Transactional Analysis Communication Skills Training Course

Course overview

Difficult conversations rarely fail because people lack technical facts. They fail when a manager speaks from a critical, controlling stance, a colleague responds defensively, or a team falls into familiar blame-and-rescue patterns. Transactional Analysis (TA) gives professionals a practical language for recognising these interaction patterns as they occur. It helps them move conversations from reactive exchanges to clear, adult-to-adult dialogue, particularly when expectations, authority, feedback, performance or conflict are involved.

This five-day course develops applied communication skills through the core TA models: Parent-Adult-Child ego states, transactions, strokes, life positions, drivers, discounting, psychological games and the Drama Triangle. Participants learn to diagnose crossed and ulterior transactions, choose responses that invite an Adult state, set boundaries without escalating conflict, give feedback without triggering defensiveness, and interrupt recurring workplace games. They also practise contracting conversations so that roles, decisions, commitments and follow-up actions are explicit.

Instruction combines facilitator demonstrations, communication diagnostics, structured role plays and case work based on meetings, performance discussions, stakeholder disputes and cross-functional handovers. Participants work with their own current communication challenge throughout the week and receive peer and instructor feedback on language, tone, contracting and intervention choices. They leave with a completed Transactional Analysis Communication Action Plan, including a transaction map for a live workplace relationship, scripts for two high-stakes conversations, personal trigger indicators and a 30-day practice plan. A certificate is awarded on successful completion.

The course is designed for experienced professionals who already communicate regularly with colleagues, customers, direct reports or senior stakeholders and need a more rigorous method for handling recurring interpersonal patterns. It is especially valuable where authority, ambiguity, resistance or emotional pressure can derail otherwise capable teams.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Diagnose Parent, Adult and Child ego states in spoken and written workplace exchanges
• Map complementary, crossed and ulterior transactions in a communication case
• Select Adult-to-Adult response patterns that restore productive dialogue
• Use positive and conditional stroke strategies to recognise performance without manipulation
• Apply life-position analysis to prepare for conflict, feedback and negotiation conversations
• Interrupt Drama Triangle roles using boundary statements, ownership questions and clear contracts
• Identify driver behaviours and discounting patterns that undermine decisions and accountability
• Produce a Transactional Analysis Communication Action Plan for a live workplace relationship

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• People Managers — who need to address performance, conduct and team conflict without triggering defensiveness
• HR Business Partners — who support managers through sensitive employee relations conversations
• Project Managers — who must resolve cross-functional tension and secure reliable commitments
• Senior Specialists — who influence peers and stakeholders without relying on formal authority
• Customer Success and Account Managers — who need to de-escalate difficult client interactions while protecting boundaries
• Learning and Development Professionals — who coach communication behaviours and facilitate constructive dialogue

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least two years of workplace experience and regular exposure to meetings, feedback discussions, stakeholder conversations or team decision-making. They should be comfortable reflecting on their own communication habits and working through realistic role-play scenarios. Familiarity with basic feedback models, such as SBI or DESC, is useful but not essential; the course explains all Transactional Analysis concepts from first principles before applying them at an advanced level. No psychology qualification, counselling background, TA certification or assessment licence is required. Participants should bring one real, non-confidential communication challenge to analyse during the week.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led explanations followed by repeated application of TA models to workplace communication. Participants annotate transcripts for ego states and transaction types, rehearse intervention language in triads, and analyse cases involving feedback, stakeholder resistance and team conflict. Facilitator demonstrations show how tone, timing and contracting affect the same message. Group debriefs connect each exercise to organisational consequences such as missed commitments or avoidable escalation. On day five, each participant completes and peer-tests an action plan for a current relationship or conversation.

Course outline

Day 1: Reading communication through Transactional Analysis

• Transactional Analysis as a workplace communication framework
• Berne's structural model of Parent, Adult and Child ego states
• Functional ego states: Critical Parent, Nurturing Parent, Adapted Child and Free Child
• Behavioural cues for identifying ego states in language, tone and body language
• Complementary transactions and the conditions for stable dialogue
• Crossed transactions and why conversations break down
• Ego-state contamination and decontamination of the Adult

Workshop: Participants analyse a workplace conversation transcript and produce an ego-state and transaction map with two alternative Adult responses.

Day 2: Building Adult-to-Adult working relationships

• Recognition strokes and their effect on motivation and trust
• Positive, negative, conditional and unconditional strokes
• Stroke economies and recognition patterns in teams
• Life positions: I'm OK, You're OK and workplace assumptions
• Psychological needs, permissions and workplace communication climate
• Contracting for purpose, roles, authority, decisions and follow-up
• Repairing crossed transactions with Adult invitations and clarification questions

Workshop: Participants conduct a contracting role play for a disputed handover and produce a written working agreement with decision and escalation rules.

Day 3: Feedback, authority and difficult conversations

• Diagnosing ego-state shifts during performance feedback
• Using factual Adult language to separate observation from judgement
• Driver behaviours: Be Perfect, Be Strong, Hurry Up, Please Others and Try Hard
• Discounting of problems, options, personal capability and organisational resources
• Rackets and authentic feelings in pressured workplace exchanges
• Boundary-setting statements that avoid Critical Parent escalation
• TA-informed preparation for performance, conduct and accountability conversations

Workshop: Participants prepare and rehearse a feedback conversation using a transaction forecast, driver observations and a boundary-setting script.

Day 4: Interrupting games and resolving conflict

• Psychological games: payoffs, hooks, switches and recurring patterns
• The Drama Triangle: Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim roles
• Moving from Drama Triangle roles to responsibility-based alternatives
• Karpman game analysis for workplace complaints and escalation cycles
• Ulterior transactions and hidden agendas in meetings and negotiations
• Time structuring: withdrawal, rituals, pastimes, activities, games and intimacy
• Conflict intervention choices for managers, peers and internal advisers

Workshop: Teams analyse a recurring conflict case, identify the game sequence and produce an intervention plan with role-specific Adult language.

Day 5: Applying TA to live workplace communication

• Transaction mapping for a live stakeholder relationship
• Communication pattern diagnosis across meetings, email and one-to-one discussions
• Selecting interventions for crossed transactions, games and discounting
• Designing Adult-to-Adult meeting openings and reset statements
• Creating personal trigger indicators and self-management cues
• Peer coaching using TA observation criteria
• Thirty-day practice planning and measures of communication change

Workshop: Participants present a Transactional Analysis Communication Action Plan containing a relationship map, two conversation scripts, intervention choices and 30-day measures.

Tools & standards covered

Miro, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft PowerPoint, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions