Can we stop playing games?

Strategies to reduce drama at work: Part 2

Part 1 was about finding ways to get past blame and towards a position where we can understand others, adopt responsibility, practice stretch collaboration, and diffuse drama in the process.

I will continue exploring similar dynamics in Part 2. It’s also an attempt to look at broader topics, touching on dysfunctions that can perpetuate unhealthy cultures.

Playing the Drama Triangle Game

If people or teams are in blaming mode, what happens to those that receive the blame? Will they feel bad about themselves? Will they fight back? Are they hoping someone else will come and help them out of this bad situation? When looking at the system as a whole, we may have a better view of the dysfunctional relationships and perhaps realize that everyone is just stuck in a game.

In social psychology, Transactional Analysis (usually referred to just as “TA”) is a theory of human personality that provides a systematic approach to personal growth and personal change. I am by no means an expert, but I find the topic fascinating and often encourage people to learn more about it.

One of the concepts in TA is that transactions between two or more individuals can follow familiar patterns of behavior with predictable outcomes that usually involve bad feelings. These transactions are known as “games.” Engaging in these games is non-productive, and it is time wasted on conflict and tension.

The Karpman’s Drama Triangle [1] is one of the best-known games in TA. It’s simple to explain and you probably know about it already (this model is quite old): when relationships are dysfunctional, there are three fundamental roles that people play. Over time we might switch roles, potentially becoming stuck in a circular rotation. While most of the time, we step into it unconsciously, being in this triangle is a lose-lose situation; none of the roles is effective.

The three roles in the triangle are:

• Victim: this person or group feels victimized, oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, ashamed, and seems unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight. They cry, “Poor me!”
• Persecutor: this role is controlling, blaming, critical, oppressive, angry, authoritative, rigid, and superior — self-righteous. The persecutor insists, “It’s all your fault.”
• Rescuer: their line is, “Let me help you.” And they feel guilty if they don’t rescue others. Yet this rescuing has adverse effects: it keeps the Victim dependent and permits those people to fail.

Here is where I would typically write an example of the Drama Triangle in the workplace. But what’s the fun in that? Instead, I will use Cher and Tai’s arc in “Clueless.” If you haven’t seen it, consider this a spoilers warning and skip ahead.

Early in the film, a new student, Tai, becomes the target of Cher’s well-intended rescuing efforts. Cher has no bad intentions but happens to be a stereotypical Rescuer with a passion for makeovers and social validation.

As the movie progresses, Tai actually starts playing the Victim role, comfortable with the attention it generates for herself. But after a few too many misfires, she snaps and suddenly becomes the Persecutor, moving the Rescuer to the Victim role.

The movie has a happy ending, and watching the drama unfold is entertaining for the audience. But in real life there is nothing to gain from playing this game. When we enter into the triangle, we are overlooking something (what in TA is known as ‘discounting’), we either believe that we are incapable, that others are incapable, or that someone else is responsible for looking after us. None of these things are necessarily true.

Rescuers Anonimous

Most people want to identify with the Rescuer role. Not many people want to be a Victim voluntarily, and the Persecutor role feels mean.

It’s easy for management to fall into the role. We often choose to hide information from our teams because we believe “they wouldn’t understand and worry too much” instead of asking for their help to solve problems. And as employees, sometimes we hide problems from managers because we are afraid they wouldn’t “handle it very well.” We are both victimizing them, assuming they lack the intelligence to have an adult-adult conversation and simultaneously fearing they will move to a Persecutor role with us when they hear the news.

It may sound controversial, but I instantly go into alert mode when I hear a manager getting praise for being “a shit umbrella.” One thing is having someone who does an excellent job with stakeholder management and focus, and another is to treat teams as infants who have to be “protected” from the very same people they provide value to. Bad “shit umbrella” managers often fail at creating effective teams that have all the insights they need to solve complex business problems. And they usually end up exhausted of all the rescuing, and transition into a victim role.

How do you distinguish between someone who genuinely wants to help from a Rescuer? How do you even know yourself? Author Marlene Chism [2] explains that the question might be a source of unnecessary drama. You may decide you don’t want to rescue people anymore, but what you may be doing instead is refusing to help people who need actual support.

She suggests to:

• Picture yourself in the future and imagine that people rejected your advice. Will you feel resentful? You might be rescuing!
• Do you feel a need to be the hero in the situation? You might be rescuing! Yes, it’s nice to get a token of appreciation, but it’s best if they take your support and still manage to solve the situation themselves, or at least that it feels like a joint effort.
• Do you feel like you need to hide information from someone to keep them happy? You might be rescuing! It’s better to be open and face potential disagreement (which, as we saw in Part 1, doesn’t need to be a bad thing).

Super Rescuer?

I’ve been an excellent Rescuer in the past, and it didn’t serve my teams or me too well. When working at a past employer, I even joked about being like Nanny McPhee, the Mary Poppins-esque character played by Emma Thompson that goes around helping problem children and their families. I was called to work with “problem teams,” save them from self-destruction, and move on after a while. I was once told if I didn’t turn a team around in two months, they would dissolve it and let all the freelancers go. I went into full Hero mode, literally only leaving the office to sleep. And it worked. But I didn’t teach these people how to make their newly found efficiencies sustainable without me. I contributed to perpetuating their Victim status, and they kept needing to be rescued, playing the game with someone else.

Get out of the game

So, how do you get out of the triangle?

I’ve learned how not to play the game, but I can’t say I am always successful. It’s extremely easy to get sucked into it. We will never be completely drama-free. My best chance is to trust that my awareness of its existence and inner workings will allow me to get out of it.

First of all, make sure you are indeed playing a game. Having a problem doesn’t make you into a Victim automatically. Contributing and helping towards something is not necessarily Rescuing, as we’ve discussed. And you can be assertive without becoming a Persecutor.

If you are in the triangle, there are many ideas to get out. Some quick googling will offer numerous sources out there that cover this. I will try to keep it simple; the following are some of the things that have worked for me in the past:

• Start with yourself: as discussed in Part 1, we cannot make other people change their minds. But you can change how you behave in a given situation. Examine your feelings and thoughts and figure out if you are playing the game. And then find ways to disrupt it.
• Create awareness: teaching the triangle to people around you may trigger some recognition and snap some people out of it. Beware not becoming a Persecutor when you tell someone they are stuck in the triangle, or you will initiate a new game. Make this material fun for people to learn!
• Move to problem-solving: a significant component of the triangle is the blaming. Believing that we can solve problems together, and genuinely collaborating to make it happen helps people abandon these roles.
• Understand the root causes: TA usually attributes most of the dysfunctions to ineffective communication and a lack of clarity around how people work together. Figure out what’s going on.
• Understand if there is a lack of skill, insight, or self-confidence going on. Many times these shortcomings invite us to interpret other people’s actions as unfavorable and push us into the game.
• Practice Intent-Based Leadership to keep tendencies under control. I am not going to explain it here but read the popular “Turn The Ship Around” [3] with your teams if you haven’t already. There is even a helpful companion workbook with activities to do if you need some easing into it.
• Be more coach-like. You don’t need to be a coach to be more coach-like. I let you explore on your own; my recommendation is to start by reading the also famous “The Coaching Habit” [4], a short read that contains excellent questions to get you started.
• Make sure there is something ready to replace the excitement of playing the game. Similar to what I mentioned in Part 1, people will want to channel their energy into something else, and it’s better if that something provides some of the excitement and recognition the game was giving them, otherwise they might go back to play drama.
• Ignore the game: it is an option, but be aware that the players may go and play the game with someone else, often via escalation.
• Refuse to play the game: resist the advances of people who want you to adopt one of the roles. Find ways to stop buying into victimization, establish clarity on who is doing what, and control your own anger. Prepare “templated” responses like “It really sounds like a problem! What are you going to do?” (don’t rescue), or “You look pissed off. Tell me more” (don’t be a victim), or “Well, this was not your greatest moment ever, let’s figure out how to prevent it and learn from it” (don’t persecute).

Dealing with Venting

I’m dedicating a section to venting because I find it’s one of the most common and sticky mechanisms in the game, and it’s notoriously hard to deal with, mainly because it’s socially acceptable and widely understood to be a good thing.

Many people believe that some good old venting doesn’t hurt. Venting can help unburden your emotions and make you feel better. But plenty of studies have identified that it has the opposite effect and actually increases anger. I mean, just look at the internet if you need more evidence.

Venting legitimizes and normalizes hostility and aggression, and affects your culture negatively. And it’s also apparently very bad for your health, if you are in a constant state of rage and anger your blood pressure, heart rate and who knows what else gets compromised. Flipping the table doesn’t make these things go away; it makes it worse!

Not good for her blood pressure! (image credit: Bravo)

But then, what to do?

I may sound like a broken record, but again, this becomes a matter of how we personally respond. We cannot stop other people from doing whatever they did to make us angry, but we can choose how to react.

Here are some options:

• Step away from the conflict to calm down and reflect. It may remove the need for venting altogether.
• Go and do something that triggers emotions incompatible with anger, like love or humor. Play with the dog office for 2 minutes, watch a funny video online, play a (non-violent) game on your phone. The phenomenon is known as “incompatible response” [5] in anger management. Certain emotions, such as anger and humor, cannot co-exist.
• If you absolutely need to vent, look for someone that won’t validate your anger, or add to it — more about this below.

Worth mentioning here that what I call venting is a serious and aggressive display of anger and frustration. People working with me are used to see me running around the office and mumbling things like “FFS”, “OMG” or “Geez” when my laptop is not picking up the correct wi-fi, or when I seem unable to find my water bottle. We are still allowed to display emotions as long as we are mindful of our surroundings and workplace.

And of course, at home you can do (almost) whatever you want, but hey, watch out for that blood pressure!

When people vent to you

Yes, I know. Even if you manage your venting properly, somebody else might come and vent to YOU! The last thing you want to do is to come across as a judgemental jerk and dismiss them. It’s only going to fuel more anger and make that person annoyed at you. Suddenly you have joined the enemy.

My way around venting looks something like this:

1. Listen and acknowledge: you are listening to someone’s feelings and how they experienced some event. Regardless of it being factual, objective or fair, listening will give you clues of what assumptions the person made as they lived through it. Remember to thank them for sharing if you feel it’s appropriate and doesn’t feel too weird.
2. You can be empathetic but don’t validate: refrain yourself from adding more fuel to the fire. The key here is not to fall into more blaming!
3. If the person is agitated, you may need to allow some time for decompression — they won’t listen to anything you say next otherwise. Find a way to gain some time, grab them some water, suggest going for a walk, etc. In extreme cases, you may be dealing with a tantrum rather than regular venting, follow Seth Godin’s advice for extinguishing the “tantrum cycle” [6].
4. Become curious: something among the lines of “geez, that’s not good. What do you think is going on?” My current workplace has a convenient company value: “always assume positive intent.” If we believe everyone is acting in good faith, how can we explain this?
5. Co-create some options: what could we do next? Beware falling into the trap of “rescuing” your colleague. Unless they need real help or it’s part of your job, of course. There is a degree of pragmatism to have in here.

If you hear a lot of venting, you could eventually fall into the trap of becoming a “toxic handler” [7] in your office. The term refers to someone who voluntarily shoulders the sadness, frustration, bitterness, and anger of the organization. This kind of work is probably not part of your job description and may take a toll on you. Find ways to say no when people want to continuously vent to you.

Just wait until Kate wipes her ass with your human rights (image from Roman Polanski’s “Carnage”)

Coming Up

This post was about the impact of dysfunctional relationships and how they contribute to the drama. Similarly to what we saw in Part 1, the key here is how we respond to things ourselves. Exposing others to this kind of knowledge will help with the overall culture.

In Part 3, I will wrap up with Gossip, Bullies, and the balance of Power Dynamics.

Thanks to Eva Tamashi and Fredrik Arnell for their input on writing this post.

References

[1] Dr. Karpman’s Drama Triangle

[2] Marlene Chism: “Stop Workplace Drama” (2011)

[3] David Marquet: “Turn The Ship Around” (2013)

[4] Michael Bungay Stanier: “The Coaching Habit” (2016)

[5] Baron, R. A. The reduction of human aggression: A field study of the influence of incompatible reactions.

[6] https://seths.blog/2013/11/extinguishing-the-tantrum-cycle/

[7] https://hbr.org/2016/11/when-youre-the-person-your-colleagues-always-vent-to

“Clueless” was written and directed by Amy Hekerling. Paramount Pictures 1995

“Nanny McPhee” was written by Emma Thompson and directed by Kirk Jones. Universal Pictures, 2005

“Carnage” was written by Yasmina Reza and directed by Roman Polanski. Sony Pictures Classics, 2011