Increase your ratio!
Did you know that there is a number that can predict how likely a business team is to get excellent results, college students to flourish and marriages to succeed?
This number is call the Positivity Ratio. It is the sum of the number of positive interactions divided by the sum of negative interactions.
Dr. John Gottman, an American psychological researcher and clinician who did extensive work over four decades on divorce prediction and marital stability was the first one that came up with this number as a result of numerous studies.
Based on thousands of observations, he gained the ability to predict whether or not a couple would divorce with over 90% accuracy. A key factor of that prediction was the ratio of positive expressions to negative expressions in the communication of the couples.
Later studies by Marcial Losada and Barbara Fredrickson arrived at similar conclusions for business teams and individuals. In general – when a human system contains 3 to 5 times as much positivity as negativity, it is significantly more likely to thrive.
So, if you want to improve your relationship with the members of your team, pay attention to how you communicate with them. For example, analyze how you respond to their suggestions. Do you immediately start listing the potential faults of their ideas for the sake of “being realistic”? Do you tend to be overly critical? Or do you commend them for being creative and try to provide extra value by suggesting new ideas? Also, do you offer praise and appreciation when they deliver a task or make an extra effort?
By being more mindful of your language, you can intentionally reduce the number of negative comments and increase the number of positive ones. There are two things that are important for this:
- The positive comments should be authentic. This is not about flattering, but about genuinely commenting on the contributions of the other person.
- The intention is not to eliminate negative comments. As long as they are expressed with respect, there is nothing wrong with giving your opinion about downsides or faults of a particular idea. In fact, research has shown that there is a limit to the positive ratio beyond which it starts deteriorating the relationships. That limit is 11. So, the important thing is to keep the ratio around 3 to 5.
There you have it, next time you are in a conversation, be mindful of your ratio.
