Is my boss a child?: Transactional analysis as a tool for studying and resolving work-related conflicts

By Stefano Calicchio

Why do people behave in a certain way at work? What are their motivations? Is there a methodological approach that can be used to frame the different attitudes and actions taken by individuals within corporate organisations, in order to manage them in such a way as to foster situations of mutual benefit and synergy? The theoretical model of transactional analysis was created to answer questions such as these, i.e. to offer operational application to some of the main discoveries belonging to dynamic psychology and to the related mechanisms of functioning of our psyche. This operational manual explains how to better understand what motivations drive people to make decisions at work, what are the relative existential positions and how the constructive or destructive games that inevitably take place within companies develop. The ultimate aim is to provide not only practical tools for solving problematic and uncomfortable situations, but also a real means of empowerment for one's career and more generally for human resources management.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stefano Calicchio
• Release date: Feb 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220260268

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Foreword

How many times have you come up against the irrational childishness of a colleague, the excessive severity of a boss or the lack of foresight of a manager? Have you ever thought: 'My boss or my colleague is like a child'? These are real clichés that you would certainly have no difficulty in enriching with your own personal repertoire; but what is more important here is that the reality may not be so distant from what has just been reported. There is in fact a current of psychology that has decided to study the personality of individuals and the way they relate to others, postulating the existence of a parent, an adult and a child within each of us. This subject is called transactional analysis and will be the focus of this book.

In a context such as the current one, characterised by continuous economic and social crises, the repercussions have had a regressive impact on many corporate organisations, creating the conditions for the accentuation of organisational disorders and other dysfunctional phenomena. Stress, burnout, mobbing, demotivation, trade union conflicts, difficulties in cooperation and misunderstandings have multiplied due to the general lack of confidence in the future and the lack of a shared social project.

In this worrying context, an important antidote to the dissolution of the productive and social fabric can be found in a new focus on human capital and the development of relational skills and abilities linked to the world of work, the field of relationship management and internal and external communication that characterise any economic entity, from small businesses to large organisations.

During a period of our economic history such as the one just described, there is an urgent need to rediscover and enhance those notions and practices belonging to the field of scientific psychology that can help to manage the situation of great change we are facing. Transactional analysis has all the necessary characteristics to support people to manage the regressive effects mentioned so far in the world of work, through an awareness of their decision making mechanisms, of the ego states that characterise the different individual attitudes and of the psychological games that are unconsciously played in stressful situations.

Studying transactional analysis allows people to better understand what motivates them to make certain decisions at work, what their existential positions are and what constructive or destructive games are inevitably played within companies. The life of organisations depends heavily on the work and personal choices of the individuals who make them up. The theory devised many years ago by Eric Berne can help individual workers to understand others and make better choices, bringing the work experience back to a more authentic subjective and personal dimension, as well as relieving people from the logic of inevitability that can characterise every period of crisis and change.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

A = Parent

B = Adult

C = Child

METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS IN WORKING CONTEXTS

Introduction

Why do people behave in a certain way at work? What are their motivations? Is there a methodological approach that can be used to frame the different attitudes and actions of individuals within corporate organisations, in order to manage them in such a way as to foster situations of mutual advantage and synergy? The theoretical model of transactional analysis was created to answer questions such as these, i.e. to offer operational application to some of the main discoveries belonging to dynamic psychology and to the related mechanisms of functioning of our psyche.

To succeed in this, this fascinating field of study assumes that it is possible to modify our possibilities of understanding and interacting with others through the recognition of our own existential position, as well as through the relationships between the different dynamics within the personality: parent, adult and child. The three stages of the ego take turns in taking control of an individual's cognitive states during the course of the day, giving rise to transactional phenomenology.

Aware of this assumption, it becomes clear that the possibilities of managing the many situations of complexity that characterise human relations in modern organisations do not depend (only or necessarily) on authoritarian capacities to dominate others, but rather on the authority that comes from understanding oneself and the ability to correctly read the situations in which one finds oneself operating. It is by following this principle that transactional analysis guides people towards the management of uncomfortable working situations, the acceptance of personal and interpersonal limits, the recognition of the potential of human capital and the realisation of positive relationships that are able to nurture themselves over time.

In accordance with this premise (the renunciation of the domination of the interlocutor and the search for power, in favour of the development of emotional intelligence and assertiveness), the purpose for which Eric Berne decided to give life to the subject can be realised: to make people and the organisations in which they participate evolve on the basis of mutual exchange and enhancement.

Taking into account the above mentioned assumptions, transactional analysis has already demonstrated its ability to become a pragmatic tool for conflict management and resolution, which can be used by any member of a corporate organisation, regardless of his/her role or position. As it will be possible to observe in the case histories and examples presented in this research and elaboration work, the best results in the application of this methodology have always been obtained at group level, both in the corporate field and