In 2018 we decided to co-create a new handbook on the theory and application of transactional analysis (TA) in organisations, with nine of our colleagues from all over the world. We were curious about how TA professionals in the field of management & organizational development (M&OD) perceive the rapid changes in the world and our profession today. It seems to us we live in days of constant crises. All these developments ā from trade wars to climate threats to virus outbreaks ā do not go beyond the doors of organisations. All of us are authors, teachers and supervisors in TA, and experienced managers, coaches, trainers and consultants in our own right.
Rapid change
At the structural level organisations have changed, under the influence of volatile markets and socio-environmental developments. The need to create structures that enable cooperation across functions and disciplines has increased. The challenge at this level is to maintain boundaries and identity while at the same time allowing enough permeability that new information, partnerships and thinking can impact the organization. At the relational level the need to create communication and cooperation across distance and difference has become greater. Increased pressure from the environment and developments that are not in the realm of one organization alone to influence has increased the need for systemic thinking in relationships. At the existential level the need to switch from I-thinking to We-thinking in organizational cultures has increased.
This is dramatically illustrated by the response to the COVID-19 crisis, which shows us that the world cannot function on the basis of individual responsibility anymore. We are forced to accept collective responsibility for our actions. The confusion this causes is clearly illustrated by the call for āsocial distancingā in days when people need each other more than ever. The choice of āsocial distancingā instead of āphysical distancingā shows that thinking about boundaries between individual and group ā certainly among policymakers ā is under pressure. For us two things are clear: Firstly, in organisations we never walk alone. Secondly, organisations need top learners, because top learners are successful managers (van Poelje, 2004).
On the edge
We believe that TA can contribute at all of these levels. TA can offer innovative, on-the-edge thinking for this new world. TA can stimulate daring, on-the-edge acting for this new reality. Central to this thinking and acting is the notion of boundary. Eric Berne (1963) defined a boundary as a constitutional, psychological or spatial distinction: āA group may be defined as any social aggregation that has an external boundary and at least one internal boundary (p. 54)ā.
Three elements of this boundary definition are important. First: the idea that boundaries are (mostly) imaginary lines, demarcations that exist primarily in the mind of the perceiver. Every organisation is always and above all an organisation in the mind. Second: boundaries are essential in defining groups and organisations because they are their main structural element. One can even say that the clearer the boundaries ā contracts ā the higher the functioning. Third: boundaries refer not only to separate areas but also to their interrelation and possibly to the dynamics as well (e.g. Friedlander, 1987). Transactions exist because there are boundaries.
For a TA coach or consultant boundaries are an organising principle guiding their interventions, both as a structural frame and as the main relational and psychological principle. The permeability of boundaries can determine both the stability of a system and its innovative potential. On a medieval map the boundary would show up as the distinction between what is known and what is not known. Any TA coach or consultant has to walk this line between known and not known, between being in a system and at the same time being an outsider.
Any group or organisation that wants to change ā grow or innovate ā needs to cross the boundary between being āconservative and stableā and being āinnovative and unstableā, between āknowing what you haveā and ānot knowing what you getā. Doing so is often experienced as risky. We think that looking at change from a dialectical perspective is necessary here, because we believe there always is a dialectical tension between order and disorder, between integration and differentiation, between stability and instability, between balance and disbalance. When order is a fact, the longing for disorder emerges. When integration is a fact, differentiation becomes a need. When stability has had its time, instability beckons. We have to learn to deal with these dynamic contradictions, with the interplay between complementary or opposing tendencies (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996). Tension is part of life, at home and at work. Dealing with all these tensions is the challenge. We call this being on the edge.
Effectivity
Petriglieri and Wood (2003) wrote:
Behavioral professionals are constantly warned by their teachers, supervisors, and colleagues about the risk of losing their āobjectiveā and āunbiasedā perspective ā of āgoing nativeā, of having ātheir buttons pushedā and being āhookedā into their clientsā games, of āfalling out of roleā and so on. If this is a risk when working with an individual client, it is even more of a risk when working with a group, the gravity of whose psychological pull is considerably stronger and much more multidimensional. We are suggesting here, however, that there is something to be said for allowing oneself to be drawn into the emotional field of a group ā if it is done responsibly.
One will never understand an organisation or group by just being an observer. Being in or part of it, āgetting your shoes dirtyā, allows for a deeper understanding of what is really going on.
So whoever wants to work on the edge first needs to be mindful of the boundaries. No boundary, no edge. Eric Berne was, in our opinion, very much in favour of working on the edge. To really make a difference a TA professional needs to be willing to take a risk. His very first article about applying TA in an organisational context, called āInstitutional Gamesā (Berne et al. 1962), ends with a question: āHow efficient can I be without getting fired?ā Whoever looks up āedgeā or āon the edgeā in a dictionary will notice that being or working on the edge is referring to something bad or disastrous. We are not advocating to engage oneself in bad or disastrous situations. We do think however that any TA professional, working in or with groups and/or organisations, must be prepared to at least take a risk. No risk, no result!
The book
In this book we have collected articles by leading thinkers and practitioners in the TA organisational field. Their mission was to write a chapter from their āon-the-edge perspectiveā on TA in the organisational world today, based on original conceptualisation with practical edge.
- In Chapter 2 on the three levels of leadership, Dutch TA professional Sari van Poelje talks of the management of paradoxes: the paradox between market reactivity and corporate identity, between centralised control and delegation and between independence and interdependence of teams.
- In Chapter 3 Corinne Laurier from France argues that organisational, personal and historical power factors need to be adapted to role and goals; in todayās world power over needs to be replaced by power for dynamics.
- In Chapter 4 Kathrin Rutz from Switzerland uses her wide experience in expert organisations to explore the four essential conditions to work with self-organising teams: (1) clear structures, (2) strong leadership, (3) negotiated contracts and a (4) culture of dialogue.
- In Chapter 5, our French colleague, Jacques Moreau, offers a new perspective on working with large living systems in the boundary zone. The boundary zone is the area between outside and inside, the transitional space that allows us to work with the tension between love, conflict and destruction.
- In Chapter 6 on boundary dynamics, our French colleague, Patrice Fosset, gives practical guidelines on how to move from diagnosis to problem resolution in organisations by changing the force and permeability of boundaries.
- In Chapter 7 Graeme Summers from the UK shows the power of vulnerability in leading downwards, upwards, across and outwards, and that courage, creativity and cooperation will bring is to a new edge in working in todayās organisations.
- In Chapter 8 on managing fear and anxiety Anne de Graaf from the Netherlands argues that organisations are in a sense systems of emotions, often constructed to manage the fear of their managers. On the one hand this anxiety can lead to innovation, but if unchecked it is merely a container for life scripts.
- In Chapter 9 Mandy Lacy from New Zealand focuses on her PhD research on cognitive apprenticeship and collaborative reflection in the workplace as a way to stimulate innovation.
- In Chapter 10 on organisational cultures and change, Italian Ugo De Ambrogio describes five models of organisational culture: Culture of Cohesion (paternalistic), Culture of Order (efficient), Culture of Challenge (spontaneity), Culture of Rules and Procedures (hyper-bureaucratic) and Culture of Obedience (closed).
- In Chapter 11, the case study by Marleine Mazouz from France shows us how to work with psychosocial risk prevention. In France this is dictated by law, and managers are personally responsible. She shows us how to work with primary, secondary and tertiary risk prevention strategies using TA.
- In Chapter 12, the closing chapter of this book, Rosa R. Krausz from Brasil outlines the changes she expects in the organisational environment and the contribution TA can make to understanding and adapting to these changes.
Finally
Working together is a challenge, but there is no alternative if you want to grow and innovate. Efficiency is key but so is cooperation. Our task is to keep relationship and contracted goals in balance. This is not easy. Itās edgy work. After having read all the articles, you will see how true this is.
Writing this book together has been a testimony to the need to take risks and to cooperate. We ā Anne and Sari ā are colleagues, but despite our similar roles and development, we spent twenty years in friction. One day we met decided to explore our tension as a systemic consequence within our community and both our life scripts. We have been on a beautiful journey together, building our cooperation on the edge. This is what transactional analysis in the end is all about ā to build the capacity to meet and work together in appreciation of each otherās similarities and differences. We would like to finish with a quote from our colleague Jim Allen, taken from his keynote at the Eric Berne centennial TA conference in 2010 in Montreal: āPeople meet based on their similarities. They grow based on their differencesā. We couldnāt agree more. Have a good read!
References
Baxter, L., & Montgomery, B. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics. New York: The Guilford Press.
Berne, E. (1963). The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups. New York: Grove Press.
Berne, E., Birnbaum, R., Poindexter, R., & Rosenfeld, B. (1962). Institutional Games. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 1(2), 12ā13.
de Graaf, A. (2013). The Group in the Individual, Lessons Learned from Working with and in Organizations and Groups. Transactional Analysis Journal, 43, 311ā320.
Friedlander, F. (1987). āThe ecology of work groupsā in Handbook of organizational behavior. J. Lorsch (ed.), 301ā314. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Petriglieri, G., & Wood, J. D. (2003). The Invisible Revealed: Collusion as an Entry to the Group Unconscious. Transactional Analysis Journal, 33(4), 332ā343.
Van Poelje, S...
