By Bridget Hogg, Director, Development at Work Australia
Our focus is very important in building and maintaining relationships – at work and outside of work.
There are 4 key communication behaviours which destroy relationships – at work and outside. HR must take steps to educate employees – especially leaders – and eliminate these if building and maintaining relationships is key to success.
Nurturing Relationships
Pick a relationship in need of strengthening, and investing time and energy in healing, cultivating, affirming and healing it.
You may have heard of Active Constructive Responding – attributed to John Gottman. It’s a model that helps us realise the best way to listen to others. Active Constructive communication is what communicates genuine interest and amplifies positive experiences.
The Active Constructive Response comes from a place of focus on the other (not the impact on ourselves, or “my own worries”).
Dr. John Gottman and his colleagues In the US are well known for their ability to be able to predict divorce from one 15 minute conversation! (see The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John Gottman and Nan Silver, for more).
They discovered several signs that predict divorce including: Harsh start-up to a conversation (involving criticism); the 4 Horsemen; Flooding; Body Language; Failed Repair Attempts and Bad Memories (of the start of the relationship / the wedding etc).
Some of these clear indicators of relationship failure apply to working relationships too – especially “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” The Four Horsemen are so profound that their presence predicts the demise of a relationship with 93 percent accuracy.
The Four Horsemen are:
- Criticism – expressing negative feelings or opinions about the other’s character or personality, blame and implying the problem is the other person’s fault! (Criticism is different to a complaint).
- Contempt – (derived from feeling superior to the other person) – is disrespectful, sneering or sarcasm (including name calling, mockery, hostile humour, eye-rolling and any form of showing disgust or accusing someone of a moral deficiency). Contempt is fuelled by long simmering negative thoughts about the partner.
- Defensiveness – a way of blaming the other person. “The problem isn’t me, it’s you”. It may seem justified BUT it always escalates the conflict.
- Stonewalling – tuning out, ignoring the other, non-responsive to the other, “acting like a stone wall” (it’s a reaction to feeling flooded – psychologically and or physically overwhelmed.)
The researchers in Washington made their predictions with married couples, but these behaviours also wreak havoc in the workplace.
TalentSmart tested more than a million people and compared the quality of their working relationships to their job performance. They found that 90 percent of top performers are skilled at managing relationships, and they avoid The Four Horsemen like the plague. The Four Horsemen are all too common in the workplace, and when they rear their ugly heads, relationships, teamwork, and performance suffer.
These are the 4 communication behaviours HR need to eliminate from the workplace. How? By replacing them with something that works effectively instead.
Replace criticism with a plan – so you can make a complaint without criticising. In what situation do you want to write out a script and stick to it, to enable you?
Replace contempt with getting to know the other person better and finding common ground. Who do you want to get to know better?
Replace defensiveness by listening to understand. Who do you need to listen to and understand?
Replace stonewalling with participation in a discussion.
Working together to build effective communication skills and to resolve conflicts are the only ways to keep relationships at work from crumbling.
Want to know more? Ask me! By the way you’ve taken the first step to understanding “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (yes that’s what John Gottman calls these 4 ineffective communication styles!). It’s not as easy as just knowing what to do, is it? There are nuances we need to learn and to teach people at work to help them make the transition from these old ways of communicating to new effective ways. This material is a very abridged version of the content form one of my wellbeing workshops – focusing on building advanced communicational skills and relational dynamics.
Support for you
What can you do? There is support available right now!
If you want more help please contact Bridget Hogg, Development at Work Australia on
8322 8455 or bridget@developmentatwork.com.au
Want to learn more about improving workplace wellbeing, relational dynamics and communication skills? Ask Bridget about the Executive Wellbeing Day incorporating Equine Therapy coming up in November.https://developmentatwork.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ExecutiveWellbeingDayWithEquineTherapy.pdf
Bridget can help you to:
- See things differently so you increase your hope and optimism and “find a way or make one”
- Improve organisational and Executive wellbeing
- Identify the signs of mental health issues so you can address them to support yourself and your people
- Plan to strengthen workplace wellbeing, relational dynamics and communication skills
- Help you manage the people aspects of change and redundancy.
Southern Business Mentoring Program
Businesses in Southern Adelaide may access our services (and have the first appointment free) via the Southern Business Advisory Service, funded by the three Southern Councils. Mental Health and Wellbeing services are offered with Bridget Hogg and associates to eligible business people: Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page to book your first appointment free https://southernbusinessmentoring.com.au/bridget-hogg/
For information about mental health services available to all see the Beyond Blue website https://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Bridget’s passion is helping organisations effectively manage stress, change, mental health and wellbeing. She has worked with many organisations to help them “find a way or make one” through organisational change, times of uncertainty, downsizing and redundancy. She has managed transition programs with a psychological wellbeing focus for over fifteen years.
Bridget has a background in resilience at work, psychology and NLP (BSc Hons, MSc. NLP Practitioner). Bridget has developed tools and techniques to enhance wellbeing. She assists organisations to identify and address mental health issues and enhance workplace and workforce wellbeing.
Ask Bridget to help you assess the mental health and psychological risks in your organisation, and to design and run a wellbeings program for your workforce.
As a business owner for 25 years and manager of a team – she understands.