In the world of software development, a healthy team environment is essential to achieve success and avoid going insane during day-to-day work. However, subtle interpersonal dynamics can create challenges that are hard to spot and solve. You can probably think of a team you know doesn’t work together well, but you might struggle to identify a single root cause.
A drama triangle helps you unpack what causes interpersonal dynamics to fall apart. This article breaks down the concept of the drama triangle and how it can help you build high-performing product teams.
Understanding the drama triangle
The drama triangle is a social model of human interactions that was coined by Stephen Karpman in 1968. The model describes three roles people tend to unconsciously assume in stressful conflict situations and how they impact team dynamics.
The three roles in the drama triangle are:
- Victim — A person that feels overwhelmed and powerless. The victim believes they can’t do much about their circumstances and that they just have to endure
- Rescuer — A person that wants to fix every problem for every problem. Rescuers are helpful in alleviating pain points, but they often take excessive responsibility for themselves and foster dependency
- Prosecutor — A person who often blames others for the problems and tries to control the situations from a position of authority. They tend to focus on fixing people rather than fixing processes
Identifying the roles within teams
People tend to adopt drama triangle roles unconsciously. It’s not that people want to be a victim or a prosecutor. Why people take on their specific role is deeply rooted in psychology and far beyond the scope of the article.
Identifying a victim
Victims often get frustrated by challenging situations, but they do little actually to change them. These are people who:
- Complain about unrealistic deadlines without seeking solutions
- Express frustration but without constructive feedback
- Complain about unclear requirements, but don’t ask questions to clarify them
Identifying a rescuer
Rescuers are everywhere, and they’re trying to help everyone. However, they focus on giving people a fish rather than a rod. These are people who:
- Take over tasks from other people rather than helping them solve them on their own
- Neglect their own priorities to help others
Identifying a prosecutor
Prosecutors are usually easy to spot. These are the people who:
- Criticize others without providing actionable feedback
- Dismiss the ideas of others without any explanation or reasoning
- Put excessive pressure on others without a willingness to negotiate
Impact of the drama triangle on team performance
It’s easy to imagine how having victims, rescuers, and prosecutors in one team can create challenges. The main challenges include:
Team conflicts
No one likes prosecutors who blame others and find problems everywhere. Still, victims who complain about the situation without taking action aren’t helpful either. Even rescuers with the best intentions make conflict resolution more challenging if they only fix other people’s issues.
Reduced productivity
The more energy people spend on interpersonal conflicts, the less they have actually to deliver work that matters.
Restrained personal growth
Personal growth happens when people challenge each other healthily and constructively while providing needed support. If people adopt the drama triangle roles, this doesn’t happen, affecting the growth of each team member.
Strategies for product managers to address the drama triangle
As informal team leaders, you should be aware of drama triangle patterns and react accordingly:
Help the team identify and understand the roles
Dedicate one or two retrospectives to discuss drama triangle roles. The more people understand the concept, the easier it becomes for them to spot these patterns. It’ll also push them to reflect on their own behavior.
This awareness alone will improve team dynamics dramatically — people will understand others’ behavior better and hold their own roles in check.
Encourage role transitions
Each drama triangle role can be transformed into a healthier version of itself.
Victim to creator
Victims are already great at spotting general problems and issues. They just need to ask themselves, “What can we do to solve this problem?” Coach them to focus on resolving the problems or at least bringing the problem to the team in a more constructive way.
Rescuer to coach
Explain to rescuers how taking over challenges from others is actually damaging. Rescuers have the best intentions but often don’t see that by taking on everything, they don’t allow others to grow. Encourage them to instead coach people to solve the challenges on their own.
Prosecutor to challenger
Prosecutors must change two things. First of all, it’s essential to detach problems from people. Explain how focusing on the problem rather than the person makes the challenge much easier to tackle, which benefits everyone. Second, help them start treating these problems as an opportunity for the team to improve rather than something to complain about.
From my experience, turning prosecutors into challengers is the hardest transition, requiring more time and coaching than other roles. However, the results of this transition have a bigger impact on the overall team dynamics than any other role transition.
Grow the team’s people skills
Develop the team’s overall people skills. Focusing purely on the drama triangle might lead to tunnel vision and cause you to miss the big picture. Organize workshops on conflict resolution, nonviolent communication, negotiations, and so on. The more skilled each team member is in interpersonal relations, the easier it’ll be to manage the drama triangle.
Provide individual coaching if needed
Some people are more rooted in their roles than others. These people might need more support and coaching. Spend more one-on-one time focusing on their roles, and consider bringing external team dynamics coaches if needed.
Final thoughts
Interpersonal relationships are often the most challenging part of building products. Managing stakeholders, processes, and requirements is easier than managing team dynamics, so you must simplify whenever possible.
One way to simplify this is to assess the team dynamic through the drama triangle lenses by identifying victims, rescuers, and prosecutors. It makes it clearer what to focus on in further team development.
From the context of the drama triangle, the best you can do as a PM is to:
- Make people aware of the roles they and others take
- Help them adopt healthier alternatives to the roles
- Develop skills within the team to better handle interpersonal relationships
Even if, formally, you’re not a team leader, the health of your product team is the best investment you can make. Developing amazing products is easier with a strong and well-bonded product team.
Featured image source: IconScout
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