Business Therapy: 4 Ways To Instantly Improve Communication With Your Partner

Learning these small tricks can go a long way to helping business owners improve their conversations and get back on the same page.

Business relationships are challenging and often complicated due to the personal / professional intersection.

Whether your work relationships turn personal or your personal relationships turn professional, both are riddled with complexities that lead most partners into recurring disagreements.

Previous research shows 65% of high-growth startups fail due to cofounder-related issues, and consistent disagreements among business partners likely contributes to an even higher percentage of stress, burnout, and exhaustion.

As a business psychologist, I specialize in working with founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs who want to improve their relationships with themselves and their business partners. While I teach many skills for interpersonal effectiveness, I was recently reminded of a framework called Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

NVC assumes that people are compassionate and that violence — physical or verbal — are behaviors learned from the environment. While you may not think of your communication as violent, learning NVC can help even the most articulate individuals develop better conflict resolution strategies in their relationships.

Here are the four steps to Nonviolent Communication:

1. State what you observe that does not contribute to your well-being.

Convey what you see, hear, remember, or imagine in a judgment-free way.

Do your best to avoid labeling their behavior as good, bad, hurtful, or anything else. Instead, simply state what you’re observing.

Try to be specific, as being too general is not helpful to the other person. For example:

“When I wake up and see 45 Slack messages from you…”

“When I notice you assigning me blame…”

“When I hear you yelling from the other room…”

2. Share how you feel in relation to what you observed in step one.

Articulate an emotion or sensation rather than a thought. Think of this as a traditional I-message, “I feel [BLANK].”

Instead of picking the first and most superficial feeling that comes to mind, try to think carefully about your emotional experience and identify the deepest emotion. Sharing this emotion should make you feel somewhat vulnerable.

For example:

“When I wake up and see 25 Slack messages and three missed calls from you, I feel frustrated.”

“When I notice you assigning me blame, I feel angry.”

“When I hear you yelling from the other room, I feel worried.”

These examples are great examples of putting this framework into practice.

Each illustrates a foundational skill that leads to more effective communication.

3. Describe what you need or value that causes your emotional reaction.

Search for a deeper emotional need or value that contributes to how you’re reacting.

For example:

“When I wake up and see 25 Slack messages and three missed calls from you, I feel frustrated because I value autonomy and want a minute to wake up before jumping into things.”

“When I notice you assigning me blame, I feel angry because it feels like you don’t care about my perspective.”

“When I hear you yelling from the other room, I feel worried because I fear your actions will have a negative impact on our employees.”

As you can see, these are detailed responses—perhaps much more information than you typically provide to one another. That’s exactly the point!

You’re sharing more of your internal world with your partner so they can better understand the emotional context of your reaction.

4. Politely request the person to take a specific action.

Clearly request something that would enrich your life.

Do so without making a demand, ultimatum, or other form of aggression. And pay attention to your tone!

“When I wake up and see 25 Slack messages and three missed calls from you, I feel frustrated because I value autonomy and want a minute to wake up before jumping into things. Would you be open to waiting until 9am in my timezone before calling?”

“When I notice you assigning me blame, I feel angry because it feels like you don’t care about my perspective. Would you be open to hearing my side before accusing me of doing a bad job?”

“When I hear you yelling from the other room, I feel worried because I fear your actions will have a negative impact on our employees. Can you please work on decreasing your yelling?”

These shares are clear, informative, and have a specific ask. As such, they are much more likely to be well-received by your business partner.

Practice makes perfect

People tend to find one or two of these steps more difficult than others.

Many of the business owners I work with take time to master these new skills and find them a bit awkward at first. But over time and persistent effort, the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) framework works with high efficiency.

So, as you practice NVC try to identify which steps you feel comfortable with and which steps you need to refine. Learning to think through all four steps — even if you aren’t perfect about sharing them — will immediately improve your communication skills.