask permission to use the Power of Why. This helps take out any feeling of being judged the client might have.

I don’t often use why in my everyday language—but when I do, I use it thoughtfully and mindfully to open up new possibilities.  As a coach, consider whether a why question might open up new possibilities for you as well.

 About the Author

Judith Donin is a Senior Consulting Partner and Professional Services Mentor for North America with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read Judith’s posts as a part of Coaching Tuesday here at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.