Is your inner parent or child undermining Relationship Unity at work?
Have you ever made biscuits and forgotten the egg, only to find the mixture crumbling and falling apart?
Just like eggs in a recipe, relationships are the glue that holds an organisation together. They drive teamwork, impact goal achievement, shape culture, and are crucial for effective leadership.
Ideally, work relationships should be seamless—we’ll collaborate with people we like, engage in healthy debates, exchange constructive feedback, and build high trust.
But for many, maintaining these relationships can be challenging and a major source of stress in the workplace.
What makes relationships challenging?
Lot’s of things! One lens that our clients find useful to understand and improve their workplace relationships is knowing that in any interaction, we are communicating in one of 3 different states*:
Parent (the critical parent who ‘nit-picks’ and blames, and/or the nurturing parent who rescues and fixes)
Adult (the healthy functioning adult who is calm and rational with present moment awareness)
Child (the rebellious, compliant and/or selfish child who can be difficult and emotional)
The Parent state is largely subconscious and is where we make judgements about people and the world around us - it’s the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that we have copied from our parents or authority figures.
The Adult state is our direct and conscious responses to the here and now. It is the means by which we keep our Parent and Child in check.
The Child state is largely subconscious and includes the thoughts, feelings and behaviours replayed from our childhood, such as becoming rebellious, stubborn, or overly compliant with other people’s wishes whilst disregarding our own.
What do the Parent, Adult and Child states look like?
Each state shows up in a way that affects not just what we say, but how we say it, our expressions and our body language. Here are some clues:
Parent State
Expressions: “Never”, “Always”, “Should”, “Ought”, “This is how to”, “Under no circumstances”
Body Language: Finger pointing, arms crossed, head shaking, patronising gestures, impatient body language, eye-rolling
Adult State
Expressions: “How?” “Who", “Why”, “What”, “Where”, “In what way”, “In my opinion”, “I understand”
Body language: Composed, calm, open, clear, level eye contact, engaged
Child State
Expressions: “No”, “Please?”, “I don’t care”, “I want/don’t want”, “It’s not fair”, “Yes, but”, complaining
Body language: Shoulders shrugging, childlike tone, whining voice, giggling, teasing, tantrums
How do these show up at work?
These show up both in our inner voices, as well as in our interactions with others. For example, our Parent state could show up as our inner voice that nit-picks and criticises us “you can’t do this presentation, you’re no good at presenting”. The Child state might then be activated “you’re useless and worthwhile.” These inner voices from our Parent/Child states can cause us to feel stressed and put us in our fight, flight, freeze or fawn response (not something that will enable us to deliver that presentation well!).
Another example is being late for work. A response can emerge from either of the three states as follows:
“It’s not my fault the train always runs late. Those incompetent drivers just can’t get it right.” (Critical Parent)
“I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll come in earlier tomorrow to make up the time.” (Adult)
“I’m sorry, I hope you’re not mad at me.” (Compliant Child)
If we are interacting with others from our Child or Parent states, we are doing so from our subconscious habits, which can cause others to respond in their Child or Parent states (e.g. Child > Parent, Parent > Child). This often creates unhealthy relationship dynamics, such as the Drama Triangle ‘Rescuer’ pattern of leadership discussed in our last blog.
What does this mean for leadership?
Effective leadership and followership depend on two or more people operating in the Adult state. To build effective workplace relationships that achieve business goals, we need to consciously interact with others in our Adult state, rather than from habit in our Child or Parent states. It is also critical to develop the skills to help others into their Adult states, even if they respond in their Child or Parent.
(*Source: Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis theory).