Playing Games (Resentment Part 3/3)
Today I will delve into the dynamics of group resentments leaning on the transactional analysis branch of psychology.
Let’s start with the introduction of Karpman’s drama triangle and a brief discussion.
“psychological games that we play; a game is a series of transactions, often repetitive, with a predictable outcome, hidden motives and a payoff of bad feelings; they are played through the roles of the drama triangle.” – Abe Wagner
For a deeper look go to the source:
Essential things to know about the drama triangle:
generally games played in this structure are counter productive
In some games people can fluidly move from one role to another and in some cases even cycle through all the roles
There are a number of ways that each person in the triangle gets a payoff for playing this game, however, of relevance to the current discussion are the many ways resentment that may have been previously non-existent can be activated when the drama triangle is set in motion:
The person cast as the perpetrator who does not perceive themselves as being the perpetrator will be resentful.
The newly cast victim "realizes" how the perpetrator has been oppressing them, and now feels resentment to them.
The rescuer feels resentment to the perpetrator.
The perpetrator now feels even more resentment for being so resented…possibly shifting to the role of victim.
And on it goes…
A major point here is that once the resentment sets in, it can take a lot of work to get rid of it; if that is even possible.
Let’s go to sports for an analogy and contrast football (the European variety) and rugby (yeah, yeah you’re getting tired of all the rugby analogies). The top team from club A gets beaten by club B at B’s home field. Coach A decides to play the rescuer and get his players to initially think of themselves as victims and that if they follow the coach’s direction they can exact revenge. Not only does team A follow the direction, but at their next game at home team A introduces some nasty foul play, and the home team fans are wild verbally attacking the visiting team. This kind of situation can and does degenerate into hooliganism in European football. Teams have a great deal of resentment towards each other, often more so in the fans than the players.
In the rugby world the above drama triangle tends not to exist, at least in this form and here is why: After games there is the tradition of a “beer-up” where players go to the home team’s pub afterwards for pints, essentially celebrating the competition they shared with some tasty analgesic beverages. The celebration generally interrupts this drama triangle from getting going, and rugby players (at least in my experience in North America where the game is mostly amateur) move from club to club easily when life takes them to different places, or play together at higher levels representing their region or country.
The point in the rugby context is that with player mobility, and the need to play together at a national level it is counter productive for one team to encourage the drama triangle to take root. Players from that team would have a hard time playing with players from other teams at the higher levels. This would then stunt the development of players and hurt the long term prospects of the club. Players from other clubs will see the reputation this club has and chose to play for other clubs.
There is an obvious business analogy, and certain industry group events can serve the function of the “beer-up” where leaders from competing businesses and their teams can meet and in an ideal situation engage in collegial volunteer work to make their industry as a whole stronger through creation of best practice guides, or standards, and then socialize a bit.
I now want to introduce the transactional analysis idea of the unconditional stroke:
first a stroke is a “unit of recognition”
a stroke can be positive or negative
a stroke can be conditional (ie: based on what someone does)
or a stroke can be unconditional (ie: based on the identity of the person)
So, an unconditional stroke is a negative recognition of someone or a group based on who they are.
In the above example the drama triangle could get kicked off without even the need for the initial defeat of club A at the hands of club B. The coach might use a form of unconditional stroke to the invisible team B: “those guys from B are bad” (you fill in the description for how they might be bad, use your imagination). They are not bad because they did anything…they are simply bad for being on team B. Team A begins to resent team B. Team B hears about coach A bad mouthing them…and they don’t like it…in fact they resent it. Each team now thinks of itself as a victim and the other team as the perpetrator. Drama triangle kicked off.
I’ll make a bold statement here: In a professional work environment the unconditional negative stroke should never be used; whether about individuals or groups. Full stop. Nothing good will come from it.
Abe Wagner was on the Meta Trends podcast (the quote above is from this podcast), and this is riveting stuff(for me anyways): https://youtu.be/WbbUnRo36P0?si=gmisniBzbMoc_RZB
Right in the middle (~30 mins) of the podcast Wagner summarizes 12 rules for living to stay out of the drama triangle that I think are great rules for a leader to live and lead by:
Understand your goals and direct your activity to accomplish them
Treat yourself and others with dignity and respect
Be self determining and help others to do the same
Be responsible for your own thinking, feeling and behaviour
Live in the here and now
Speak with a purpose of resolving issues rather than proving you are right
Continue what works and modify or stop what doesn’t
Ask for what you want and advise others to do the same
Make agreements you are willing AND able to keep
Give and accept positive strokes and constructive feedback
Express your feeling appropriately, then get on with the task at hand
In a conflict communicate constructively and ONLY with those that can help you to resolve it
Staying out of the drama triangle whether we are talking about between groups or between individuals is a great way to prevent the creation of resentment. As leaders we have a major role to play in the creation of these positive relations.
I’ll cap all this off to say that in 2023 I finally was able to go see the rugby world cup in person. What was amazing to me about it was the totally festive atmosphere at all three games I went to. There were certainly fans there from rival teams, and at the end of the day everyone was there to enjoy the game. The atmosphere was incredibly festive; one of the most violent sports and the people in the stands celebrating together. No drama.
As always I welcome your thoughts and insights. The last couple of pieces provoked some interesting dialogues for which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Nik