Tweet

How to kill a drama queen!

Written by: Kirk Kjellberg

Article Overview: Drama cost businesses world wide billionns of dollars per year. Need to calm the drama? Take a good look at this article and see how to confront and calm the drama-rama that eats up your time and dollars, pesos, yen and euros!

How to kill a drama queen!

We all have worked with them, heck some of us live and work with them! So there is no outcry of foul, for the purpose of this article the term Drama Queen is gender neutral and unbiased towards age. There are plenty of geriatric and youthful Drama Queens, male and female alike running a-muck, wreaking havoc on the rest of us. We are only going to kill the work variety in this article. There are only two known cures for the Drama Queen personality, constructive avoidance and aggressive, negative reinforcement. OK there are actually three; my favorite, termination.

If the case is mild, simply responding to every drama-rama with a smooth steady "thanks for letting me know", can work, but likely won't. In years past I have worked with a few, of what I call "Extreme Queens". The drama they produce is hurricane-ish as it feeds off the energy of the snaking heads and water cooler chatter. Most Drama Queens will constantly engage their superiors right away with all of their non-sense about how horrible / wonderful everything is based on the given day. Personal health concerns, tattling on others misconduct sharing their fears of ethics or other rules violations being done by others and practicing civil disobedience are my personal favorite Drama Queen behavior traits.

While it is very hard to have specific policies against drama, (mine being, save the drama for your mama!), instead I suggest the use of the opposite approach, direct, negative confrontation to let the Drama Queen know that you are not willing to entertain so much drama about issues du jour. It’s like trying to break a good dog of a particular naughtiness; be happy with less bad behavior at first. Any and all confrontations about their behavior are best done with a witness taking notes and in private, no sense in feeding the hurricane in public. Be ready to be baited into a contest or argument, but hold firmly to your message about their behavior, not the person. "We simply don't allow this type of behavior, or your specific behavior / actions on this day, caused this problem.” Always state these concerns as performance issues so they are actionable later on.

This is all fine for reforming a Drama Queen. But alas, some are too wild to tame, too naughty to house-break and that is when you have to systematically rid your organization of them. Like cutting off the little bit of mold that soon consumes the whole loaf of bread, they will devastate the chemistry of an office faster than a tear gas canister in the lunch room and can completely ruin the reputation of the company as a whole. I say get rid of them, damn the cost.

These dramas are very expensive and time consuming. Once, my management group and I spent hundreds of dollars in man hours having to sort out a drama-rama over less than a hundred bucks.

Unless it is catastrophic behavior, always give proper notice. Deciding if the person and their respective talent are worth saving can moderate the severity and swiftness of your response. Being a Drama Queen is learned behavior, make no mistake, and it will take time and a lot of energy to cure one, if you can.

My theory about the mythical cure for a Drama Queen comes from a bumper sticker seen on I-76 in Colorado. "Never try and teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig!" Purge early and purge often, especially in today’s hiring climate. There is a lot of talent on the streets as of this writing. Employ personality tests and listen to them. Drama Queens will be charismatic and energetic at the onset; they will however use those gifts for evil given the chance.

Disclaimer: Make hiring and firing decisions at your own risk. Don't forget that there are rules about how to discipline and fire people. Don’t actually kill anyone. To kill means being fired in this article. (Seriously right?) Check with your HR department before taking action so you don't accidentally kill yourself.

Kirk Kjellberg

Related Articles
  The Cynical SEO Drama Queen
  Leadership Insight: Drama Queen and Emotion King
  I Missed the Joy
  Writing Your Own Script
  Realizing Your Inner Strength

Article Tags: drama queen, drama queens, endif, fareast, gte, mso, muck, negative reinforcement, object classid, outcry, paper source, roman style, size 13, span style, style definitions, style font, style name, term drama, times new roman, wreaking havoc
Referred by: http://www.salesblogcast.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: 7 Strange Japanese Inventions - I love the slippers that you can use to kill cockroaches. It will sell like hot cakes here in Africa.
Re: Getting up earlier - Hi GT, I guessed you would respond first as I know from posts in the past that you are a bit of a night owl like me,LOL. It's terrible isn't it when you are on a roll and everything is flowing and it is time for bed, you think you are superman and don't need sleep until the next morning when you would kill for another hour in bed. take care, Mal.
Re: Moderators on vacation - Hi GT, Thanks for the warm words. I have some time to kill before 3PM. I am all alone here, with the cleaning guy. Then home to work on my project. I am scanning all the old photos I found at my grandmother's house and will create a big digital album from them, then use online software to print the book. Deadline is the end of the week.
Usher music leak - I think it's great! Especially if Usher is "acting" pissed that this happened. Hey! People love drama and when it comes from a high profile celebrity it creates enormous word of mouth. Usher isn't shy to try new things out and anytime I hear gossip from someone else before I hear it on TV or Radio means there's some good Word of mouth happening. That's why some days I really enjoy the subway rides (I don't get to do it too often nowdays) - there are so many conversations going on and I heard this rumor about Ushers music leak.
Newbie - Hi I am Mary from the USA. My life misson is to help myself and other women with personal growth and learning. I am a life time student. I am starting a business in stress management for women. I love my fur children 3 cats. I would like too open a no kill cat shelter in the furture


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Convening a focus group for a niche product

SEO Link Popularity and the Home Business Website

Think Time

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.