Kevin Hale - How to Work Together

Summary

The speaker draws parallels between long-term relationships in startups and marriages, emphasizing the importance of effective conflict resolution. They discuss John Gottman's research on marital stability, highlighting four behaviors to avoid during disputes: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. To foster healthy relationships, the speaker recommends early division of responsibilities, understanding personal attachment styles, creating documented processes for disagreements, and practicing nonviolent communication. They stress the importance of addressing small issues before they escalate and maintaining open lines of communication to prevent emotional debt from accumulating.

Takeaways

• 🏗️ Founding a startup is akin to building a long-term relationship, like marriage, which requires planning and understanding of potential conflicts.
• 🔮 John Gottman's research indicates that certain patterns in arguments can predict the longevity of a marriage, which can be analogous to co-founder relationships.
• ⏱️ Gottman found that couples who fight about the same issues (money, kids, etc.) and how they handle arguments are more predictive of relationship success than the frequency of fights.
• 🚫 Four 'horsemen' to avoid in conflicts are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, as they can be detrimental to relationships.
• 🤝 Early in a startup, dividing responsibilities among co-founders and defining success and failure criteria can prevent defensiveness and promote accountability.
• 💭 Understanding one's attachment style (secure, anxious, avoidant) is crucial for navigating interpersonal dynamics and resolving differences.
• 📋 Creating a documented process for handling disagreements while emotionally sober can prevent emotional escalation and ensure rational decision-making.
• 🗣️ Nonviolent Communication, as outlined by Marshall Rosenberg, provides a structured way to communicate honestly without causing offense or resentment.
• 🔄 Regularly addressing small issues before they become larger ones, or 'paying down emotional debt,' is vital for maintaining healthy relationships in a startup.
• 🤔 Engaging in 'level three' conversations that deal with relational issues and emotions can help co-founders stay aligned and resolve conflicts effectively.

Q & A

What is the main challenge founders face when building a long-term relationship in a startup?

Founders need to figure out how to optimize for a relationship that lasts for about 10 years, often with someone they might only know for a couple of months or in a work setting.

Who is John Gottman and what is his significant contribution to understanding relationships?

John Gottman is a researcher who studied marriages in Seattle and has been featured in various media. He discovered that by observing a couple's argument for 15 minutes, he could predict with 85% accuracy whether they would divorce within four years.

What does John Gottman's research suggest about the frequency and nature of fights in successful marriages?

Gottman's research indicates that successfully married people do fight, just like everyone else, and they fight about the same things: money, kids, sex, time, jealousy, and in-laws.

What are the four major things to avoid when fighting, according to John Gottman's research?

The four major things to avoid when fighting are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

Can you explain the concept of 'criticism' in the context of John Gottman's research?

Criticism in this context refers to the act of bringing unrelated issues into a discussion instead of focusing on the specific issue at hand during a disagreement.

What is 'defensiveness' and how does it affect a relationship?

Defensiveness is when a person refuses to admit there is a problem or refuses to take responsibility for their part in the issue. This can prevent resolution and progress in a relationship.

What is 'stonewalling' and why is it considered dangerous in a relationship?

Stonewalling is when a person avoids engaging in a conversation or discussion, essentially 'walking away' from the issue. It's dangerous because it prevents any resolution or understanding from being reached.

What is the 'divide and conquer' strategy and how can it be applied in a startup?

The 'divide and conquer' strategy involves assigning specific areas of responsibility to different individuals or roles within a startup. This helps to prevent defensiveness and ensures that there is a clear point of responsibility for different issues.

What is an 'attachment style' and why is it important to understand in a co-founder relationship?

An attachment style refers to the way individuals approach relationships, with secure, anxious, and avoidant being the main types. Understanding your co-founder's attachment style can help predict and manage how conflicts and issues will be resolved.

Can you describe the 'nonviolent communication' method and how it can help in giving and receiving feedback?

Nonviolent communication, as described by Marshall Rosenberg, is a method that allows individuals to express themselves honestly without criticizing, insulting, or demeaning others. It involves structuring communication to include observations, feelings, needs, and requests, which can help prevent personal attacks and foster understanding.

What is 'emotional debt' and how does it compare to 'technical debt'?

Emotional debt refers to the unresolved negative feelings or issues that accumulate in relationships. Unlike technical debt, which is related to software development, emotional debt should be addressed regularly to prevent small issues from growing into larger problems.

What are 'level three conversations' and why are they important in a startup environment?

Level three conversations are deep, relational discussions that engage with what is happening between two people in the present. They are important in a startup because they allow for honest feedback, addressing of emotional debt, and maintaining a healthy working relationship.

Outlines

00:00

🏗️ Co-founder Relationships and Marriage Research

The speaker begins by drawing a parallel between the teamwork involved in dismantling a scaffolding in Kyoto and the dynamics of a startup's co-founder relationship. They emphasize the challenge of establishing a long-term partnership in a short period. The speaker introduces John Gottman's marriage research, highlighting his ability to predict divorce with high accuracy based on how couples argue. Gottman's findings reveal that conflict is inevitable in all relationships, including those in a startup, and the key is in understanding and managing these conflicts. The speaker outlines four 'horsemen' to avoid in arguments: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Understanding these can help co-founders plan for conflict resolution and maintain a healthy, long-lasting partnership.

05:01

🤝 Early Relationship Management in Startups

The speaker discusses strategies for early-stage relationship management among co-founders to avoid defensiveness and conflict. They suggest assigning responsibility for different areas of the business upfront, which can help in making decisions and taking responsibility for outcomes. The speaker also talks about setting clear definitions for success and failure, and determining when interference in delegated tasks is appropriate. They stress the importance of having these conversations while everyone is 'emotionally sober' to ensure rational decision-making. The ultimate responsibility often falls on the CEO, with the board, typically consisting of founders in early stages, as the final arbiter.

10:03

🧘‍♂️ Understanding Personal Attachment Styles

The speaker explores the concept of attachment styles, drawing from research conducted in the 1960s. They identify three main styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant, each influencing how individuals approach relationships. Understanding a co-founder's attachment style is crucial for resolving differences and maintaining a healthy partnership. The speaker advises that knowing these styles can help in accommodating the needs of others, such as giving space to an avoidant person or providing validation to an anxious person. Resources such as books, Wikipedia, and YouTube videos are recommended for further understanding of attachment styles.

15:04

📋 Documented Processes for Conflict Resolution

The speaker recommends creating a documented process for dealing with disagreements to prevent criticism and emotional escalation. They highlight the importance of establishing this process while emotionally sober to ensure rational and fair outcomes. An example from the company Mater is given, where a spreadsheet is used to document disagreements, decisions, and rationales. The speaker suggests that having a predetermined process can prevent disagreements from escalating and help maintain transparency and clarity in decision-making.

20:06

🗣️ Nonviolent Communication Strategies

The speaker delves into the specifics of nonviolent communication as a means to express oneself honestly without criticism or insult. They outline a structured format for giving and receiving feedback, which involves making observations, expressing emotions, identifying unmet needs, and making requests rather than demands. The speaker emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between observations and evaluations, focusing on feelings rather than thoughts, recognizing underlying universal needs, and formulating specific, actionable requests. They also mention the value of understanding evaluative emotions and their underlying impacts.

25:07

💼 Addressing Emotional Debt in Relationships

The speaker introduces the concept of emotional debt in relationships, cautioning against letting small issues grow into larger ones. They advocate for addressing minor concerns promptly and respectfully, using the nonviolent communication strategies previously discussed. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of having regular 'level three' conversations, which are deep, relational discussions focused on current issues between individuals. They provide examples of topics suitable for these conversations, such as goals, roles, and performance, and stress the importance of having mechanisms in place for feedback and emotional debt repayment.

🤔 Proactive Strategies for Healthy Co-founder Dynamics

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker summarizes the proactive strategies for maintaining healthy co-founder dynamics. They reiterate the importance of planning for conflict, understanding personal attachment styles, clarifying roles and goals, and establishing a process for communication. The speaker also stresses the value of nonviolent communication for providing honest feedback and the necessity of regularly addressing emotional debt to prevent minor issues from escalating. They encourage the audience to start having difficult conversations to address any existing undisclosed issues within their teams.

Keywords

💡Optimize for relationship

The concept of 'optimizing for relationship' refers to the deliberate effort to foster and maintain a healthy, long-lasting connection, particularly in the context of a startup where founders must build a strong bond that can withstand the tests of time and challenges. In the video, it is likened to the longevity of a marriage, emphasizing the importance of nurturing a partnership that can endure for a decade or more, despite the founders having known each other for only a short period.

💡John Gottman

John Gottman is a renowned researcher known for his work on marital stability and relationship analysis. He is mentioned in the video as an expert who can predict with high accuracy whether a couple will divorce based on observing their arguments. His research is used as a metaphor to discuss the dynamics of co-founder relationships in startups, drawing parallels between the longevity of marriages and the success of business partnerships.

💡Four horsemen

The 'four horsemen' is a term borrowed from Gottman's research, referring to four negative communication patterns that can predict the end of a relationship: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. In the video, these concepts are applied to the context of startup co-founders, serving as warning signs for potentially toxic dynamics that can undermine the success and longevity of a business partnership.

💡Attachment style

Attachment style is a psychological concept that categorizes how individuals relate to others in a relationship, based on their childhood experiences. The video discusses three primary attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Understanding one's own and one's co-founder's attachment style is emphasized as crucial for effective communication and conflict resolution in a startup environment.

💡Divide and conquer

'Divide and conquer' is a strategy suggested in the video for early-stage startups to assign specific areas of responsibility to different co-founders. This approach helps to prevent defensiveness and conflict by clearly defining who is in charge of which aspect of the business, thereby providing a clear path for decision-making and accountability.

💡Emotional debt

Emotional debt is a metaphor used in the video to describe the unresolved negative emotions or issues that accumulate in relationships over time. The video advises against letting emotional debt grow, as it can lead to larger problems. Instead, it encourages addressing small issues promptly and openly to maintain a healthy relationship, drawing a parallel to the concept of technical debt in software development.

💡Nonviolent communication

Nonviolent communication, as mentioned in the video, is a method of communication developed by Marshall Rosenberg that focuses on expressing oneself honestly without criticizing, insulting, or blaming others. The video suggests using this approach to give and receive feedback within a startup team, fostering a culture of open and respectful communication.

💡Level three conversations

Level three conversations, as described in the video, are deep, relational discussions that engage with the immediate dynamics between two people. They are contrasted with level one (information exchange) and level two (personal emotions) conversations. The video encourages having level three conversations to address and resolve sensitive issues within a startup team, which is essential for building trust and maintaining a strong partnership.

💡Defensiveness

Defensiveness is a reaction where individuals feel attacked and respond with denial or counterattack, often escalating conflicts. In the video, it is identified as one of the 'four horsemen' that can harm relationships. Strategies such as 'divide and conquer' are suggested to mitigate defensiveness by clearly assigning responsibilities and decision-making authority.

💡Stonewalling

Stonewalling is a behavior where one party in a conflict refuses to engage or communicate, effectively 'building a wall' to avoid the issue. The video discusses it as one of the 'four horsemen' and suggests that understanding one's attachment style can help prevent stonewalling by accommodating the communication needs of others, such as providing space for avoidant individuals or reassurance for anxious ones.

Highlights

Importance of optimizing long-term relationships in startups, likened to a 10-year marriage.

John Gottman's research on marital stability and his ability to predict divorce with high accuracy.

Gottman's findings that all couples fight and the key is in the way they argue, not the frequency.

The four major things to avoid in arguments: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

The concept of 'divide and conquer' to assign responsibilities and prevent defensiveness.

Defining success and failure criteria to know when to interfere or let decisions stand.

Understanding attachment styles to navigate relationship dynamics and conflict resolution.

The prevalence of anxious and avoidant attachment styles and their impact on co-founder relationships.

Creating a documented process for disagreements to avoid emotional reactions.

Mater's spreadsheet for managing disagreements as an example of a documented process.

Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg as a method to give honest feedback without criticism.

The structure of Nonviolent Communication: observation, feeling, need, request.

The importance of distinguishing between observations and evaluations in communication.

Identifying underlying universal needs from negative emotions for effective communication.

Making requests instead of demands to foster cooperation and avoid resentment.

The concept of emotional debt and the importance of addressing small issues before they escalate.

Y Combinator's 'level three' conversations for deep relational engagement and resolving issues.

Examples of level three conversation topics: goals, roles, performance, feedback mechanisms.

The necessity of having hard conversations early to prevent the escalation of minor issues.

Transcripts

uh these are some guys i saw in kyoto

and they're tearing down a scaffolding

and i just think they're

amazingly poetic and how they do their

work

so in a startup um

founders basically have to figure out

how to optimize for a relationship that

lasts for like

10 years and that's a crazy thing to do

with someone you might only know for a

couple of months

or have only known in a sort of work

setting and the thing is like the only

models

for understanding that kind of

relationship

actually come probably from our parents

and so i'd like to start off with some

marriage research

so this is john gottman he studied his

marriages in seattle he's been featured

in this american life

and a bunch of different places and

basically he has a cool magic trick he

can watch

a couple fight about something for 15

minutes

and predict with 85 accuracy whether

they'll be divorced or not

uh four years from now if he watches

them for an

hour and have them also share their

hopes and dreams his prediction rating

goes up to 94 percent and so

this is the same videos they would show

to priests

psychologists psychiatrists marriage

counselors

successfully married couples and they

don't predict better than random chance

and so john he's figured something out

there's something about the way we will

have an

argument that determines longevity and

one of the most surprising things that

he discovered was that it's not that

successfully married people who will

last a long time that they never fight

turns out everybody fights and

we all fight about the exact same things

money kids sex time

jealousy and the in-laws

and time is usually what are we gonna do

with our free time

uh and the thing that's interesting is

like

i think all of these map out to the

stuff that we're gonna fight about

in a company and so you

with your co-founders are gonna have

these issues

and the thing is what's nice about

knowing everyone fights

and that you know what you're gonna

fight about is that we can make a plan

for figuring out how to deal with this

one situation

that will determine whether we will work

together

on the thing that we're so passionate

about down the road

the other thing that john gottman

figured out is that there's

four major things we want to avoid

when we're fighting and when we do these

things

they will create sort of leading

indicators

that the relationship is in serious

trouble

i'm gonna go through each one of these

so criticism

uh this is basically like you're talking

with someone

and you're like hey you know what i have

a serious concern about this bug that

we are trying to fix and i'm really

worried about this thing

and i'm not sure that we're going to be

able to deploy on time and someone comes

up and says like

well you know what i don't like is the

fact that you leave a bunch of dirty

dishes in the sink

and criticism is basically this idea

that we don't fight on one

topic we start trying to bring all these

other issues

into play instead of addressing the one

issue at hand

dangerous contempt this is pretty easy

one

it's intention to insult so basically i

say like hey i'm worried about this bug

and we're not going to be able to deploy

on time

and someone says i don't like your face

right

that's contempt and what you want to

avoid is making things

personal right because we're in a

business

this one's um kind of easy to understand

is that someone not owning

responsibility about the problem and so

we can't move

forward because someone won't admit that

there's a problem

out there we defend that we haven't done

anything wrong and therefore there can't

be

resolution between two people the other

person thinks

there's a problem this one is a super

dangerous one

and it's when basically you're like hey

i got a problem

and the person just walks away won't

engage won't talk to you

and so there can be no way to create any

kind of resolution

so just as you wouldn't do this

without uh doing some of this

we want to make a plan and i'm going to

talk about four different things that we

can do

that helps avoid and protect us from

those four horsemen

the first one is divide and conquer

and this feels pretty straightforward

but you want to do this early

in the relationship with your

co-founders and in the in the early

stages of your company

so here's our list again of the types of

things that

we might have problems with and in the

early stages of the start

let's say adora and i are doing a

startup together it's just her and me

then what you want to do is just kind of

say like oh who's responsible

what stuff and what this will do is like

if there's a problem

in that category then that person that

we have assigned ahead of time

to be in charge will be the ones that

will ultimately either make the decision

or ultimately are responsible

this protects us from defensiveness

so notice here on jealousy this is about

competition

usually and so usually in the early

stages of your startup you should not be

worried about competition

competition is not usually what kills

you in the very early stages of your

company

as your company ages it might change and

look something like this

you'll assign things to different sort

of positions and heads

and as a result then when their

problems come up you know basically that

sort of is delegated

now what happens

if uh things go out of hand even up at

those

sort of levels well basically

what you want to do is decide after you

delegate

who has ownership determine what is

success and failure

you want to know also ahead of time hey

we've divided up the task

but we also want to know is like hey

when is there going to be interference

with a person that is supposed to be

leading these decisions what is

considered like its success enough that

we shouldn't be interfering just let

them do what they think is best

and what is considered really bad so

that we have to interfere

and something has to be done about it so

in this case

good examples would be like hey you know

if we've successfully fundraised like we

don't need to talk or like

replace the person that's responsible

for that uh if we're shipping on time

if we're rated top three amongst our

sort of peers or

we've built a referral program that's

working hey we don't need to be

criticizing the person that's working on

the stuff or they're doing a good job

on the corollary we want to define hey

what are the things

that basically are going to trigger

conversations

really hard conversations like hey if we

hit

this sort of area we need to put the

brakes on and we need to discuss what's

going on

and actually try to resolve these

problems a lot of people like to

delegate stuff but they don't have

a way of saying hey when are we going to

have a conversation about this

when there's trouble and these are

really really easy to do

and the reason you want to do these

early while you're

sober emotionally sober is because once

you get angry

and emotions come into play then you

might not be thinking rationally

now ultimately in the end usually it's

the ceo

in the company who has final say now you

as a team can decide differently how you

want to resolve it if you just

if you divvy up the stuff but ultimately

whoever's the ceo usually is the one who

resolves it

and if there's problems with the ceo

then it's the board

in the early stages of startup the board

is usually composed of just the founders

so you have to ultimately work it out

the second defense against the force

horsemen is knowing yourself

this will protect you from stonewalling

and what i mean

is what is your attachment style

so there was all this research that was

done in the 1960s about

how people approach relationships

and basically it was determined that

there's sort of

three major types there's a secure

attachment style and that means

basically it's like hey you know what i

don't have a problem

going up to people uh relying on them

and having them rely on me and sort of

like us creating a relationship i don't

mind being vulnerable and i don't

i don't mind other people being

vulnerable with me that's called a

secure

attachment style there's an anxious

style so there's a type of person

that will be like you know what i kind

of don't get

enough love as not as much as i want i

kind of want to like hold on to people

and i kind of want to have people

constantly confirm with me

that they want to be with me i feel like

it's a little difficult and then there's

another point

the kind of person just like i find it

kind of difficult

creating relationships with people and i

kind of want to run away sometimes

because it's really scary

or i'm worried that i'm going to mess it

up

and the thing that's super important

here especially with your co-founder is

you want to know

your co-founder's attachment style

because that's going to dictate

how you are going to be able to resolve

and understand your differences

now what it turns out oddly enough

is that an anxious attachment person and

an avoidant attachment person these are

the two

most common in the world there's not

that many like

well-developed secure people out there

they tend to want to be with one another

so the person that wants to run away

and the person that wants to cling and

so what you have is someone who needs

space to make a decision and to process

problems and tension

and the someone who needs validation

constantly the process

conflict and issues and so when those

two people are together and they don't

realize what the other person needs they

don't realize that they're going to have

to bend

to sort of make it work there's lots of

good books

on attachment styles there's a wonderful

wikipedia page that covers it

i would recommend watching this youtube

video it's from school of life

and what i would highly recommend is

basically

understanding that like if you're with

someone that is of the opposite type

that you're gonna have to do work either

to reach across the aisle

like if you're an anxious person you're

gonna and you're talking to an avoidant

person you just have to realize like oh

that person needs space but that doesn't

mean they're running away from you

and if you're an avoidant person with an

anxious person

that if someone needs your attention or

if you need your space then you have to

let them know it's like hey i'm going to

be back

i realize that you're going to need an

answer for this i'm going to go away i'm

going to figure stuff out and i promise

a time

that we will deal with this

documented process so this will protect

you from criticism

and so basically when you're emotionally

sober

it's the best time to create a process

for dealing with disagreements and the

reason you want to do this is

because once you're upset and angry and

filled with emotions

you are not going to be thinking

straight and so the odds are you might

say something you regret

you might say something that you don't

mean and the other person might do so

and then

you will have a much different problem

than the bug

not being fixed and deployed on time

so one of my favorite examples of this

comes from the company called mater

and they created a spreadsheet for

dealing with

disagreements basically it's a

disagreement

uh decision framework and basically it

just talks about it's like hey

when we have a disagreement we should

just document it this helps make things

really really transparent

makes us understand both sides very very

clearly

we talk about the different options we

say who made the decision

what the decision was the date was done

and then rationale

and so when we walk through this process

if we've decided this ahead of time

then it means that we are not afraid

when disagreements come up it's like oh

we have a process for dealing with this

and we will figure it out by filling out

excel

[Music]

there's lots of different ways to do

this you don't have to follow their sort

of very specific framework they have

lots of really great justifications in

their article

you just have to agree ahead of time

what you want to

do so therefore when you are upset you

just go okay

great we have a process for this and

process says

oh it says go have a timeout or eat a

bologna sandwich

or like take a nap first and then we'll

figure out what we have to do it could

be a process where it's like hey if

there's a real disagreement and both

sides feel equally strong

we will flip a coin and then that will

be the decision for the test of time we

will let lady luck

decide it doesn't matter you just have

to both agree

this strategy will protect you from

contempt

so the way that you avoid

making things personal is you have to

figure out way of communicating with

another in a way that will not be

threatening

there's an amazing book on this um it's

called nonviolent communication by

marshall rosenberg

and it helps you be honest with other

people

without criticizing without insulting

without putting down other people

and the magic comes in the structure

that feels somewhat fake for people who

are not into being touchy-feely

um basically when you're giving some

kind of criticism

you want to basically have it in this

format so

when some observation i feel an emotion

because i'm needing some universal need

would you be able to request so we're

just going to break down

each one of these different parts and

they're all

every single one of these are tricky and

it's a thing that a lot of people will

try to do and you'll spend your whole

life trying to get really good at

and it gets really difficult so the

first one

is you need to make an observation

versus

having an evaluation so basically what

you want to do is

start your disagreement or criticism

by anchoring it to something that is

concrete

you do not want it to be something that

is connected to opinion it should be

something

that you actually saw or heard because

therefore you can't

disagree with something that actually

happened versus something i heard a

i heard be a rumor or something that has

to do something that seems emotional or

something that seems like an opinion

so i'll give you an example um

an observation would be like you said

that you'd send that document last week

and i haven't received it

all right so that is a great observation

an evaluation that someone might say

instead in the heat of the moon

is that you're lazy

[Music]

right that kind of feels like

an observation but it's not it's

evaluating the person give you another

example

your work is sloppy that is not

objective instead hey three of the

numbers in this report

were inaccurate that's where you want to

start

you're always late you want to be really

careful because that's a generalization

it's an evaluation observation hey you

arrived 10 minutes late

to the meeting this morning evaluation

you ignored me observation i sent you

two

emails and i haven't received the

response

notice when we start with observation we

start with a fact that can't be refuted

and so we're not going to end up arguing

about something else

notice all those other evaluations they

immediately

will trigger an emotion in you and so

that's why you want to be really careful

that when you start this criticism that

you don't start with one of those

the next is we have to talk about our

emotions right so i saw

this irrefutable observation and it made

me

feel something and what we have to be

really careful of

is not saying thoughts but instead

talking about

feelings which is kind of odd but

it's connected to the next point out in

the

in the structure so an emotion will be i

feel frustrated right

now a thought would be and it could be

put in the same structure as like i

feel that you aren't taking this

seriously

and the way you can tell if something is

a thought or a feeling

is you substitute the phrase i think

with i feel

and it still works so i think

frustrated doesn't work so that's a

feeling

i think that you aren't taking this

seriously oh that's a thought

there's a couple of emotions that we

have to be particularly careful of

one is anger because anger is usually

tied to a bunch of hosts of other things

so when someone says that i feel angry

you

or you realizing that you feel angry you

want to be really really specific about

what's causing the anger what's

triggering it

the other tricky emotions are evaluative

emotions and usually what you need to

figure out is what

underlines that evaluation so

i'll give you an example so i

feel blamed right someone else is

evaluating me i feel blamed the impact

actually is i feel scared someone is

blaming me

and so i feel scared so it takes a lot

of work to understand that when someone

is giving me some

if i'm feeling like some kind of judging

feeling what is that the core root of it

other examples are

i feel judged the actual impact is

i feel resentful

i feel misunderstood the impactful

statement is actually

i feel frustrated i feel rejected

the real impact is i feel hurt

it's super hard it's super super hard uh

i'm gonna have a link inside of this

presentation to a pdf it's three pages

of evaluative emotions

impacted feelings you probably actually

are feeling and then connects us to

a universal need that you need to

overcome it which leads us to

our next thing every negative emotion

lies an unmet universal need

and so what that means is that like

when you're feeling one of these

frustrated or blamed or scared

or hurt feelings there's something

that's missing that you're going to need

and the thing that's really tricky about

universal needs is you have to be

careful of realizing

is it a strategy or is it a need and

is it truly universal so i'll give an

example

right you might be able to say i need a

sandwich

that is not a universal need so you have

to be really careful

right and then you might say like i need

a sandwich

to give me nourishment that's more like

a strategy

a much better way might be uh

let me see here you might say something

like i need

you to copy me on every single email

but the thing is that's not a universal

need that becomes very very specific a

universal need would be

i need some transparency about this

process

you have to be careful of not making

needs about something that's very

specific to yourself

or just that situation because once it's

a universal need

then it's something that everyone can

agree that everyone should sort of have

so other universal needs are like i need

support

and the way you turn it not into

universal need is by saying something

like

i need support from you because not

everyone needs support from henry

right but everyone does need support

and it says you include from you

it stops being universal so you want to

be really careful of this

okay requests versus

demand so at the very end so basically

we said like hey i've

noticed something that can't be refuted

i've

told you about a feeling and how it

impacts me and i told you that basically

it results in

some universal need that we all can

agree that we need

to have and now we get to saying

what we'd like to have changed as a

result and what you want to make is a

request

not a demand the difference is that a

request is an invitation

to the other person to meet our

universal needs

it's much easier to be able to do than

to say like i order you to do something

so what we want to do is

make it very specific our requests

so i request for you to be more

respectful

is not that great because who defines

what's respectful my

version of respectful might be different

from someone else's your request should

be something like

i request that you arrive to meetings on

time

say what you want don't say what you

don't want so what a lot of people will

say is that i request

that you don't dismiss other people's

ideas straight away

the thing is it doesn't indicate the

behavior that you do want

and so it becomes really difficult to

act on a better one would be i request

that when a team member shares an idea

you ask two or three probing questions

before sharing a conclusion

and then stay curious and so sometimes

you might make a request and someone

might say no

and what you need to do is not just

freak out that the whole process

isn't working the idea is actually to be

like hmm

maybe i haven't put this request in a

way that can meet

more needs than just myself could i do

this in a way so that they can

understand and be on board

for everyone to be sort of involved

if you want to learn more there's a

really great article

on delivering constructive feedback in

different citizens by dave bailey this

is on medium i'll have a link to it

he goes into far more detail and is a

very very good

starting point for giving out this

really hard feedback

we all know what technical debt is right

so when we're

building out software really really

quickly and sometimes you're like

well that's not going to scale real

really well and it's going to be dirty

and quick but i'm going to get it out

the door and

i'm just going to put that in the back

of my mind it's something i have to fix

later

well in our relationships one another

you will incur emotional debt and unlike

technical debt

you really don't want that to go for

very long

you want to pay this down every day

so it turns out also in john gottman's

research that it wasn't that

people who were really good at being in

a marriage

um only thought about really big things

it turns out they would immediately

breed bring up stuff even when it's

really tiny or small

they would never let a small thing grow

to be a medium thing

and then eventually a big thing they

immediately will talk about it's like oh

man

uh can you close your mouth while you're

chewing um real quick it's just like

kind of bothering me

right now and then do it in a way that's

sort of respectful and so

like when you're with your co-founders

and

you're in this really sensitive

relationship and you're finding stuff

that's being really troubling like

you can communicate those needs really

quickly and you will prevent

those small things from becoming big

things

the best way to start doing this is the

practice so

at yc we call these level three

conversations so level one

is that informal conversation we have

other people where it's just like

data exchange passing information back

and forth

level two conversations have some

emotions talk about some things that are

personal

level three conversations

they're relational they're engaged with

something that's happening right now

between two people that is super super

important

it is a deep dive into

what it might be really troubling or

what might be really mattering

to two people and in a startup there's a

lot of things that's going to matter

to all of the people working on the

company

so let's go through some examples of

things that you guys can do

after this talk

so goals some good ones are

what are our short-term goals for the

company

you'd be surprised at how often people

are not on the same page

about this are we using the right

metrics

we've got lectures on those the answer

is i hope so by now

and then are we uh

that's supposed to be hitting our goals

not hiring our goals are we hitting our

goals

roles who's responsible for what's super

sensitive right

so is it clear who is responsible for

what

like just have that conversation do we

agree

that the current division makes the most

sense

and this might be super simple answers

but if there is any kind of disagreement

we want to hash that out

and performance okay so

is our workload distributed in an

optimal manner today

do we all feel a high level of

dedication

and a motivation right now great thing

to just check on

every day and then what mechanisms are

in place for providing feedback to one

another

have we carved out time for paying down

emotional debt

do we feel like we can have these

level three conversations at any time do

we have a process in place for thinking

through this stuff

so that we can be honest about where we

are

in our company going to sum things up

how to work together everyone fights so

you want to make a plan

you need to figure out what's your

attachment style what's your roles

what's your goals and a process before

emotions get involved do it while you're

sober

use non-violent communication to share

honest feedback

without criticism

[Music]

and then pay down emotional debt on a

regular

basis this is the most healthy way that

you will make sure that things will not

turn

into a giant blow up

you can start having hard conversations

right now

there's no doubt in my mind that there's

probably some issue

that the two of you or three of you or

four of you or god forbid

seven of you are not talking about okay

thank you very much i'll let you guys

[Applause]

mingle

you