Ever tried to set the table on top of dirty dishes?
It's incredible how often collaboration problems don't stem from big arguments, but from invisible conflicts, born of conversations left half-finished. In the article, I explain why this happens.
8/8/20267 min read
How many times have you postponed a difficult conversation because having it would stir something uncomfortable - guilt, shame, that particular flavor of cringe that makes you suddenly very interested in scrolling on Instagram?
I bet you still haven’t heard this framed quite this way: if that conversation doesn’t happen, every subsequent one with that person becomes a little bit poisoned. Feelings go unacknowledged, matters stay unclarified, making the relationship starts to rot, slowly but surely, like dirty dishes left under a clean tablecloth.
Stay with me, let’s do an experiment.
The hallway moment
I’ll describe a dynamic (unfortunately a very common one) between two colleagues. Let’s call them You and I.
You and I meet in a hallway. You ask me how I am. I believe in your genuine interest, so I start to tell you, carefully editing out most of the emotional charge, about the death of a close relative I’ve just returned from. You asked. I assume you’re interested. I expect you to listen.
Just as I’m in the middle of the story, you spot a colleague passing by siwftly, as if he were dealing with something urgent. Then you call his name, turn towards him and, without even a “hang on”, you pivot and plunge straight into deadlines, numbers and thing that can’t absolutely wait. The initial conversation is not ours anymore, but only mine, I’m stuck in the middle of a sentence, emotionally exposed.
Now. What should we make of that?
Should you stop asking how people are, to avoid getting a sincere answer? Should I have understood your question as a formality and not bothered answering honestly? Maybe you suddenly remembered something urgent, a genuinely pressing matter that couldn’t wait? Or do you simply have the social awareness of a parking meter?
The truth is: from what I’ve told you, any of those interpretations could be valid.
The power of the micro-move
Let’s look at the facts: there was a conversation, there was an emotional component, and the conversation was interrupted by your action. There was no “sorry, I have to catch them.” You were just gone.
Research on micro-moves, the barely visible behavioral signals we send each other constantly, shows just how much relational weight these small moments carry. Organizational scholars Carmeli and Russo, writing in the Human Resource Management Review, suggest that micro-relational acts are the very building blocks of whether people feel genuinely valued, accepted, and respected. When those acts are present, a word of acknowledgment, a moment of real attention, they cultivate what Carl Rogers called positive regard. The reverse is equally true: a small act of disregard, or simply the absence of acknowledgment, can do just as much damage in the other direction.
Our brains are meaning-making machines. They don’t tolerate loose ends. In the absence of an explanation, they will invent one.
And because your behavior touched what conflict researchers Runde and Flanagan call a “hot button”, my brain doesn’t just register discomfort. It registers threat. Hot buttons are deeply personal triggers, shaped by our values and past experiences, that when pressed activate our emotional brain far faster than our rational one. Before I’ve had time to think “maybe they had a good reason,” my amygdala has already issued its verdict.
From there, the fundamental attribution error walks straight in. This is the well-documented cognitive bias, coined by psychologist Lee Ross, that describes our tendency to explain other people’s behavior by their character (“he is so rude”) while completely ignoring the situation that might have caused it (he was distracted, anxious, running late). I leap straight to a verdict about who you are, bypassing entirely the question of what happened. Then comes: “what’s wrong with me?” And if I’m particularly sensitive, what Italians brilliantly call permalosa, that peculiarly thin-skinned state of chronic offendedness, I might close myself off entirely. I start treating you differently. Cooler. More formal. Maybe I just start pretending you don’t exist.
Getting in the box - and staying there
This is where the Arbinger Institute’s concept of being in the box becomes painfully relevant.
When we’re in the box, we stop seeing the other person as a full human being with their own pressures, distractions, and legitimate reasons. Instead, they become a character in our story, and in my story right now, you are the inconsiderate villain who prioritized some another conversation over my emotional nudity. I am, naturally, the wronged protagonist.
Here comes the insidious part: once I’m in the box, I need you to keep behaving badly to justify my position. So I become evasive, monosyllabic, stiff. And you, confused by my sudden rigidity, start to mirror it. Now you are in the box too. My behavior has become the invitation for yours.
This is the escalation no one planned or wanted: a micromove creates a misunderstanding, the misunderstanding creates distance, distance creates tension, tension creates accusation, accusation creates more accusation. And now we have a conflict, born entirely from a conversation that was never finished.
Carmeli and Russo’s research shows exactly why this matters beyond just hurt feelings: the quality of our micro-relational moments directly shapes whether people experience their relationships as generative and life-giving, or as depleting. And depleting relationships at work don’t stay contained to two people. They bleed into team dynamics, project outcomes, and ultimately, company results. A misunderstanding that wasn’t cleared in a hallway can slow down a product launch three months later. No one will trace it back. But it’s there.
We are two people who never gave each other the chance to explain. My brain invented the story. Your behavior now confirms it, because I made sure it would.
What to say instead and why it matters
Marshall Rosenberg's model of Nonviolent Communication gives us a way out of this loop, not by suppressing what we feel, but by expressing it while distinguishing between observation and judgment, in a way that opens a door rather than slamming one
The model works with four elements: Observation, Feeling, Need, and Request. You say what happened, how it landed on you, what you actually need, and what you’re asking for. You’re not attacking anyone’s character. You’re just telling the truth about your experience.
Instead of: “You were so rude to me in the hallway”, which is a verdict dressed as a description and an open invitation to get defensive,
“When you walked away mid-conversation yesterday without saying anything [Observation], I felt dismissed and a bit embarrassed [Feeling]. I was sharing something personal and I need to know that matters to you [Need]. Could we take two minutes to clear the air? [Request]”
Two sentences and a question that probably constitute some of the most uncomfortable thirty seconds in your life. But look at what you just avoided: weeks of strained silence, monosyllabic emails, and a project that drags because two people can’t quite work together anymore.
And notice what this kind of conversation actually is, in the language of Carmeli and Russo: it’s a micro-move. A small act of emotional expression that, rather than damaging positive regard, rebuilds it. Their research identifies expressing emotions, both positive and negative, as one of the key micro-moves through which people signal to each other: you matter enough for me to be honest with you. That signal is not a small thing; it is, quite literally, the foundation of a functional working relationship.
Soon you might notice what’s remarkable here: most people, when approached this way, don’t defend themselves. Instead, they explain and/or they apologize. They say “I had no idea, I’m so sorry.” And just like that, the story my brain invented collapses. You’re not the villain. You’re just someone who was distracted, or anxious, or saw someone they absolutely had to catch before a meeting. You’re a human being. You always were.
Clearing the table before you set it
The damage in the scenario above was not caused by the hallway moment itself. It was caused by everything that happened afterwards, or rather, everything that didn’t happen. The conversation that was avoided. The table that was reset without clearing the dishes first.
The longer we wait, the more the story solidifies. What starts as a misunderstanding becomes a grudge. A grudge becomes a working style. A working style becomes a team dynamic. And suddenly your manager is wondering why two perfectly capable people can’t seem to collaborate on a project that should have taken three weeks instead of three months.
This is not just about emotional wellness, though it is absolutely that too. The quality of your working relationships has a significant impact on your team’s results and on your company’s performance. Not the depth of closeness, or whether you’re friends. We are talking about the quality of the relationship: the basic mutual trust and respect that allows two people to exchange information clearly and work together without friction.
Because we will want to eat at that table again. We’ll want good conversations, real collaboration, the kind of working relationship where you can say the uncomfortable thing and it lands well. You can’t build that on top of something that hasn’t been cleared. The smell gets in the food.
It is your responsibility, and mine, to clear the table. Not for yourself, not even for the other person, but for the relationship itself. And through it, for the work.
So, what’s on your table right now?
Amazing, mature, humble people exist, people who catch themselves in the box and step out of it. Who notice the micro-move and name it before it calcifies into a story. These people are not magical. They’ve just learned, or been taught, that before you set the table, you clear it.
What helps is having a shared standard. A team culture where it’s normal to say: “Something felt off in our last conversation, can we take five minutes?” Where clearing the air is not a drama, it’s just hygiene.
If you let it go, the smell becomes too much to bear.
Further reading
For the concepts behind this article, you can explore:
Carmeli & Russo, The power of micro-moves in cultivating regardful relationships (Human Resource Management Review, 2016);
L. Ross on the fundamental attribution error (Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 1977);
Runde & Flanagan, Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader (2007);
M. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (3rd ed., 2015);
C. Rogers, Client-Centered Therapy (1951);
The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception (2008).
