What does “Lose the Drama” mean as one of 7 ways for women at work to negotiate?
There are lots of things going on here.
- 'playing the X card' means to bring up or use X as an issue in your own favor (yes as a metaphor for any kind of game situation like cards, where you have strategy or fact hidden or unannounced and you 'play' it). For example, for two people in a debate, one may make an ad hominem attack about the other person's religion, it can be said the first person 'played the religion card'.
Here, I interpret 'to play the drama card' means to bring up the drama of threatening to quit (a dramatic threat) so that the other person (one's employer) would recoil from that and not fire the person.
'lose the X' means don't use X, don't let X be involved, which is not synonymous but implies the 'don't play the drama card'
to 'trump' someone in informal language means to 'do one better than someone'. This is related to 'play the X card' if the X card played does in fact do one better.
'Be ready to walk in some way, shape or form' the phrase of interest is 'way, shape, or form' which is a quasi-legalistic way of listing all the manners of walking away. Rhetorically it is just filler that sound legalistic (there is no really difference among way, shape, or form here).
"Lose" in that context is actually using a different definition:
to free oneself from : get rid of
The author is suggesting that women dispense with unnecessary drama:
any situation or series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or results: the drama of a murder trial.
The key there is emotion. There is a stereotype about women being overly emotional, so it is something to avoid in business situations.
The analogy with "the drama card" is that drama is something that you can use strategically, like playing a particular card at a particular moment in a card game.
So to summarize the recommendations in different words:
- Don't be overly emotional.
- Use emotion strategically, and don't play that card unless it's the right time.
- Don't threaten to leave your job unless you really mean it, otherwise it'll just seem like you're making a big emotional fuss.
Understanding the author's particular definition of "drama" should help you understand the various uses. In that context, "drama" means:
3 a: a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces
3 b: dramatic state, effect, or quality
The implication is that negotiations in the workplace should be professional and free of emotional response that is characterized as "drama" when expressed by a woman. (With few exceptions, a drama queen is usually a reference to a female).
Specifically:
"Lose the drama" means negotiate professionally and maintain emotional control - in other words, don't use drama
"Be ready to walk in some shape or form" means though maybe not literally, be ready to follow through with a threat if you don't get what you want in a negotiation.
"Play the drama card" means to choose the tactic of getting emotional to get what you want, as a strategic move, as one would make a strategic play in a card game.