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Stepping out of the play zone, 9 May 2017
1. The Drama Triangle in Action
Patty Everitt
9th May 2017
Stepping Out of the Play Zone
9th May2017patty@patty-everitt.co.uk 1
2. Humans are relational
Humans are relational, which means that …
• “Good” interaction with others matters, for:
Our own wellbeing;
Our sense of self and self-worth;
The wellbeing of others.
Successful group endeavours need good interaction
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3. “Good” communication is important …
• There are N(N-1)/2 2-way communication channels in a group of N
people
• The perfect Project Manager can, of course …
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Pinning down what we mean by communication …
The meaning of communication is the response you get.
This means that it is the communicator’s responsibility to make sure their message has
been received as they intended.
We only know someone through their behaviour
As social animals, we can only experience someone through their behaviour. We do
not know about their intention. Sometimes we can guess and be close enough;
sometimes we guess and get it very wrong.
Reality is a subjective experience.
If we think about this we know it must be true because different people react
differently to and feel differently about the same event.
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How do we create our subjectivity?
We experience our reality through the lenses of:
• Our personality
• Our experience of nurture
• Our personal experience
• Society’s expectations
• Historic experience
• We store our interpretation of reality in:
• Patterns of thought, emotion & behaviour
• “Filters” - Internal representations of an event + emotion + physiology -> behaviour
• We respond to our reality:
• Being at “Cause” or at “Effect”
So we know something of someone else’s reality through theirbehaviour
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Scenario…
Scenario: Role
P/R/V/A
A new Manager arrives to take over a team that has been described as“dysfunctional”.
The Manager interviews each of the management team individually. This is the gist of
conversations with one of the team that took place over several 1:1 meetings.
Manager “You’re very defensive”
Direct Report “I’m finding you are very interrogational”
Manager “I don’t mean to be”
Direct Report “I know, but that’s how you’re coming across”
The conversation continues but not to the satisfaction of the Manager, and ends with:
Manager: “I think you should take some time over the coming
holidays to think about your attitude. We’ll meet after the
holidays”.
7. The Drama triangle
Drama triangle : Steve Karpman
Persecutor
Victim
Rescuer
Play
Zone The roles in the Drama triangle are
states of mind, NOT people.
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• Where is your preferred position?
• Which roles our Manager and Direct Report are taking as this short dialogue progresses.
• If you were the Direct Report how would you prepare for the next interview?
Scenario: Role
P/R/V/A
A new Manager arrives to take over a team that has been described as“dysfunctional”.
The Manager interviews each of the management team individually. This is the gist of
conversations with one of the team that took place over several 1:1 meetings.
Manager “You’re very defensive”
Direct Report “I’m finding you are very interrogational”
Manager “I don’t mean to be”
Direct Report “I know, but that’s how you’re coming across”
The conversation continues but not to the satisfaction of the Manager, and ends with:
Manager: “I think you should take some time over the
coming holidays to think about your attitude.
We’ll meet after the holidays”.
9. patty@patty-everitt.co.uk 9th May2017 9
Scenario: Role
P/R/V/A
In this scenario this is what the Direct Report did…
In the aftermath of the meeting the Direct Report sank into a state of despair.
Clearly however, a rational and logical part was still operating which presented the
following: “Throughout my career in this company every one of my performance appraisals
has been graded as Good or Excellent. What’s going on here?”
The Direct Report talks to self as follows: “How do I get myself into a state-of-mind for the
next interview so that regardless of the outcome I will be in an ok-state?”
Direct Report decides that the required state-of-mind is confident, calm and in-control of
self and remembers that a particular piece of music evokes this state-of-mind.
At the next interview, before entering the Manager’s office, Direct Report re-plays the music
internally to set up the desired state-of-mind. The interview ends with:
Manager: “The break seems to have done you good. I was afraid
we’d have to take some action regarding your attitude”.
How the Direct Report prepared
10. Stepping Out of the Play Zone
The Adult state of mind is:
In the moment and not responding to baggage
from past encounters.
Logical, rational and creative.
Aware of own emotion and deciding how
appropriate it is, or is not, to act on thatemotion.
Typical ways of getting into Adult and helping someone
else into Adult, are:
Create an opportunity to “break state”
Ask questions that require a factual answer.
To own your own feelings, thoughts and behaviours.
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The Drama Triangle and its Exit
• Drama Triangle is a type of communication pattern.
• Patterns can be triggered in any number of ways.
• The roles are states-of-mind and act to dis-empower or to be dis-
empowered.
• People may change roles to create the conditions to get what they
want.
• The game stops when everyone ends up where they expect to be.
The way out is to move to Adult state-of-mind
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… And finally…
• Where do you think you could use this?
• Where would you not use it?
• What might stop you using it?
• How many times would you have to use it to decide whether it can
work for you?
13. This presentation was delivered
at an APM event
To find out more about upcoming
events please visit our website
www.apm.org.uk/events