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How to Put an End to the Habits That are Ruining Your Work Relationships

Using advice from the Gottman Institute to stop criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling in their tracks.

Author

Devin Keane
August 09, 2023

Read time: 6 minutes

Hi Proactive Professional,

Last week we discussed how to get the most out of 1:1 conversations by looking at Tim Ferriss’ interview style (in case you missed it, read it here).

Even when we make a conscious effort to do that, there are certain habits that die hard and predict the end of relationships. The Gottman Institute calls these the “Four Horsemen of Communication Apocalypse.”

No connection, no matter how thoughtful you are about building and nurturing it, is going to be perfect. We all butt heads from time to time, especially in a professional setting when the stakes are high. The key is making note of when it’s becoming a regular occurrence in your relationship, because it could lead to an irreparable connection.

When it comes to co-founders, close working relationships, and other meaningful connections, we want to avoid this scenario at all costs.

The Four Horsemen are a bit more nuanced way to do so than “don’t yell and name call.”

They are as follows: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.

The Four Horsemen cause workers to leave companies, businesses to fail because of divorcing co-founders, and the loss of all the value meaningful connections can provide to us.

Today’s edition is all about noticing the patterns that could lead to the downfall of a relationship and how to change your behaviors in real time to stop the patterns in their tracks.

To illustrate, let's take a classic example of the relationship between a third-year analyst and first-year MBA associate. The analyst has valuable on-the-job experience. She knows the ins and outs of how the team works, how to provide a great work product, has the technical expertise, and is in the weeds. The first-year MBA associate brings broad business experience, connections from business school, and best practices.

Both are pivotal to the success of the group as they each lack what the other has. In fact, they could be pivotal in their mutual success at the company and, beyond that, by working well together and sharing their respective skills.

Recognizing the Four Horsemen of Communication when it comes to professional connections:

1. Criticism

  • Gottman Institute definition: Criticism is an attack on your connection’s character rather than offering a critique or voicing a complaint on a specific issue.

  • How it can look: The team above starts work on a brand new deal. The analyst knows what she’s in for—a casual 100 hour week, perfecting the financial model. But while trying to “add value,” the associate criticizes the analyst: “You never try to maximize the growth on the projections. You’re too narrow minded and end up leaving money on the table for the group. I’m improving it before sending to the managing director.”

  • The better approach: Shift from criticizing the person's character to critiquing the specific issue at hand. The associate could have said: “Great job on the model, but I think some growth can be improved. Let's brainstorm how we can increase it without being unreasonable.”

2. Contempt

  • Gottman Institute definition: Contempt goes beyond criticism. This takes place when people are truly mean—treating others with disrespect, mocking, ridiculing, calling names, eye rolling, scoffing, etc.

  • How it can look: Turns out, the associate’s changes messed up the model and the entire thing REF’d out (read: rendered it unusable). The managing director scolds the team for the poor work. The analyst then scoffs at the associate for being as value-add as an F1 key is to a keyboard. “You shouldn’t be calling any of the shots when everything you learned is just from a textbook,” says the analyst.

  • The better approach: Avoid taking an approach of moral superiority. Instead, get to the core of the issue and fix it going forward. The analyst could have said: “You’re new to the group, but we typically try to show aggressive growth that’s still reasonable. Get a few reps in before you try to change too much based on what you know.”

3. Defensiveness

  • Gottman Institute definition: Typically a response to criticism, defensiveness happens when people feel unjustly accused, they fish for excuses and play the innocent victim so that the other person will back off.

  • How it can look: In response to the analyst, the associate says “It’s not my fault your Bloomberg plugins aren’t working. I’ve never had this issue in the case studies we used to practice on. I was trying to increase the fees we brought in for the group by $25K…”

  • The better approach: Taking responsibility for the mistake, even partially. The associate could have said: “You’re right, I overstepped to try and establish myself with the managing director early on. I was fishing for ways to stick out, but ended up adding to our workload, let's be more collaborative in the process going forward.”

4. Stonewalling

  • Gottman Institute definition: Typically a response to contempt, stonewalling takes place when the listener withdraws from the interaction, shuts down, and simply stops responding to the other person rather than confronting the issue.

  • How it can look: The analyst accepts that there’s no changing a broken record and decides to only interact with the associate if absolutely necessary. Acknowledging emails with “thx - sent from iPhone” and going directly to the managing director on future projects. The result? Comments slip through the cracks, both of their performances suffer, and then layoffs.

  • The better approach: When in a heated debate, it’s better to hit pause on a conversation than ending it indefinitely. The analyst and associate could work on some of their other projects and then came back to assess better approaches to working together going forward. Both partially admitting to wrongdoing can go a long way.

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By taking the approach this analyst and associate did, you risk a lot more than your current job. You risk losing credibility of being able to work as part of a team, being looked at as individually incompetent, not learning from new perspectives, and even what could be a peer mentor in the ambitious associate or analyst.

Through the scenario of the analyst and associate, one that you may have experienced in your own workplace, it’s not difficult to see how shifting from destructive communication to productive communication is the better approach. It benefits you, your learning, and gains you a champion of your success both in the current workplace and beyond, wherever your paths may take you.

What I’m committing to this week from my annual family vacation in Fire Island ☀️(~1.5 hours):

  • 🎲 Making sure competitiveness doesn’t result in any of the Four Horsemen during family game night (~1 hour)

  • 🎙 Sharing the interview with Tim Urban on high rung thinking and encouraging people to disagree productively (~10 minutes)

  • 🤔 Reflecting on my week this Friday: How often do I react to criticism or contempt with defensiveness or stonewalling? (~20 minutes)

What are you committing to this week? Reply to this email!

Best of luck building,

Devin