Ego States

Tweet This post hopes to address conflicts that arise due to communication and working styles.

We’ve all faced difficult clients or people who tend to favour the old way of a top-down instructional working style. There are ways we can shift how these difficult exchanges take place.

Here are some pointers I’d like to share which I’ve gathered over the years:

1) Respect
Everyone has their place in the greater scheme of things. The key here is to respect that and to work with each person based on their abilities, passion and potential. When you respect someone and value them, you gain respect as well.

2) Ego
Ego sometimes get us into trouble and stubborn resistance to let go of our egos and way of thinking that our way is the best leads to conflict.

Conflicts of ego can sometimes be avoided if we understand the various “ego-states” there are and strive to engage each other in a positive & productive manner.

3) Releasing Your Ego & Being Open
Egos can sometimes get in the way of keeping an open mind, encouraging alternative opinions + methods. My advice to myself and those I work this is to always remember, there probably may a better way, we just haven’t stumbled upon it yet.

So to elaborate more on “ego-states” here’s one of the more effective models of communication I find useful, Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis.

I’ve done up visuals so it’s easier to grasp this. Simply put, there are three “ego-states”:
- Parent: loving + nurturing parent or controlling + critical parent
- Adult: rational, logical, reasonable state that is neither controlling or emotionally reactionary; the “ideal state” where the individual is comfortable, balanced, non-threatening & non-threatened
- Child: playful, petulant, rebellious, attention craving, mischevious, emotional, creative

In an ideal world, ideal exchanges would happen between individuals of similar “ego-states”:

Conflict typically occurs when there is a cross-wire exchange in negative “ego-states”:

Cross-wire exchange in positive “ego-states” encourage growth and a creative & supportive basis of exchange:

Being aware of these “ego-states” can empower you to identify situations that are causing conflict and to move these exchanges into an ego-state that is rational, non-threatening and productive.