It was just within two months of my marriage. I was visiting one of my relative’s home for a customary marriage feast along with my wife. When I pressed the calling bell, we were greeted by a Pomeranian dog, welcoming us with a high decibel barking. I was not a big fan of pets and my wife was really frightened. So I asked the lady of the house to tie up the dog. Promptly the lady replied not to me but to the dog “ Chup raho ! Yeh hai bhai aur bhabi. Hi shut up. Could you not recognize? This is brother and his wife.” Indeed a nice way of welcoming us. Coolly my wife whispered in my ears “Earlier I had a doubt, now I got it clarified “.
Toast master of the day, madam president, and fellow toastmasters and guest a warm good evening to you all.
Remember, it was just two months of the marriage and the initial fantasy has not faded away and I decided to swallow the bitter pill of comment. How many of you come across such an ego shattering comments in your life. Most of us, I suppose. Have we ever looked into why people behave in a particular way?
This was the basis of research of the Canadian born US psychiatrist, Eric Berne, during the late 50s, which develop into what is now known as Transaction Analysis.
We do not have a single personality as we all think; in fact we have three types of different personalities within us –a kind of split personalities. We have a child, an adult and a parent within us. No, I am not referring to the age or the position; this is the ego status what I am referring to.
A parental ego is stage where a person wants to control the others as if he knows everything on the subject. This has two different types – one is a nurturing parent and the other is a critical parent. Just look at the way the seasoned toastmasters give their evaluation speeches. The first portion will be of the stage of a nurturing parent, giving positive stokes, praising the target speaker, list out all the right things the speaker has made in this speech. The second portion he assumes the role of a critical parent, where he points out the mistakes committed and the ways to improve.
An adult ego is a stage when one person is reacting to the situations without any emotional bias, just looking into the subject and gives his critical analysis in a logical and sequential order. In Our Toastmasters meetings most General Evaluators come under this category. The basic idea of Transaction Analysis is to ensure that we all should try to strengthen adult ego stage.
Then we have the child ego stage. By nature a child is curious to know new things and many times it is also mischievous. Like a parental ego status, the child ego status is also divided in to a little professor stage and a mischievous child stage.
We do have a lot of mischievous child in this room itself. Just wait for the comments our toastmasters make after announcements and project speeches. Cracking jokes and making fun is the characteristics of the mischievous child.
Many times we do not know many things and we would be really interested to know some basis of the subject. This inquisitive behavior is the mark of the little professor.
In any communication if the sender and the receiver is in the same ego stage, there will be no problems. But in reality it is not so. If one person talks in a critical parent stage and the other responds in a mischievous child stage, the communication either breaks up or a heated argument follows which ends up in a strained relationship.
So Dear Toastmasters the next time your wife demands a piece of jewellery ignore it because she is in a Child ego. Your boss bullies you with No work No increment statement ignore him because he is in a Parent Ego. But never ignore your Speech Evaluator’s suggestions because he is in Adult Ego as we are. Hope my evaluator is listening!!!
Over to you toastmaster.
இதைத் தமிழில் எழுதியிருந்தால் இன்னும் சுவையாக இருந்திருக்குமே?
பதிலளிநீக்கு