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Merline Stone writes...
In my latest research into how marketing
works, I’ve gone back to one of popular psychology ideas of the 1950s and
1960s. This is “transactional analysis”. It is a theory about personality,
personality development and communication. Its ideas were developed by Eric Berne
in the 1950s, published in his Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (1951),
then popularised through his later books, notably “Games People Play, The
Psychology of Human Relationships” (1964), What Do You Say After You Say
Hello? (1972), and those of his disciples (e.g. Thomas Harris, I’m OK, you’re
OK, 1976).
Transactional analysis suggests
models to observe and understand everyday communication.
Its main ideas relate to: ego states, transactions,
games, strokes, drivers and life positions.
In this article, I’m going to focus on
a couple of these ideas – ego states and
transactions.
An ego state is a consistent
pattern of feeling and experience. It’s
normally associated with particular patterns
of behaviour. The three ego states are Parent,
Adult and Child.
· The Parent state
may be Critical (‘should, ought, must,
never') or Nurturing 'there, there sweetie.
Try again. It's all right.'
· The Adult state consists
of organised, logical, problem solving 'how,
why, where, who, what'
· The Child state may
be Natural and Spontaneous: "wow, look
at me”, or Adapted child : 'if you say
so…'
Each ego state may be functional.
Creative Child can be valuable in brainstorming
situations. Rules of thumb from Parent can help
where many unknowns would otherwise lead to
progress stalling. However, Child and Parent
can be very dysfunctional. The only state always
desirable is Adult because it’s aware of
the Parent, the Child and the situation. The
Adult determines what behaviour is appropriate.
So, the lesson is not to stay in Adult state
all the time, but to use the Adult to understand
the origins and nature of thoughts and feelings
and to monitor discrepancies between the current
situation and our reactions to it.
A transaction is a unit of
social interaction that can be verbal and non-verbal.
The initiating message is called the stimulus
and the reply is called the response. People
communicate with others to meet their needs.
The way we communicate depends on our ego states
throughout the transaction.
Transactions may be
complementary, crossed and ulterior. Complementary
transactions are when a message gets the expected
response from the other person. Communication
proceeds smoothly as long as transactions are
complementary. It occurs between two “ego
states” which reward one another. Though
Adult-to-Adult transactions are most effective,
communication and understanding can occur in
Parent-to-Child, Parent-to-Parent, or in Child-to-Child
complementary transactions.
In crossed transactions, a
message sent or behaviour exhibited by one person's
ego state is reacted to by an incompatible,
unexpected ego state on the part of the other
person. Crossed transactions cause much interpersonal
conflict. Communication may break down unless
one or both individuals change ego state. Crossed
transactions may cause hurt and frustration.
Ulterior transactions are
when one or both parties are functioning in
two ego states at the same time. These transactions
are complex and subtle and may be damaging to
interpersonal relations. A message will often
be superficially adult to adult, with a hidden
meaning of parent to child. The words send one
message while the voice, gestures send another.
There is a difference between what is said and
what is meant. For business purposes, communication
is most effective when transactions are complementary.
Transactional analysis increases
awareness both of the self and of others. It
gives you a tool for influencing others. Activating
their Child, you stimulate creativity and enthusiasm.
Communicating on Adult-to-Adult level you can
constructively deal with interpersonal conflict.
Awareness of games that are played in organisations
can help you achieve better work relationships.
Applying the ideas to sales
and marketing
I see two main areas for applying
the ideas, both of which suggest moving from
a situation in which the supplier and the customer
may perceive themselves as parent and/or child,
with the risk of crossed transactions. The first
area is planning, the second area is in individual
supplier-customer interactions. Both these areas
are, however, a reflection of the same underlying
phenomenon.
In marketing planning and
in managing interactions between customers and
suppliers, there is often the presumption that
the marketer’s job is to “know better
than the market”, and “tell it what
to do, based on superior knowledge and judgement”.
The supplier’s drive
is to be perfect, in the sense of having the
best marketing mix, and the customer’s
drive is to be perfect, in the sense of getting
the best deal or most appropriate offer. This
leads to a situation in which customers are
offered an inappropriate marketing mix –
products, prices, channels etc.
The supplier behaves as parent
towards the child customers – “if
you don’t buy this product, at this price,
use this channel etc., you don’t deserve
me as a supplier”. However, the customer
senses this, and takes a similar parent view
– “because you haven’t understood
me, I’m not going to let you sell to me”.
This contrasts with the adult-adult
complementary transaction approach, in which
each side exchanges information about their
needs and plans and over a period arrive at
an arrangement which suits them both. They both
become OK with respect to each other, and become
better at meeting each other’s needs.
I’d like to see more
of this thinking in marketing – whether
in the design of propositions, channels or marketing
communications. I’m sure many suppliers
and customers would get on a lot better as a
result.
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