#34 – Knowing me, Knowing you
Managing your team, avoiding breaking up, and transactional analysis
Time to shift gear and move away from the topic of leadership through crisis.
The last few issues of Practical Counsel have been devoted to the topic of managing and leading through crisis – which felt entirely appropriate given the multiple crises, economic and political besetting some of the world’s largest economies at present.
But I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that most of the managerial issues facing senior house lawyers are more prosaic.
This week I received an email from Margaret, who is DGC in a medium sized legal department. The issue she describes is typical of the type of managerial issues that are the bread and butter of managing an in-house team.
I take the opportunity to introduce the model of transactional analysis, which I mentioned briefly in a previous issue, and which many of the senior in-house lawyers I work with have found incredibly helpful in analysing how to deal with managing their team members. It is a very simple model, but the devil (as is often the case) is in the detail of applying the model.
As always, please comment and contribute to the debate by posting direct on Practical Counsel. Also, please write in with your unique people issues to me (practicalcounsel@substack.com) - I unequivocally undertake never to reveal your identity and will change key details of your situation so as to preserve your confidentiality and anonymity (unless you don’t want this). I also undertake to write to you personally with my own thoughts and comments on your situation and am always happy to follow up with a call on Zoom or similar.
‘Dear Jonathan’ … and Jonathan’s Reply
Dear Jonathan
I’ve been enjoying your series of issues on leadership through crisis.
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you with an issue that is more basic, but the bane of my managerial life at the moment.
I am Deputy General Counsel in a medium-sized legal department based in Atlanta, Georgia. The corporation is a medium sized pharmaceutical company.
I have six direct reports. Generally I have extremely good relationships with my reports. However I’m really struggling managing a couple of them at the moment and can’t quite work out how to deal with the situation.
Since the pandemic has eased the corporation has been encouraging employees to come back to the office at least 3-4 days a week. Two of my reports have consistently been working from home and only coming to the office at most once per week.
A few weeks ago I sent out a memo making clear that I required my team members to be in the office at least 3-4 days a week, in accordance with company policy – but these team members ignored the memo and continued to work primarily from home.
I saw each of them privately in my office two or three weeks ago and made it clear that I was very unhappy with them and that there would be consequences if they continued to disobey my instructions. I’m pretty sure they got the message that if they continued to stay away from the office this could have consequences for their annual bonuses.
One has since started to come to the office a bit more, the other hasn’t. Both have made it clear through their body language that they’re really upset with me (not making eye contact; being uncomfortable in my presence etc).
Do you have any suggestions?
Best wishes
Margaret
…
Jonathan’s Reply
Dear Margaret
I can’t be sure exactly what is going on here but I want to offer you one possible analysis – and in particular to share with you a model that might help you to work through the situation you describe in your email.
The eminent Canadian psychiatrist, Eric Berne, developed a model for which he became famous. It is called Transactional Analysis1. Berne is as well known for his book ‘Games People Play’ as he is for the theory of Transactional Analysis. ‘Games People Play’ proposes that individuals often slip into playing familiar games when they interact with each other – the book is sharply observed and the analysis is brilliant.
The model of Transactional Analysis asserts that individuals operate in one of three ego states: Parent, Adult and Child.
The Parent ego state is drawn from the various ‘authority figures’ that we experience in our lives, typically our mother or father, but also from other authority figures, for example an influential teacher or boss. The Parent sets limits, disciplines, judges, criticises, gives advice and guidance and enforces rules (e.g. ‘eat your greens’; ‘do well at school’ ‘work from 9 to 7’).
The Adult is the part of us that works things out by gathering facts, generating options and making decisions based on that evidence. It can appear unemotional but isn’t necessarily mature.
The Child ego state can be fun loving, creative, energetic, polite, compliant and rebellious.
Berne further described the Parent as having both Nurturing and Critical aspects. The Nurturing Parent (NP) takes care of, and looks after, self and others. Done appropriately, this is seen as positive (NP+). If taken to excess it can be negative and smothering (NP-).
The Critical Parent sets limits, disciplines, judges and criticises self and others. If this is done with respect it is seen as positive (CP+). If the criticism is excessive or inappropriate, it can be oppressive and is seen as negative (CP-).
As I pointed out in the introduction to this issue, the devil is (as is so often the case) in the detail.
You mention in your email that you sent a memo to your direct reports making clear that you ‘required’ them to be in the office at least 3-4 days per week.
What was the exact content and tone of that email? Did it explain with clarity your rationale for wanting your reports to spend more time in the office? Was the tone neutral or positive, or could it have been perceived as a bit of an exercise in finger wagging?
If the former it’s more likely to have been perceived that you were acting as CP+, if the latter CP-.
Emails can be a very blunt tool for sensitive communications, and can easily be misinterpreted. I’ve been consulting to a law firm client recently where a similar email setting out ‘parameters’ for working from home seriously upset team members and negatively impacted on team morale. The takeaway there was that it is so often better to broach these issues in a team meeting, framing them carefully and allowing for some discussion and venting – rather than spelling out ‘guidelines’ or ‘standards’, which can be perceived as treating your team members like naughty school children.
Another aspect of Berne’s model is the idea of ‘complementary transactions’. With complementary transactions the person initiating the communication gets the response for which he or she was (consciously or unconsciously) looking.
So if you act from a Parent ego state you often elicit a response from a Child ego state, and if you aren’t careful that dynamic becomes an unhealthy pattern.
One interpretation of what you describe in your email is that your email was seen as a ‘telling off’ and your reports behaved like naughty children, ignoring ‘teacher’ and carrying on with their bad behaviour by continuing to work from home.
Indeed, you might have compounded this dynamic by summoning each of them to your office and admonishing them – particularly if your tone was more disciplining ‘teacher’ than colleague. Certainly, calling your reports into your office has echoes of being summoned to the head teacher’s study for punishment.
It certainly sounds like your reports’ behaviour after these meetings is consistent with this analysis – each playing ‘child’ in response to your negative critical parent. It sounds like at least one of your direct reports is continuing to play truant.
You could of course continue to up the ante by escalating matters – as you foreshadowed that you would do in your private meetings with your reports.
I’d think carefully before you do so, though, as this might prove counter-productive and merely reinforce what is already an unhealthy dynamic.
A further insight from Berne is that you can try to reset the dynamic by shifting your ego state in order to try to elicit a positive shift in the dynamic – in this case, in response to your reports (who, on the above analysis, are currently acting in the ‘child’ ego state), you should try to shift to your adult ego state, in order (hopefully) to elicit a response in ‘adult’ from your reports. Berne calls this a ‘crossed transaction’.
What does this mean in practical terms?
One suggestion would be to hold a meeting with all of your reports, in an attempt to reset the dynamic. Frame the meeting as arising from the obvious upset of your reports regarding your working from home communications.
Listen to your reports’ concerns and their reasons for wanting to work from home. Explain carefully your reasons for wanting your reports to work in the office. I imagine you have a number of solid reasons for wanting the team to be together physically – to increase opportunities for collaboration, to build better relationships, to nurture and develop less senior team members and so on. You can also reference broader company policy, but I wouldn’t major on this.
Depending on how the meeting goes you might want to apologise for behaving in a somewhat heavy handed manner – while continuing to persuade your reports that there are good reasons for everyone to be together in the office.
It sounds like a number of your reports have been working from the office regularly in any event. Give them space in the meeting to articulate what they perceive as being the key benefits of their working from the office, particularly if you know that one or two of them are strongly supportive of your position.
I can’t guarantee that this approach will result in a positive outcome. You might have to show a measure of flexibility if one or two of your reports have cogent, perhaps personal reasons, for working regularly from home.
I do, however, believe that this approach is likely to prevent the team dynamic from deteriorating further and developing into a toxic dynamic. There is little point having everyone working in the office if the atmosphere is a poisonous one.
Good luck with all of this. Do let me know how you get on.
Best wishes
Jonathan
Key Takeaways
1. This issue introduces the model known as Transactional Analysis.
2. The correspondent – a DGC – outlines a difficulty she is experiencing with her team, in that two members of her team have been working consistently from home, despite her requests / requirement that all team members work at least 3-4 days per week from the office.
3. Transactional Analysis proposes that individuals operate out of one of three so-called ego states – Parent, Adult and Child.
4. In the Parent ego state, the individual can act either as Nurturing Parent (NP) or Critical Parent (CP), and can behave positively or negatively in each of these states (NP+ / NP- or CP+ / CP-).
5. Jonathan hypothesises that the DGC might have been acting in CP- in her transactions with her reports and suggests that she try to shift into a more productive Adult ego state, hopefully eliciting a more productive Adult response from her reports.
And now …….
Contribute to the debate and write in with your comments and observations. Also write to Jonathan with any other people issues you face as an in-house lawyer.
Jonathan can be reached by email at practicalcounsel@substack.com
A note for you picky lawyers; and a plea for tolerance
I am a British lawyer by background and went to both school and University in the UK. So my English is British English. I have taken a conscious decision to write this newsletter in British English, but to try to avoid phrases that aren’t common outside the UK. Sometimes, though, I’ll use a phrase that isn’t commonly used outside the UK, without realising that it is a Britishism. I also endeavour to use the vernacular spellings of my contributors (e.g. to use US spellings for a US contributor), but won’t always get this right.
My plea is for you to tolerate the British spellings and grammar and the occasional Britishism. And to focus on the substance of the newsletter rather than the occasional (to you) annoying turn of phrase, bit of grammar or unorthodox spelling, or the occasional inconsistency in spelling as between, for example, UK and US ‘standard’ spellings.
Thank you and best wishes,
Jonathan Middleburgh
Strategic Partners
I’m indebted to Keri Phillips short book ‘Transactional Analysis in Organisations’ for the description below.
I enjoyed reading about the Transactional Analysis model. You can appreciate its profound impact on understanding and improving interpersonal communication. Not only fosters self-awareness but also equips us with the tools to reframe our interactions for more meaningful connections.