If you are driving Enterprise 2.0 in your organisation, there are 3 roles you might be lured into playing:
- Rescuer. "Help, help, we cannot collaborate with Notes Teamrooms, surely your wiki will save us!" "Why yes, it will solve all your problems and all will be right with the world."
- Victim. "Why does no one pay attention to me? Why cannot I get any traction with the business?"
- Persector. "You are doing this all wrong! You are idiots with your impenetrable chains of emails and your hidden information nests!"
Other people will tempt you to into playing these roles by playing one of their own. They may even shift between them.
However, the budding Enterprise 2.0 dude (or dudette) must avoid playing any of these roles and being caught on the point of a Karpman Drama Triangle. There are other options:
- Rather than being a victim, admit your vulnerability. You are not all knowing and some of your experiments may fail. But you will fail fast, fail early and learn from your failures. You will succeed.
- Rather than rescuing, reach out. Connect with others trying to achieve similar things in other organisations. Tap into your internal & external networks.
- Rather than persecute, persevere. The "Enterprise 2.0" buzz term will disappear but the need to help smart people work together smarter will not.
Keep the faith people.
A hat tip to KT for putting me on to these in the first place.
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4 comments:
No question that these situations commonly arise in organisations. Would still recommend hesitation in using a model that could be perceived as extremely negative...
Good point! Also another common hat I noticed is the "be there or be gone".
There is a negativity about drama triangles, but Karpman also noted that these are ways people play "games" wth one and other - and I mean "games" in the positive sense. There is always a risk these drama traingles result in trapped behaviour (and the reinterpretation of it into a the winners traingle is certainly more "healthy"), but it can also be playful and not so negative. Maybe the winners triangle is a more positive expression of this game, but one of Karpman's key points is to recognise what role you and others are playing to help moderate or shape your reactions.
Not sure if this ads anything, but I've been thinking more about this over the last week since we had our rant about them.
I think it is worth noting that the prescribed roles (P,V,R) are inherently unstable and the same person can shift into any of the three roles within the very same minute.
You mention alternatives, but the simplest way to break of the Drama Triangle is to ask boldly and reflectively "What is my role in creating this?" The process of thoughtful examination usually leads to a revelation of things one could have done differently and or potential options for the immediate future. Of course, it's worlds simpler to follow the prescribed roles of V,P,R.
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