Transactional analysis to enhance your communication skills

What is transactional analysis?

Transactional Analysis was developed by Dr Eric Berne in the 1960s as a psychotherapeutic approach (Palmer & Whybrow, 2019,p.297). It provides a systematic approach to understanding the nature of the communication channels, referred to as transactions, established between individuals or even within the individual her/himself.

Looking at the nature of those transactions means identifying the ego state of the individual communicating the message and the one receiving it, and vice versa.

What is an ego state?

The PAC model is a great way to better understand and identify the three ego states within anyone; Parent, Adult and Child.

Parent

When you communicate from your Parent ego state, you are unconsciously behaving , feeling and thinking similarly your parent during your childhood.

Adult

When you communicate from your adult ego state, you are behaving, feeling and thinking in the " here and now" without any association to your past.

Child

When you communicate from your child's ego state, you unconsciously behave and feel similar to your experience as a child.

Let us imagine a communication between an employee and his direct line manager. The exchange between them has higher chances of being healthy and productive as long as both are communicating from their Adult state.

However, chances of healthy communication might be easily shattered if the manager is communicating from a critical Parent state who desires control, while the employee is responding from a Child state which might be rebellious and disobedient.

It doesn’t imply that the only positive way of communication is between two Adult states, it is just an oversimplified example to highlight how our ego state can directly impact our way of communicating.

Can it happen within ourselves?

Yes, it can! We regularly communicate with ourselves on several occasions such as facing new challenges or changes, and even when judging the results of our accomplishments. You can notice that sometimes you treat yourself differently than you treat others despite the similarity in the situation and the outcomes. For example, many leaders will be very forgiving, caring and supportive when a team member does a mistake, however, they will be very harsh and critical towards themselves if they were the one making the same mistake. By being critical towards yourself you are communicating from the critical parent ego state to your inner obedient Child ego state.

This is a great example where I apply the double standard coaching technique (Hicks, 2017, p.131) to increase leaders' awareness of their ego shifting from one state to another when communicating about a similar situation to different people, including themselves.

In few words

We barely scratched the surface here, transactional analysis is much deeper than this post. You can take a look at different models such as the drama triangle and the “Ok corral” model which help increase awareness of ourselves and others, therefore adapting our communications to be effective. I will be talking about these models in future blogs

What makes you an exceptional leader is your ability to effectively communicate with everyone including yourself. Adopting a transactional analysis approach in coaching supports you in enhancing your self-awareness and developing valuable insight on how to get the best out of your people.