Transactional Analysis (TA) has been developed by Dr. Eric Berne. He believed that people could only understand their own psychology when they could see how they act with others and how others act with them.
In his book Games People Play, he discusses three basic transactions: Parent, Adult, and Child (later renamed the more inclusive Parent-Adult-Child). These transactions occur in every relationship but are often unconscious and impact your personality more than you might think. Here’s how transactional analysis at work is used.
Transactional Analysis And Leadership
Transactional analysis (TA) has been an overlooked but incredibly valuable practice for decades. If you want to use transactional analysis at work to become a better leader, here are the three reasons to use it.
– Because of its two-person focus, transactional analysis is a great way to understand yourself and others around you;
– You’ll clearly see how interactions between people go down in your organization and how to improve them;
– TA will help you make decisions based on other people’s needs and wants, making you a better leader.
Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis
Dr. Eric Berne developed Transactional Analysis in 1966 to better understand communication and personality. Dr. Berne became interested in transactional analysis, a trained psychoanalyst when he realized that Sigmund Freud’s theories couldn’t explain all human interactions. When he wrote about his theory for Psychology Today in 1964, he proposed that people had three basic ego states: parent, adult, and child.
What was once ground-breaking eventually became mainstream and many companies today use it as a method of employee development to promote more open communication among staff members.
Implementing transactional analysis in your organization can greatly improve company culture and workplace efficiency.
Parent State
A parent state is one in which your greatest desire is to make someone else happy. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you’ll need to go around making everyone’s wishes come true.
The person in this state sees life as a set of exchanges: “If I meet your needs, you’ll meet mine.”
Basically, the parent state comes down to pleasing and protecting others around you, but very often at your own expense, which is not an ideal state.
Adult State
For transactional analysis, the adult state is one in which you are neither too defensive and rational nor too emotionally reactive to think clearly. You can make reasonable choices, and your communication is clear and direct. The adult state serves as a stabilizing force at all other levels of the model.
Bill Murray says that relationships start with an Adult response: that means you should communicate openly and honestly with someone else (without blaming or being sarcastic).
He says we should use the “I” message instead of the “You” in a message when we want something from someone else: An I-message focuses on what’s happening inside us rather than what’s wrong with someone else.
To make it an effective message, follow these guidelines:
-Focus on how you feel.
-Use the I statement.
-Express yourself directly.
-Avoid blame or accusation.
-Focus on needs, not positions.
-Describe behaviour, not character.
He suggests asking questions if necessary but keeping it simple, so everyone understands what is going on.
Child State
The Child State is one of Eric Berne’s three states of mind. This state is characterized by feelings of no control over one’s life.
A person in a child state will feel like their life is ruled by someone else, so they’ll react passively to events and will typically follow orders. They are also likely to be very emotional because they don’t have enough information about what’s going on around them to understand why things are happening.
Because of these feelings, people in a child state will seek authority figures—usually parents—to take care of them and tell them what to do next.
In business settings, employees stuck in a child state might need their manager to make all their decisions for them or need constant reassurance from above that everything is going according to plan.
If you work with people who fall into this category, it can be helpful for you as an employer or manager if you know how best to handle them.
Transactional Analysis at Work Techniques
The transactional analysis looks at how we communicate with others and breaks down relationships into four key transactions. The techniques can help us to be more assertive, get out of our own way, and become more aware of how we relate to others in our lives. These techniques are useful for everyday life and business interactions alike! Here are a few ways to use transactional analysis at work to build a stronger team:
Alliance
An Alliance is the basis of an effective relationship. It can be applied to both personal and work relationships.
The key components of the Alliance include the following:
- Showing concern;
- Sharing power in decision-making,
- Verbalizing support, and
- Applying creative solutions.
Anger Work
Eric Berne also developed a technique called Anger work. His technique deals with verbalizing feelings of rage and using them to elicit understanding in others and the self.
To fully come to terms with anger, the individual must address it by analysing the root cause:
– What are you feeling angry about?
– Who are you mad at?
– And what exactly is causing your anger?
Many people experience feelings of rage due to stressful circumstances, like anxiety or depression, it is important to recognize and address them.
Cushion work
This technique is useful in all types of relationships, even personal ones, but we’ll focus on how it can help you at work. Cushion work helps monitoring the transactions between you and your peers/managers, to identify any unhealthy cycles.
For example, interns might always work unhealthy amount of hours because they don’t want to be perceived as lazy by their colleagues or mentors.
Transactional Analysis In Organizational Behaviour
Dr. Berne developed transactional analysis to focus on behaviour as a communication. Each type of behaviour has a payoff for you and others regarding how you feel about yourself, how others think of you, or both.
For example, yelling when frustrated relieves the frustration (giving a payoff), so such a behaviours can continue to do because it’s an effective way to get needs met.
In another example, if being kind to someone gives them validation which helps them feel good about themselves (making me feel like a good person in their eyes), it becomes part of our ongoing transaction.
Conclusion
No matter who you are or what your position at work is, it’s crucial to make your co-workers feel supported.
To have a happy and productive team, managers must ensure that everyone is on good terms with each other. Managers must be in touch with everyone’s needs to address them appropriately and create a comfortable work environment for everyone.
Hopefully, this article will help you how to manage people better by using transactional analysis at work, an extremely popular technique among many business owners and which, as we saw, allows people to understand themselves better by breaking down their interactions into two categories: transactions and communications.
Further Reading
Best Gratitude Wall Ideas To Cultivate A Happy Workplace
Understanding The Empowerment Triangle Model
Why Is Workplace Communication Important