I see too much drama in the way people interact. Sometimes it’s a byproduct of the complexity of normal interactions, and generally it slows progress. Office politics is a particular kind of drama - but for now we’ll look broadly at drama.

Signs of Drama

The two most recognizable signs of office drama are third party conversations and passive-aggressive behavior. Third party conversation occurs when someone intercedes to present another person’s information or opinion. These indirect conversations don’t relay the complete context of the message or are tainted by the third party’s emphasis or interpretation of the facts.

Passive-aggressive behavior is an indirect means of controlling the behavior of others. Often it’s seen as a “no I can’t” instead of “I don’t want to” and is crafted to seem as though the person cannot comply due to uncontrollable and/or unverifiable conflicts. A more complete description is at Wikipedia.

Complicating Factors

There are several situations in the workplace that increase drama. A common one I see is where a business employs family members. This creates complex interactions when the needs and responsibilities of family play against business interests. It makes non-family employees be more careful when having to challenge any of the family staff. It builds drama as family dynamics impacts behavior at work.

Employing part time people also can increase drama. In businesses where there are many part-timers or consultants who work non-overlapping hours, the number of third-party conversations grows due to incomplete direct communications between the part-timers. Each has their own assignment and is focused on completing their assignment while feeling less accountable for other part-timers’ results.

And lastly, open floor plans increase drama. Many discussions about contentious ideas or talk about working-together need to be private. When there is no privacy in an office setting it forces sensitive conversations offsite and off-hours, which further increases suspicions. It increases the chances that when conversations are held in offices, someone will overhear sound bytes and become suspicious.

Reducing Drama

Here are three ideas on reducing office drama. First, resist third party conversations and intermediaries delivering messages to you. When a third party approaches you an appropriate response is ‘thanks for the heads-up but I’d prefer to talk with them directly’ or ‘next time please encourage them to talk with me directly.’ Sometimes you need to act on third party conversation, but those times should be the exceptions.

Second, for part-timers, the answer can be as straightforward as having a status meeting with them and their sponsors once or twice a month.

Third, stop implying and inferring. A core responsibility of leaders is to make the hidden apparent; to make the implicit explicit. Being direct and forthright is quite the drama buster.

Last updated on April 24, 2009 by Den