Interpersonal communications refers to the interactions that we have with other people. The skill with which we interact with others often has a dramatic influence on our self-esteem and on the course of our personal and career lives. Of particular interest in this paper will be the impact of interpersonal communications on our career lives. The focus will be on improving communications between employers and employees.
According to Berne (1972) many of our interaction patterns with other people are formed when we are young, learning to get along with adults. Our parents are the first to influence our communication patterns. These early patterns are usually established around a power relationship. The child defers to the parent because the parent holds the power to provide for the comfort and well-being of the child. But very early, the child learns that he/she cannot achieve various goals by adhering to the strict deference pattern. The child then learns new ways to manipulate the game while continuing to look like the child. These communication patterns are indirect and are meant to get what the child wants without directly confronting the parent.
Berne also suggested that as we reach adulthood, we have developed three distinct forms of communicating. These forms he called the parent, adult and child. These labels do not refer to the age of the communicator, but rather to the role that the communicator takes with other individuals, during an interaction. Thus, an adult might communicate with a close friend on an adult-to-adult basis, but with a boss that same adult might fall back into child communication patterns, and with a spouse he/she might take an the parent role in communications. These multi-faceted patterns trigger certain responses from the individual who is the co-communicator. Berne (1972) refers to these patterns of communication as scripts. He suggests that by getting to know the scripts that we u...