Transforming Leadership: How 3VQ and TED* Empower Leaders and Teams

In today’s fast-paced and complex business environment, leadership and team dynamics can often feel challenging and overwhelming.

With over twenty years of experience managing administrative staff of a Sydney law firm; and founding and leading a small turned large healthcare company, Susan Dunlop has felt these challenges and the overwhelm! She understands workplace drama.

For years, Susan sought top-level frameworks, processes, and methodologies and worked with results coaches.

She invested extensively in the professional and personal development of herself and her team. It was a great team that made the company grow. Yet there was always an undercurrent of disruption. It could destabilise a person, a team, and the leadership team’s focus for minutes to days at a time.

As the saying goes it takes two to tango! Once someone started the dance of drama across the office, others leapt into that dance alongside them. Until that cycle of disruptive drama was exhausted, the good work that had been planned would get put to the side.

The company was successful, but if Susan had been able to apply her teachings to the organisation, its annual outcomes could have doubled or even tripled. Knowing what she knows now, this seems like a missed opportunity.

Susan did know there were no quick-fix solutions. She had become intrigued by the Karpman Drama Triangle. Dr Stephen Karpman created this triangle in 1960, describing roles we humans default to in times of stress. Centred on the victim role, at one point of the triangle, are two other roles of the persecutor and rescuer. Understanding the drama triangle, Susan could feel and see how we all play these roles. They mostly stem from childhood experiences. In these roles, we are reactive, not responsive, to what’s happening around us.

All Susan needed to find was a key to unlock the door between daily drama and transformational personal empowerment.

That key eluded her. The idea of ‘finding the willpower’ to ditch the drama, the only recommendation available for many years, wasn’t realistic to her.

It was after selling her company in 2016 that Susan attended a webinar delivered by Donna Zajonc and David Emerald. The two founders of The Center for The Empowerment Dynamic appeared on the Zoom screen to teach ‘Stop Rescuing, Start Coaching’. The webinar was hosted by the International Coaching Federation (2018). Immediately, Susan tuned into the word ‘rescuing’, knowing that it must have something to do with the drama triangle roles. As she sat and was introduced to the healthy antidote to the toxic dreaded drama triangle (DDT) roles, in the form of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic), Susan knew she’d found what she, her company and her people would have benefited from all along.

About David

Susan soon learned that David Emerald, the co-founder of the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic, had authored two bestselling leadership books, The Power of TED* and The 3 Vital Questions: Transforming Workplace Drama.

David has worked in significant leadership roles and as an external consultant with numerous organisations, including First Bank, the Cleveland Clinic, the Children’s Hospital in Colorado, the City of Seattle, and Stanford Children’s Hospital. He is associated with the University of Notre Dame Stayer Center for Executive Education. His TED* and 3 Vital Questions frameworks are part of the curriculum of that Center and other universities across the USA. In David’s 30 years of experience, both as a leader and as a consultant coach, he saw firsthand that drama can sap the energy, productivity, teamwork and fulfilment at work and how that drama can be carried home into our personal lives.

That’s why David created the programs Susan delivers as Australia’s first certified facilitator in the Center for the Empowerment Dynamic’s work.

For the remainder of this post, we will share how the TED* and 3VQ frameworks reshape the workplace experience:

• Before engaging with us, leaders and their teams face disengagement, stress, and unresolved conflicts. Our clients often come to us feeling overwhelmed and underprepared for the demands of their roles.
• After engaging in our programs, leaders and teams are equipped with tools for empowerment, collaboration, and effective communication. They feel more competent, connected and confident in their roles.
• The typical challenges include inefficient leadership development programs, high stress, and poor team conflict resolution. We introduce strategies that transform these challenges into a cohesive, engaged, and innovative culture, driving both personal and organisational success.
• As our client’s guide, Susan brings her knowledge and practical application of the 3VQ and TED* methodologies to leaders and their teams, providing a pathway from chaos to clarity.
• Our plan involves structured interventions, such as tailored workshops, one-on-one coaching, comprehensive leadership programs, and sustained learning.
• Together, we would co-create a program that addresses individual and collective needs, considering minimising disruption to daily operations and measuring a certain level of improvement in employee engagement scores, productivity or financials.
• Without our intervention, leaders risk burnout, stagnation and team disengagement. Our programs prevent these outcomes by fostering resilience and adaptability.
• Leaders who engage with our services become transformational figures within their organisations. They are recognised for fostering high-performing teams and cultivating positive organisational cultures.

The journey from reactive to creative leadership requires courage, commitment, and the right partner.

Susan is dedicated to guiding leaders through this transformation with proven strategies that result in lasting success.

Work with Susan, and let’s redefine what it means to lead with impact and purpose in your organisation.

Ready to transform your leadership approach?

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you and your team achieve excellence.

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