The Drama Triangle - and why you're likely involved in one at work

Hey,

Hope you're safe and well. Welcome back to Meeting Notes – right on time this week!

This time, we're digging into something fascinating that pops up everywhere: The Drama Triangle.

We'll explore exactly what it is, how to spot the role you (and others!) may be playing, and why it seems to be in almost every business you can imagine – and, let's be honest, probably in our personal lives too. And how to break free of it (with a consulting and coaching view at work).

Before we jump in, just a quick reminder: my latest book, "Workshop Mastery - the art and craft of teaching what you know," is officially out now! In the book I cover how to run awesome workshops or tutorials. I cover teaching methods, how to develop presence, why it's important to choose the right words, room layouts, course structure and more.

I'm so thrilled with all the feedback I've received so far. Thank you for that!

Onwards - to drama.

For those new to the Meeting Notes newsletter, welcome, I’m Rob, Chief Drama Officer at Cultivated Management. This newsletter is about mastering the art of communication and creativity - and cultivating a bright future of work. 

Understanding The Drama Triangle

The Drama Triangle is a brilliant tool, often used in therapy and counselling, to help us understand conflict, the roles we take on that may start or fuel this conflict, and how we see ourselves in our relationships. I'm going to cover it purely from a work perspective - I'm not a psychologist or counsellor.

At its heart, the Drama Triangle (in the context of work) is really about how we communicate and how we behave – or sometimes, how we fail to communicate effectively and how we demonstrate unhelpful behaviours.

Here's how it works. Imagine a triangle, and at each corner, there's a specific role that people fall into in relationships and conflict.

• The Persecutor: This is often seen as "the baddy." They're critical, they blame others, and they tend to be controlling.
• The Victim: This role is all about "poor me." Someone in this role feels helpless, passive, and generally avoids taking any responsibility for their situation. It's typically somebody else's fault.
• The Rescuer: This is "the hero" of the piece. They step in, they're super helpful, often trying to solve others' problems. The downside? They frequently neglect their own needs in the process.

Now, what’s interesting in any given conflict, or even just during a typical working day through our relationships, we don't necessarily stay in one role when we're in a Drama Triangle. We often rotate between all three, sometimes with surprising speed and frequency.

One minute we're the victim, then we're persecuting someone else, then we're rescuing. Round and round.

In my line of work, as a coach and consultant, I often find myself invited in to be the Rescuer. The trick, and the core of effective coaching, is ensuring I "rescue without being the rescuer". We'll get into that dynamic a bit more, as it's truly the essence of good coaching and consulting.

When all three roles are actively being played out, there's very little chance for anyone to "win" in the conflict. In fact, it's highly likely the conflicts just keep going, with everyone switching roles, ensuring the drama continues, or new conflicts start elsewhere as people move to different Drama Triangles.

Bringing The Triangle to Life: Home & Work Examples

Let's make this real with an example that any parent will likely recognise.

Imagine a situation where a father and son are in conflict. The son feels like the Victim because his father (the Persecutor) won't let him see his friends until his homework is done.

As their argument escalates and neither side is backing down, they both instinctively turn to Mum/Other parent.

At this point, Mum has a choice: does she jump in and rescue one of them, or does she help them work it out themselves? In a work context, this choice is precisely what defines effective coaching - helping people solve it themselves.

Often, the easiest path is to "rescue" the situation, perhaps by finding a quick compromise – "Okay, you can go out, but your room must be tidy tomorrow." Initially, it seems good as the conflict is averted, at least in the short term.

But then, things shift. The father might then play the Victim, accusing the mother of always taking the boy's side and making it easy for the son to avoid responsibility. Now, mum is the Persecutor.

And maybe the father will subtly draw the son back into the conflict to "rescue" him by reliving an old argument. This kind of role-switching can go on for hours, even days or weeks.

Think about another common scenario: two parents arguing over the state of the house.

Parent 2 comes home from work, sees the mess, and is argumentative with Parent 1 for not tidying up as they've been at home all day – Parent 2 is the Persecutor.

Parent 1 becomes defensive, feeling like the Victim. Their child overhears and jumps in to wash the dishes – the Rescuer. Then, Parent 2 might huffily take over the washing up, now playing the Victim, and so it goes.

At its core, the Drama Triangle is a cycle of really unhelpful behaviours and ineffective communication between all involved.

The roles aren't fixed; people jump between them, often very quickly. If this dynamic is left unaddressed, nobody wins in the long run. In fact, relationships can really suffer and become incredibly difficult to repair.

The Drama Triangle in Business

The Drama Triangle is everywhere in the workplace. I often think of coaching and consulting as the art of "rescuing without rescuing."

I'm usually brought in when conflict is high, tension is rising, work isn't flowing, and politics are taking over – essentially, there's a huge opportunity to release agility.

I find Victims, Rescuers and Persecutors all over the place.

One minute, a department head feels like a Victim because of their peer's behaviour. The next, they're the Persecutor, throwing problems at that same peer who has switched from Persecutor to Victim.

They in turn, feeling like a Victim now may turn around and start making demands of their own team, persecuting them.

Their staff then feel like Victims. And maybe when the dreaded engagement survey feedback comes back with terrible feedback about this leader, this boss switches from persecuting their team with high demands and pushiness, to being a Victim again - this time not from his/her peer but from their own team.

All the while, everyone is looking for a Rescuer (think external coach, HR, or a personal mentor, consultants, someone!). Some people are also stepping into the rescuer role to end the drama, all the while being dragged into the drama triangle, where they will switch roles too during it all.

As much as this sets the stage for prime coaching territory, my real job as a consultant or coach is to help people without actually "rescuing" them.

You see, my role is to help break the Drama Triangle. And while it can be done, it's not by me wading in and saving everyone as the Rescuer. I've seen consultants try this, only to quickly become the Victim themselves, or spend all their time flipping between roles just to get anything done (and keep their contract). That's not effective.

How to Break the Drama Triangle

So, how do you break free from this cycle?

There's no single magic bullet, as every situation is unique. But it always helps to understand what causes the drama triangle in the first place and who is playing what role.

As such, the two core areas I look at as a primary focus are:

Behaviours

At the heart of the drama triangle are unhelpful behaviours by those involved.

These usually stem from patterns developed through past experiences. They show up as avoiding responsibility, easily blaming others, refusing to face facts, a lack of self-reflection, a constant need for attention, being overly controlling, or needing constant validation.

These are things we can observe and study.

Good managers can give feedback on them, and great coaches can do it in a way that truly resonates without causing resentment - nudging people to effective behaviours instead.

We can identify unhelpful behaviours, noticing how these behaviours push people into the Victim role, others into the Persecutor role, and how those who avoid conflict might become the Rescuer, often to their own detriment (working long hours, neglecting their own needs, picking up other people’s work etc).

The key is to study and notice behaviours, then figure out how to address them – through coaching, feedback, training, or personal development, or some other mechanism. It also helps to know what good behaviours to look for.

Communication

(Technically, communication IS a behaviour, but I call it out separately here for clarity)

There's often a real struggle for people in business to communicate clearly. I often say that 99% of business problems stem from ineffective communication – and the Drama Triangle absolutely thrives on this.

When communication is ineffective, unspecific, vague, with poorly chosen words and phrases, with little listening (and understanding) involved, it fuels conflict and turmoil. Effective communication on the other hand, can help to resolve conflict calmly and with clarity and respect.

On a personal level, the trick is about not defaulting to your natural personal communication style, but learning instead to pause and respond appropriately for the specific purpose, audience, and context. (I cover this in the Communication Superpower Workbook).

Clear communication avoids misinterpretation, which can prevent someone from feeling persecuted in the first place and becoming the Victim, or from communicating in a way that comes across as persecuting others.

If things do heat up, ensure you're not adding fuel to the fire with inflammatory language, raised voices, or body language that screams anger and frustration.

Listening is also incredibly powerful; it can prevent the triangle from forming, and it's essential for resolving it.

This is why I focus on studying communication breakdown, and how this results in confusion, chaos and of course, drama triangles all over.

To resolve the conflict

At the end of the day, I'm always looking for who's the Victim and who's the Persecutor (and who keep Rescuing other people).

Then, I work with them (ideally all) to identify those unhelpful behaviours and develop stronger communication skills.

It's about raising awareness of the drama triangle being played out, drawing attention to the roles people are playing, and showing how easily everyone switches, and the behaviours and communication problems that lead to it and fuel it.

The next crucial step is encouraging people to take responsibility for their own behaviours. This means learning to reflect and spot their own unhelpful patterns and to set boundaries around what behaviours (and communication) are acceptable and what aren't.

It's hard work, but critical feedback from coaches or managers genuinely helps. However, remember, people must change their own behaviours – we can only help them see the unhelpful ones (and shine a light on the very positive ones) - this is the essence of good people management and coaching/consulting.

However, individuals must take ownership of their own behaviours - we can guide on how to change behaviours - but we cannot force them to change or do it for them, they must do that.

In every situation, people also have choices on next action steps.

A big part of my work is helping people see all the choices open to them and coach on how to make decisions.

This involves helping people think creatively to find solutions to business problems (which are often the catalyst for the drama - leading to the unhelpful behaviours and ineffective communication).

Instead of being stuck on one way of doing things, I encourage lateral thinking to find solutions that work for everyone. When people collaborate creatively, there's no need for a Victim or a Persecutor as a joint choice (and subsequent decision) can be sought. Of course, the trap here is that effective behaviours and communication are required to collaborate and cooperate!

I also encourage people to stop looking for a rescuer and instead use the points above to take ownership of the situation as individuals. A lot of this work is about figuring out what's within someone's control and starting there, while trying to let go of what cannot be controlled.

If we're feeling like a Victim, what can we do to resolve this, without an outside Rescuer or escalating the situation until we become the Persecutor? Often, people have far more control than they realise, they just sometimes can’t see it, or exercise it – this is where great coaches and consultants can help point this out to them.

Finally, I sometimes work with people to understand why they might enjoy the drama – and trust me, some people do like the drama or the fight for fighting's sake, or even enjoy being the Victim.

Often, but not always, this ties back to a lack of meaning, direction, or clarity in their own role or line of work, resulting in them persecuting others when things don't go well, or playing the victim, or rescuing everyone to find some form of clarity.

Of course, sometimes there's a deeper need for professional therapy, which is outside my scope as a coach and manager. That's why I stick to observable behaviours and communication – things I can see, hear, and coach people on - and not jump into the realms of understand why they behave that way after we've covered the basics of lack of clarity and meaning in their role.

If we address the lack of clarity or role development or confusion in the workplace, and people still thrive on drama, that's when it's time to suggest professional help or step back.

The Drama Triangle isn't just about individuals either; I see it played out on a much bigger scale in companies, where entire departments feel like Victims because they feel another department is making life hard for them and Persecuting them.

The authors of the Drama Triangle book even say the Cold War was a global version of the Drama Triangle!

As a coach and consultant, you're often brought in to "rescue" people and companies. The trick is actually helping people to rescue themselves.

In every company there are multiple drama triangles doing on. Just be sure you avoid getting sucked into one – and if you do, be clear the role you are playing and find a way to break the triangle.

Your Path to Breaking Free:

• Awareness: The first step is simply recognising when you're in a drama triangle role, or when people you are working with are in a role. Spot how they switch roles and what causes that.
• Keep an eye on behaviours and communication. These cause the drama triangle, fuel it and can resolve it. Behaviours can be observed, described, communicated about and given feedback about.
• Encourage people to take responsibility of their own behaviours and work with them on shifting unhelpful behaviours to positive ones.
• Help people see the choices in front of them and work with others to solve problems in collaboration and cooperation, rather than needing to win at the expense of others.
• Set boundaries, express your needs constructively, not destructively. Respect other peoples.

And with that, I hope this has been helpful in spotting the drama triangle at play, understanding the roles involved and seeing how people's behaviours (and communication) plays a significant role.

Of course, there are many other reasons drama unfolds, but by focussing on behaviours and communication, you stand a good chance of breaking free.

Until next time

Rob..

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