Facilitation method
Team Toxins
A floor exercise built on Dr. John Gottman’s research. Your team names the four patterns that poison working relationships, sees what each one is protecting, and agrees on antidotes before the next hard conversation.
What is the Team Toxins exercise?
Team Toxins is a facilitated exercise that helps a team recognize when healthy debate turns into destructive conflict, and agree on what to do about it.
Conflict is a signal that something new is trying to happen. Handled well, it leads to better decisions and stronger teams. Left to turn toxic, it wears down trust, energy, and the work. Teams that avoid conflict never reach their best, and some get stuck in it. This exercise gives a team a shared language for the difference, using four patterns everyone will recognize.
Where it comes from
The research behind it
For more than four decades, Dr. John Gottman and his colleagues have studied how couples talk to each other, including years of watching couples in an apartment laboratory at the University of Washington known as the Love Lab. The patterns they found have been validated in working relationships too.
What strong relationships do during conflict
Five positive interactions for every negative one
Positive moments in the bank make the hard ones survivable.
Soft start-ups
How a hard conversation starts usually decides how it ends.
Notice and accept repair bids
A joke or a “can we start over?” says “I still want to work with you.” A rejected repair bid can do more damage than the problem itself.
Recognize when you’re flooded
When emotions overwhelm us, we get less patient and less skillful. Spotting it is the first step.
Avoid the four toxins
The patterns that, left unchecked, wear a relationship down.
Know the signs
The four team toxins
Each toxin comes with its antidote. The grid pairs them the way they usually travel: criticism tends to trigger defensiveness, and contempt tends to trigger stonewalling.
Criticism
Turning a problem into a comment on someone’s character.
Signs
- Harsh start-ups
- Blaming
- Domination
- Constant fault-finding
Sounds like“You never think about anyone else’s workload.”
A complaint is fine. It names the issue and how it affects you. Criticism makes the person the problem.
Antidotes
- Raise the issue, not the person
- Start softly
- Get curious
- Ask for what you want next time
Defensiveness
Protecting yourself instead of hearing the concern.
Signs
- Not open to influence
- Not taking responsibility
- Deflecting
- Counter-attacking
Sounds like“That’s not on me. Nobody told me it was due.”
Usually a response to criticism. It feels like self-protection, but it’s really a way of blaming the other person.
Antidotes
- Get curious about the concern
- Find the 2% that’s true
- Take responsibility for your part
Contempt
Putting someone down to feel above them.
Signs
- Personal attacks
- Sarcasm
- Eye rolling
- Mocking
- Hostile gossip
Sounds like“Sure. Another brilliant idea from the planning genius.”
Gottman’s research found contempt to be the strongest predictor that a relationship would break down.
Antidotes
- Respectful communication
- Name what you appreciate
- Build emotional intelligence
- Bring in coaching support
Stonewalling
Shutting down and withdrawing from the conversation.
Signs
- Withdrawal
- Avoidance
- Going quiet in meetings
- Passive agreement
Sounds like“Fine. Whatever you think.”
Usually a response to contempt. It can become a habit that’s very hard to break.
Antidotes
- Say what’s going on for you
- Take a break when flooded, and say when you’ll come back
- Bring in mediation or coaching
Under the label
What each toxin is protecting
Look closely at any toxin and you’ll find it’s protecting something. Each one is an unskillful attempt to stay in a relationship. For example, “I may get defensive because I feel misunderstood and want you to understand me.”
- Fear
- Helplessness
- Shame
- Guilt
When a team can see the fear or shame underneath, the conversation shifts from “who’s to blame” to “what do we need.”
On the floor
How the exercise runs
Tape the grid
We tape four squares on the floor and lay one toxin pad in each. Criticism sits beside defensiveness, contempt beside stonewalling.
Share the research
We introduce Gottman’s work and set one ground rule: everyone uses all four toxins from time to time.
Stand for a past team
Think of a team you’ve been on that struggled. Go stand in the toxin that team used most.
Explore your square
Each square answers three questions: What gesture shows this toxin? What brought it out? What fear, helplessness, shame, or guilt was it protecting?
Share with the room
Each square shows its gesture and shares its situations. We fill in anything the room missed.
Explore the antidotes
We look at the antidotes together and ask: what are you curious about, and which would help you most?
Find your home toxin
Everyone stands in the toxin they reach for most, the one that feels like an old familiar coat. Pairs talk through what brings it out and one thing they can do when it shows up.
Agree as a team
The team stands in the toxin it uses most, chooses a signal, and writes agreements for how it will handle tough moments.
Before anyone leaves
Agree on a team signal
The team chooses a code word or gesture that means a toxin may be present. It opens a conversation about how the team is behaving. It never labels a person.
- A time-outOne hand flat, the other hand upright beneath it, making a T.
- “Yellow card”Borrowed from soccer, a warning everyone understands.
One example from our work
A medical practice
A medical practice of about 16 people had grown quickly, and its doctors and staff sometimes worked in silos. We ran a two-hour afternoon session on communication and conflict, with Team Toxins at its center.
After the floor exercise, everyone wrote two commitments on sticky notes: one for how they communicate with patients, and one for how they communicate with each other. Then the team stood in the toxin it uses most and turned what it learned into agreements specific enough to act on.
Too vague
“Be nicer to each other.”
Specific enough to act on
“When giving feedback, we speak to each other with the same care we use with patients.”
Is it the right tool?
When to use it
- Prevention
New teams
Give a new team a shared language for conflict before it needs one, so the first hard conversation starts from agreements instead of surprises.
- Repair
Teams in conflict
Name the patterns already in the room without pointing at anyone, and give people a way back to the conversation.
- Growth
Teams that want to communicate better
Healthy teams use it to spot small habits early and turn good intentions into specific agreements.
Choose something else when
- Someone’s conduct needs a formal HR process or investigation
- The conflict sits between two people and needs mediation first
Questions we often hear
How long does it take?
One to four hours, depending on the size of the team and how much time you want for the research, the antidotes, and writing your team agreements.
Will anyone be singled out?
No. People first stand for a team from their past, not this one, and we start from the fact that everyone uses all four toxins. Personal reflection happens in pairs. The team signal names a behavior, never a person.
Is it only for teams in conflict?
No. It works well as prevention for new teams and as a tune-up for healthy teams that want to communicate better. Teams already in conflict get a shared language for talking about it safely.
Isn’t Gottman’s research about couples?
It started with couples. The same four patterns show up in any working relationship, and teams recognize them quickly once they have names.
Can we run it online?
Yes. We draw the four squares on a shared online whiteboard and use a breakout room for each toxin. People move their cursor instead of their feet.
Where does the exercise come from?
The four toxins come from Dr. John Gottman’s research, where they’re known as the Four Horsemen. The floor exercise is from Team Coaching International. We’ve added the antidotes and team agreements we use with our clients.
Ready to handle conflict better?
Tell us about your team and what’s happening. We’ll help you design a session that fits.
Book a discovery call