Jean wanted to play the game called "If I'm
Skilled, Talented, and Productive the Company Ought to Beat a Path to my
Door with Appropriate Rewards and Approval." Her supervisor and the
company's owner were playing other games: "If You Want to be Noticed,
then Stand Out from the Crowd and Make Yourself Noticed, but By All
Means, Never Complain, for Complaining is for Wimps!"
What got Jean so stressed out? The teasing of some
of the guys at the construction company. They would come into the office
on payday and act like construction workers. And when they discovered
that they could "tease" Jean, that they could "get her going," and
"rattle her cage," well, she couldn't get them to stop.
"What do you expect of 'construction workers'?" I
asked just to flush out what kind of mental frames she used about it
all.
She immediately shot back with, "This is business!
This is no place for that kind of behavior. Jokes are inappropriate!"
"And I suppose you try to get them to stop it?"
"Of course! I am the office manager and they have
no right to tease me when I tell them to stop."
"So, does it work?"
"Telling them to stop it? No, but it should. They
should listen to me. Even Mr Thompson told them to cut it out, but they
don't."
"So you keep telling them to stop it?"
"Yes, of course."
"Does that empower you as a person or enhance your
work situation?"
"Well ... ah ... no, not really."
"So would you say you're ready to try some
different games than The Game of Shoulding on them, or being so
sensitive to teasing? Would you like to operate from a sense of your own
personal power and resourcefulness?"
"But they shouldn't ..."
"Yes, The Shoulding Game—and yet does 'shoulding'
on them work? If I said, 'Jean, you shouldn't "should" on them,' does
that make you want to immediately stop 'shoulding'?"
Jean had not run a quality control on the games
that she was playing and got so caught up playing and trying to win
that she had lost perspective. That's what The Quality Control Game
provides us—the ability to step back and make sure that we're playing
games that we want to play.
