Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

I wouldn’t call the book The Mathematics of Marriage a beach read.  In fact, it might be a stretch to call it a Harvard study group read.  You'll find such phrases like “null clines” and  “Lotka-Volterra Equations” strewn about its 403 pages. 

But thanks to a little literary alchemy by Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book Blink, we get a crash course on why John Gottman and his colleagues are mixing the hard science of math and the psychological minefield of marriage.

Gottman brought more than 3,000 married couples to a lab near the University of Washington campus.  For nearly three decades, the couples have been videotaped and the results have been analyzed by something Gottman dubbed (SPAFF ) for specific affect.  It is a coding system with twenty separate categories corresponding to every conceivable emotion that a married couple might express during a conversation. 

Each emotion is given a number.  Disgust is a 1.  Stonewalling is a 13.  Whining is 11. What is remarkable is that if Gottman analyzes an hour of a husband and wife talking, he can predict with 95% accuracy whether a couple will be married 15 years later.  And if he watches a couple for just 15 minutes, his success rate only drops to 90%.

90% accuracy in 15 minutes.  Amazing. Gladwell uses Gottman’s work as an example of “thin slicing” – the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.

Gottman can decipher a distinctive verbal code while observing a couple communicate. He focuses on what he calls the Four Horsemen, defensiveness,stonewalling, criticism and contempt.  And according to Gladwell, “there is one emotion he considers the most important of all: contempt. If Gottman observes either partner or both partners showing contempt, he considers it single most important sign that the marriage is in trouble.”

Ultimately, Gottman has discovered a ratio of positive and negative codes in a marital interaction and can mathematically predict the future of the relationship with an incredible degree of accuracy.

I use the term creativity because Gottman has gone beyond the seeming impossibility of studying the dynamic and changing relationships of couples but has taken the estimated divorce rates (50% +) and has revealed that traditional counseling success rates are not particularly high.  So, he has brought advanced math and the creativity of a variety  of controlled experiments to try to understand consistent patterns that emerge from conversations between couples.  That's creative use of both theory and applied science.

Which brings me to the world of work relationships. Could Gottman’s theories and techniques work in this environment?  Business success is generally predicated on the ratio of income to expenses.  But what about the balance sheet of human capital?  In the typical day, are employee interactions mostly positive or negative? 

All of Gottman’s coded categories from positive reinforcements to the Four Horsemen of contempt, criticism, stonewalling and defensiveness are equally applicable to the work environment. But while this may poison the atmosphere at work, there are some companies that appear to succeed in a dysfunctional atmosphere.

I know a particular company where the top management exhibits most of the four horsemen behaviors, yet ulcers aside, workers continue to stay and to do excellent work.

Can we get Gottman to turn his attention to the workplace?  What are your experiences?  I welcome comments from any perspective, even the four horsemen.