The first time I used Dr. John Gottman's insights into bidding was back when I was starting off as a manager - I was looking for tactics that might help me overcome my tendency to, for the lack of a better expression, offend delicate sensibilities. Gottman's ideas, which included a rough guideline of five positive interactions for each negative one, proved a useful rule of thumb; if I had a bad interaction with someone, I wrote down in my little notepad "be positive with ___". This seemed to work pretty well - I had a relatively high rate of conflict with my team, yet I seem to have maintained a very good reputation.
The problem I ran into was outside my team. Over time, it's possible I maintained a healthy 5-to-1 ratio with all of my colleagues, but in practice the time frame was so wide it probably didn't matter. If I worked with someone six times a year - let's say every two months - then unless my 'bad' interaction came in the last of those half-dozen, I was surely sitting below the ratio for at least two months of each year. This isn't a path to success in any sense of the term.
The relevance of Gottman's research is not just the 5-to-1 number or the deliberate actions you can take to maintain the ratio; it's also about understanding that very few partnerships have the required dynamic for following his recommendations. In most of our relationships, we only see others every once in a while, so it's more important to simply remain receptive to all bids and ensure the ratio is well in excess of 5-to-1; I would recommend 500-to-1, just to be safe, with all but our most intimate relationships. It might mean I present an artificial representation of myself to most colleagues but I do so because I understand reality - no matter how well I get along with someone most of the time, the lingering taste of one bad interaction can forever imprint a weak connection with resentment.
