ROLES & GHOST ROLES

Roles

Role is a term originating from Sociological theory that is used in Process Work. Roles are believed to temporarily manifest through individuals but belong to all members of the group.  While each role such as “boss” or “subordinate” seems to be located with a given individual or group, each is actually a role that needs to be filled by many of us.

For example, I have the title of President and as such, hold the role of the leader of Creating…. At times, others in Creating… may be pulled to step into the role of a leader, though they lack the formal title. If I, in my role as the leader am aware and fluid enough, I will be able to step out of my role as leader, make space for others to step into that leader role and allow myself to be shift into the role of learner and be informed by them.

Because roles are considered non-local, there is a natural tendency to role switch. You may identify with a particular role at one moment but then at another moment notice you feel pulled to represent another role. Noticing and allowing your self the freedom to switch roles is an awareness practice.  It increases your fluidity and adaptability. (www.worldwork.org/Day-1-Arny-Amy.pdf) 

Ghost Roles

A ‘ghost role’ is any role that’s not represented in the moment.  For example, if we start to talk about somebody who is not present, they represent a ghost role. If these ghost roles are not represented or acknowledged, they will begin to disturb the atmosphere and eventually appear as problems in everyday reality. One reason why we talk about people, institutions, etc but don’t actually represent them directly is because the individual, system or group’s primary process is against the Ghost Role’s particular viewpoint or behavior. It is important to give a voice to the Ghost Role so that we are able to interact with it and make the information it has available and meaningful to the whole system. This brings relief to the field and often is one of the seeds for transforming conflict.

Some typical ghosts in an organization are past staff who are spoken about but who are no longer present, or the “bad leader” who is not in the room, or the environment, the economy, etc. A great place to discover ghost roles is around the water cooler, coffee machine or smoking area—anywhere people tend to gather informally to gossip. Let me give you an example where a ghost role existed and how representing that ghost role fully could have been helpful to transforming tension and unhappiness.

Ghost Role Case Example

I worked as in an educational organization as a teaching staff. The organization had three bosses who had designed all materials 17 years earlier and had been teaching the same curriculum for all those years with few changes. One thing they excelled at was recruiting top caliber teaching staff. The staff were all highly educated, creative and passionate.

Whenever the teaching staff gathered socially as a team without our bosses, we complained about how frustrated and bored to tears we were with our jobs. We would dream about and share wild ideas we had for innovating and bringing in new programs.  Then we would talk about how our ideas would immediately be shot down. Here was a ghost role--the one who oppressed the innovators. We might call him the Ghost representing the Status Quo or Business As Usual. Our bosses wore the clothes of this Ghost. We talked about how rigid and resistant they each were. And then something interesting would happen.

Some of us would step into the role of our three bosses and imitate them. We would speak in their voices, move like them and say what we thought they would say. Others would represent ourselves as teaching staff and we would begin to interact with one another. Those representing the bosses would share the negative feedback when the teaching staff presented their ideas for new programs.

When we imitated them, this was a beginning of us stepping in to represent the ghost role but it was incomplete. Our goal in our interaction was to criticize and poke fun at our bosses and highlight their closed-minded resistance. It brought us relief on some level but it didn’t transform the situation at work. What could we have done to deepen the interaction?

In our live interaction with the different roles, we were against the bosses’ viewpoint and their rigid, closed behavior. We hadn’t really taken time to try and understand their position. Had some of us been able to really take the side of our bosses and deepen their roles, trying to discover what might be underneath their resistance, we might have been able to find new and helpful information about why they held so tightly to their views and position. The insight we might have gained could have enlightened us on how to approach them differently so that they could hear and understand us better.  For example, we might have gone in with greater respect and understanding of them rather than with a background derision. That alone could have opened a space for them to listen more openly to us and to see that our passion and ideas were really about being committed to wanting to help them and their organization be the best it could be.

Because the ghost role in reality never had a chance to be fully represented and heard, what happened was that many great staff came and left the organization too quickly.

Amy Mindell created a document called Role Theory: Susan and Sam on Roles.

This is a great explanation of what is actually unfolding when role switching happens. To access go to http://www.aamindell.net/blog/ww/dd-terms/1726

Here is a You Tube video where Kermit & Elmo from Sesame Street demonstrate switching roles between Loud and Quiet Voices. This clip and more can be found directly on Arny and Amy’s Website  http://www.aamindell.net/blog/innerwork