Practical orientation in HR trainings: No grey theory!
Liliane Grandpierre
The more practice-oriented HR trainings are designed, the more enthusiastic the participants usually are. Often they want tips and tricks that can be directly implemented, which are ideally “surefire” applicable to any similar situation in the future and lead to success.
I boldly claim: Only unprofessional trainers hand out recipes!
There can be no simplified or generalized rules for HR trainings that indicate what leads to happiness, because every person, every situation and every communication is individual.
Nevertheless, there are a number of helpful models and theories that provide a good basis for analyzing and reflecting on challenging situations, making them understandable. By reflecting on my own part in what is happening, I can develop alternatives to proactively behave differently in difficult situations in the future.
For example, a participant in a leadership training course tells me about problems he has with a co-worker. This employee regularly complains about her workload, she doesn’t know where her head is. The manager relieves her of tasks. After a short time she complains again. With suppressed anger, the manager now takes back tasks that are critical to her schedule and does them herself. When the employee again fails to complete an important task and plays the same ‘whining record’, the manager’s collar bursts and he gives her a severe beating. In the training, he reports on his remorse for having overreacted and his conviction that he is a bad boss.
A model I like to use in such situations is the drama triangle model from transactional analysis. Stephen Karpman has used it to describe the psychological dynamics of dysfunctional communication patterns in a catchy way. It is presented in a few minutes and the participants immediately see parallels to their own world of experience and can quickly connect to it.
The drama triangle model is used to describe unconscious, destructive communication processes, so-called psychological games, which are in a way predictable because they are always staged in the same way and have no productive outcome.
Karpman defines three possible prototypical roles that can be taken in the game: Pursuer, Rescuer and Victim.
A pursuer needs others to appear inferior. He points out faults to others, belittles them, criticizes excessively, hurts or devalues his counterpart.
A rescuer reacts from an overprotective, parental attitude and needs someone in the victim role in the relationship. He helps others without being asked and makes others dependent on him. In doing so, he denies the ability of others to think, feel and act for themselves.
The victim behaves in a way that makes him feel bad all the time. He is treated badly by others, he feels small, incapable and inferior and needs help from others. The victim pretends that he has no strength to solve the problem, that others have to take care of his well-being.
The three roles do not necessarily require exactly three ‘players’.
The game begins with one person taking a role and a second person joining in a complementary role. This can go back and forth, but other people can also join the game. During the course of the game, the roles are changed. At some point, for example, a victim retaliates and becomes the pursuer, or a rescuer switches to the victim role disappointed by the unsuccessful rescue efforts.
The dramatic thing about the drama triangle is that it can only end unproductively with negative feelings if no one succeeds in getting out of it.
In the case presented, the employee has gone into the helpless victim role. The manager has helpfully slipped into the rescuer role, only to switch to the persecutor role after several rescues. He now sits in the training with victim feelings.
In the HR trainings, the leader recognizes important basic features and conditions of this psychological game:
Psychological games are played unconsciously (in contrast to power games) because they are often chosen as a familiar behavioral pattern in a situation that is perceived as difficult. This is an important insight for many and helps to look for ways out without feelings of anger towards the game partner.
Most people have “favorite roles” gained from their life path and automatically jump into their complementary role when they come into contact with it.
There are many productive alternatives to the drama triangle: Instead of persecuting, I can formulate constructive criticism without devaluing the other person. Instead of rescuing without being asked, I can first ask what support is required. Instead of putting myself in a victim role, I can formulate my expectations and wishes and retain responsibility for my problem.
In this attitude, the participants meet each other in an appreciative way.
The learning requirements for this are:
Consciously perceive invitations to play from conflict partners.
Knowing one’s own “favorite role” in the drama triangle and reflecting critically on it again and again
To consciously get out of a game when you are aware that you have got caught up in it.
As this example shows, for me theory and practice are combined in good HR trainings in a balanced relationship. Without practice, you work in “cloud cuckoo land” and get nothing out of it for everyday life. Purely practical training focuses on individual cases and offers too little in the way of tools for future situations.