black and white dolphin in water

Dealing with team conflict and problem solving – Drama Triangle Model

As a Team Coach or Scrum Master, conflict within a team is something we often have to deal with. Over the years I have come across a number of techniques that help resolve team conflict. Regardless of the technique you decide to use, its important to understand or try to see each individuals map of the world. Try to understand the position each team member is coming from, what state they are in, and how they interact with others based on the given scenario.

Drama Triangle

The Drama Triangle is a model that will assist you, the Team Coach or Scrum Master, understand how the team member is possibly dealing with the conflict within the team or any given scenario.

The Drama Triangle is a model developed by Stephen Karpman, in which a person takes on one of three habitual psychological roles within a particular situation. It is important to note that these roles occupy positions of behaviour and not statements of identity. Also important to note that one may perform one behaviour type in one context and quite another in a different context. Kordis and Lynch have transposed the model into the following symbolic roles. The three roles are:

    • The person who plays the role of a victim (The Carp)
    • The rescuer, who intervenes, seemingly out of a desire to help the situation, or the underdog (The Pseudo Enlightened Carp or P.E. Carp)
    • The person who pressures, coerces or persecutes the victim, plays the role of the persecutor (The Shark)

The Victim or the Carp
The victim experiences a sense of safety by submitting to others. In a threatening or conflict situation, the Carp will rather give in and avoid further conflict. The Carp believes that their views don’t count and have no value. There is another side to the Carp, they can manipulate a situation through anger, resentment and retaliation, so that they do not have to act as an adult or accept any responsibility. A Carp will often seek out a Shark so that they can fulfil their role of the victim.
“Without you, I am not ok”.

The Rescuer or the P.E. Carp
Of the three, the P.E. Carp is the least obvious role. The P.E. Carp does not play the role of a genuine rescuer in an emergency. What they really need is to maintain the status quo or to escalate the drama to continue to feel that they have value. Although they appear to have a strong motive for resolving the problem, their actual motive is not to succeed. They need to feel like they are depended on or trusted. They are the solution hero.
“I am not ok, you are not ok, that’s ok”.

The Persecutor or the Shark
The Shark believes that they are never the one at fault, and is quick to blame someone else. They love the power of manipulating and moving or pushing people around. They are your proverbial bully. They need to be right at all costs and will not back down, whatever the consequences. They focus on getting their own way all the time, resulting in Sharks being easily fooled or losing sight of what the problem is. Their behaviour results in going over and over the same problem without resolving it or finding a solution.
“Without me, you are not ok”

It is often the case that a person will move from one role to another. Consider this scenario: “Why does this always happen to me? (Victim). It’s all your fault this happened (Persecutor). It’s ok, I am sure I will solve your problem (they actively disempower the other) (Rescuer). An individual may assume an alternative role depending on the group dynamic or circumstance. All three roles love drama and all three are victims with different masks.

During a conflict situation, it’s important to see which role is being played by whom. In some cases, it will be obvious which is the default role one particular person plays, which is helpful. Most times, however, people will move between roles.

It will take time for you to develop the skill to identify who is playing which role, and you might not always get it right in the beginning; that’s ok. Some people will be more transparent than others. For example, a persecutor who is passive aggressive will not show any of the expected behaviours, but under the surface they are a ticking time bomb. This isn’t helpful in the moment, but at some point, they will show their true colours. This may help in any future conflict as you will have a better understanding of the role this person may be playing. Watching their behaviour and listening to their language is key to identifying the role being played, and sometimes these behaviours can blur.

The role of the Team Coach or Scrum Master is to identify who is playing which role in the current situation. Knowing this can help anticipate the behaviours acted out by each role, and prevent people getting stuck. It is important here to rather keep moving forward to finding a solution to the conflict or problem

The Dolphin

It’s only fair that if the other roles are metaphors of fish, that the Team Coach or Scrum Master has a fish metaphor as well. Introducing The Dolphin! Ok, so it’s not a fish, but it is a marine animal :).

The Dolphin has the ability to remain cantered and stay out of the drama. His attitude is to identify the behaviours played out by the participants and work to bring out The Dolphin in all of them. He is creative, firm, solution oriented, he creates a space for others to manifest their brilliance. He is comfortable with conflict and sees it as an opportunity for constructive growth and as a platform to facilitate the system rising to a higher level of consciousness.

An exercise that you may want to consider, is to present the team with the Drama Triangle and get them to discuss, as a team or in small groups, the behaviours of each role. Ask if they have noticed these roles being played out. Give them some time to discuss and then ask them to think about which of the three roles they believe is their default. The objective is to try and get everyone to play the role of a Dolphin. By understanding and identifying these behaviours, they should be more self-aware. I would suggest that you only explore this exercise if you have developed a high level of safety and trust within the team.

The Drama Triangle is useful in many situations, from a family unit to an individual one. Keep an eye on how you respond in a stressful situation. While you are facilitating the resolution of a conflict situation or helping a team solve a problem, you are hopefully not emotionally involved and are therefore able to be the observer from a meta level. In a situation where you find yourself a player in a conflict situation, make a note of which role you seem to default to. The goal is to try and elevate the roles you play in these situations; to become a Dolphin in all situations, not only as a facilitator, but in your day to day life as well. Understanding and playing these roles, and being self-aware of when they change, allows you to have an idea of someone else’s map of the world, which gives you a better view point, to help you to guide.

Remember, a Dolphin always comes up for air, which removes him from the turbulent waters and allows him to keep an eye out on the horizon.

Original Drama Triangle model by Stephen Karpman (http://www.karpmandramatriangle.com/), Adapted by Sedrick Theodosiou – Inspiritu (http://www.inspiritu.co.za/)

man wearing white and black plaid button-up sports shirt pointing the silver MacBook

Have a structure for your coaching conversation

This blog post is the third in our series about professional coaching skills for agile coaches. If you have not yet read the first blog post, “Listen, be curious and ask the great questions!”, or the second one, “Your strategy for formulating powerful questions”, we suggest you read those before continuing here.

A coaching conversation is not just a small talk about how things are going or not going. Coaching conversations are for committed individuals or teams, that want to make a significant change or get wiser about an important matter. To help you succeed as a coach, you can apply a structure to the coaching conversation that helps you and the coachee or team to focus on talking about the important matter and find specific actions to carry out as results of the conversation. It is important to remember that a coaching conversation is something that you design together with the one or those that you are in service of, at the moment when the conversation is wanted. As a coach you never take the coachee or team to places they do not want to go – this would be strictly out of line. What you do instead is help them to go where they want to go, while helping them reflect on the important matters.

The two levels of the coaching conversation

As shown on the figure below, a coaching conversation is conducted on two levels: A) The conversation level and B) The meta level. As coach you are constantly acting on both levels. The coachee or team is primarily on the conversation level, but will from time to time be invited to the meta level by you.

The two levels of the coaching conversation

The conversation level is where the conversation happens. Here you are using the levels of listening, and you will form questions based on keywords as mentioned in a previous post. The coachee or team will answer your questions on this level as well.

The meta level is where you are designing and reflecting on the conversation. Here you are deciding which powerful questions to ask (possibly based on the Karl Tomm model), which hypotheses to formulate and in which direction to take the conversation next. As a coach you can imagine yourself as having a third eye observing the conversation from this level and your awareness about the flow of the conversation, and the answers you get will help you make the right decisions.

Meet up at the meta level

As mentioned, you will from time to time invite the coachee or team to join you at the meta level. The purpose for this is to have a conversation about the conversation, collaborate on designing the conversation, reflect on the learnings so far and make decisions about where to go next.

There are normally at least three opportunities for meeting at the meta level: 1) establish the contract for the conversation, 2) a time out during the conversation and 3) when you do the summary of the conversation. But before digging into making the contract, you should spend a little time on establishing contact with the one(s) you are coaching. Here chitchat is okay, as long as you are steering towards starting the coaching conversation. Establishing the contact helps people relax and feel confident in speaking freely.

How you can establish the contract

When you are establishing the contract, you invite the other party to a talk about the conversation you are about to have. Here you can ask questions like: “What is the topic you want to elaborate and get insights on?”, “How can I best serve you during the conversation?”, “Are there questions you especially want me to ask or questions you absolutely do not want me to ask?” and “When this conversation is over in (for example) one hour, where do you expect to be, what do you hope to have learned?”. I find it to be good practice to have the coachee or team formulate the goal of the conversation in one short sentence – and I usually also memorize it by writing it down on my own.

Now the coaching conversation can begin – usually by formulating questions based on keywords extracted from the agreed goals for the conversation.

Make timeouts

During the conversation, you can from time to time make a timeout to evaluate the conversation. Here you can summarize the learning so far and decide where to go next. Timeouts help to co-design the conversation on the fly with the purpose of bringing the most possible value into it. Think of it as a sort of inspect-and-adapt on the meta level.

You can use timeouts when you feel the conversation is at a crossroad so you have to make decisions on which path to take next. Be humble and do not take for granted that your personal decision will be the best path. Instead ask the one(s) you are coaching and follow their choice. Remember: it is not about you! It is all about them!
You can also use timeouts to re-negotiate the contract if you realize that another topic seems to be more important.

You can make as many timeouts as you feel necessary, asking questions like: “Let us summarize: We have been discussing …. and …, figuring out that …. . Do you want to expand more on this, or would you rather move on looking at other options? What would this be?”, “As I see it, we can either go in the direction of … or in the direction of … . You might see a third direction. Where do you want to go from here?” or “In the beginning of this conversation we agreed on speaking about the topic: … . It seems to me that we are more discussing the topic: … . Do you want to return to the agreed topic or is the topic we have been discussing lately more important? Do you want to change the agreed topic?”.

When the timeout is over you can continue the conversation taking into account the decisions you have just made together.

Define the next steps, starting with a clear summary

By the end of the conversation, it is time to make a summary focusing on the specific steps the coachee or team is going to do, in order to have the desired change. Have him, her or them speak out the summary instead of you doing it. That fosters the sense of responsibility. Remember: it is not your solution – it is their solution!

It is great practice to ask, as a follow up to the conversation, about what will be the next step, when will be done, and how you will know that this has been achieved. To the last question the one(s) you coach will usually answer something like: “You will get a mail, letting you know how it went”. Your reply can, in service to the other part, then be: “And if I do not receive this mail, will it be helpful for you if I ask you about how it went?”. This attitude sharpens the awareness about the coaching conversation as something that serves a purpose, rather than just being a small talk about life, the universe and everything.

End by asking for feedback

Finally, by being a coach that wants to improve your skills, you should also ask for feedback about the coaching conversation. Ask questions like: “How was this conversation for you?”, “What did I do that was especially useful for you?” and “Which questions did I ask, that were useless or disturbing for your understanding of the matter?”. Receive the feedback with gratitude, maybe ask clarifying questions, but do not go into arguing about where either the feedback was right or wrong. The important matter is how the coachee or team experienced your coaching – there is most likely a point behind the feedback where either you liked it or not.

Previous parts published on August 16th and October 7th. Graphics from the author, accompanying illustrations from High resolution jigsaw puzzle pieces set by Horia Varlan/Flicrk.

A question and exclamation mark of jigsaw puzzle pieces

Listen, be curious and ask the great questions!

Working as a ScrumMaster or Agile Coach for a team, you know that one of your most important objectives is to help people better themselves. “Ask the team” we often hear, but actually, our job is a bit more complicated than that. Asking the right questions can be a challenging task, especially if you already have the “right” answer in mind. If this sounds familiar to you, there is help in the curriculum of professional coaches.

 

The first important ability you have to learn is to be silent and listen. When coaching individuals and teams, you are not the important part. They are! Therefore, active listening and awareness of which level you are listening on, is essential. Professional coaches talk about three levels of listening:

Level one is your level if you are unaware of active listening. Here, you relate what is being said to your own world, situations your past recall, your strong opinions about the matter and so on. Most likely, you end up being the one talking, sharing your own experiences and giving advice. Is this helpful for the person or team in front of you? It can be, but it might also be that you have been providing the right solution to the wrong problem! When it comes to helping the one in front of you, to better their own capabilities, you definitely did not succeed.

When you are on level two, you are focused on the person or team in front of you. You are connected by eye contact, deep listening to what each person is saying and what the person is saying “between the lines”. You are trying to understand the perspectives and intentions of this person by letting yourself see the world from their position.

At level three, you are doing the same as on level two, however, you are also sensing the feelings; the happiness, frustration, the sadness of the one in front of you – and you reflect those feelings back.

When you are listening, it is almost impossible not to be at level one once in a while. It is not bad to be at level one, but you should try to find survival techniques to move you from level one to level two or three when you realize that you are on level one.

So what are we listening for?

One technique to apply is to be listening for keywords. Keywords are words that stick out in the conversation – words with a deeper meaning. When identifying keywords, you can repeat them to yourself to memorize them and use them to form new questions. In that way, keywords help to unlock the understanding of the topic you currently are discussing.

When using keywords, do not take anything for granted. Be curious about the obvious things and ask clarifying and verifying questions.

If you are in doubt whether a certain keyword is important or not, there is a simple and efficient way to find out. Just ask if it is important or not. You will get an immediate answer.

With the use of the levels of listening and asking questions based on keywords, you are on your way to being acting more as a coach than a mentor. There are of course more advanced techniques that you can learn but start by practicing these basic techniques before going further.

It is important to remember that not every conversation is suited for coaching. If you have a fixed agenda with the purpose of providing tough feedback, coaching is not the format to use. Coaching is for well-functioning people, who want to reflect on a matter and find new ways to act with the purpose of improving their situation. As a coach, you do not take the one in front of you to places that they do not want to go. A coaching conversation is a conversation, that you design together as a shared responsibility.

By the end of each coaching conversation, remember to ask for feedback so you can learn and improve. What did you do during the conversation that was especially useful? What did you do that was not so useful? Which questions did you forget to ask?

If you are interested in learning more about professional coaching in the context of agile teams, you can get extended agile education through the Advanced Agile Team Coaching course developed by agile42. Through this course, you will, in addition to acquiring professional coaching skills, learn about the Coaching Structure and tools that are part of our Team Coaching Framework and used on daily basis by agile42 coaches.

Read the second part of the series, “Your Strategy for Asking Powerful Questions”.

Photo by Horia Varlan, on Flickr

black click pen beside MacBook Pro on table

Agile Estimating 2.0 – Cheat Sheet

Team Estimation Game

  • Start with a stack of ranked story cards. The team will arrange the cards so the smallest size items are on the left and the largest items on the right. Items with the same or similar size should be grouped together in vertical columns (the same place in the left-right direction).
  • Place the first (highest ranked) story card in the middle of the table (or in the middle of the board or wall)
  • Team members take turns estimating in a round-robin manner. On each turn, the player has two options, as shown below. With both options, the player will explain to the team the reasons for his or her estimate.
    • Take the top story card off the stack and place it on the table based on its estimated size
    • Move a previously placed card to a new location if you think it should be estimated differently
  • During a player’s turn, other team members may speak only to ask clarifying questions; they must not express their own opinions during another player’s turn.
  • After the last story card has been estimated, each player may take one more turn to move a card if he/she wants to.
  • Assign story point values to each group of cards. Even numbered teams use the pseudo-fibonacci sequence (1,2,3,5,8,13,20,40,100), and odd numbered team use powers of 2 (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128)
  • You may not have stories for every number in this sequence.
  • Numbers represent the relative size/effort estimated for each story. For example, 3 story points is approximately 50% more effort than 2 story points, and 8 points are two times the effort of 4 points.

The Team Estimation Game was originally developed by Steve Bockman

Using color to visualize your backlog

  • What aspects of your stories are important for estimation? Discuss this with your team
    • Example: type of materials used, number of pieces, method of construction, etc.
  • Download Agile Estimation Cheat Sheet

This cheat sheet was part of the agile42 speech together with Propero Solutions on the Scrum Gathering Shanghai 2010.