Turns out that everything I've been doing is totally wrong.

I'm Angela Duckworth.

I'm Stephen Dubner.

And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show, how do you escape the destructive allure of a drama triangle?

Refrain from the following.

Blaming, criticizing, accusing, lecturing,

scolding, monitoring, threatening, preaching, obsessing, overreacting, or underreacting.

Also, do awards actually improve performance? I feel appreciated. I don't know who the runner-up is,

but, you know, too bad for you.

Angela, I recently came across something called the drama triangle, also known as the

Carpman triangle, since it was created by the psychiatrist Stephen Carpman.

Can you explain the Carpman triangle and why it's worth knowing about? I find it more useful to refer to as

the drama triangle because it is dramatic. And this is how I know about it, Stephen. It's not because I'm a

psychologist, but because I run a little nonprofit called Character Lab, as you know. And when I was a green leader, I even in a

small team, had this phenomenon where one person would not like another person. And then how do you

make a triangle? Who's the third point? The third point was me. So disgruntled employee number one would come

to me and say, hey, I don't really like employee number two. Then I would say something that I thought

was comforting to disgruntled employee number one. But then employee number two, an hour later,

comes into your office annoyed about employee number one.

This can go around and around and motions heightened.

I didn't know this term, drama triangle, until I consulted a management coach.

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