Coaching And The Drama Triangle
You have walked into a firestorm. On the first day, management takes you aside and tells you that the teams just aren't up to scratch. They are always late, they don't have the skills, they don't care about business outcomes. Don't they realise that If we don't make the date, the company will struggle? Can you please go in and fix them?
On the second day, the teams tell you about management's unreasonable demands and how they are working late nights and weekends, with no recognition, struggling with poor equipment and environments, slow processes and constant micromanagement. Can you please get management off their backs and let them get on with it?
Day three you turn up and have both sides looking at you with pleading in their eyes, expecting you to come to the rescue and solve their problem. Welcome to the Drama Triangle. The Drama Triangle comes out of the family therapy area and was first described way back in 1968 by Stephen Karpman. The Drama Triangle states that in many interpersonal conflicts, people will assume one of three roles - the victim, the persecutor and the rescuer.
We can see all three in the example above. The management are taking the role of the persecutor - it's all their fault. The team is taking on the role of the victim - poor us; and the rescuer that has been brought in? Yep, that's you. The coach. Let's look at the three roles in more detail -
The victim is the obvious one. “Poor me. It's not my fault. I'm being picked on. It's not my fault.” They feel powerless and at the mercy of outside events. Importantly, the victim (because they feel powerless) does not feel responsible for their situation. “How can it be my fault if I have no control?”
The persecutor also blames others and feels powerless, but instead of feeling that the world is again them, they criticise and blame others - “It's all your fault”. It is important to note that the persecutor in a Drama Triangle doesn't always have to be a real person, it can be a faceless "other" - the finance department, that other team over there, and so on.
The rescuer is the one in the middle trying to help. Most often, help the victim. How many of us naturally sympathised with the team in the example above? The rescuer’s desire is to help. To make things better. To rescue. They will often take responsibility for problems that aren't theirs in order to solve them. Why did most of us get into coaching? To help people? To make things better?
What's wrong with that? It's a good motivation. The problem with the rescuer is that they will become over protective and controlling in order to stay as rescuer, rather than actually resolving the issue. After all, if there is no issue, no one needs rescuing and then they don’t need us. How often have we seen coaches buzzing around frantically trying to protect teams, jumping in, putting out fires and generally being a rescuer, rather than tackling the structural issues that caused the problem in the first place? Or charities raising huge amounts of money to continually minister to the poor, rather than using their resources to lift people out of poverty? Just like victim and persecutor, rescuer is a psychological trap. Victim and rescuer can become co-dependent, with the rescuer enabling the victim in their victim-hood so that they can keep rescuing them, and the victim, loving the care and attention of the rescuer, is content to stay as victim.
The roles in the Drama Triangle aren't stable by the way, they can shift continually. The coach takes a look and decides that the team does have some issues - guess what, you just became the persecutor. Or the coach tells management that they are in the wrong, so the team decides to let fly with a few home truths to sink the boot in a little while they have the chance - victim and persecutor just swapped. Management or team rejects some coaching recommendations - rescuer just became victim. Ultimately, after a few times swapping roles, everyone feels like they are the victim being persecuted by everyone else.
No matter how many times we swap roles, we are still caught in this conflict. We are stuck in the Drama Triangle. People can get stuck in this for years. Psychologically, it is because people are having a need met by taking on one of these roles. Victim doesn’t sound very good, but it's a great way to psychologically absolve yourself of any responsibility for what's going on. Although you are the victim, it's comforting to know that nothing is your fault. And they often have a nice rescuer there to give them sympathy and comfort. Persecutors also get to absolve themselves of blame but with an added feeling of superiority. Rescuers, of course, get that lovely "I'm helping" feeling.
The Drama Triangle is an endless cycle of toxic relationships. The only way to win is to break the cycle and you can’t do that from any of the three roles. Something needs to change. We need to change the roles. Instead of victim, persecutor and rescuer, we want creator, challenger and coach.
Often (and fortunately for us coaches) the easier role to change is rescuer into coach. Having a coach rather than a rescuer then allows the other roles to change as well.
How do these new roles work? We'll look at that next time.