To everyone new this week: welcome. You being here means more than you know. Knowing it lands with someone like you keeps me going.
I'm Lavena Xu-Johnson. I write about psychology for founders. Why? Because scaling a business means scaling ourselves first.
Happy Tuesday, founders,
Last week, we translated Gottman’s Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work into the language of teams. We delved into the first four topics: work maps, the 5:1 magic ratio, responding to bids, and shared power. Your replies and poll results were my favourite part, thank you for writing in! They’re my compass and tiny bursts of joy.
Conflict is inevitable. Gottman’s research is clear: it isn’t conflict that breaks partnerships, but rather how we argue: the tone, timing, and tiny repairs. During fights, the Four Horsemen - criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and tonewalling predict breakdown faster than any bad quarter. Our work is not to avoid conflicts, but to metabolise them.
This week, we complete the set with the final three principles: soft start‑ups & fast repairs, dreams within conflict, and shared meaning - habits that turn hard weeks into momentum, so we can spot the potential ‘Four Horseman’ in Slack and on calls, to reach for their antidotes in real time.
If you’re a solo founder, think of your key hire or your core collaborator.
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Recap on Gottman’s research
John Gottman is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington, best known for the “Love Lab” he opened in 1986 to study real couples under observation - video‑recorded conversations synchronized with second‑by‑second emotion coding (SPAFF) and physiology (heart rate, skin conductance, movement).
Across decades (and thousands of couples), his team mapped patterns that predict relationship stability: the Four Horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling), the 5:1 positive‑to‑negative balance during conflict, the power of gentle start‑ups and repair attempts, turning toward bids for connection, accepting influence, and the organizing framework called the Sound Relationship House.
Think of Gottman’s research as a stress‑tested playbook for high‑stakes partnerships - perfect for founders building under pressure.
The 7 ‘marriage’ principles for teams
1) Enhance your love maps: Build work maps (Read here)
2) In conflicts: Protect the 5:1 ratio (Read here)
3) Turn toward instead of away: Respond to bids (Read here)
4) Let your partner influence you: Practice shared power (Read here)
5) The secret to a safe and productive ‘fight’
Gottman’s research shows the first three minutes of a tough conversation predict how it ends 96% of the time: “When a discussion leads off with criticism and/or sarcasm, it has begun with a ‘harsh startup’.” Our tone and the way we phrase our sentences often determine whether we’re going into a spiral or solving a problem.
What “soft” actually means
Complain without blame (describe the situation, not the person).
Use “I” statements, not “you” attacks.
Describe what you see (facts) rather than judging motives.
State a positive need (“what I’m asking for”), not just what you don’t want.
Be polite and offer appreciation; even a small acknowledgment lowers defensiveness.
Don’t store things up; address issues while they’re small.
What it means for founders
Soft starts (use this frame):
“I feel (emotion) about (specific behaviour/impact). I need (clear ask/time‑box).”
Example: “I feel anxious about the slip in our onboarding emails; I need us to agree on one owner and ship a fix by Thursday.”
Fast repairs (when the tone slips)
Owning up: ‘Our shared goal is (specific target) by Friday.’
Name the ‘we’: ‘You’re right, I did not acknowledge (specific situation).’
Curiosity: ‘What feels risky about my proposal?’
Appreciation: ‘I value that you’re pushing for quality.’
Effective relationships repair early and often; the repeated failure of repairs predicts an unhappy future.
System to install: If you feel flooded (physiologically amped)
Call a time‑out and schedule the restart: ’I’m getting overwhelmed - 20‑minute reset, back at 3:40.’
6) Overcome gridlock: Surface the dream in the conflict
Persistent fights are rarely about what’s on the surface; they’re more about identity‑level needs underneath - freedom vs. security, craft vs. speed, visibility vs. privacy, fairness vs. loyalty. Gottman calls this the "Dreams within conflict”: when you name the dream and its conflicts, the argument softens and options open up.
What it means for founders
Spot gridlock early: you’ve had the same argument three times; the Four Horsemen appear; there’s little humour or movement; you feel unseen rather than simply unconvinced.
Shift from positions to meanings: positions “raise now” could mean “I need stability after last year’s chaos,” and positions “don’t raise” could mean “I need boldness to feel alive.”
Separate values from methods: values are the non‑negotiables to be honoured; methods are the tactics to be negotiated.
System to install: Position → Interest → Dream → Dual‑honouring test
Position (what I say): “Delay launch."
Interest (why I care): “Protect brand trust.”
Dream (what it symbolises): “I want to build something meaningful I’m proud of.”
Dual‑honouring test (30 days): A bounded, reversible experiment that protects both dreams.
“Dream interview” prompts (pick 3–4)
“What life experience makes this feel so important?”
“What fear are you protecting against?”
“What does ‘being respected here’ look like?”
“If you got 70% of what you want, what would that be?”
“What would a gesture of honouring your dream look like this month?”
The top floor of Gottman’s Sound Relationship House is Shared Meaning, the ‘why’ is lived through rituals, roles, goals, symbols, and stories. In teams, shared meaning turns values into predictable behaviours that reduce friction and increase coherence, especially when we’re under load.
Sound relationship house for founding teams
System to install: The four pillars to create shared meaning
Rituals: Having a set of rituals in place in the system makes it easier to reflect and connect. Design them into the weekly schedule, for example:
Monday “Intent” (20 min): Voice last week’s outcomes and constraints to reinforce shared focus.
Wednesday “No‑blame retro” (15 min): Reframe a failure as a lesson, for a future safeguard protocol.
Friday “What I learned” (10 min): a personal story, a product story, or a customer story.
Monthly “Dreams in work” (45 min): revisit values, surface visions that are shaping priorities.
Roles: To create a sense of “shared meaning” in a relationship, a clear understanding of what you believe your roles should be can be powerful. Ask each other ‘What do you see as your role in this partnership?’
Symbols: Symbols compress culture. A few consistent cues define how you celebrate a win, whether it’s GIFs, after-work drinks, or a quick story of how you overcame the obstacle together.
Stories: Write two founding stories (why is your business solving this problem; a failure you survived) and the moral each teaches. Stories calibrate identity. One well‑told founding story can align a sprint better than ten OKRs. Use them in onboarding and pre‑mortems.
If you try one thing this week, try softening the start‑up of one hard conversation. You’ll feel the compounding effect - the same way stable couples do.
The culture you want is simply the meetings you run, repeatedly.
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Until next week,
Lavena
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