What if the toxic work environment you keep trying to fix is actually a drama triangle problem? This week on DissedMedia: A Startup Story, Ben sits down with Charlie Sheppard, behavioral scientist, executive coach, and author of Save Your Drama for Your Mama (available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4u9q1Og). With 40 years of experience working with organizations like AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Genentech, Charlie has built a career helping leaders escape the drama triangle and build cultures where real leadership development can finally take hold.

Charlie explains the drama triangle - the victim, rescuer, and adversary roles that come as standard equipment with every human being - and contrasts it with the Leadership Triangle. He shares why leadership coaching must go beyond surface behaviors to the full stack of beliefs, identity, and even physiology, and why stopping workplace drama is the real foundation of effective leadership.

The conversation also covers his remarkable 33-year record of zero work stoppages in high-stakes labor negotiations, the role of relationship-building before bargaining, and locus of control as the leadership development pattern that gets leaders in trouble fastest. And in a surprising close, Charlie shares three projects fired up about: a 12-book children's series called The Path of Light (back it on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1317302143/path-of-light-bedtime-stories-that-help-kids-sleep), the inaugural Human Presence Institute weekend, and a biotech molecule targeting advanced cancer in solid tumors.

If you lead people, manage teams, or are building something from the ground up, this episode will change how you think about the drama triangle, leadership development, and the patterns keeping you stuck.

Subscribe and help us reach 100,000 subscribers by end of 2026: https://www.youtube.com/@DissedMedia?sub_confirmation=1