May 15, 2019
Introduction: David Emerald and Donna Zajonc are a husband and wife team and also business partners & founders of the Bainbridge Leadership Center. David is the author of the best selling book The Power of Ted and has recently published his second book called 3 vital questions, transforming workplace drama. Donna is a Master Certified Coach and together they teach, facilitate and speak to the power of TED and the 3 Vital Questions framework to transform workplace drama.
Podcast episode summary: This episode describes what it means to be human and how we succumb to drama. Stephen Karpman described a social model of human interaction called the drama triangle. As humans in reaction to problems we often jump onto the drama triangle and assume one of three roles, the Victim, Persecutor or Rescuer. The antidote is another triangle, called The Empowerment Dynamic or TED, which speaks to our inherent capacity to be creative. Three roles comprise TED, the Creator, Challenger and Coach. David’s next book Three Vital Questions is set in an organisational context and speaks to how we are thinking, relating and acting in our business, often informed by our way of being in our personal lives. TED can be described as a self-Leadership book and the 3 Vital Questions an answer to our Leadership and teamwork choices in work. David and Donna share the auspices of their books, the motivation behind the writing and share what each involves through the course of this episode. Each book is a very digestible fable that perhaps masks the inherent complexity and nuances behind the material. This is not a Pollyanna type answer to drama but a conscious consciousness and call for us to wake up to our patterns and begin to exercise choice.
Quotable Quotes: “We are always at a point of choice” “Our essence is as Creators” “When we pause, stop and breath, the whisper of Creator, Challenger and Coach can rise” “Value of model of DDT and TED is static depiction of a dynamic reality” “Get to the balcony and not in subject to persistent reactivity” “Compassion is fuel for upgrading our Neurology”
Resources: the following includes the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation