" She's a drama queen. I can't work with her."

"He thinks he's too cool for school. Take me off his team or I'll quit."

If you manage other people, you might sometimes hear statements like these. Participants in my leadership workshops often call this kind of office drama a huge time suck (Researchers say it wastes as much as 17% of the average manager's time). Yikes!

Can you eliminate this kind of drama? Maybe not entirely, but you can go a long way toward reducing it. How?

1.  Set a No Drama expectation.
2.  Show how to practice healthy conflict.  

Set a No-Drama Expectation 

This could be as simple as stating, "We practice the No Drama rule here." You'll have to model this yourself and also help employees differentiate between Normal and Drama. Drama usually involves what I call Crazy Thinking: exaggeration, catastrophizing, triangulating (see sidebar at left), keeping secrets, and what I call "mindreading" ("she wants to take my job" or "he thinks he's better than everyone else").  

Show How to Practice Healthy Conflict 

If you have conveyed to your team that differences between people's views are actually desirable, that's a start. Also, be sure to avoid the unhealthy conflict model of playing the Rescuer. Employees can easily fall into playing Victim or Persecutor in response (Heard of the Karpman Drama Triangle? Learn about it  here).

Since no one learns anything from this kind of interaction (except to keep coming back to you as a Rescuer/Parent), you'll just witness the situation repeating itself again and again. More drama. More wasted time.

In addition to modeling your role in healthy conflict, you can coach employees. Do it one on one, choosing the "teachable moment." Or provide training for a group.  Or do both.