Comment by ignoramous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ignoramous | Hacker News Reader

Kevin Hale, at startupschool 2019, spoke in length on How to Work Together [0].

Key points aside from non-violent communication were, everyone fights, but when you fight, stay away from these four horsemen [1]:

1. Criticism: Involves bringing in variety or unrelated issues to the discussion / argument. Focus on the one thing that needs resolution.

2. Contempt: Argumentum ad hominem. Intention to insult, making things personal rather than engage in productive problem solving.

3. Defensiveness: Not owning responsibility. Can't reach a resolution as one doesn't admit to a problem.

4. Stonewalling: Silent treatment. Zero engagement. Complete communication breakdown from one or all sides.

Kevin then proceeds to offer remedies to overcome these [2]:

1. Divide and conquer responsibilities, define success and failure metrics to prevent defensiveness.

2. Know the attachment style of the person to prevent stonewalling, which are:

- Secure: Don't mind going up to people, relying on them or have them rely on self. Don't mind being vulnerable.

- Anxious: Tend to hold on to people. Look for confirmation and acceptance, more often than normal.

- Avoidant: Feel inadequate, tendency to not approach and prefer distancing themselves from relationships, or simply prefer being alone.

Anxious and Avoidant styles don't go well along with each other, by definition [3].

3. Create processes when things are normal to deal with when issues do arise, kind of like a disagreement decision framework [4] to prevent criticism.

4. Use non-violent communication, to ward off contempt [5]. Avoid making a mole out of a mountain. Pay-off emotional debt respectfully, no matter how small.

5. Have a honest one on one (level 3 conversations) about hard things, if required [6].

Highly recommend the talk [0].

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[0] https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/30a5yFBd7Fo

[1] https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-c...

[2] https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-the-antidotes...

[3] https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/2s9ACDMcpjA

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20156285

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19490573

[6] https://medium.com/@darynakulya/4-unexpected-lessons-after-y...

This kind of pseudo-psychoanalytic approach to dialectic is always left wanting when contrasted with cold hard logic and evidence. Criticism is not bad, but is inherent to any sort of give-and-take discussion framework, and especially to the unequal manager-employee relationships that HN has projected onto this thread; we should be wary of advice given by people who cannot take it. Ultimately, we cannot take full responsibility for how an argument will be received; we might try our best to tailor the argument to the listener, but we can never guarantee that we'll bridge the communication gap. Frankly, these situations make me doubt whether there's any point to looking for insights about language in these sorts of ventures, as all I can see are ways to divest responsibility while holding onto power.

For example, I think that we should always have "Level 3 conversations". Anything less sounds horribly thoughtless and automatic. And having them one-on-one is the worst possible way to have them, since one-on-one conversations are when individual charisma is at its strongest and most reality-bending.

> This kind of pseudo-psychoanalytic approach to dialectic is always left wanting when contrasted with cold hard logic and evidence

I can see why you'd say that. It certainly feels that way too. Some of the points though are worth a consideration, if nothing more... as communication is hard but key to co-founders and a promising startup's success.

> For example, I think that we should always have "Level 3 conversations". Anything less sounds horribly thoughtless and automatic.

For the same reason you can't communicate with kids the way you would with adults, I believe there might be even more nuances with the way communication among adults need to take place to be more effective.

> Frankly, these situations make me doubt whether there's any point to looking for insights about language in these sorts of ventures, as all I can see are ways to divest responsibility while holding onto power.

Agree. Though, rhetoric is key and I believe at some level theorising abt communication is not without end-goals. I've personally known folks whose communication skills have worked wonders for their personal and professional life.

I’m feeling annoyed, because it’s important to me that ideas get credited to the person who developed them. :)

But seriously, the “Four Horsemen” concept comes from marital therapist John Gottman. Highly recommend his book “The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work”

I rewatched the lecture: Happy to report that Kevin does credit John Gottman. The parent comment originates from the notes I took.

Edit: Added references to Gottman's blog. Thanks.

These are, like NVC, tools to help when people are generally intending to work together. I.e., it presumes non-toxic participation.

Alas, in, for example, big company "politics" manipulating the system to further oneself typically subverts such processes and creates broken/toxic cultures.

I tend to prefer strategies for finding common ground among potentially competing values, needs and wants of multiple stakeholders.

The goal of consensus is similar - to find common ground and a workable solution that everyone is OK with.

NVC is a tool for doing this (along with other goals), not an alternative to this.

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