It had been well over a year since Lucas had last talked with Ted. So much had happened since then. He wished there were some way to let Ted know about the positive effect of learning the 3 Vital Questions, and of having the awareness to shift from the DDT to TED* in so many situations in his life, at home as well as at his new job.
For starters, Lucas was now sitting at his desk in his new office—an office with a door—having accepted the position of supervisor of the Customer Service Department’s online banking Help Desk, leading a team of eight representatives. He was grateful that his computer degree had turned out to be as helpful as he had hoped, but he was even more excited about leading a team of young professionals who treated customers as Creators with an outcome in mind, rather than as Victims oppressed by technology or online banking issues.
When Lucas had given notice to his former boss that he’d applied for the new job, he’d been pleasantly surprised.
His boss had said, “Well, I’ll be unhappy to lose you, Lucas, but I can’t say I’m surprised you’re moving up. I’ve seen an impressive change in the way you’ve dealt with challenges on the job these past few months.”
Lucas had then shared a little about what he’d learned during those months, especially about being oriented to outcomes rather than problems. He decided not to talk about the FISBEs as Victim and Creator Orientations, but he did show his boss the diagrams he had copied in his journal from his late-night chats with Ted.
The boss had smiled. “Hmm. I can see there’s a ‘pattern of results’ associated with each of these mindsets.”
“Yes,” Lucas had agreed. “It’s been a game changer for the way I approach things.”
“Good for you, Lucas,” his boss had said. “And good luck. I hope you get it.”
And Lucas had gotten the job. In the first week, as he’d moved into his new office and began to get acclimated, Lucas gained a deeper appreciation of what Kasey had shared with him about leading the departments. He saw how she had integrated the 3 Vital Questions and the ways of thinking, relating, and taking action that Ted had taught them both. During Lucas’s first week on the job, a facilitator from Human Resources took Lucas and his eight team reps through a “new manager assimilation” process that allowed him to really get a sense of the individuals on his team. He heard what was on their minds and was able to give them a look into the mind of their new supervisor as well, by sharing his leadership and management philosophy.
When Lucas shared his approach, he spoke briefly of adopting a Creator Orientation, and expressed his desire that they work together as Co-Creators, Challengers, and Coaches.
“I’d like to harness the dynamic tension between our desired outcomes and our current realities, as our essential action planning process,” he said. Then he held his breath for their response. Was he coming on too strong right at the start?
“Wow, I’m so relieved to hear you using the 3VQ language!” one of his new team members said. “We’ve been using those models, and we all really like how it works to keep things on track and moving.”
Lucas later learned that Kasey had made the 3 Vital Questions—3VQ—a standard part of the new-employee orientation. She hadn’t asked Lucas to go through it since she knew of his previous familiarity with it, through their mutual friend Ted. Kasey hadn’t mentioned that the retail banking group she was responsible for now shared this common language and its frameworks. Even though he had just arrived in his new position, Lucas felt as though he had come home.
That first week, Kasey shared with Lucas a set of commitments used at the start of meetings held in all of her departments. She called them the “Seven Commitments for Empowered Collaboration.” Lucas began using the Seven Commitments in his regular weekly meetings with his staff. Unlike the hit-and-run feeling of the huddles he used to have with the data analysts in his previous job, Lucas found these Seven Commitments brought everyone at the meeting into a common focus. And it gave them all a positive reminder about how they had all agreed to conduct their relationships in the department.
Lucas watched his computer screen. The readouts showed him who was on the phone at any given time, while measuring things like how long the call took, what aspect of the online customer experience the call was about, and—if the customer agreed to a short survey at the end of their interaction with the rep—how the customer had rated their experience. Lucas was proud of the fact that the ratings of customer satisfaction were almost always near the top of the scale.
As he reflected back over the year, Lucas cringed as he remembered a few times he’d still gone reactive or defaulted to the Rescuer role with a member of his team or someone from another department. And—hard as it was to swallow—he also recalled how he still sometimes slipped into a Persecutor role, complaining about the rare times when a customer hadn’t been satisfied with the support they’d received.
Even in those times, however, the ongoing practice of shifting from the DDT to the TED* roles helped Lucas regain his focus on outcomes and empowered relationships. He often recalled a comment Ted had made:
“The measure of progress is that you catch yourself sooner and make the shift to a TED* role quicker, Lucas. Two steps forward and one step back … that’s still progress, my friend! This is a daily practice and a lifelong journey.”
Leaning back in his chair, Lucas gazed at the whiteboard on the wall, with its two FISBEs of the Victim and Creator Orientations and the triangles of the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT) and The Empowerment Dynamic (TED). On his whiteboard, Lucas had also added the basics of dynamic tension: outcome; current reality; supports and inhibitors; and baby steps.
Kasey had become quite a mentor for Lucas. Of course, that fortunate friendship had actually begun with their serendipitous conversation while waiting for the elevator. Over the past year, as Lucas had begun reporting to Kasey as his manager, he marveled at her ability to be a Coach—most of the time—and to be a Challenger when necessary, too, while they worked together as Co-Creators in evolving the bank’s customer experience.
Lucas smiled at the family portrait on his desk, taken in their backyard after a surprise snowfall last winter. Carson was now in the third grade and doing well, and Emily was a budding fifth-grader getting interested in world affairs … and boys. As the photographer had taken the picture, Lucas had given Sarah a little squeeze, and his wife had flashed her winning smile. After the photo session was done, she told him how grateful she was that they’d chosen to do their best to raise their children as Creators.
Behind them in the photo was a sharp-looking new fence. Lucas’s promotion to his new job had made it possible to have the fence replaced with barely a dent in their savings.
The sound of someone knocking shook Lucas out of his reverie. He looked up. One of his Help Desk reps, Jason, was standing in the open door.
“Got a minute?”
“Of course,” Lucas responded. “Come on in. What’s up?”
The rep sat down. “I just got off the phone with a customer. I think she was satisfied with the support we gave her. But the call raised an issue that has been coming up again and again these past few weeks. I was wondering if we could come up with a proactive way to prevent those kinds of situations happening in the future?”
Lucas asked a few questions to clarify the issue and to make sure he understood what the rep had in mind. Then he stood up and went to the whiteboard. Lucas picked up a green marker and asked, “Okay then! What’s the outcome we want to create?”