One of the first things they tell us when we get into this business of broadcasting is that we need to be good team players. Being kind and supporting our colleagues are ingredients of the secret sauce of success in our industry.
Some people are more inclined to embrace this concept than others, and I would divide them into 3 categories.
The solo player.
The team player.
The toxic handler.
The solo player is the person who thinks he or she is above the group. These are the kind of people who swear they are more important than anybody else and that their work is the one that makes things happen in our shows.
These are the kind of colleagues who tend to ignore the problems of others and focus on “keep going” because nobody is essential (except them).
It takes years and several failures for them to realize that this kind of individualism is the problem, and that their career might not have made it to where they wanted to go because they kept trying to build it by stepping on anybody who seemed to be in their way.
The team player colleague is the person who understands the need for a healthy level of individualism and the crucial role that teamwork plays in every production we are part of.
These are the kind of professionals who understand the responsibility they have to their own role, but at the same time they know that the end result of a show cannot be better than the performance of the whole group.
It takes time to understand this. Years, tears, friendships, and effort. I would say that it is almost impossible to stay in this category forever, we always need to course correct to go back to it. The key is to be aware of the responsibility and always try to go back to the correct route.
Finally, I have found the toxic handlers. These are the people who put themselves last and tend to prioritize the problems of others.
In principle, this is not wrong, because every production team is made out of collaboration and support from the different members of the crew.
The problem for these “toxic handlers” starts when they become the sponge that absorbs everyone’s issues.
These are the kind of colleagues who are always willing to listen to everybody’s complaints, and who in many cases end up forgetting the importance of their own role because others are having issues.
I am sure that you know many “toxic handlers”, or maybe you have been one of them. I have.
When I started managing people, I thought that my responsibility was to try to solve everyone’s difficulties. In my mind, I had to listen to everybody and be worried about their problems.
Quickly, I realized that I was not paying full attention to my responsibilities because I was busy worrying about a guy who had problems at home because he had a second relationship going on outside of his marriage. Or I was concerned about a colleague who was not performing well because he was going to lose his car because he used his money to go out and party instead of for what he really needed it for.
An old engineer named Carlo came to me one day and said, “You travel a lot on planes, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Why?” was my reply.
“Because you need to start doing what they tell you on the planes. Put your oxygen mask first and then try to help others,” he said.
It was a short sentence but one that helped me open my eyes and realize that there is a difference between caring for others and being the sponge that absorbs all their problems. The latter was creating issues for me, and in the end, affecting the group that I was managing.
These days, I try to think of this situation using the following image I draw a few years ago.
The road is where the team player has to be driving as much as possible. The sides are where the solo player or the toxic handler is. Usually, those sides are not where you can move forward while helping your crew and helping yourself.
Which one are you?
P.S. I did not invent the “toxic handler”name. Peter Frost and Sandra Robinson used it in Harvard Business Review back in 1999."
Great read... this is how we are trained in volunteering emergency services: Take care of yourself first / make sure your householdis safe.