When Relationship Dynamics Sabotage Success And Happiness

Success is all about relationships. But how much education did any of us get in how to develop and sustain mutually productive and enjoyable relationships? Next to none. So, we learn as we go, picking up habits from parents, mentors, and peers. Not all of those habits are good ones, in fact some can sabotage our success and happiness by generating unintended conflict.

Stephen Karpman, MD was a young American psychiatrist when he “observed that in conflict and drama, there is ‘good guy vs bad guy’ thinking.” He also observed that the participants become drawn in, even seduced, by the energy that the drama generates. “The drama obscures the real issues. Confusion and upset escalates. Solutions are no longer the focus.”

He created what’s become known as The Drama Triangle. “Karpman defined three roles in the ‘transaction:’ Persecutor, Rescuer (the one up position) and Victim (one down position). Karpman placed these three roles on an inverted triangle and described them as being the three aspects, or faces of drama.”

When troubles arise, we tend to look for someone to blame. This means that we’ve taken on the identity of the victim. In that position, we hope to be rescued, and there are plenty of providers waiting in the wings to help, selling us this product or that service that promises to save the day.

Popular persecutors are bosses, a spouse, another company, the falling stock market, etc. Rescuers takes many forms. I actually loved being the rescuer, riding in on my white horse to save the day, often from some kind of drama that I’d created myself!

I had to give up that role. That wasn’t easy, because I was invested in it. This was my identity. But the more I learned about myself, the more I was able to let go of my controlling behaviors, which created less drama hence less need to be the rescuer. Eventually, I realized there were three simple steps for turning the drama triangle of relationships upside down:

1: Change identities from being a victim to the hero of my own life story.

My writing partner for the book we just finished, The Success Paradox, is well versed in Joseph Campbell’s Heroes Journey model. I learned that becoming the hero of my own life story requires me to navigate the three acts in that archetypal journey: leaving my familiar world, entering an “underworld” of challenges and lessons with mentors, and returning with what I’ve discovered that can improve my life and career. Having learned this model, I now track where I am in that cycle day to day because it seems to repeat constantly: Give up, learn, contribute.

2: Turn the bad guy or wrong situation into a welcome challenge.

I’d learned how to fight the good fight, identifying a villain, then proving myself worthy by defeating him. But that’s a competitive mindset that rallies others to sides in conflicts. I had to give up that approach and become a team player, collaborating to create the results we wanted, not by fighting but by cooperating to make the most of the challenge of the moment.

3: Forget being the rescuer or waiting to be rescued

The drama triangle is based on the concept that something is wrong, people are wrong, things need to be fixed. When I gave up this belief, I was able to embrace whatever was happening as opportunities for personal growth and contribution.

Giving up sounds like weakness. But it can also be a measure of strength and faith, especially when what we’re giving up seems valuable, like a personal strategy that’s succeeded before. Of course, as we explain in our book, there’s success in the moment and success that lasts. The sustainable kind requires jettisoning short-term strategies that produce long term damage, for instance to the health of those involved.

Giving up accesses a superpower beyond my clever self to produce results more in harmony with life’s overall intentions. But, that’s just a theory and, just like Morpheus cautioned Neo in the Matrix movie, we have to experience it for ourselves.