Greg Nathan Franchise Relations Tip #33: How to Avoid the Drama Triangle

This week Greg offers tips on how to avoid drama within your franchise organization and within your personal life.

How to Avoid the Drama

Here”s an amazing coincidence. I am writing this tip on my iPad, musing on how people deal with frustration and disappointment, an important topic for franchisees and franchisors. My wife Ann is carefully driving us down a winding mountain road as there are major road works and obstructions.

In front of us, two motorcyclists have been fooling around, trying to impress each other. Suddenly one wobbles out of control, bumping the other, and they both crash over. We stop and I jump out to help. Fortunately, they are okay, although pride and bikes are dented. As petrol gushes out of a damaged tank on one rider”s bike, a stream of unrepeatable abuse also gushes out of his mouth. He is cursing the idiot road workers who have caused him all this grief! I think it best not to comment on their erratic riding or the dangerous road conditions, and keep my trap shut.

The Victim, Rescuer and Persecutor

Back in the late 60s a psychiatrist, Stephen Karpman, observed there are three stereotypes people fall into when dealing with frustration or disappointment. He called this the Drama Triangle of Victim, Rescuer and Persecutor. You might want to consider whether you fall into one or more of these in your dealings with your franchise partners or your other situations in life.

The Victim ruminates on how badly they have been done by moaning, “Why me?” or “It”s not fair.” And by leaning on others for sympathy and attention they disempower themselves. This anger turned inwards can lead to despondency and even depression.

The Rescuer deals with their emotional discomfort by immersing themselves in doing good deeds. They smooth over conflict, give advice, and try to fix things for everyone else. The problem is they can make others dependent on them and burn themselves out.

The Persecutor deals with their frustration by blaming others. “This is all your fault,” they curse and grumble, just like our friend who fell off the motorbike. Their focus is to find and punish who caused their problem.

Five simple strategies to help avoid the drama

  1. Mentally step back and detach from the situation. Remind yourself that becoming emotional clouds your thinking and ability to find your way forward.
  2. Take some responsibility for your many decisions and actions that led you to being in this situation.
  3. Make a decision that you will not allow external events to define who you are and how you behave.
  4. Practice sitting with your own or others” discomfort. Encourage others to find their own solutions.
  5. Focus on what is going well, even if this seems insignificant. (After all, the motorcyclist could have been badly injured and doubtlessly has learned a valuable lesson.)

Here is a quote attributed to another psychologist, William James, who lived 100 years ago. “The secret of being wise is knowing what to pay attention to.” I really like this.

Until next time.

Greg Nathan
Founder
Franchise Relationships Institute

Did you miss our recent Healthy Franchise Relations Summer Webinar Series?  No worries, you can get the replays at https://www.franchisespeakers.com/franchise-relations-boot-camp/replay-register Avoiding 10 Common Mistakes in Franchise Relations,  Using the Franchise E-Factor to Reduce the Costs of Conflict, Improving the Effectiveness of Field Visits, and 10 Strategies for a Healthy Franchising Culture.  Listen in – these great sessions are free and will give you a great sense of what you”ll learn

at our upcoming  Profitable Partnerships Boot Camps. Hope you”ll join us there!

zp8497586rq
Contact Us

We're not around right now. But you can send us an email and we'll get back to you, asap.

Start typing and press Enter to search