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Dr. Stephen Karpman’s the Dreaded Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Dynamic by David Emerald Womeldorff

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By Joy W. Goldman Advisor and Founding Partner

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pepperextrashot_youve-seen-it-ive-seen-it-weve-all-seen-activity-7217125638887915521-LDZM?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

With thanks to Pepper Wilson for providing this fun and practical post on David Emerald’s work of the Dreaded Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Dynamic. Along with The Conscious Leadership Group’s: “Above and Below the Line,” the DDT and TED are our most commonly used frameworks in working with healthcare leaders and teams. Think about it: as a nurse, I went into healthcare because I wanted to improve people’s health. Some might say, I wanted to “save” or “rescue” people. That’s a noble goal, EXCEPT when I over use it and apply it to all aspects of my life!

At SixSEED Partners, we work with our clients to identify their thinking habits of responding as “heros/ rescuers” and invite them to shift to a more empowering perspective that encourages development in their teams and less wear and tear on them. And we compassionately and with healthy humor, invite them to notice their own inner persecutor and help them shift to a more kind and generous approach to self-management. It is no coincidence that we often see that grace applied to others in their lives, once they have mastered it for themselves.

Would you like to learn how you might apply this framework to your teams? Contact us here: https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/

Extending Compassion for Recovering Fixers: Yes, AND….

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By Joy W. Goldman Advisor and Founding Partner

Background:

Quite often, we at SixSEED Partners find this theme arising with our clients:  “how do I stop seeing everything as a problem to fix?” Occasionally, we’ve thought of developing a 12-step program for recovering fixers: perhaps you’d like to be notified if we ever decide to go live? So what’s the “problem” with perpetual problem solvers?  In a complex, rapidly changing world, we need additional thinking tools and different perspectives. Feeling like we are the only ones who can satisfactorily fix problems can be exhausting!

The Challenge:

Simply stated, when every challenge we encounter at work is seen as a problem to fix, we end up in a cycle that drains energy and doesn’t actually eliminate the problem.  You can read our colleague David Emerald’s book: 3 Vital Questions to find out more!  You’ve heard of the myth of Sisyphus who was doomed to be pushing a boulder to the top of a cliff only to have it roll back down and him having to start all over again?  Exactly!

The Strategy:

First, embrace your strength and capacity to problem solve.  It’s a great gift and most likely contributed to your advancing in your field.  Bravo!

Second:  Seek out different perspectives, particularly those that are less visible to you.  Especially when you are absolutely certain that you have the one right answer, approach someone with whom you might often disagree and ask them: “What am I missing here?”  

Third:  Read up on “both/and” thinking:  Polarity Thinking.  This is a powerful thinking tool that allows you to see and map more complex systems where two seeming opposite tensions interact and the sustainable solution lies in leveraging each tension well and noticing early warning signs when your actions neglect the opposite pole.  As an example, for those of you who work for hospital systems that have many distributed hospitals, a common tension is centralizing for efficiency and decentralizing to meet local population needs.

The Outcome:

When you can follow the three steps above, you conserve energy, get results that last, and strengthen the leadership capacity of the entire system.  Want to know more?  You can reach out to us here:  https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/

SixSEED Partners Message for Valentine’s Day

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Adopt One Action that Demonstrates Loving Yourself

“If you take good care of yourself, you are better able to be of service to others.”

“Sustainable self-care is an inside-out process. It is formed with a clear belief and intention to support and love yourself through the choices you make.”

The above quotes are from a recent Center for the Empowerment Dynamic blog from our colleagues David Emerald and Donna Zajonc. In our work to help organizations and leaders create healthy cultures, we partnered with Clinical and Nursing executives and middle managers to help them better manage the interdependent tension (polarity) of “Care for Self,” and “Care for Others.” In prior case studies, we’ve discussed the collective habitual response of perceiving “care for self” similar to a foreign body entering the system. All energy in the system went to expel that practice from the system, labeling it, as the article describes, as being “selfish.”

In prior work with physician and nursing leaders in a different system, when we asked the leaders to stand in the quadrant where they felt most aligned of care for self and care for others, the few who found themselves in “care for self” noticed feelings of shame as they stood in prioritizing their own health and well-being. They wanted to run from the quadrant into care for others or overdone care for others.

For this Valentine’s Day, we invite you to read this article and adopt one action that demonstrates loving yourself. It might be saying no and setting boundaries; it might be allowing yourself time to rest; it might be soothing your inner critic that has you constantly coming up short and saying: “I am good enough.”

Why not respond to this message and tell us how you choose to love yourself? And if you’d like a partner to support shifting your culture to one of well-being AND excellence, contact us! https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/