Casting roles in organisational change: How the stories we tell shape behaviour

In every organisational change, people respond less to the formal plan than to the story being told about them. When leaders frame colleagues as obstacles, victims, or heroes, they shape the behaviour that follows. Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle, first published in 1968, maps how change conversations easily become self-reinforcing conflict rather than collective problem-solving. The three roles are Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. These roles are not fixed personality types. They are temporary positions people take under pressure, and they shift. A frustrated Rescuer becomes a Persecutor. A cornered Victim becomes a Persecutor. An unappreciated leader casts himself as Victim. Everyone feels justified. Little real progress is made.

Everyday communication already assigns roles

Every conversation, especially in conflict, casts the other person as victim, villain, or hero. Cast as villain, people defend or attack. Cast as victim, they may excuse or withdraw. Cast as hero, they are more likely to lean in because they have been offered a part worth playing. The practical implication is straightforward: you do not have to become the villain in someone else’s story in order to become the hero in your own. Framing and positioning often matter more than the facts themselves.

Change programmes generate anxiety about control, competence, status, identity, and security. That anxiety seeks a narrative. The Drama Triangle supplies ready-made parts.

What real cases show

Published studies make the pattern visible. Gillian Robinson (2016) studied a real restructuring in a UK hospice and family support service. Three previously informal areas were merged. Management was experienced as Persecutor. The counselling team and supervisor felt like Victims. Lack of information and consultation created distance. The triangle sustained itself: games continued, trust eroded, and the underlying problems of role clarity and inclusion stayed unresolved.

A more positive published account comes from Lisa Holder of The LDI Group. In a high-pressure design firm delivering a major client project, the team fell into classic cycles of blame, burnout, and last-minute rescuing. Senior leadership recognised the declining morale and brought in external facilitation focused on the Drama Triangle. After people saw the pattern and deliberately shifted roles, the team met the deadline and exceeded client expectations. The case shows that exiting the triangle is possible when the pattern is named and different behaviour is chosen.

Donald W. McCormick (2007) analysed a failed change effort in a large federal research organisation aimed at addressing racial and gender harassment. Management and activist groups each maintained their own organisational “line.” Front-stage presentations and back-stage realities diverged, and the change effort collapsed.

These cases support the argument made by Jeffrey D. Ford, Laurie W. Ford, and Angelo D’Amelio in their 2008 Academy of Management Review paper. The usual story of resistance is one-sided. It places the problem “over there” in the people affected by change. Change agents themselves often contribute to resistance through broken agreements, trust violations, and labelling legitimate concerns as obstruction. Resistance can be useful information when it is treated as data rather than as an enemy to be defeated.

Moving from drama to useful roles

Acey Choy’s Winner’s Triangle (1990) offers the constructive alternative. The Victim becomes Vulnerable: able to name difficulty while keeping agency. The Persecutor becomes Assertive: clear about standards without humiliation. The Rescuer becomes Caring (or Coach): supportive without taking over. The shift is practical, not sentimental. It requires real changes in decision rights, recognition, and accountability.

Robin C. Burgess has used both triangles for more than a decade with managers and practitioners in public-sector settings across social work, health, education, and housing. The models help people take appropriate responsibility and become more response-able. When individuals and teams move out of drama roles, stuck patterns loosen and constructive dialogue becomes possible.

Edgar Schein’s work on culture reminds us that culture is not only what is announced. It lives in underlying assumptions about authority, safety, and how work is really done. Hierarchical settings that treat consultation as soft tend to amplify the Drama Triangle. John Kotter’s research shows that under-communicating the vision, underestimating the emotional work, and treating resistance as something to be crushed reliably produce failure. Kotter and Schlesinger’s analysis of change strategies emphasises matching the response to the actual source of resistance rather than applying uniform pressure.

Practical diagnostic: where anxiety shows up

Treat the Drama Triangle as a diagnostic of interaction patterns under pressure, not a set of labels for people. A simple chain is useful: change trigger creates anxiety, anxiety produces a narrative role, the role produces behaviour, and the behaviour reveals a gap in the change process.

Kotter’s stages give a practical map. Anxiety concentrates differently at each stage and recruits different roles.

When creating urgency, people ask “why now” and “who decided.” Victim narratives (“our views do not matter”), Persecutor narratives (“these people are complacent”), or Rescuer narratives (“I will explain it so they stop worrying”) appear quickly. Robinson’s hospice case shows how lack of genuine consultation at this stage locked people into Victim positions.

When building a guiding coalition, anxiety about exclusion produces Victim (“the same people always decide”) or Persecutor (“middle managers protect their empires”) patterns. Credible informal leaders and sceptics need to be present as advisers, not audiences.

When forming the vision, anxiety about loss of meaning and job identity invites Victim helplessness or Persecutor dismissal of the vision as vague. Pairing the vision with an honest map of losses, mitigations, and decision rights reduces the invitation to drama roles.

Enlisting broader participation works best when communication becomes co-design. When feedback is collected but ignored, Victim narratives harden. When disagreement is labelled as lack of commitment, Persecutor dynamics intensify.

Removing barriers requires separating capability gaps from systemic obstruction. If managers are asked to deliver change without authority, time, or resources, Victim withdrawal or Persecutor accusations of excuses become predictable. Rescuers who absorb every problem prevent local ownership.

Generating early wins and sustaining momentum need honest recognition. Claiming success centrally while frontline teams carry the risk fuels Victim resentment. Over-functioning by change agents keeps the Rescuer role alive and creates dependency.

Institutionalising change means anchoring new behaviour in recruitment, promotion, performance systems, and leadership modelling. Without this, old incentives reward the old drama.

Practical language that changes the story

Language matters. When people say “this is being done to us,” try “what part of this do you most need to influence, and what decision can you own?” When leaders say “they are blocking progress,” ask “what legitimate risk are they seeing that we may have missed?” When someone offers “let me handle it for you,” respond with “what support do you need to solve this yourself, and what decision remains yours?”

Ford, Ford and D’Amelio argue that change agents must examine their own contribution to the reactions they label as resistance. Treating resistance solely as obstruction keeps the triangle going. Treating it as data opens the possibility of redesign.

People are deeply interested in who they have been made out to be in another’s story. Offer a credible part that includes real influence, respect, and accountability, and engagement becomes far more likely.

Closing

Organisational change is never only technical or structural. It is a narrative contest about power, identity, and agency. The Drama Triangle describes the default drama that arises when anxiety is left unexamined and roles are assigned carelessly. The Winner’s Triangle and deliberate casting of constructive roles offer a practical way out. Leaders do not merely manage projects; they cast characters. If they make people villains, they should expect defence. If they make them victims, they should expect passivity. If they make them rescuers, they should expect dependency. If they give people a part worth playing, backed by decision rights, resources, and recognition, they are far more likely to help write a better ending.

The work is continuous. Systems, incentives, and culture must reinforce the new roles, or the old drama reasserts itself. The central practical insight remains: the story leaders tell about others is one of the most powerful levers they possess.