Repairing Relationships at Work

by Victor Savkin & Thomas Burleson

What do you do when miscommunication happens and people get hurt?

Distributed companies focus on talent over local availability. Remote work life enables people to be more productive, commute less, and focus on their work. Remote work also means that such teams rarely see each other in person… so good communication with remote team-members can be difficult.

While the developer community is actively experimenting with communication tools such as Slack, Basecamp, Zoom, Hangouts, GotoMeeting, etc. This blog is, however, not about technical details, software patterns, or applications/tooling.

This blog is what to do when miscommunications happen and people get hurt!

Software developers are by their very nature passionate about ‘creating’ and their creations. And for software developers — regardless of experience — ‘hurt feelings’ can happen easily, often, and be a huge source of stress.

John Gottman

John Gottman is clinical psychologist and a researcher specializing in relationships. He is one of the most successful therapists of the past century, and any phycologist doing couples therapy is familiar his work. A big focus of his research is dealing with conflict.

My partner, who has a PhD in clinical psychology, told me about Gottman and his recommendations on how to repair a damaged relationship. I’ve been using them at work, and I found them extremely valuable.

Data-Driven

A lot of science-minded people, like myself, prefer data-driven empirically verified approaches. Gottman’s work is based on the data collected on thousands of couples, which appeals to me, and might appeal to you as well.

How to Repair a Relationship

1st — Calm Down

This should not be surprising to anyone, but it’s a good idea to calm down before you attempt to repair a relationship. Never reply to an email, instant message when you are upset. If you have a running argument with Person X in your head, don’t engage — ask to delay the VC by a few hours until you are calmer.

8 Steps

After you have calmed down, have a conversation with the person, and try to follow these steps.

1.Agree
- Show that the person is right, even to some degree.
- There are at least two sides to any argument. Acknowledge it.

2. Express affection
- You hurt the person. Whether you were “right” or “objective” doesn’t matter.
- Show that you care about the person and their feelings.

3. Take responsibility
- Acknowledge what you could have done things differently.

4. Understand
- Practice nondefensive listening.
- Don’t try to solve any problems.

5. Validate
- Show that the person’s feelings are legitimate and justified.
- Acknowledge the validity of their position.
- Show respect for the opinion you don’t share.

6. Reinforce we-ness
- Show the support of the team.

7. We’re OK
- Show that you won’t dislike the person because of this.

8. Change the topic/move on

Even though the 8 steps may seem ‘obvious’, try to stick to them. I actually have a hardcopy of the 8 steps on my desk.

Following these steps helps me emotionally regulate and don’t fall into the “I’ll prove you wrong” or “I’ll fix it” traps. It’s very easy to get carried away when topics are emotionally charged, and when people are hurt, almost any topic is like that.

Common Objections

Now before you immediately start object to some of these steps, let consider some common questions/objections.

Does it mean I have to agree with my co-workers even when I’m ‘right’?

Of course not. In any healthy organization folks will and should occasionally disagree. Only by talking things through you can refine your understanding and come up with great solutions. Never voicing your opinion because you are afraid to hurt another person will eventually create resentment — the worst possible feeling you can have at a workplace.

When voicing your opinion or reaction, always remember to not “attack” the other person. You are expressing thoughts that you want the other person to hear or consider. You are not ‘forcing them to agree’.

But there are many ways to argue: some are more likely to hurt your co-workers than others. And even if you try your best, miscommunications will happen. Try then to use the 8 steps to repair the relationship.

It’s a professional relationship. Why do they get emotional?

No one says that you should treat your co-workers the same way you treat your partner. At the same time, it’s naive to think that at work emotions get switched off, and folks only behave rationally.

So whether you like it or not, folks will react emotionally to a lot of what you say and do. This is especially true when others feel that are you do not respect them or value their input. How can they contribute or compromise with you if you completely negate their involvement?

It’s too impersonal and mechanical.

The fact that the steps are written down doesn’t mean that you don’t genuinely take responsibility or that you don’t try to really understand the other point of view. Having some structure and having things written down help you emotionally regulate and keep the conversation on track.

Can I just pretend it didn’t happen?

You cannot “just pretend it didn’t happen”. The more you ignore conflicts, the more resentment you will have in your team. It’s always better to address conflicts at they appear. Laughing them off without addressing them doesn’t work either.

Example

Prelude:

Consider the scenario where two developers Sam and Robert were working on a project together. Sam submitted a PR after many hours of work and effort. Robert was asked to review Sam’s PR.

• After several days, Robert finally submitted a PR review and provided several comments.
• Sam thought some of the comments were nit-picking but nevertheless made the changes and pinged Robert for final review.
• After another 2–3 days, Robert provided new comments and change requests on more parts of the original PR code (not the updated code changes).
• Sam felt attacked. His PR was blocked and he no longer wanted to contribute any more PRs nor to collaborate with Robert in any way.

Robert had used the software tools to review but failed to understand the nuances to the communication exchanges.

Robert had failed to express appreciation for the efforts and delivery of the important Pull Request. Robert also deferred his review too long. And he also neglected to submit all comments in a single-pass.

Instead of providing a code-quality check, Robert instead became a ‘block’ to code improvements. Robert did all inadvertently simply using Pull Request review tools and comments; without any actual verbal communication to Sam.

Sam, in turn, failed to appreciate the myriad other efforts consuming Robert’s attention. And Sam struggled to accept that most of the comments were valid and were intended for good, important changes.

Sam’s ego flared… and he felt attacked, ignored, and blocked.

Epilogue:

When Sam finally sent a email complaint to Robert, the outcome result could have been an escalation into a total implosion in the relationship.

This interaction could have easily become a spiraling destructive whirlwind destroying all possible future collaboration and teamwork.

Instead Robert remembered the 8-steps.

Robert openly listened and validated Sam‘s efforts with his feedback indicating an understanding of Sam’s intent and efforts. And by accepting his responsibility portion in the communication failure, Robert created a safe zone for Sam.This safe zone allowed Sam to calm down and likewise express appreciation for Robert’s efforts and input.

And finally this mutual expression of appreciation and mutual respect provided a pathway to discuss lessons learned and future-steps to have better collaborations.

With the 8-steps, a poor interaction and a potential horrible outcome was converted into a deeper relationship of respect and collaboration.

Summary

Miscommunications happen, especially in a distributed team. So learning how to repair relationships is a critical skill. In this blog post we learned how to use an 8-step technique to repair your work relationships.

Needless to say the 8 steps above only capture a tiny fraction of Gottman’s recommendations and techniques. So if you find it interesting and useful, dive deep and start reading Gottman’s books.

Working at Nrwl

This blog is about a serious, important issue: repairing miscommunications.

At Narhwal, we work at a fast pace with hundreds of Enterprise developers. Our focus is not just on Angular solutions. We also focus on building relationships with our clients and with our teammates within Narwhal.

Our work is fun and vibrant… and these 8-Steps help us build long-lasting, meaningful relationships.

Nrwl has been started by ex-Googlers and Angular team members Victor Savkin and Jeff Cross. We are a distributed company with folks all over North America and offices in Toronto and New York. Some of our recent open source projects include Angular Console and Nx.

Learn more about open positions at Nrwl here.

Victor Savkin is a co-founder of Nrwl. We help companies develop like Google since 2016. We provide consulting, engineering and tools.

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