I had a great reaction to the last issue of Practical Counsel where I introduced the concept of Transactional Analysis as a way of analysing interpersonal issues that you might face as a senior in-house lawyer. A number of readers wrote in to tell me how helpful it was to be introduced to a model that could help them to think through better ways of managing dysfunctionality among their reports or between them and their reports.
In this issue I introduce a further aspect of Transactional Analysis – game playing.
We’re in the middle of the Football World Cup and I’m sure that many of us have been marveling at the skills of some of the most brilliant players of the so-called ‘beautiful game’. And also wondering why we’re spending so much time watching what is, after all, just a game.
Transactional Analysis (TA) posits that we are constantly playing games, both at work and in our lives outside work. These games are generally unproductive and dysfunctional and the beauty of TA is that it provides a model that helps us to analyse what is actually going on and how to achieve a more productive result or outcome.
This issue analyses another workplace issue through the lens of TA and specifically that part of TA that looks at the games people play.
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 was interested in your introduction to Transactional Analysis. I’ve been experiencing a problem with one of my direct reports and wonder whether Transactional Analysis could help provide any ideas for how best to deal with that problem.
I am General Counsel of a relatively small legal department. This is my first GC role. I have five direct reports and there are 20 of us in the department including a few non-lawyers who have regulatory / compliance roles that fall within my remit.
I generally have good relationships with my reports. However the relationship with one of my reports is not ideal. This particular report – I’ll call her Janet - has been in post for around a year. Every few weeks Janet comes to me with an issue that she wants to discuss and where she is looking for my input.
Typically what happens is that I provide a series of suggestions, each of which Janet rejects. I find myself getting increasingly frustrated as the suggestions are rejected one by one, no matter how sensible they seem to me, and until I have run out of ideas.
At this point my report typically says something like ‘well thanks for trying to help’, while suggesting through her body language (slumped shoulders, a sigh, a glum expression or similar) that I’ve really been of no help whatsoever.
At this point I generally find myself thinking something like ‘What just happened?’ and wondering why I never seem able to help Janet. I’ve discussed these interactions with one of my other trusted reports and she let slip that Janet has come to her after a couple of our interactions and told her (my other report) that she (Janet) was feeling upset that she kept coming to me for help and that I never seemed able to provide her with real help or support.
What do you think is going on? And what, if anything, can I do to improve the situation?
Best wishes
John
…
Jonathan’s Reply
Dear John
Thanks for sharing the problem you’re experiencing.
As I mentioned when I introduced the model of Transactional Analysis (TA) last week, Eric Berne (who developed the theory and model of TA) 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.
I’m going to say a little bit about Berne’s game analysis, before linking what I say to the facts that you describe in your email to me.
Berne’s assertion is that people play psychological games which have a defined and predictable structure and that these games can be analysed (with a view to one or both of the parties to the game interacting with each other in a less dysfunctional and more predictable way).
It’s likely, in the language of TA, that you are playing a game whenever you have an interaction where both you and the other party to the interaction end up feeling bad – especially where you are surprised at the painful way things have turned out and you realise, at the same time, that the same sort of thing has happened to you before.
Games typically have some or all of the following features:
(1) Games are repetitive: Each player tends to play her favourite game again and again.
(2) Games are played without Adult awareness. If you remember, in the last issue I introduced the concept that as an individual we act / react in one of three ego states: Parent, Adult or Child. Games are played repetitively, but without adult awareness that we are in fact playing a game.
(3) Games always end up with the players experiencing what TA calls ‘racket feelings’. One definition of a racket feeling is a ‘familiar emotion, learned and encouraged in childhood, experienced in many different stress situations, and maladaptive as an adult means of problem-solving’. This feeling might be sadness, anger, panic or a range of other feelings. The point is that the feeling isn’t helpful in terms of adult problem-solving.
(4) Games entail an exchange of ulterior transactions between the players. In every game there tends to be something different happening at the psychological level from what seems to be happening at the social level. This is evident from the fact that games tend to be repetitive – with a repetitive negative outcome. TA theory posits that the players of the game are trying to achieve a certain result through the game, which belies what is going on if one were to observe the transaction at ‘face’ value. In other words, the theory suggests that the players are trying to satisfy certain psychological needs by playing the game.
(5) Games typically include a moment of surprise or confusion. What tends to happen is that each of the players has the sensation that something unexpected has happened, or that they have switched roles.
I can’t be exactly sure of what is going in your interactions with Janet, but one hypothesis is that you are playing a repetitive game with each other. Certainly what you describe ostensibly has all of the hallmarks of a game in that:
(1) You describe a repetitive series of interactions, in which each time Janet comes to you asking for help, you try to proffer help by making a series of suggestions, each of which Janet rejects before breaking off and making clear, through her body language, that you aren’t offering her any real help in the circumstances.
(2) It seems that both you and Janet are playing a game without adult awareness that this is what is going on. You are perplexed (hence your email to me) and Janet seems equally unaware of what is really going on.
(3) It seems as if both you and Janet are experiencing ‘racket feelings’. You are perplexed and somewhat upset about what is going on - as, it would seem, is Janet.
(4) It sounds like something might be going on at a psychological level, which differs from what is going on at the social level. At the social level, Janet is coming to you genuinely seeking help and you are trying to give that help. At a psychological level I wonder if Janet is playing out some scenario from her past (for example something she experienced in childhood) where she constantly turned to an authority figure for help and was constantly rebuffed in that quest for help. Similarly I wonder whether you might have some psychological motive for continuing to put yourself into a situation where Janet pumps you for help and ends up rejecting your help?
(5) It certainly sounds as though you experience an element of confusion (and surprise) every time Janet ultimately rejects all of your advice and help.
I appreciate that there is a lot to digest in what I have said above and it may be that you would need me to clarify some of the points I make in order for you fully to understand the points that I have been making.
Rather than plough on and suggest a solution in circumstances where you might not fully understand (or agree with) what I’ve written above, I’m going to pause here and give you the opportunity to read what I have written and, if you choose to do so, interact with me offline to discuss what I’ve written above.
In the next issue of PC I’ll respond further to your email, clarify any points that have been unclear to you, and suggest how I think you might cut through the game that is being played and hopefully improve things for the better as between yourself and Janet.
Best wishes
Jonathan
Key Takeaways
1. This issue introduces an aspect of Transactional Analysis that is known as game playing.
2. This week’s correspondent – a GC – outlines a difficulty he is experiencing with one of his team members, a direct report, who has repeatedly come to him with requests for help, all of which she has then rejected.
3. TA theory asserts that people often get into patterns of interaction, which are in fact games that they are playing with each other. Key features of these games are that they are repetitive, that they are not played in a conscious adult ego state (with adult awareness) and that there is something going along beneath ‘surface’ level such that the players are seeking some type of ulterior pay-off psychologically by playing the game.
4. Jonathan hypothesises that the GC and his report might be playing a repetitive game in their interaction.
5. In this issue he outlines the basics of the game playing model. In the next issue he will suggest how the GC might cut through the game that is being played in order to achieve a better relationship with his report.
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