Recently I was speaking with a colleague who was experiencing a common partnership challenge - I call it the “Partnership Drama Triangle.” This is a state I have adapted from David Emerald’s excellent book, The Power of TED (The Empowerment Dynamic). In the book he describes this drama phenomenon as the toxic three-way state, we can find ourselves in if we don’t pay attention to what’s actually happening. As with any triangle, it has three points – victim, persecutor and rescuer. Then he flips the switch on each of the triangle points to take a different and more powerful perspective.
In the Partnership Drama Triangle, The Victim walks around complaining about everything in their partnership and asking unhelpful things like, “Why is this happening?” and “Why me?” Every Victim requires a Persecutor, the most easy-to-spot villain in the Partnership Drama Triangle. These people are often authoritarian and rigid in their views, exerting power over others in an effort to keep others from having power over them.
When we’re showing up as a Victim, we often look for things or people to Rescue us. Persecutors fear loss of control. Rescuers fear loss of purpose. Rescuers need Victims need someone to protect or fix—to bolster their self-esteem.
When you inhabit any (or all) of these three roles, you’re reacting to fear of victimhood, loss of control, or loss of purpose. You’re always looking outside yourself, to the people and circumstances of the partnership to blame and claim “this isn’t fair.”
Sound familiar?
In David Emerson’s The Empowerment Dynamic (TED), he flips the switch on each of the triangle points to take a different perspective. I use this with partnerships to help them shift their thinking and empower them to achieve significantly better results that can create more positive partner relationships!
Victim becomes creator. The Creator knows that complaining and criticizing are useless. So, instead of saying “Why me?” (with the whiney voice), they ask, “What do I want?” The focus in the Creator Orientation is on a Vision or an Outcome. You orient your thoughts and actions toward creating what you most deeply want to see happen.
Rescuer becomes coach. The Coach is the antidote to the Victim’s Rescuer. A Coach supports, assists, and facilitates the Creator in manifesting a desired outcome. A Coach holds others to be whole, resourceful, and creative. They help you dig deep inside yourself to gain clarity about what you want to create in your partnership.
Persecutor becomes challenger. As David Emerson says, “All of our partnership experiences are teachers in some sense way, challenging us to grow and evolve.” While the Persecutor provokes a negative reaction, the Challenger seeks to elicit a positive response and action. They encourage the Creator to see the challenge as a way to gain new knowledge, skill, or insight. Then they encourage this new learning to be applied to improve the partnership work and outcomes.
By starting with a Creator mindset and orientation, as opposed to Victim mentality we work with our partners from an empowered perspective. As empowered Creators we’re not “Persecuted” in our partnership work. We’re Challenged by it. And we see being Coached (not Rescued) as both inspiring and helpful to achieving great things together.
So the question is, are you consciously creating or only sleepwalking through your partnership? Can you intentionally be a Creator and design the partnership you want? When we replace the victim and drama mentality with the creator, coach and challenger mindset, we can deliver significantly positive results – more quickly and with a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment. Where is your partnership landing? How can you make the shift to empowered creator!
