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You know your business needs to change, but you’re caught in the emotional and relational dynamics that are holding you back. Welcome to Noble Metal, the podcast that helps you forge a new kind of leadership. Host Phillip Weiss, a seasoned executive coach and organizational consultant, reveals how to become a more resilient, deliberate, and less-anxious leader.
Through powerful insights based on Bowen Theory and systems thinking, you’ll learn to navigate complex workplace relationships, manage challenging strategic issues, and lead your team to sustainable change. Get the clarity and tools you need to forge a new path for your business.
Ep16
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[00:00:00]
What Makes Relationships Work
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Phillip Weiss: Welcome to Noble Metal, where we explore leadership at work and in life through the lens of Bowen family systems theory. So I wanna start today with a question that I think probably most people will never actually have stopped to answer or even maybe think about seriously, which is: What makes a relationship work?
Not just survive, not even really just function, but actually work [00:01:00] in a way that produces something good, something lasting, something that makes both people better in a way. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I wanna share a framework with you today that I think kinda cuts right to the heart of it.
And as I do, I'm drawing on some of the deepest thinking in psychology, specifically the work of psychiatrist Murray Bowen. And this has practical implications, I think, for every relationship in our lives: our marriage, your kids, your team at work, your closest friendships
Here's where I wanna start.
Productivity Runs on Relationships
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Phillip Weiss: A mentor and researcher, and I've mentioned him before, Dan Papero, one of the leading voices in Bowen theory today, put it simply and powerfully Productivity rests squarely on the shoulders of successful relationships.
Let me repeat that. I think it bears repeating, and I probably have given this quote before. Productivity, the thing that we spend tons of energy trying [00:02:00] to optimize, rests on relationships. Not necessarily on IT systems, not even on strategy, not on talent alone, but on relationships. I think that's a powerful thing to consider.
It immediately raises the question, what does a successful relationship actually look like? And more importantly, how do you build one?
Defining Relationship Quality
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Phillip Weiss: Today, I wanna explore this through a concept that I'm calling relationship quality. What is it? Why it matters? And what does Bowen theory actually tell us about how to move toward it?
I see this particular podcast episode as the first in a series of four. So first, we're, we're gonna talk about this idea. We're gonna lay the groundwork in what is really a good relationship and what are the quality features of it. Then in the next following three episodes, we're gonna explore different kinds of relationships, [00:03:00] starting first with your relationship with your boss or your parents, so you in relation to the person above you.
Then we're gonna talk about peers or maybe in the family context, siblings. Peer dynamics can really either help us or undo us in the workspace and probably in the family life too. Then as a leader of others or as a parent to your children, we're gonna explore that. But first, let's get to this idea of relationship quality.
Seven Marks of High Quality
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Phillip Weiss: So when I am talking about that, I'm not talking about how warm a relationship feels or how much two people like each other or even how little they fight. Relationship quality is not about emotional closeness, harmony, or satisfaction. I mean specifically, what are the characteristics of a high-functioning relationship?
So let me walk you through seven elements, key elements informed by Bowen theory, and I'll tell you up front that some of [00:04:00] these might feel a little bit counterintuitive, but let's, take it for a spin, see what we think First, a high-quality relationship has the characteristic of being connected and not distant.
Now, this might sound like Captain Obvious. Of course, if it, it kind of built into the concept of relationship is, is assuming some connection. And we do. We naturally gravitate to this togetherness, which we've explored in previous episodes. We're social creatures. People want to be around each other. They engage, they show up.
But, and this is the crucial point here, we don't want to be overly close, in a sense. There's such a thing as being too close, too enmeshed, too fused. And we'll come back to that, why that matters. But as a fellow Bowen thinker, Eric Thompson, has said, what we're talking about here is the idea of being separate but still connected.
We don't lose [00:05:00] ourselves in the process, but we are connected So secondly, people in high-quality relationships can stay connected when things get hard. We've talked about this again before, but when tension is up, when there's conflict or disappointment, the relationship doesn't just work in calm weather. It In a sense, it holds the storm. They don't run screaming out of the kitchen when the heat goes up Thirdly, there's a genuine flexibility toward people who differ with you.
Not talking about a spineless go along to get along flexibility, but a real genuine inner permission that says, "You don't have to see it my way for us to be okay." It's a kind of live and let live orientation while still holding to your own convictions. And boy, could we use a good, good dose of this more in our, in our day and age Fourth, and, and this one's, this one's hard.
There's a willingness to respectfully confront [00:06:00] when you do differ. Not to cave in, not go silent and distance yourself, but to say calmly and directly, "Here's where I stand, and here's what I think. Here's what I'll do. Here's what I won't do." And this is, this is straight from Bowen himself as he talks about differentiation of self.
Fifth, people in high-quality relationships don't do for others what others should be doing for themselves. They don't take over. They don't, they don't rescue unnecessarily. They let people engage with challenge you know, and even struggle because they understand that struggle is often where growth lives.
Phillip Weiss: In a sense, I think you could say they're comfortable with discomfort, with their own discomfort and others'. Sixth and equally important, they don't let others do for them what they should be doing for themselves. There's a reciprocity here. Appropriate [00:07:00] support is given and appropriate support is received, and so it's not dependence in either direction Seventh, and lastly for the moment, when there's a difficult issue between two people, the first instinct is not to rope in a third person to manage or referee it.
Now, sometimes that needs to happen, but it's, there's an effort, let's say, to try to address it directly with one another, to stay in the two-person system rather than immediately pull someone else in. So seven points. A good relationship isn't measured then by how good it feels, because some of this doesn't always g- isn't gonna always feel good, but it's more by how much each person can still be a self while staying connected.
There's an openness, a calm, and flexibility rather than fusion, reactivity, or cutoff.
Bowen Theory Basics
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Phillip Weiss: So why might this matter so much or so deeply? To answer that, we are gonna dig even deeper [00:08:00] into Bowen theory today. So recall Bowen was a psychiatrist who in the mid-20th century began studying families as emotional systems.
He was still studying... He identified in this ca- in the case of his study, he was identifi-- there were identified schizophrenic patients, and their whole families came and lived on campus at the National Institute of Mental Health. What he found was that patterns of anxiety and dysfunction he saw in individuals weren't really or necessarily that individual at all. They were, in fact, systemic. They were transmitted through families across, and, and really across generations through invisible emotional processes that shape how people function together.
So for example, you might have a schizophrenic patient who was doing just fine, but then the mother, for example, enters the picture, and the person becomes more symptomatic. Bowen himself put it this way, and I wanna [00:09:00] quote him directly. He says, "Bowen theory involves two main variables. One is the degree of anxiety, and the other is the degree of integration of self."
End quote. These two variables, anxiety and integration of self, are really what everything else flows from. The higher anxiety, the lower the integration of self, the more dysfunction you're going to see in individuals, relationships, and families and organizations. So think about these two variables together for a moment. Anxiety is the fuel. It's the pressure in the system. It rises when things get uncertain, threatening, or destabilizing somehow. And when anxiety rises, it exposes exactly how much or how little integration of self a person actually has. Because here's, here's the thing.
A lot of people function [00:10:00] reasonably well when life is calm. They seem grounded, they seem clear, they seem to know who they are. But then when anxiety goes up, a crisis hits, whatever, stakes rise at work, what-whatever the case is, and suddenly that groundedness evaporates. They become reactive. They either latch on too tightly or they pull away.
But they lose themselves, in a sense, in the pressure of the moment. That gap between how somebody functions in calm versus how they function under pressure is one of the most, probably the most revealing things you can observe about a person and, and in a sense, about a relationship.
Differentiation Under Pressure
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Phillip Weiss: This is where Bowen's concept of differentiation of self becomes really key.
This differentiation, just as a refresher, is, is the capacity to be a self, clear, grounded principle, while remaining in genuine connection with others It's not connection at the cost of self. It's [00:11:00] not self at the cost of connection, but it's both simultaneously Think noble metal here. Those properties that keep a metal intact in the face of highly destructive pressures
Every human being sits somewhere on what Bowen called a scale of differentiation. At the lower end, people are highly reactive, easily fused with others around them, and heavily dependent on the emotional climate of their relationships in order to function. That's on the lower end. At the higher end, people can stay calm and think clearly, even when the emotional pressure around them is intense, when that heat goes up in the kitchen.
They can be close without losing themselves. They can differ without losing the relationship.
Most of us, Bowen observed, live somewhere in the middle, and we tend to marry and partner with people at roughly our own level of differentiation, which is its own fascinating and [00:12:00] somewhat sobering thought for, for another episode maybe.
Solid Self vs Pseudo Self
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Phillip Weiss: But let me get more specific here and dig even deeper into Bowen theory a little bit more, because Bowen draws an interesting distinction here that I think is probably one of the most practically useful ideas, in my opinion, in all of psychology.
The distinction between what he calls the solid self and the pseudo self. And I think it's really important as we consider this idea of relationship quality. So here's how Bowen describes the solid self, and I'm quoting here. The, "The solid self is made up of clearly defined beliefs, opinions, convictions, and life principles. These have been deliberately forged through a well-considered thought process apart from the pressures of relationship togetherness.
In other words, the solid self knows what it thinks. It has done the internal work. It's examined its beliefs and arrived at them through genuine, [00:13:00] thoughtful reflection, not simply by absorbing what others around them believe. And critically under pressure, the solid self holds. It doesn't shift to accommodate.
It doesn't collapse to avoid conflict. It remains. The pseudo self is something different. Again, in Bowen's own words, "The pseudo self is composed of a vast assortment of beliefs and principles acquired because it is required or considered right by the group. These principles are acquired under group pressure, often for the sake of harmony."
He goes on to say that the pseudo self is an actor and can be many different selves. It's a performer, so to speak. It shifts to fit the room. It adopts the beliefs of whoever it's trying to please or belong to. And here's the sort of insidious thing. It doesn't really feel like performance.
It feels actually like closeness. In some cases, it may feel like loyalty. It can feel like maybe even love [00:14:00] But what's maybe actually happening is a kind of self-erasure, so to speak, in the service of relationship. You give up your position not because you've been genuinely persuaded, but because the anxiety of disagreement is too uncomfortable.
And that erasure over time produces exactly the a-anxiety and dysfunction that Bowen identified. Now, the opposite failure is equally real. Some people, in an attempt to avoid losing themselves in relationship, simply keep their distance. They don't fuse, they cut off, and we've talked about this before. They manage that anxiety of closeness by never fully showing up. And Bowen was clear that emotional cutoff is not differentiation.
Let me say that again. Cutoff is not differentiation. It's just a different way of being governed by the anxiety of the relationship. It's a different [00:15:00] way of being governed by the anxiety of the relationship. The goal, the demanding, ongoing, never fully finished goal, is to stay in relationship genuinely connected While holding onto self.
And again, I, I want to always qualify, there may be some relationships where we do need to move away from someone. I, I understand that. But we're talking about most, I think most of our relationships. We are genuinely connected, we hold onto self, and that is differentiation. And that is what relationship quality, I believe, at its deepest level is actually about.
Apple Story Jobs and Cook
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Phillip Weiss: So let me make this a little more concrete with a couple of stories. In the early two thousands, Apple, Apple was actually one of the most closely watched leadership partnerships in American business. And the dynamic inside Steve Jobs' executive world offered a... offers actually a near perfect illustration, I think, of these concepts.
So [00:16:00] let's take a quick look. So Jobs was famously difficult. He was demanding, volatile, and possessed of what people around him called, quote, "reality distortion field." It was a near gravitational pull that bent the thinking of people in his orbit toward his own thinking. Many people who worked closely with him describe losing their own judgment, actually, in his presence.
They became, in Bowen's terms, truly kind of pseudo selves. They adopted his framework, his certainty, his convictions, not because they'd reasoned their way there, but because the anxiety of the relationship and the intensity of that made independent thought, in a sense, feel dangerous for them. In a sense, really, you could say the togetherness force overwhelmed everything else The people who lasted and who contributed the most were the ones who could maintain a solid self in that environment, who could push back when they genuinely saw something different.
They could say [00:17:00] calmly and without drama, "I hear you and I disagree, and here's why." Not caving in to keep the peace, but actually holding their ground from a place of internal clarity. Tim Cook, current CEO, was one of those people. Cook's relationship with Jobs was, by most accounts, one of the few in Steve Jobs' inner circle where genuine two-directional exchange happened.
Cook didn't mirror Jobs. He didn't fuse with him. He had his own domain, his own competence, his own clarity, and Steve Jobs res- he respected it, even when it maybe frustrated him. What Cook modeled is exactly what Bowen describes, the staying connected and staying a self, not choosing between the two. And the result was just a h- it was a healthier relationship. It was-- and better outcomes, better decisions, more durable results. I mean, look at Apple's progress even under Tim Cook's well, definitively under Tim Cook's leadership.
The [00:18:00] organizations that develop this capacity, that is where people can disagree without the relationship collapsing, where anxiety doesn't automatically transmit from the top down, where nobody has to be pseudo-self to stay in the room, those organizations, they function differently, and they produce differently, and they sustain differently, more productively.
And to quote again Dan, I believe he was right, productivity rests on the shoulders of these kinds of successful relationships.
Family Story Overfunctioning
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Phillip Weiss: Now let me bring this a little bit closer to home with a family story. Because in a sense, this is really ultimately where some of the hardest work around differentiation happens is-- which is in our own families. These relationships are where our patterns honestly are most deeply set
So consider a mother, we'll call her Carol, and her adult son, Michael. Michael's in his early thirties. He's smart, he's capable, and chronically unem- [00:19:00] underemployed and struggling to launch financially. And every time Michael struggles, Carol, mom, steps in. She covers his rent. She calls his landlord. She manages his anxiety about job app- applications by telling him what to do, how to, how to do it, how to fill it out, who to call She experiences this as love, as good mothering.
But she cannot tolerate watching him struggle. So here's what might actually be happening, at least in Bowen terms. Carol is over-functioning, doing for Michael what Michael needs to do for himself. And every time she does it, she's communicating something to him that she probably really doesn't intend, which is, "You cannot handle this on your own.
I can handle it." She is, in the most loving way imaginable, undermining his development Michael, for his part, has learned to under-function in her [00:20:00] presence.
He is, I, I could say he's anxious and helpless when things get hard, not because he's incapable, but because the relationship system has organized itself around a pattern where Carol's anxiety gets managed by her taking over, and Michael's anxiety gets managed by letting her. This is fusion.
This is the pseudo self, in a sense, in the making. Michael's sense of himself shaped not by his own tested experience, you could say, or by his own hard-won convictions, but by the, the message of the relationship system that he grew up in. And notice here, neither of them is doing anything wrong by conventional standards.
Carol I think most people would say, "Yeah, it's, it's too much." But, you know, in, in many ways, she loves her son. Michael appreciates his mother. But the emotional process r-running really underneath all of this is working against both of them. So what might differentiation look [00:21:00] like for Carol?
I think in her case, it would look like her tolerating her own discomfort, letting Michael struggle without stepping in, not because she doesn't care but because actually she cares enough to let him find his own ground It would look like being present, connected, and available while not doing for him what he can do for himself.
And this is, I think, admittedly one of the hardest things a parent can do, to stay warm, W-A-R-M, and to stay out of the way at the same time. To hold on to a solid self, "I believe in you, and I'm not going to rescue you from this," all done in the face of a child's difficulty It is also, in Bowen's framework, one of the most loving things imaginable, really.
Wrap and Weekly Practice
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Phillip Weiss: So let's pull the thread as we come to a wrap. Bowen gave us a framework that is, at its core, both simple and demanding. We have two [00:22:00] variables, anxiety and integration of self. When anxiety is high and integration of self is low, relationships and the people in them suffer. When people do the ongoing work of differentiation, building more of a solid self, staying connected without fusing, confronting without cutting off, supporting without over-functioning, relationships work better
Relationship quality isn't a soft concept. It isn't about being nicer or more empathetic or better at conflict resolution techniques. It's about who you fundamentally are when you're in the presence of another person and there's pressure involved. How much of yourself you bring versus how much you keep How clearly you know what you actually think versus what you've absorbed under group pressure and in the name of harmony.
The solid self isn't, it isn't rigid, it's not cold, it's not [00:23:00] distant. It is actually the foundation, I, I think, of genuine intimacy because when two solid self, so to speak, individuals connect, neither one's performing, neither one's trying to manage the other's anxiety at the expense of their own integrity.
maybe in a sense, that's real connection. maybe that's the goal. And I do wonder if that's what high relationship quality looks like from the inside.
Let me close with a direct invitation. This week, pick one relationship in your life.
It could be at work, home, wherever the stakes maybe feel the highest, and ask yourself three questions honestly. First, in this relationship, am I more of a solid or a pseudo-self? When I'm with this person, do I hold my ground or do I find myself shifting, adapting, performing, or caving in to manage the tension?
Second, [00:24:00] am I either fused or cut off with this person? Am I so emotionally intertwined with this individual that their mood runs my mood? Or have I dealt with the anxiety by pulling away, going quiet and calling, you know, kind of calling it quits in a sense, distancing heavily? Third question, final question.
What would one small step toward differentiation look like here? Not a grand activity here, not a dramatic declaration, just one moment this week where you stay connected and stay a self. Where you might say what you actually think calmly and respectfully, and let the other person have their reaction without trying to manage it
Differentiation isn't a destination. it's a practice. And I think that's, that's a very significant point in Bowen theory. This is the work of a lifetime. It's something that we do over and over in the [00:25:00] ordinary moments of ordinary relationships under ordinary pressures in ordinary conversations.
In a sense, it's a daily practice. And if Dan Papero is right, and I think he is, that practice isn't just good for you personally. It's, it is, in essence, the foundation of everything productive, everything creative, everything lasting that you will ever build with another human being Relationship quality isn't soft, again.
It's actually pretty, pretty darn hard. And even slightly achieved, it can become though the bedrock, the noble metal of lasting high impact and enjoyable relationships. Thank you for listening today.