Transaction Analysis (TA)

2008-11-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Major Areas of Transaction Analysis (TA)

Ego states
Transactions
Life Positions
Games
Psychological Strokes (Since this topic is not included in detail on this page, you will have to refer to Positive Strokes http://positive-strokes.blogspot.com/)

Ego States

Within each individual lie three ego states:

Parent: a taught concept of life
Adult: a thought concept of life
Child: a felt concept of life

Parent

Critical parent or controlling parent: setting standards, using authority, taking responsibility, being judgemental, exercising control
Nurturing parent or loving parent: Loving, nurturing, caring

Adult

No sub-division
Behavior of adult ego state: Logical or rational, objective in assessment or evaluation, operates with the reality of here and now, thinks without bias or subjectivity

Child

Free child: Feelings and expressions of joy and happiness, spontaneous feelings, spontaneous actions without holding feelings
Little professor (subset of free child): Seat of intuition, genuine curiosity, creativity, bit of manipulation
Adapted child: Self control, compliance, politeness
Rebellious child (subset of adapted child): Rebelliousness

Transactions

Knowledge of ego states helps you to understand which way the communication is moving. Your own positioning in terms of your ego state and from which ego state the other person with whom you are communicating is responding will decide the outcome of communication.
If both the parties in communication (or at least the one who has the knowledge and skill of ego states) adjust on appropriate ego states, the communication will result in a complementary transaction or complementary communication. Both the persons will feel satisfied with the conversation or communication. This enhances the interpersonal relationship. Refer: http://interpersonal-relations.blogspot.com/ (Interpersonal Relations) and http://manage-conflict.blogspot.com/ (Conflict Management)
However, if they are not aware of this phenomena (of ego states), they are likely to end up in a cross transaction or cross communication. They may get into a conflicting situation and communication will be cut-off. This will cause disruption in interpersonal relationships.
At times the communication seems going on smoothly on the surface but actually it is a cross transaction for all the practical purpose. In such transactions the ego states complement each other at the social level but at the psychological level the contradiction takes place. This type of communication is called ulterior transaction or ulterior communication. Ulterior transactions lead to playing games with each other. With games, there is an undercurrent of one-upmanship, exploitation and humiliation and this may jar the interpersonal relations.

Life Positions

For more details on life position, refer: (Life Positions and OKness) http://life-positions.blogspot.com/

I am OK, you are OK: A person accepts others in spite of their shortcomings and feels OK about himself despite not being perfect.
I am OK, you are not OK: Comes over as distrustful, arrogant superior. Thinks that others are inferiors.
I am not OK, you are OK: Recognized by attitudes of depression, powerlessness and inferiority. Thinks that others are better.
A am not OK, you are not OK: A position of thorough hopelessness and despair

Obviously, I am OK, you are OK life position is the most healthy life position.

Psychological Games People Play

These are those seemingly straight transactions/conversations which have some underlying ulterior motive .
Psychological games cause discomfort and bad feelings.
When played to a higher/extreme degree, games culminate in very harmful and destructive behavior.
Most people spend large proportion of their time and energy playing games with others as adult part (ego state) of their personality is usually unaware of what is happening and they continue with games.
One more reason for playing games is confirm to a basic life position (OKness) described earlier.

We give below some of these games, the ones that are particularly played in an organization's environment.

Blemish: It is played to enjoy superior feelings. The person playing this game will find a minute fault (blemish) in other person's behavior or performance despite the fact that the job has been overall done well. The initiator of the game will open his comments with, "It's OK, you finally did well, but...........".

Now I've got you: The person playing this game will set up or dig out a situation where the other person made some mistake, only to step in at a later stage to point out that mistake, with superior posture and smile of triumph.

Mine's better than your's: In this game the initiator consistently uses superlatives which show him in a superior position over the others. The usual expressions are, "I always stay in five start hotels when on holidays". "I was ill but it wasn't as bad as Mr XYZ". "My children go to the best school in the town" etc.

Why don't you, yes but: The initiator of the game invites suggestions or ideas from others in a meeting or in day-to-day encounters and when idea is given with, "Why not try this method......" the person playing this game always finds an objection by saying, "Yes, but, will it work or yes, but did you consider the high costs involved" etc. The suggestion howsoever good it may be is always played down with, "Yes, but......".

I was only trying to help you out: In this the game, the game player is usually behaving from his nurturing parent ego state. He will offer probably unsolicited advices to others time and again and due to this if his advice is rejected or not heeded to, he will say, "I was only trying to help you out" blaming the other person for not taking the advice in the right spirit.

Stupid: This person constantly misunderstands the directives or instructions given to him and keeps convincing himself that he is not intelligent enough to understand them properly as other do. It confirms his "I am not OK, others are OK" life position. And many a time, he may actually say, "I must be stupid".

Kick me: This person will provoke criticism from others and keeps making mistakes and keeps getting negative strokes from others. He is out to confirm his "Non OKness".

For More Guidance, Assistance, Training and Consultation

Contact: prodcons@prodcons.com

Training on all the aspects of "Transaction Analysis (TA)" is imparted by Prodcons Group's Mr Shyam Bhatawdekar and/or Dr (Mrs) Kalpana Bhatawdekar, the eminent management educationists and consultants and trainers-par excellence, with distinction of having trained over 150,000 people from around 250 organizations.

Also refer: (Prodcons Group) http://prodcons-group.blogspot.com/, (Training Programs by Prodcons Group) http://training-development-function.blogspot.com/, (Productivity Consultants) http://productivity-consultants.blogspot.com/

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