Aoife O'Brien [00:00:04]:

Recording in progress. If you've ever found yourself feeling really stuck in your career and like there's no way out or in a culture of blame where you're feeling like everyone is blaming each other, or if you're jumping in to rescue your colleagues when maybe they've taken on too much work, for example, you might find yourself part of the drama triangle. Now this is something I've been wanting to talk about on the happier at work podcast for quite some time and finally getting around to doing it. I'm your host, Aoife O'Brien. And today, we're gonna talk about the drama triangle, exactly what it is and what you can do to recognize those patterns and then to actually get out of it as well. This is the really important thing. So this is a psychological concept that was developed in the nineteen sixties, and there are three crucial parts to it. The first one is the victim.

Aoife O'Brien [00:01:00]:

So that's playing victim mode. Oh, that's not fair. Why is this always happening to me? And you feel really stuck and you feel out of control and you feel like other people are controlling how you feel or controlling what you're able to do. So you're playing the victim mode. The next one then is the persecutor. So the pers the victim requires the persecutor. The thing about this triangle is that they all rely on each other. So the persecutor is the person who blames other people.

Aoife O'Brien [00:01:32]:

Why can't you just get this right? This is wrong. You need to do better. And then the third element is the rescuer. This is the person who jumps in to fix things. Someone has taken on too much work. Someone can't handle their work, and they're always finding themselves playing this role of coming in to fix things at the last minute. So those are the three different aspects of the drama triangle, and I'd love to share how this shows up at work because it really does. It has an impact on workplace culture.

Aoife O'Brien [00:02:03]:

It has our has an impact on our relationships with other people, and it has an impact on our career progression as well. So if we're feeling like a victim and, you know, totally stuck where we are and there's nothing that we personally can do about it, then it's gonna cause us frustration and it's gonna cause us to get stuck where we are and to stay stuck feeling like we can't control anything. The blame culture then, you know, when there is a lot of persecutors persecutors around and I know certainly I have been in that blame culture where we called it the CYA or the cover your arse because you have to have everything in writing to make sure that if the shit hit the fan that you weren't gonna be the one who was gonna get in trouble, that you had all of your i's dotted and your t's crossed, and you had everything documented, electronically, essentially. You know, we weren't back in the paper ages back then, but you had everything documented in some way to show that it wasn't your fault if anything ever went wrong. And so I've been in that culture as well. There could also be, an environment of gossip. So, again, I've been in this culture where and I was the one. I was saying how terrible my boss was.

Aoife O'Brien [00:03:16]:

I was stuck in absolute victim mode. Things are going so terribly. I hate the culture here. There's nothing I can do about it. I used to go for lunch every day with two of my best friends and just moan. Now for various different reasons, both of those people left the organization that I worked in. And what I found was when I wasn't stuck in victim mode and talking and moaning about work every single day, things dramatically improved. And what I found was what I focused on got worse and worse and worse.

Aoife O'Brien [00:03:47]:

So, really, it's about finding finding those things, being able to identify those patterns. So the they are unconscious patterns of behavior. So it's not something that we necessarily do consciously, but it's about being aware. If there are any difficult relationships that you have at the moment, is there a specific role that you're playing in that relationship, and how do you take responsibility for knowing what role you're actually playing? So think about that. Think about difficult situations. Think about your current workplace culture. Think about your job prospects or your career. You know, do you feel really stuck where you are at the moment, or are you taking full responsibility and accountability for making things happen to move things forward for yourself? The other thing worth noting in relation to this is it's not just we play that same role all the time.

Aoife O'Brien [00:04:45]:

Now these unconscious patterns can come from childhood, but it's not about repeating that same role time and time again. At different times, we could be playing different roles, and with different people, we could be playing different roles as well. So if I think of some of the relationships that I've had, and again, this isn't just exclusive to work, this can happen in our in our personal lives as well where we play victim or we play persecutor, you know, blaming someone else, or if we jump in and try and rescue someone from something really difficult that we hope that they don't go through, we can play these roles in various different contexts as well. And like I say, not always the same role. So we could be feeling the victim, for example, in a work context. And then in our personal lives, we're playing the rescuer to someone who is close to us. So we could be playing these different roles at at different times in different contexts, but the thing to be really aware is recognizing what those patterns are. So the victim really is all about that feeling of stuckness out of control.

Aoife O'Brien [00:05:53]:

And, you know, you might be thinking life's not fair or this is not fair and feeling really stuck in like, the whole thing is that you feel like other people are in control and you have absolutely no control over the the situation that you find yourself in. The persecutor then is it's everyone else's fault. You know, it's it's blaming other people for what's going on and requiring other people to to do better and really challenging that as well. And then the rescuer is jumping in when instead of allowing other people to figure things out for themselves or to solve their own problems, you're jumping in and you're solving the problems for them. So it could be covering up mistakes at work. It could be taking over someone else's work if it's not being done quickly enough. It's jumping in too soon to fix all of the things that you think are are going wrong, which has the impact that other people can't necessarily learn and develop and grow. You can find it in micromanagers as well.

Aoife O'Brien [00:07:01]:

So a micromanager could be someone who's, really trying to persecute whoever is on the receiving end of the micromanagement. And then the person on the receiving end is feeling like a victim, feeling like they're completely out of control and there's nothing that they can do about it. So it shows up in various different guises like this as well. I'm sure you can relate if you're listening to this podcast to a lot of those different areas that I've mentioned. So the gossiping area, the blame culture that I've been in as well, and the micromanagement. And that's something that I've experienced all three of those, and I'm sure I've played various different roles in absolutely all of those. But now what to actually do about it? So thinking now, first of all, in the victim. So how do we move from victim mode? If you notice that you're feeling stuck, that you say that you can't change whatever is happening to you, that you have absolutely no control, how do you move out of that mode into creator mode? And it's about thinking, what what is my role here, what am I doing to create these circumstances that I've found myself in, and what's one small thing that I can do to create better circumstances for myself.

Aoife O'Brien [00:08:20]:

So let's say if you're being managed by your micromanager and you're feeling really stuck and, like, you're going nowhere in your career that your job really sucks but there's nothing else out there for you, how can you change that thinking, and how do you take more control? Okay. So recognizing the situation that you find yourself in, first of all, and taking responsibility. So, you know, can you speak to your manager? Not everyone likes to hear. I'm not sure anyone likes to hear that they're a micromanager, but how can you ask them what it is specifically that they need without necessarily accusing them of being a micromanager? What is it that they need from you that you can help them to to get? So do they need to know something in advance? Do they need to see something before it goes out to a client? What is it specifically that they are actually looking for which is driving this micromanaging behavior? Now you don't necessarily have to say that they're a micromanager, like I said, but just getting curious about what's driving the behavior, what's actually driving that. And then from a persecutor switching that blame and it's all your fault into how do you become a challenger? So how can I help you to achieve this? You rather than you haven't got this done, you need to do better flipping the language to how can I help you to succeed at this? How can what what is it that you need from me and how can we do this together? So, again, owning your responsibility within this and how can you get the best out of other people. And then the third area is the rescuer. So rather than jumping in and trying to fix things for everyone else, have a think about how can I best support this person? So rather than jumping in and saying, oh, now I have to do everything myself again. How can you get curious? Again, one of my core values.

Aoife O'Brien [00:10:23]:

How can you get curious and ask that person, what is it that you need from me? How can I support you to get this done? How can I support you through this time rather than just jumping in and doing everything for them, which then leaves them in victim mode? So if you're perpetuating this cycle, you're leaving them as a victim, as as someone who is out of control, someone who can't take responsibility for what's going on for themselves. So like I say, something I've been wanting to talk about on the podcast for a long time, the drama triangle. I think it's really important to understand. And once you know about it, you'll start seeing the patterns either in other people's relationships or in your own relationships. So definitely something to be aware of and no judgment at all. It's just noticing when those patterns are showing up and trying to interrupt those patterns and reframe your thinking of, okay. So if I'm playing the victim mode, what can I do to change that? How can I move into the creator mode if I'm playing victim? So I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. As always, I would love to hear from you.

Aoife O'Brien [00:11:33]:

Let me know what you thought. What is one thing that you're doing differently? Any moments about how you're showing up at work or otherwise, I'd really, really love to hear from you. Recording stopped.