Chris Hunsicker presents research from John Gottman, Tim Cameron, and Carol Dweck showing that a 3-to-4 ratio of positive-to-negative interactions predicts stronger relationships and better performance. He challenges listeners to track their own ratios for three days at home and work.
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Foreign. Napoleon made this comment at the end of his career. He said, the most amazing discovery I had after ruling empires and army was that a man would crawl on its belly all across France for one blue ribbon. It's the power of recognition and how deeply ingrained it is into every part of what we do. Every and yet the most neglected element of leadership. I'm Chris Hunsicker, and this is the dealership war room. Leadership fire built daily, fueled intentionally and delivered relentlessly. Here's day four of Paris Power Week, and today we're going to focus on one of the most critical elements of leadership, which is how to balance recognition with criticism. So let's dive in. One of the most powerful distinctions I ever learned when it came to criticism and praise happened right here in Paris with the European CEM team. And this was a project the Ford Motor Company did for coaching and dealerships. And I was doing the research for it. I stumbled across what I call the golden ratio of human communication. Looking at three different researchers in three different fields, yet the same conclusion. The number one was John Gottman, who is the absolute expert in relationships. As a matter of fact, in his love Lab, which is an apartment where he has couples stay and he studies them, he can actually have a couple do a 15 minute conversation, videotape it and score it, and he can tell you with 95% accuracy whether or not they'll still be married five years later. One of the number one determiners or factors in knowing whether that was going to happen is what was the ratio of positive to negative communication? And if it was 4 positive to 1 negative or higher, they were going to stay married. If it was even, they might stay married, but not truly together and happy. And when there were significantly more negative than positive, he knew they were going to end a divorce. The second was looking at business. And again, Tim Cameron at the University of Michigan was studying basically large businesses that downsize. And he found that 85% of businesses that downsize never come back to their previous level. In other words, they never return. He spent 20 years studying the 15% who did. One of the key findings of that research was the ratio of positive to negative communication of the managers and leaders in the organization. And those managers that had a ratio of 3 positive to 1 negative or higher outperformed all of their peers. As a matter of fact, if it was a one to one ratio positive to negative, they performed at the same financial performance as baseline. If it was three positive to one negative, they outperformed financial baseline by 25%. If it was three negative to one positive, they underperformed financial baseline by 25%. Just let that sink in. And then finally was Carol Dweck studying mindset and growth mindset and psychological resilience at Stanford. And what she looked at was the primary caregiver didn't matter was a man or a woman, whoever the primary caregiver was, if their ratio of positive to negative communication was, was three to one or higher, then that was the number one predictor of success for children. And they didn't define success as being able to go to Stanford or become a doctor. They defined success as the ability to establish long term relationships, experience joy and handle setbacks and survive. Wouldn't you love your salespeople to have that kind of psychological resilience and the ability to form relationships quickly and then maintain them over time? That was the exact, exact thing that came from a positive negative ratio of the primary caregiver of three to one. So your war room challenge for today is to keep track. The very first time that I heard this, I decided I want my kids to be psychologically resilient. And I remember I went home and I was tracking all of my communication and I was going to have like five positive to one negative and trying as hard as I could. The first day I was two negative to one positive. And that was with effort. The very first time I shared this with a dealer at a GSM that I was working with and he said, chris, this is so crap. I'm totally positive. No way. I said, measure it, let's see. And that was at 9:00am after our leadership team meeting. At 1:00 clock in the afternoon, I'm walking from the parts department back out through the showroom floor and I said, hey, how you doing? The whole team goes, he's dying, he's in.5 negative to 1 positive and it's getting worse. So my challenge for you today is pick an area at home and pick an area at work. And for the next three days, measure your ratio, find out where's your ratio and then do whatever it takes to move it. Three positive to one negative. So what I want you to do is pick one area at work and one area at home. And I want you to track for three days what is your positive negative ratio. And be honest, be brutally honest. Use little tick marks or check marks. Whatever it is you need to do, do whatever it takes. Be as honest as you have to and find out your ratio. Now once you find out your ratio, make a conscious decision to start increasing your ratio. Until day after day, week after week, month after month, you can get to a 3, 4, 5 positive to every single negative. And that's the dealership war room challenge for today. So let me finish with this thought.
