There are a fair few people in the world who would find a good video of Marshall Rosenberg life changing. His perspectives on how to use language are fundamentally superior to what people stumble into in everyday use.
His framework is remarkable because it sets up a non-confrontational approach that lets you speak the truth without hurting or upsetting people. Being able to do that on demand is ... really quite a stunning skill. Certainly more useful than any technical trick I've ever learned.
I struggle a lot with communication, but have not found a panacea for the biggest issue I regularly face.
Communication requires two people to be willing to talk. If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what can I do?
This includes them not listening to me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing to listen (in more, or even fewer words than that).
> If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what can I do?
There is no magic trick to make people do what you want them to do.
> me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing to listen
Well, that attitude isn't going to fix any of your problems. Review the fine article; Heading 1, "Observations vs. evaluations". I might try ask them why what you are saying doesn't seem to provoke much of a response, but honestly you aren't going to get much joy out of an internet forum for solving communication problems.
I want to point out though that you propose "I might try ask them". I want to point out that that would get no response. That is the whole issue which I'm trying to find an "out" for.
If it's someone who can cut your pay, then deal with it, for money, until you find a better option.
Otherwise, tell them that you find that the meetings aren't adding value since you've already exchanged all the info that can be communicated, and excuse yourself.
IMO You can't force people to behave in a manner that is most condusive to you- especially if the manner they're behaving is most advantageous to themselves (a previous example you provided is to be able to deflect blame by sharing tasks). There is no NVC strategy to force people to behave in manners you want them to, only to try and convince them that your goals are aligned- if they're simply not, then that's just how it goes.
A communications problem described with 4 lines of text is not going to get solved. But I really like airing my views, so you can have a cold read on top of what the other commentators have written. This is generic stuff that I think about when I watch people make mistakes in conversation.
Odds are pretty good that any problem is building up over a couple of conversations before it manifests, people are usually obviously walking into trouble, sometimes weeks before things get obviously bad. Often a presentation problem (always doing something that does a little damage but isn't important, like 'joking' insults or forcefully characterising the situation), sometimes an attitude problem (it is surprisingly easy to clearly perceive things that are not there, like the situation being extremely positive or negative - there are some unbelievable whingers out there), often an expectations problem (wanting something out of the conversation that just isn't going to be given, like firm commitment to a radical idea).
When I see people who can't get a straight answer, or when it happens to me and I reflect carefully with hindsight, usually it is an expectations problem that leads to other issues. It isn't much fun accepting to that sort of problem though, so bad luck it that fits you. On rare occasions, I've identified expectation problems and then just abandoned a relationship because I don't want to change.
One related addendum I make to the NVC framework is people make all decisions by copying other people who look successful. Expect no exceptions unless proven otherwise.
Someones we all need a vent. If you hold someone the space to say what they need to — and truly know they've been heard, that opens up space for them to hear.
Well that is something I can 100% relate to, but it's not the situation I was thinking of.
A typical situation would be someone trying to deflect blame by ensuring they have talked to someone else before making a mistake, just so they won't take 100% of the fallout.
That sounds like not your problem. If A deflects blame to B, to escape C's judgement, then B can make their case to C separately. There's no reason to prevent A from having a conversation from B at all.
>If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what can I do?
Have not tried it, but the NVC book says to keep empathizing (without agreeing) until they stop. I think it works for most people. But for the pathological folks who just ramble on and on and keep changing topics, the book actually has a phrase along the lines of "I'm having trouble connecting with you in this conversation. Would you please ...?" (I don't remember the phrase, but the request is to explain the purpose of the conversation). I have not tried it.
If your concern is they are not listening to you (i.e. you can talk but they don't process it), that's actually very normal. And the solution in the book is to empathize for a while, and then specifically point it out and request they reflect back what you have said to them. Now I can tell you from experience that this needs practice - most ways of saying it will trigger defenses.
In that case, let them talk and talk and talk. When they do so, listen.
At the end (which will come eventually, especially if you only answer with yes and no, so there are no follow up possible) you suggest a great solution for some problem they mention, which you can do because a) you are detached and b) they talked a lot and you had ample time to figure things out...
Very nice and concise writeup. For me it is always hard to deliver the feedback to the point (the 40 words rule), because i'm afraid it'll simply go under in all the other information people take in during the day. That's why i tend to keep pressing the matter. Has anyone some relevant experience to share on that?
Often, the most concentrated the message, the higher the impact. Sometimes a single sentence followed by silence is more powerful than a 1-hour talk. Counter-intuitive (but who said communication was straightforward).
This is a valuable post. I have not taken an NVC course before, but I have done a lot of work in negotiations, writing, and was brought up to use this style of communication.
One thing I would be interested in either from the OP or someone with experience with NVC, is how you recognize when you are being patronizing. Much of this communication style is the artifact of an implied power relationship, where the speaker already has the power, or is asserting power.
In negotiations, there is the idea of appealing to shared principles and interests, and NVC can be a way to depersonalize the issue to focus on that. But the example of handling, "No," with empathy is to directly personalize the issue and address feelings, vs. the negotiation view which would be to ask, "if no, given we agree on X, let's leave my perceived solution aside for a moment and find out how we get X."
I think empathy in business can often be zero sum, where it is just an expression of sympathy for someones lack of power in the situation, that is both psychologically horrible, and destroys value. I call that approach of fabricated empathy "seduce and smother," which is common in organizations today.
This article provides an essential and valuable tool. However, this difference between empathy and principle, is that an accurate interpretation of the distinction?
I use NVC frequently to people with a lot more power than me, and I'd actually suggest NVC is actually about putting yourself (and your needs) on the same level as those of the person your speaking with.
The fundamental premise is that fundamental needs are shared by all humans... and the ideal strategy is one where all needs are met.
So, you can avoid patronising someone by truly seeking to understand the other person's feelings and needs without judgement and taking those needs seriously. Again, easy to say, hard to do.
That's the key I think. Appreciated. By putting your universal needs on the same level (not your "self"), you are in effect appealing to principle, so there is likely a great deal of alignment between the methods as described. Looking forward to reading up more on this. Thank you.
Hey, just wanna point out your commenting style is tremendously good. Somehow each one has all the ingredients of a great comment for a discussion. Thanks for the effort!
That's a kind observation. If I worked for you that would be really satisfying to hear...
This is why it's important to be conscientious about spirals of passive aggression with this communication style. Mastering it is mastery, trying is, well, doing it wrong.
Great thread.
It's patronizing if you have made your mind and only involve others into discussions to get support or ease them into going along and accepting. "I have to do X, I'm here to listen how you feel about X and empathize with you." is not real NVC. "Have to" is denying responsibility to outside conditions.
NVC is best used when you have to do something and have a problem and are willing to communicate it to others as way to learn and find a solutions..
I think that is the main by-product of these things is forced empathy and introspection. It is too easy to get caught in one's head and this forces things to get structured and analyzed so they can be externalized.
"how you recognize when you are being patronizing"
That's a good point. I'm fairly adept at recognizing when someone is trying to negotiate with me based on some kind of taught methodology. Because most of what's taught is counter to how you would do it naturally...thus it stands out.
Once you recognize it, the natural reaction is to feel like you're being manipulated with some technique.
"Is there something you want me to do?" is a slightly less hostile way of saying "Get to the point."
"The petitioner did not make a request upon which relief can be granted." might set off a snark detector, and "The ticketing system already automatically notifies the requester that their ticket has been closed." might inadvertently imply that the supervisor does not know how to do their job.
"That is a true statement." is one that is frequently used around here. It sounds very engineer-y, and has no inflectional or emotional connotations whatsoever. It's about as sterile as a SYN-ACK packet. I heard what you just said, and evaluated it for correctness. Current computation completed, and ready for additional input.
Is it even possible that that could not be an evaluation? I've been on both sides of that exchange, and it never even occurred to me that pointing out a ticket wasn't properly filled out was an evaluation. The ticket itself is often the only proof you actually did your job, after all.
Personally, if I'm on the receiving end of that, I'd rather the boss say, "please update this ticket with X and Y" rather than making an "observation." It can't be condescending nor manipulative since that person is plainly exercising their authority. And you can generally resolve problems with an instruction by pointing out that it won't work, or it conflicts with others, etc., which avoids it getting personal.
(This may be why I rarely had these issues in the military, and noticed that many veterans report a great deal of confusion when they get into civilian life because "nobody knows their lane.")
If I did that, there would be an implicit "I'd like to know why" on the end of it, with the understanding that there might be a very good reason. But now that you point it out, I could see how that could come across as a criticism, too.
That wouldn't bug me at all. People who totally respect me would ask me that. "Why didn't you put a resolution on Ticket XYZ?" blames me. "There is no resolution on Ticket XYZ" states a fact and lets me offer an explanation of why I do that kind of thing. Or, like as not, investigate how I closed the ticket by accident or assigned it to someone else who closed it. There are usually lots of good explanations and if you can't even raise the subject without getting mad, you miss those opportunities to not screw up. Maybe I thought no one cared about the resolution and this teaches me someone does look. It's a positive thing to do IMO.
At the same time, if it comes from a place of genuine concern, even unnatural communication can be empathetic. I once asked for help on an online forum, and one person responded with something along the lines of "I don't know how you feel, but if that happened to me I'd feel terrible". In the moment, it felt very carefully crafted, but the care with which the words were chosen really amplified their impact to me.
I've been in that scenario and NVC still worked. In that case the person I was talking to felt anxious when I practiced NVC in our conversations because they needed freedom: to think their own thoughts and make decisions etc.
I asked if there was some way I could speak to them that would help them meet their need for freedom. Then we both laughed and the situation defused.
That's always been one of my biggest questions about NVC, it seems to assume two parties with equal power. But that's seldom precisely true, and in some cases _very_ not true. It's not clear to me how that effects the method and how to account to for it. I wonder if people writing on NVC have written much on this.
Constantly relying on "observations" is incredibly patronizing and I've gotten away from it outside of very formal reporting / performance improvement plans / firing someone.
In my current line of work (and previous one, finance), if you cite observations as the main way of communicating, the other person is just going to cut you off and tell you to hurry the fuck up and tell them what they did wrong.
I'm sorry, I don't understand. If someone says to me "Three of the numbers in the report were inaccurate" (an observation) that's a lot more helpful to me than "Your work is sloppy" (an evaluation). Did you have something else in mind?
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (great job, that's way below average)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (just an FYI for next time, no big deal)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (and I am annoyed that I had to deal with the consequences, please ensure it doesn't happen again)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (but I understand the pressure you were under and the volume of work you had, so I don't see it as an ongoing problem)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (and I see it as part of an ongoing, worrisome pattern of sloppy work coming from you, and I expect you to correct it)
Sometimes the recipient of the message really does need the speaker's evaluation, not just the bare factual observations, to put the message in proper context. "My order took 4 days to arrive" is a lot less useful than "Thanks, my order only took 4 days to arrive" or "I had to wait a whole 4 days for my order to arrive".
This is addressed later in the article. The whole formula is: "3 numbers were inaccurate. I feel frustrated because I keep having to [deal with the consequences]. Would you be able to [double-check all calculations from now on]?"
It's because NVC has taken away the natural way for people to express frustration, which is by being short with the other person.
Personally, I don't get it either. No one I'm frustrated with seems to understand that if I tell them in an unhurried, matter-of-fact way. They may say that they prefer me to express frustration that way, but it gets no results. I don't see the appeal.
NVC is most effective if you share your feelings in an authentic and vulnerable way. This isn’t the same as being in the feeling (ex getting angry or frustrated) or staying them in a matter-of-fact way.
The magic of NVC comes from the recipient empathizing with the person making the request.
I genuinely have no idea what this means. What are you trying to say here? So I can be in any feeling except frustration when I'm conveying that I'm being frustrated? This sounds like snake oil.
I feel like this also speaks to having to know your audience. Some people you have to tread lightly with. You might think you're being patronizing but to go any harder would cause them put up a major wall. Others just want you to lay it right out for them and not sugar coat it in any way.
And, in fact, people can be different in different scenarios.
In a work scenario I'm going to respond best if you're bringing up something I need to improve in a constructive way, with feedback that is actionable on my part, and doing so fairly dispassionately. "Hey Z. Here's what happened and how/why it was incorrect. Here's how you can make up for it/do better next time. No harm, no foul as long as you do better in this one area and keep rockin' it everywhere else."
But I need my wife to tread more lightly for some reason. Being dispassionate would be perceived by me as uncaring in that scenario.
Trying overly hard to make something seem more objective is in a sense an obfuscation of what you really think. Sometimes you need to cut the BS and tell people what's actually on your mind.
In my experience there are two types of coworkers: those that respond well to BS (read: couched language) and those that don't. You just have to recognize who is who.
People observe different things and even then, weight the memories of those observations differently. There are many who employ a barrage of "factual" observations. These are unavoidably biased even as the speaker attempts to pan the feelings out.
Often a speaker doing this feels that the sheer number of data points makes their strategy (that they will argue for shortly after finishing their list of observations) all but inevitable. People who have interacted with such arguers get understandably defensive when shown a barrage of facts painting them a certain way.
In the presence of a pattern of behavior, one example followed by every means necessary of keeping the offender on your side while building a strategy should be enough if the pattern is real and the offender has good intentions.
Great point. Growing up my mom must have read some book about how to comfort kids. She would always say “It sounds like you ...”. For example: “I hate my teacher.” Would receive a response of “It sounds like you are upset with your teacher.”
As soon as I was old enough to recognize the pattern it became an infuriatingly depersonal way to be talked to. Sometimes the lack of “umm, like, just, kind of, etc.” will reveal speech as inorganic and make the whole thing seem false. After awhile it’s hard to even relate to someone who speaks to you like that as a person.
It's called "active listening" and it's a powerful technique. There is no need though to sound dry or to avoid fillers when you are "actively listening". It's really not depersonal at all. Your mom was probably trying to comfort you but she failed to find the right tone.
The responses need to scale with the level of the kid. A response that is fine for teaching a 4-year-old to recognize their emotions might end up sounding scripted and pro forma to an 11-year-old.
Step #1 in this kind of conversation is to listen attentively to the other person. Trying to acknowledge someone’s feelings is much better than denying or ignoring them, but if the kid is obviously getting frustrated/annoyed at the response, then the parent needs to adjust what they are saying and doing. (Yes, this is hard.)
In particular, if the kid is very heatedly angry and the parent calmly tells them “it sounds like you are upset”, that can be incredibly frustrating. If the mom had said “Your teacher must have really pissed you off!” (or whatever) the kid might have felt more understood and been willing to elaborate.
Sounds like she was using it as a technique to calm you down/try ad change how you feel (best intentions manipulation) vs a way to understand you and be close with you.
The words by themselves can feel empty and patronizing.
The example doesn't sound manipulative at all. It sounds like she's calling attention to the underlying emotion that's driving her child to hate the teacher. Being able to recognize that is key to actually understanding why you do things. Hate is not an emotion, it's an evaluation of the teacher, and to behave like an adult you need to recognize why you have that evaulation.
I disagree. The example sounded like an attempt to manipulate the emotion by providing a mechanical response. It sounds a bit like a memorized technique applied without the underlying alignment necessary for true empathy.
NVC practice aims connection, not changing the other person’s emotional state. Thus the term manipulationnin my response.
Sure, restating what someone just told you about how they are feeling "What I hear you saying is ..." can start to sound mechanical.
But consider the alternative: most people never actually get any acknowledgement of their thoughts and feelings. They are fully expecting to just be ignored and responded to with the argument that the other party was building in their head while they were talking.
The Mom was preparing GGGP to expect people to give a sh*t when he speaks, he just hasn't realized it yet.
Again, I disagree. The owner of the emotional response is fully qualified to judge it. Dismissing this as “not getting it yet” is not something I agree with or let slide.
His own response was annoyance and disappointment with the mechanical approach. He did not experience connection and he did not feel understanding. That’s pretty much the perfect example of empty words vs true connection.
NVC is often taught in a quite cerebral way which indeed may result in “proper nvc structure” conversations which are unfortunately emotionally disconnected and thus patronizing because they lack emotional alignment.
When I teach NVC I focus on finding a sincere space of care which always starts with self empathy. I was taqught as a language practice but I find it most productive to teach it as a body/emotional/somatic/language practice as the language becomes fake without full alignment.
Empathy as defined by M.R. In his nvc work is “I know what’s alive in you and you know that I know.” That’s it. There’s no other outcome.
Many business use fake empathy as manipulation. There’s no sincere interest in understanding, just a technique to try and make people less mad. South park’s skit on Comcast workers was spot on with this.
NVC has been a game-changer for me, not only in terms of my relationship with my partner, but my relationship with myself. Not only does it allow someone to communicate more effectively, it allows someone to be way more conscious of what they need and that they are ultimately responsible for meeting those needs.
It definitely requires actual practice though. It is a skill to be grown, not just knowledge to be acquired or memorized.
The video linked at the bottom of the article doesn't work for me ("the video is unavailable <mock concern face>"). Is this a regional thing (I'm in the UK), or is it broken for everyone?
Expressing our feelings is powerful way to connect with people, by helping to create empathic attunement.
Forming a connection is critical when communicating in a difficult situation. It might seem like 'fluff', but I believe it's what separates the mediocre and great communicators. Sadly, logic is rarely enough.
What I always say is "speak what you know" in a confrontational situation. It is an authentic way of communicating that opens up conversations. For example, I can say that "I feel frustrated when you show up to the meeting 10 minutes late." instead of "You are so disorganized that you never show up to the meetings on time." The truth is what I know is my feelings and what I don't know is what is going on in their world.
>What's the purpose of expressing the feeling? It seems like it's there only to underline the urgency of the unmet needs.
You answered the question. The NVC answer is that it's just a pattern of human behavior. If you speak only to the feelings and not the needs, you get labeled as sensitive. If you speak only to the needs, you get labeled as needy. If you speak to both, you are connecting the dots. People are more likely to empathize and help.
>At the same time, it implies an emotional investment in the issue at hand, which I would see either as unnecessary or insincere in a work environment.
An important point I read in a non-NVC communications book: If people are getting upset at work (raised voices, venting, whatever), emotions are very much at play. So why pretend they're not there? If people will insist on putting a pretense of objectivity without putting the feelings on the table, usually problems will not get solved well.
Also, avoiding talking about emotions leads to the annoying artefact where the person starts invoking all kinds of principles, appeals to authority, morality, etc to justify their stance. These are all less effective than simply expressing their feelings. They often devolve to arguments on which principles the team should follow, etc. It's a lot easier to disagree to an objective standard than it is to tell someone their feelings are invalid (yes, yes, we all know someone who does it, but it is not the norm).
It also leads to a lot of "should" phrases. "An employee should..." "A manager should..." "It is the responsibility of a ... to ..." "The customer should ..." "A programmer should ..."
All of these statements have poor effectiveness. I've explained it in another comment, but on occasion I've told people that should is not in my vocabulary. They need to explain why they need something and not just hide behind "shoulds".
>Thought: ‘I feel that you aren’t taking this seriously.’
>Emotion: ‘I feel frustrated.’
I definitely agree that the "emotional" way of looking at this statement is better. The "thought" here is accusatory and puts the other person on the defensive. Moreover, like the article says, saying the person is not taking things seriously is just an evaluation of their actions; you don't know that its true, you don't know how the other person feels and its not good to tell them how they feel. That evaluation is based on how YOU feel, so its more honest to just share that than your own theory on how someone else feels.
In other words, it helps get past your own assumptions about people and deal with what you actually know.
The example starts from the point of "let's express an emotion", and shows two sentences, right and wrong. Without trying to say "I feel", while following the other steps, there's no opportunity to even make the mistake of choosing the "wrong" one. That's why I asked why the article bothers describing step 2. at all.
I agree that evaluating the actions of the other person is not useful for resolving the problem, but the article also doesn't provide a justfication for sharing my own feelings (thank you BeetleB for shining some light).
Personally, if someone from the management told me "I feel X", I would completely discount it, because first, I don't care, and second, they have an incentive to be dishonest if it reduces the trouble they have to deal with.
Well, essentially everybody has emotions unless you don't really care about the outcome of a discussion. Expressing those emotions is often considered unprofessional. Nevertheless, most people act in conformance with their emotions (even if they don't express them). So in fact, not talking about the emotional state would be insincere (as it exists and affects what everybody is doing).
Articulating your own emotional state gives the other person a better chance to evaluate your perspective. Furthermore, even if it might look like you don't really care about the topic as you act detached, you can show that you have rather strong feelings too, but keep them in control to stay constructive and professional.
It's funny because few things make me seethe like someone talking to me in this way during a high stress moment. The artifice is transparent and if the conversation is tense the tone is quite easy to read as condescension. I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, just that when done poorly it's worse than simply being direct.
>To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
>To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, would you mind getting back to me with responses to my questions in the last update?’
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
I have two problems with them. They're pretty passive aggressive and focus on feelings instead of consequences. Going one by one:
>To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
It gets the problem wrong. It's very unlikely the problem is a lack of opportunity for co-founders to provide one on one feedback. The solution is one that no one really wants and wouldn't fix the issue. The problem is the co-founder poorly choosing words and poorly choosing the venue to deliver them. I also don't think it focuses on the right negative consequence. The negative consequence is being undermined in front of subordinates. Not to mention the relationship dynamics. Co-founders should be equal and it's not really the place of one to be "not happy" with the other's work.
I'd say something like:
‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate. I want us to be able to give each other feedback, but it's important that it happens at the appropriate time and respectfully.
>To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, would you mind getting back to me with responses to my questions in the last update?’
This one is a bit odd because typically updates don't require responses. That aside, if it's something you need input on:
"Can you please weigh in on X? We can't do Y without your go ahead and it's causing Z problems. I understand that you have a lot on your plate, but this is important and we need an answer by next week."
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
> >To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
> This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
+1 to this. I get the point that the OP was trying to make and think it's valid, but the specific phrasing provided would likely cause more harm than good in many cases. Specifically, it comes across more as "you better come up with a good excuse or you're in trouble" than "I care about you and hope everything is OK, and am here to help if there's a fixable problem at the root of your lateness".
I don’t get it. There are two (harsh! Direct!) statements, followed by a relatively low-emotional-intensity question. So the “these should be statements” angle doesn’t make any sense to me, they’re already statements. Are you expecting people to just say “cut it out”, with no conversational room for a discussion?
I think it’s true that many people would prefer to get scolded in silence, but in actual fact, what the other people involved in a rude behavior that needs to stop need, is for you to discuss it with them. If there’s a need for discussion, I don’t see how this approach would cause more harm than alternative ways of insisting that the rude person discuss their rudeness.
>I don’t get it. There are two (harsh! Direct!) statements, followed by a relatively low-emotional-intensity question. So the “these should be statements” angle doesn’t make any sense to me, they’re already statements. Are you expecting people to just say “cut it out”, with no conversational room for a discussion?
Depends on the situation. A reliable employee that suddenly starts showing up late would get the "Is everything ok?" talk. A perpetually late employee on there last strike would get the "cut it out" talk without a lot of need for discussion. The point is that you need to pick one. A "cut the crap but is everything ok?" message doesn't work.
Depends on how you deliver the lines. I can easily imagine saying this with sincerity and without anger. It sticks to facts, it doesn't make any judgments about them or their intent, it invites them to share their side of the story.
It is also pretty direct and far from passive-aggressive behavior in my opinion.
>It is also pretty direct and far from passive-aggressive behavior in my opinion.
The message is "Stop being late for meetings because it's making the team ineffecient". That's an 'aggresive' statement but you're delivering it in a 'passive' way because it makes it look like you're asking to see if everything is ok.
If you want to deliver the "Stop being late" message then say that.
If you want to ask what's going on, then do it without pointing out the problems they are causing.
Agreed, and I think an unintended consequence of 'focusing on feelings' is that it basically ensures that future interactions will also be all about feelings. (ie. we get more of what we reward)
As an aside: Early in my career I had a manager who was really tough. He was quick to point out problems and was very direct in his language. At first I hated it and was fairly intimidated by him. However I noticed a few things: It was never personal, no personal language was used. It was always factual and consequential. Second, he was good a making decisions and sticking with them. In the end I enjoyed working with him because I knew were he stood on virtually every issue, so it was easy to adjust my work to his expectations.
Next in my career, I worked for a very very different manager. She was very nice, but passive aggressive. That was actually not much of a problem, but her biggest fault is she didn't like making decisions. She would refuse to commit and want everything to be as fluid as possible. In the end, I hated my time there. I normally felt that any meeting with her was totally pointless because she refused to produce any actionable decisions from the meeting. It may sound like a dream job to some to have a boss that "never tells me what to do", but after a year or so it becomes a soul-grinding nightmare.
>It gets the problem wrong. It's very unlikely the problem is a lack of opportunity for co-founders to provide one on one feedback. The solution is one that no one really wants and wouldn't fix the issue. The problem is the co-founder poorly choosing words and poorly choosing the venue to deliver them. I also don't think it focuses on the right
I don't know - to me that was clear from the statement.
>When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate.
This is what NVC calls an evaluation. The other person can simply disagree about it undermining the authority.
There's a reason negotiations books (not just NVC) emphasize talking about how you felt. It is because few ordinary people would deny your feelings. The cofounder is not going to jump in and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed". It is, however, very easy for them to say "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined."
Also, your phrasing is clearly blame oriented. That'll automatically set up the defenses.
>Co-founders should be equal and it's not really the place of one to be "not happy" with the other's work.
Even before I read the NVC book, I started telling people "should is not in my vocabulary" (I told my last manager this). And not surprisingly, it's a "forbidden" word in NVC (with a few exceptions, of course). In my experience, should statements make conversations go downhill. Should is often a lazy word. It is often used as an excuse not to explain something. My former manager had a habit of "The team should ..." and "An employee should ...". The team often disagreed, but without her giving a well thought out rationale that people could discuss, there were just should statements. It is intellectually lazy.
(And of course, in reality, many cofounding relationships are not equal).
>I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
I'm surprised you say this, given how often I've been through this and observed managers go through this. One of my former bosses had a meeting with our team and a team across the globe who dialed in (one meeting with all of us in the "room"). Few people from our team attended. So after a few weeks, instead of expressing frustration, he said he noticed many people weren't attending, and inquired as to why. And he did get variants of "waste of my time", but since he was inviting in his query instead of complaining, he got valuable feedback on why it was a waste of time. As a result, he alone met with the remote team, and then would summarize the outcomes of the meeting to our team during one of our other meetings. It also allowed for a better time for the remote team since there were fewer people to satisfy.
There have been plenty of times where using the NVC style for people who are late to meetings has resulted in fruitful outcomes. Sometimes the person who is late has stuff going on with his health, and we move the time to accommodate his medical needs. In my experience, telling someone he is always late and needs to shape up under these circumstances will usually mean he will never express why he is late.
>This is what NVC calls an evaluation. The other person can simply disagree about it undermining the authority.
>There's a reason negotiations books (not just NVC) emphasize talking about how you felt. It is because few ordinary people would deny your feelings. The cofounder is not going to jump in and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed". It is, however, very easy for them to say "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined."
It's true that people are less likely to openly disagree with your feelings but that doesn't mean they agree with you. So yes, a person is unlikely to say "No, you did not feel embarrassed" but that doesn't change that they're actually thinking "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined". It depends on what your goal is. In a negotiation you want them to sign the deal and you don't really care about their true feelings. With a co-founder relationship you want them to express their true feelings. The point isn't to manipulate them into doing what you want. The point is to get to the root of the issue and resolve it.
>So after a few weeks, instead of expressing frustration, he said he noticed many people weren't attending, and inquired as to why.
So he didn't do what the article said he should do:
"I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency."
I'm confused about what you are saying, because the word "undermined" was introduced by you. The article suggests saying
> ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
Are you suggesting that the other party would think "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined"? If so it sounds like it would be an evaluation on their part, and I guess it would be dealt with as such.
It sounds like you're missing the point entirely. I think you have a lot to learn from this style of communication.
>I'd say something like: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate. I want us to be able to give each other feedback, but it's important that it happens at the appropriate time and respectfully.
Okay, but that's very similar to the way it's originally phrased, but it makes a mistake because your definitions of "undermines my authority" and "inappropriate" might differ from those of your cofounder. By using the universal needs of trust and recognition, you avoid that miscommunication. Your cofounder might ask in response, "How was that inappropriate? I didn't think it was." What do you reply? "It didn't meet my needs of trust and recognition"?
>Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
I think this analysis shows your problem most clearly. The problem is communicated (with statements, even!): the teammate was 10 minutes late three times and it is negatively impacting team efficiency. The question at the end is purposeful, and to just assume that you already know the answer completely defeats the purpose of communicating. YES, the answer should be honest! Maybe there's a legitimate unknown problem. Asking a question instead of making another statement would clear this up. And if the answer is "I think these meetings are a waste of my time", that's even more valuable! You can then communicate about how to waste less time, whether that's changing the style or frequency of the meetings, excusing that particular person from the meeting, or canceling it all together.
Your analysis of these examples is just baffling to me. Complete backwards and missing the point.
I don’t think your definition of passive aggressive matches with mine. None of those engagements read as even slightly passive aggressive to me.
Passive aggression is about saying one thing, but doing something that doesn’t match your words. All of these examples are about stating what you perceive as facts, then stating what you’d like to go differently.
I think many people use “passive aggressive” to mean “you said something in a way/tone/phrasing that irritated me”, and by that definition, I can imagine anyone getting annoyed by any of these: the recipient is being put in an uncomfortable position.
But being put in an uncomfortable position is the whole point, here; the situation demands it.
I’m very receptive to the idea that NVC has an emotional tone that frustrates people, but I think it’s very inaccurate to call it passive aggressive.
It's passive aggressive if the person doesn't really give a shit about the underlying cause and just wants the tardiness to stop. Putting on fake empathy is disgusting. If they actually do care that's great and hopefully it comes across as genuine.
I supported my girlfriend throughout her grad studies to become a therapist. A huge part of her studies were in NVC. Even though I didn't go to school with her, I spent a lot of time with her classmates.
Nearly everyone's conclusion, after 3 years of being deeply embedded in NVC, was that they hated it. And for the same reasons you describe.
That's not really a reasonable question to ask. Even if I were still connected with those people, I'd have no idea how to rank their skills as professional therapists?
I can, however, speak to my girlfriend's skills. She's incredible. And when she talks about NVC, she's far less charitable than OP.
It's only after you have a few big unrecoverable screwups in life, will some of this stuff make more sense.
You are better off being aware and not understanding its value, than not being aware at all of NVC.
Once you hit an issue where you find yourself automatically avoiding things, attacking someone or defending yourself and producing all kinds of misery, just remind yourself that there is another tool available. And then pick up the book. You will find value.
^ This is what NVC does. Notice how this person is attempting to sound authentic, genuine, helpful, and hopeful.
But also notice that they are very subtly positioning themselves as someone who has learned some Very Big Life Lessons, whereas who they are talking to has not. And then they close off. With small sentences. For. Dramatic. Effect.
I'm not sure I follow. From my minimal understanding NVC is about expressing how things make one feel rather than telling someone else the direction in which their life will go. kodz4's comment didn't mention the word "I" and was all about "you". Thus I don't see what it has to do with NVC at all. Can you explain?
It was about NVC because that was explicitly the subject. It doesn't use NVC (which isn't really applicable to the context), though; the grandparent's reasoning seems to be:
1. kodz4 is advocating NVC
2. kodz4 is being arrogant and condescending;
3. Therefore, NVC makes you arrogant and condescending,
4. And so, finally, you should reject the recommendation to use NVC.
I think I understand what they were saying above, and I don't think it's the interpretation that dragonwriter makes in a sibling comment.
They weren't saying that kodz4 was using NVC. They were saying that the problem they have with NVC is that it has the potential to come off the same way that kodz4's comment has the potential to come off.
They were saying that kodz4's comment felt disingenuous to them because it asserts their opinion that NVC is good by stating it as fact, and that they would eventually realize this "fact" only once they have "a few big unrecoverable screwups in life" (thereby implying that since they don't like NVC, the only explanation is that they have never experienced such things in life).
The implication is that the reason for their disagreement on the value of NVC is because those who value it have learned more from life than those who don't value NVC.
And yet, the comment is worded empathetically, starting with, "It takes time." And it ends with the advice, "And then pick up the book," which could be interpreted as veiled condescension since it again assumes the person hasn't read the book, because if one knew the information contained in the book, there's no way they could disagree.
It re-frames the discussion of two alternate opinions, as an assumption of fact versus "haven't yet learned the fact." This is disingenuous, since it assumes one side must have more information than the other, instead of acknowledging the possibility that each side just has different information.
And I think they were simply saying that this disingenuous re-framing of discussions to further one's own goals or opinions in hopes the other side doesn't recognize the disingenuous re-framing of the discussion, is something that NVC and kotz4's comment had in common.
In the same way that the person using NVC may not be doing it disingenuously though, so to might kodz4 realize they're treating their own opinion as a fact. But that may also be the problem with such forms of communication, that they have the potential to be interpreted as disingenuous even when they're not.
I noticed I started taking NVC seriously only after my 'very big life lessons'. I had heard about NVC and never found any great reason to think about it deeply or apply it until my own screw ups. That is all I was trying to convey.
I have the same reading as the other person: that the implication of your comment is people who don’t agree with you are just ignorant.
I too have experienced big, unrecoverable losses: several were caused by manipulative people thinking NVC or similar allowed them to force resolutions to their misconduct by manipulating others’ emotions, while never engaging in direct discussion.
Many of these discussion frameworks are most often used by toxic and manipulative people, so they become associated with that behavior — though the framework itself is neutral to good.
This back and forth actually shows part of what's difficult with applying NVC: when a statement is made, another hidden meaning may be inferred by other participants in the conversation, even if such meaning was not intended or even considered by the speaker. It's worse given that some people specifically do say the same types of things with ulterior motives, so it isn't entirely unreasonable for other people to come to the conclusion that you are doing so as well.
This would work better if both parties practiced NVC, as they may reply with what your comment made them feel and that would help clarify the confusion. But it's going to be hard to find that type of situation given that NVC is not quite that widespread, so the NVC happening on only one side of the conversation truly make it difficult.
So we have to either be very careful with our wording and be aware of all possible misinterpretations, to make sure our wording only says what we want it to say, and/or we have to keep clarifying ourselves until our true meaning is clear and confirm with others what they've understood, which can be awkward. No wonder NVC is hard.
I am not sure whether you are using NVC well or not, but this comment makes you sound like a pompous ass. I suppose thats what you learn by picking up the book you mentioned.
I did not like that in your comment you have assumed your opponent to be less experienced and less aware than you are just because he disagrees with your opinion.
Whoa. Please don't take HN threads further in the direction of personal attack or name-calling, regardless of how bad another comment was or you feel it was. That makes this place worse, both obviously and subtly: obviously because it increases ill will and steers toward flamewar; subtly because it deprives readers of information you might have been able to convey.
If you want to post something like this, the thing to do is not stop with the initial version of the comment but iterate further: take out the personal swipes and replace them with detailed, neutral information about what you noticed. Then we all can learn something. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, but in that case it would be better not to post anything.
I suspect sampling bias. When you're upset, direct confrontation can be upsetting too! NVC isn't a perfect magic trick that always works, but that's not enough reason to dismiss it.
I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted, this is my reading, as well.
People hate being called to task. In many ways it makes it harder for me, in my distress, when the person pointing out my flaws does so in a way that doesn’t leave a lot of room for me to blame others for my failures, or to blame others for my distress.
So the actual experience of NVC (regardless of whether it’s wielded as a subtle tool of manipulation) is often very frustrating.
The only way the recipient of an NVC confrontation will perceive the experience as positive is if the recipient legitimately cares about the person calling them to task, AND also cares about doing better next time.
In the absence of these prerequisites, the recipient will just be annoyed that they weren’t able to get away with whatever they did.
But the recipient’s annoyance doesn’t seem to me like an indictment of the conversational tactic. The point of NVC is to hold people’s feet to the fire; people complaining that having their feet held to the fire is uncomfortable doesn’t seem like a reasonable critique.
Having read through this I think NVC is leveraging power dynamics and social conditioning to leave the victim helpless to fight back. This is essentially something out of a sociopaths tool box.
I went to a course on how to negotiate with people delivered by a hostage negotiator for the (British) police that basically agreed with what you say.
The key they said was to work out what the person's motivation was and then adapt your communication to suit what was appropriate.
The general rule was to (at least appear to) match the emotional intensity of the person you were talking to. If you're negotiating with someone who's ready to jump off a bridge, rational argument and NVC is not as likely to help as an emotional appeal to their underlying concerns.
It's a great balance of story-telling and teaching. He teaches some simple rules then provides examples of how he actually used to practices to get the results he wanted.
Also, none of his suggestions felt fake or pandering. Just small tweaks to how you word and approach things can have a huge impact without necessarily being an expert.
You're right about the tone. If someone has not sincerely committed to believing the NVC framing of the problem is accurate then the tone comes off as incredibly condescending. You have to believe that the emotional component of the issue is a real problem and not just that you're caring about the emotions of other's as a chore to get what you want.
The artifice is absolutely transparent, especially when it comes to business relationships, particularly employer-employee relationships. They are short-termist, interchangeable, and besides, the employer is a psychopath. Everyone has internalized that fact, and then they insist you express your feelings! It doesn't get more preposterous than that.
That's not how I see it. Yes, the employer (the organization) may be psychopath but I am not interacting with an organization while having a difficult conversation. I would be interacting with a manager or a colleague or someone who reports to me. These are human beings who are not psychopath. These are also not short-termist. Sure, we would all change jobs sooner or later but I would sure like to maintain good relationships with them and hopefully work with them again in future. So it makes a lot of sense that while talking to them I talk to them with some empathy which I think they deserve.
I am a huge fan of NVC, and I agree most people are not psychopaths. Unfortunately, organizational structures can be such that decent people are forced to behave like psychopaths, and I don't think that NVC, at least not by itself, can fix that.
What I've found - in high emotion situations people need express that emotion before they start listening, and they need to know that emotion is being heard.
This is tough. Sometimes people need a lot of prodding to start expressing a strong emotion because it invites judgement. It's kind of the end of artifice - 'this is who I am and what I'm really feeling'
Also, I find it exhausting to deal with high emotion.
But once that's over with, folks are more open to hearing the 'feeling statements' and observations.
--------------------
And can't resist old NVC joke -
Person 1 - "I'm really mad! This is so unfair!"
Person 2 - "I FEEL your anger"
Person 1 - "Everything's so chaotic, I don't know what to do!"
Person 2 - "I FEEL your confusion"
Person 1 - "I've got a lot of shit going down in my life!"
Presenting this communication pattern as an effective "one size fits all" method is a pretty bad idea.
You have to "know your audience." This means you need to know your employees, bosses, or colleagues as people and work to understand what motivates them. This is challenging, risky, and requires an opening of the mind to not just understand different psychologies but to accept them as viable alternatives to your own.
NVC communication will be very effective for some and thoroughly ineffective for others, and if you know your audience you'll know which is which.
I'm an example of the latter: I absolutely despise the NVC communication pattern because very few people actually speak like this and when they do so it's an obvious deviation from their status quo. It feels fake because it is, and it feels fake because I know the pattern. It's like when I get "feel/felt/found"[1] from a salesperson...I know what they're doing and it's not going to work.
More than anything, I'd say it feels threatening. I wonder what would happen if an employee said to the founder: "I've noticed this and that. I feel frustrated. I request that you do something. Can you please recap what I just said so it's clear you understood?"
I honestly cannot connect the feel/felt/found with NVC.
>I absolutely despise the NVC communication pattern because very few people actually speak like this and when they do so it's an obvious deviation from their status quo.
After learning NVC, and then observing people who are effective at destressing others in the work place, I've found most speak like this. What's more, while it felt artificial in the book, no one in real life even notices.
>You have to "know your audience." This means you need to know your employees, bosses, or colleagues as people and work to understand what motivates them. This is challenging, risky, and requires an opening of the mind to not just understand different psychologies but to accept them as viable alternatives to your own.
I agree, but the trick is how to get them to be open with you about what is going in their mind, and I think NVC is a good way to get that to happen. But I would also add some people are sociopaths (or are stuck in a situation where they have to act that way), and NVC won't work there.
I absolutely despise the NVC communication pattern because very few people actually speak like this and when they do so it's an obvious deviation from their status quo. It feels fake because it is, and it feels fake because I know the pattern. It's like when I get "feel/felt/found"[1] from a salesperson...I know what they're doing and it's not going to work.
NVC is for when you genuinely want to respect both your own needs and those of the other person, which is not at all true for the salesman case.
It's possible to do NVC well, and it's possible to do it poorly. It makes me wonder if this means that NVC is not inherently more useful. (ie, other methods may of communication may also be useful, and so NVC can't be called an inherent good.)
Someone using NVC can still be forceful and rude. I'm struggling with how to describe this. I suppose all it does it remove unrestrained emotion and moral blame from the interaction. Unrestrained emotion and moral blame are not a given. (ie, they may not be injected into a conversation, even if NVC is not implemented) And further, I suppose, it's possible to push somebody around and refuse to listen to their concerns while employing NVC. For example, under the guise of empathy a boss may "feel" your perfectly valid concern, equivocate it to the concern of others in the room, and then simply ignore your recommendations. It's possible that your recommendation was actually best, but instead of understanding the value of your idea, the boss has simply made sure not to trample your emotions.
I can think of plenty of situations where I don't care if someone tramples my emotions, but I'd be pretty distraught if they adopted a flawed idea, or couldn't understand why one idea was superior and another was inferior.
[edit]
Just to clarify, I think I talked myself into a conclusion I feel comfortable with. Empathy is not inherently useful. An approach that focuses on the feelings a person might demean them (since their feelings are not actually so fragile) while also equivocating all the ideas in the room. (all ideas might not be created equal, but it is necessary to treat everyone -- and their feelings -- with the same respect.)
> I can think of plenty of situations where I don't care if someone tramples my emotions, but I'd be pretty distraught if they adopted a flawed idea, or couldn't understand why one idea was superior and another was inferior.
Almost any situation where we're trying to design a functional solution to a technical problem. I actually used to have a phrase for this: "You can't build a rocket ship with emotions." If my goal were really to successfully build a rocket ship (as noted in the maxim) then I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. Every correction would get us closer to our goal.
Alternately, if someone were interested in empathizing with the team and protecting egos, we might navigate towards a worse solution. One which took into account everyone's feelings, instead of a cold calculation of method and results.
That's an interesting maxim. Do you think NASA ran the Apollo program by ignoring the emotions of everyone on the project? If it didn't, should it have?
I just think this is more of pendulum sort of thing. You can go too far in either direction. If I'm erring at all, it's because I've been in circumstances where a complex project suffered due to social agreement.
But for certain, you could go too far in in the other direction: completely ignoring everyone's emotions.
Specifically, if you're in an environment that's swung too hard in the direction of totally ignoring people's emotions, then my advice probably sounds awful.
You seem to be conflating "delivering criticim" with "hurting feelings", and I don't understand where that's coming from.
Would you be delighted to be proven wrong if for every mistake your boss or peer told you that you were an incompetent idiot who doesn't belong on the team? Would that make you want to do more work? Would that make you feel comfortable proposing an idea that you aren't 100% sure ir correct and already known to your teammates to be correct?
Nothing about respecting teammates and their emotions says you have to accept their pull request.
I think this is a fair criticism, and I agree that if my boss publicly called me out and insulted me, I'd be pretty discouraged. I might not have made my point very well, but I certainly didn't mean to imply that being outright caustic was ok, either. I only meant to say that it's still possible offend and arrive at the wrong decision by employing NVC.
There is no contradiction between the two. You absolutely can emphathize with team and protect egos while also discuss efficacy of solutions or correctness.
It is not even hard. Just keep it factual instead of using words like "stupid", "shitty", "crap" or passive aggressivity. Discuss issues before they become big. Listen when they disagree with your assessment - they might have reasons.
I already met enough people who claim to criticise while actually venting their emotions and settle scores with those they dislike.
> I suppose all it does it remove unrestrained emotion and moral blame from the interaction.
That's not all it does, and is arguably opposed to something important it does. It keeps honest emotion in and displaces the injection of description of “thoughts” that are really rationalizations for emotional responses.
OTOH, in formalized transactional relationships, the assumption of mutual concern for the emotional state of the other that it rests on is not given.
Programming can be done well, or poorly. Speaking English can be done well, or poorly. Agile methodology can be done well, or poorly. Cooking can be done well, or poorly. The possibility that something can be done poorly is not a strong argumetn that the thing should never be done.
Part of communicating is also building a relationship. I should know if you respond to blunt and direct and lean more in that direction when communicating with you.
I have worked on remaining calm in high stress moments. In certain situations it drives my wife nuts that she is stressed/excited and I'm calm looking for a solution. What I learned is to reflect back some of her excitement from a stressful situation, but not quite to her level. This then calms her down.
Is it easy? No. Do I manage to do this 100%? I wish. Is is manipulation? I don't think so. It's building a relationship to better communicate. Too often people think about communication as what I say and not what do people hear and also say.
Glad to see someone else with the same issue. I've never thought about "putting on" a bit of stress as a way to calm her down. I suppose it's because they feel like they're in the wrong for being the only one who is expressing stress/excitement?
I think it might be something about the shared mental state and bonding... maybe releases serotonin and/or oxytocin - kind of a "monkey grooming" type thing.
I noticed this one time when I was in college: I had come home on a break and couldn't relax, I was super stressed out and felt generally bad. I went over my best friend's house down the street, bitched to her about some small stuff that had annoyed me that day, she mirrored me and I INSTANTLY relaxed. I remember it 15 years later because it was such a marked effect.
I don't think it's about feeling wrong, but more if someone is super calm it feels patronizing to the excited person. It is like their emotion or problem is not important.
But...you should be. The entire problem you relate is about NVC as an insincere, indirect tactic (most likely, to avoid an ultimatum in a situation where the speaker isn't seeking mutual understanding and accommodation but submissive compliance.) NVC as a tactic relied on an implicit lie about the relationship which forms the context of the communication.
As a honest tool in a relationship where the parties actually care about each others feeling, NVC is a useful communication tool for addressing that mutual concern. As a tactic in relationships where that isn't a mutual concern, and especially as a top-down tactic in a relationship where the speaker would not have the concern that is being called for in the listener, where it is a passive-aggressive way of framing commands, it's obviously toxic and manipulative.
You know, I was about to write a retort that disagreed vehemently, but I re-read and I think you’ve changed my mind.
In the presence of a power imbalance, combined with a lack of mutual respect, I think you’re absolutely right that NVC style observations are worse than a direct command. If there’s no explanation that would lead me, the more powerful person, to change my mind about the behavior, then offering conversational space for it is disingenuous.
I personally try to avoid situations where my direct managers, or my direct reports, don’t feel mutual respect, so I don’t think a power-imbalance is enough in and of itself to invalidate observation-request style discussions.
As it happens, if there’s no power imbalance, but also no mutual respect, I still tend to prefer NVC style communication; but I’ll admit that’s just a personal choice, it’s just a tool in the toolbox, and I tend to reach for it first, because I like the outcomes better. If my counterparty obviously hates it, “let’s get real” is next in the list.
Nothing poisons my respect for a manager faster than NVC style communication when they’re not actually listening to me, they’re merely trying to manipulate my emotions: it shows a deep contempt for me, as a person, and a view of me as a piece of equipment to be maintained rather than a partner in a collaboration.
Seeing through someone's half-assed attempts to use woo woo management strategy pablum is unquestionably infuriating. They don't have the integrity to just be wrong... they have to wrap it in passive-aggressive management talk. And then they do THAT poorly.
Meanwhile, putting in effort or even naturally just being someone that wants to empathize, find common ground and work towards a compromise is noble. When paired with good communication strategies and frankly when practiced through experience, you end up with highly likeable leaders who are the people you turn to in difficult times.
Don't hate the people who mean well but haven't learned to communicate like a pro. Save your anger for the people who are full of self-serving lies that don't even bother to manipulate you successfully because they don't really care how you feel.
The next time someone deploys Inexperienced Manager 101 aka "the shit sandwich" on you, ask yourself if they are malicious or just ignorant. It could be that they are just trying and failing.
This is a good insight. NVC by itself is insufficient, you must also understand yourself and what you need, and you need to understand that regardless of how the conversation goes, if you do not get what you need, the underlying issue is not addressed and the conversation isn't over.
I was taqught NVc as a quite cerebral language practice but I find it most productive to teach it as a body/emotional/somatic/language practice as the language becomes fake without full alignment.
Ultimately, use it as a tool to move the focus to what’s alive and what’s common in all participants. It is not a negotiation tool or a manipulation tool.
> most likely, to avoid an ultimatum in a situation where the speaker isn't seeking mutual understanding and accommodation but submissive compliance.
THIS IS IT!
This is exactly what the problem is with this bullshit; when it's not actually constructive, it's disingenuous. When you're not trying to come to a better understanding, you're trying to drag someone by the nose, it gives you a way to avoid the actual problem/conversation.
I agree with what the article says about needing a concise opener for a difficult conversation, and for that the madlibs-style script may be useful, but beyond that opener I think more natural language will come off as more genuine. I think the article may be in favor of this as well, as its kind of framed as NVC helping to get a hard conversation started instead of putting off forever.
I think some of that internal seething is because of previous experience where you might have ended up losing control or power and you are able to see through to what might happen if the other party is not truly empathetic (i.e. trying to get towards a common shared goal vs using this tactic as yet another way to get what they want). Unfortunately the conclusion is that it only will work if the other party then handles the subsequent resulting behavior nicely (whatever that "nicely" might mean -- you shouldn't end up feeling having given up or lost something).
I think the one underlying thing that differentiates whether a person sees this as "fake" and ineffective or profound and valuable is one underlying attitude: whether you believe that the other person does or does not genuinely want to help you and whether you genuinely want to help them.
I like to think of NVC a little differently than most people. It is not a tactic or a strategy, it is a reframing of the problem in your own mind. Instead of the thinking "how can I get this person to do what I want" you should instead be thinking "I need something and can this person help me?". One is manipulative, the other is collaborative.
What I have found is that the person you are enlisting for help may actually have a better idea than you on how to solve the problem than you do. But for this to work, you genuinely need to believe that the person on the other side of the table wants to be a good person. If you don't believe that then you tend to see this as a way to manipulate them and it comes across in your words and actions.
I've sort of used NVC, but I put a lampshade on it:
"Look, fuckery abounds, and it's not time to pass judgement because I'm not ready to be hung, drawn and quartered myself. So for now, let's deal with the facts and only the facts: ..."
this a great response to so many situations. avoiding sugar coating turds and fubaridness is key to being a good boss. Acknowledge the fubar situation - let the team chime in - then get back to facts and actions.
I've experienced that artifice too, and it's unsettling. It's as if the NVC is adding an additional layer of inauthenticity on top of regular old inauthenticity.
The real skill, it seems to me, is to be able to know what one is feeling, stay connected to it, and take responsibility for it, especially in high-stress situations. If you can't do that, techniques only make things worse. And if you can do that, maybe you don't need so much technique.
(Not to dismiss NVC though. NVC is very interesting. But I have found it much more interesting and compelling to watch how Rosenberg did it than in the limited cases where I've run across it in the wild.)
NVC isn't a deescalation technique, so its' not that surprising that you've observed that. It is a communication technique, to make sure a message gets through without baggage attached.
In a sense, someone using NVC for deescalation and resorting to the actual formula of Saw [x], felt [Y], request [Z] is likely to not be very good at NVC. People who are really good at that style of communications are going to separate it out so they tell you needs up front, well before you need to know about them, make requests at the moment they want something, and then observations as things become apparent. All 3 at once usually means a surprise has emerged.
There is a pretty basic tell here - it isn't at all obvious why you'd be seething if someone observed a fact, felt strong emotion about it and bought it to your attention, even in a high stress situation. So either you've misinterpreted something (possible) or they aren't communicating - they are pressuring (pretty likely). It isn't called Non-Violent Get People To Do What You Want and trying to use it that way isn't going to work.
Do you have an example of a specific situation in which it felt artificial?
Perhaps I'm missing something, because I'm not familiar with NVC. After reading the article, it seems that having empathy and curiosity are necessary for NVC to work, and if someone doesn't approach it that way, then they aren't really engaging in NVC.
In these comments, there seems to be many people who dislike it, and I'm wondering why. If someone in a powerful position, like my boss, sought me out to discuss something and expressed empathy and wanted to find out why I did something the way I did, I would feel impressed and appreciated.
I'm curious, if NVC goes for indirect instead of direct conversation.
I was working in an American company (I'm German) and had to learn to adapt to the style of being too nice (in my opinion). E.g. an "it might be better to do it like this", wasn't really meant as a weak suggestion, but a strong one. Something completely counterintuitive to my German mindset. I took it as a "might" and was met with negativity that I didn't exactly follow the "suggestion".
I much prefer language being direct at work. Treat the subjunctive as what it is: expressing uncertainty, not politeness.
I know however that many people, especially outside of Germany, prefer the indirect language, even though they learned to understand it with the same meaning as the direct speech.
Memory suggests NVC has some pretty nasty things to say about people who "suggest" things and they later turn out to be orders. Heading 4 of the fine article is the relevant one, bit it actually gets Requests vs. Demands wrong based on the telling of it I heard.
My understanding based on a YouTube video I watched many years ago is that a request is either fulfilled or not fulfilled, and that is the end of it. A demand is backed up by some sort of threat, like threat of a negative reaction. The key was that to distinguish a request from a demand was impossible based on the language used. It was only detectable by the reaction if you don't act on it.
So, ironically "Go get me a beer" can be a request but "do you think it is a good idea to open the window?" might be a demand, depending on what happens on a flat "No".
Nothing in NVC says you have to be nice, and I'm not sure it takes a position on direct or indirect. But a negative response from not following a suggestion is exactly the sort of violence that NVC is trying to avoid.
I definitely prefer the direct style when it comes to features, tasks, and deadlines. If someone is too indirect then they are more likely to bury the lede, not mention the deadline or a critical dependency, etc.
I like your blog but it is very hard to find the chapter 2 review. I noticed other interesting articles but I have to go one by one using http://redgreenrepeat.com/pageXXX/
I would consider having better way to navigate through all your posts.
It's interesting, because I believe as a child we learned a simplistic version of this in elementary school. The basic construct was the "I feel ______, when ______." Obviously, this was for child-level conflict resolution, so unlike the guidance provided in NVC it most likely left it open to making accusations ("I feel hurt when you pull my hair"). But it's possible that children might do better with that sort of directness compared to adults in more complicated situations.
But I have continued to use that approach as a manager and had never heard of NVC before I saw this article. I really appreciated the expanded guidance and a better way to plan the conversation. I also found the section on Consequences to be helpful as well. When you are in an authority position, I believe it is important to help people understand that there might be consequences to their actions or continued in-action.
There seems to be quite some overlap between NVC and I-messages [0], which are constructed in a similar manner:
1. I feel... (Insert feeling word)
2. when... (tell what caused the feeling).
3. I would like... (tell what you want to happen instead). (from [0])
I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have really helped me - in solving conflicts, but also in growing as a person. Because, again purely subjective, my impression is that once you give others your I-messages, they are more likely to also respond with I-messages. Which again helps me to understand others and their needs better.
That said, NVC looks like a great addition, by making things more explicit with those four distinctions (observations vs. evaluations, etc.).
>I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have really helped me - in solving conflicts, but also in growing as a person. Because, again purely subjective, my impression is that once you give others your I-messages, they are more likely to also respond with I-messages. Which again helps me to understand others and their needs better.
I've also found the pattern:
You have [Problem]. Lots of people feel [how you feel] about [Problem]. If I did [X] would it solve [Problem]?
To be helpful in every relationship:
"I get that you're mad that I didn't take out the garbage. The kitchen stinks now and everyone hates that. Do you think it'd help if I added a reminder to my phone?"
My answer to that would be "I don't give a shit what you do, as long as you take out the garbage" and I would _still_ be mad at you (plus annoyed that you asked me for a solution to something that shouldn't be my problem in the first place).
If you read the book you'll notice that I-messages are a rough approximation of the tools. Sometimes I think this summary does more harm than good by presenting it without the richness of the book
I think as a programmer I am not atypical in that I sometimes struggle with empathy or how people reacted to things I said, but NVC gave me a framework to communicate in a healthier way. This wasn't just something that helped at work, it had an enormous effect on my personal life as well and I credit it to having strong relationships now.
I think the only frustrating piece is sometimes dealing with other who have not read (or do not subscribe) to the same philosophies. It can be very trying to respond to attacks with empathy but in the end that's still always the best strategy.
Highly recommended and not just if you are a manager, if you deal with other human beings at all, read it.
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I've also heard good things about "The Art of Hard Conversations: Biblical Tools for the Tough Talks That Matter" [0] and "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" [1].
Can anyone comment on the relative merits of these articles' / books' approaches?
Another interesting idea: apparently, positive motivation (reward) works much better than negative motivation (punishment). Allegedly it's "scientifically proven" (for some definition of "scientifically") which I haven't yet taken the time to research, but I plan to.
I've been thinking about how to apply this in two of the most important areas of interpersonal interaction in our lives, in our careers and in interpersonal relationships. We often discuss on HN why it's difficult in careers (conflicting interests, hard to measure results, under-specified goals, etc.). In relationships, I think the main difficulty is that we enter relationships with so many expectations (i.e. "my partner should love me and spend time with me and give me gifts" or similar) that these can't really be used for positive motivation, instead we interpret the absence of them as negative motivation. One idea I had, though, is to explicitly verbalise rewarding in addition to the actual reward (i.e. instead of just spending time with them, say "I really liked that you did X yesterday" and spend time with them).
It all really depends though. This speaks to concepts like the 5 love languages (time, words, acts, touch, gifts) but words mean nothing to me personally. Words are easy, show me instead. But each person has their own needs and bias.
I know I'm being pedantic here, but in psychology, negative motivation is when you take away something averse as a reward for a certain behavior. Negative here relates to the fact you're negating or removing something to act as motivation, whereas if something is positive, you're adding something (like a treat for a dog). What a lot of people refer to as "negative motivation" is actually positive punishment because you are adding something aversive (like a spanking) in response to a behavior you want to decrease.
It's important to keep this in mind when looking at scientific literature so that you know exactly what they're talking about.
Ah, useful to know. So I guess what my post was about, was preffering to scale the rewards between positive and negative ends of the spectrum, instead of punishment.
Rewards can also backfire. I'm currently reading "Punished by Rewards", by Alfie Kohn, which spells out all the ways in which rewards are counterproductive. Interestingly enough, I found this book via Marshall Rosenberg's book on non-violent communication, in which Marshall urges us not to use rewards as a means to manipulate others (and not to use punishments for that purpose either of course).
Interesting... Yeah, I didn't mean "manipulate", more to observe the behaviour that we would do naturally (e.g. things like praise, expressing anger, ignoring someone when we're dissatisfied with their behaviour, promotions, etc.) and shifting most of the "punishment"-type responses into "reward"-type responses.
Can that (i.e. non-manipulative rewarding behaviour) still backfire? Probably, although I'm then not sure what the solution is... to influence reality and your own well-being, you have act, and even the most fail-safe behaviour (like not spending time with a person anymore) is described by the above framework (i.e. it's a type of punishment), and furthermore it's not always possible (e.g. with children, or if you want a job and a relationship, most people seem to).
Using the word "manipulate" might carry too heavy a negative connotation than you might be used to ascribing to rewards, but if you strip the connotations from the word, it's clear that rewards expressly manipulate others. "Do this and I'll give you that" is explicitly a way of affecting others' actions by providing external motivation. It is an attempt to control others behaviors (this is meant plainly, not necessarily judging whether trying to exercise such control is bad).
The intention behind the reward might not even be to control, but unfortunately that doesn't change that that it does do control even if inadvertently. Yes, according to Alfie Kohn, such rewards, even innocent seeming things like praise, can indeed backfire.
Marshall Rosenberg had this question: When someone does something that you want them to do, what reason would you like for them doing that thing? Would you like them to do it purely due to the reward (or fear of the withdrawal of the reward, which is functionally a punishment)? Or would you like them to do it because they themselves see the value in it and are self-motivated?
This is not to say that rewards have no place in life, just that they are a tool that should be carefully considered, and to understand that they will not solve most problems and may make things worse sometimes.
The alternative to rewarding or punishing others involves working with them in a less coercive fashion. But that's hard, and I don't know that there's a ready answer for what exactly to do in each situation. NVC could help sometimes.
I prefer the actual title of the article (How to Deliver Constructive Feedback rather than A guide to difficult conversations); a difficult conversation could be about anything and the object of the article seems very vague, whereas delivering feedback is something most of us would have to do and so is something of interest (and is more precise). I nearly didn't read the article because of this, which would have been a shame since it was an interesting read.
I have a feeling people will read this blog post and implement it by stating some of those observations are going to come across really passive aggressive.
Some of the things in there are incredibly condescending and foster ambiguity. For example, the observation "three of the numbers in your report were inaccurate" is an observation of a mistake made, which people do. It only means "you are sloppy" if it's a regular occurrence without signs of improvement. Using that as a stand in for "you are sloppy" is itself sloppy, and also lazy and unhelpful.
I don't think that the "observations vs evaluations" section was literally suggesting replacing the evaluation line with its corresponding observation line.
OK, but that's not a problem with NVC. "You are sloppy" is an evaluation. An observation would be "the reports you produce consistently have errors" or something like that.
Isn’t that the point tho? It’s very confrontational and generalizing to say “your numbers are always wrong”. Instead, even if it’s a recurring pattern, stick to hard facts and actual examples you can point to. If there has been a history of issues, the person will identify that pattern themselves, unless they’re a complete idiot. And if they fail to identify that, the next hard conversation to have is “you aren’t excelling here and it’s time for a change”.
The point is to deliver the observation, not the evaluation.
You seem to be saying that those evaluation statements are lazy/unhelpful. And NVC advocates agree! That’s why they recommend observations, not evaluations!
I think the point is to never communicate in evaluations. Observations are not codes for evaluations. Observations force discussion of concrete actions, which have a bunch of benefits over evaluations.
Let's say X and Z are coworkers. Z messed up some report numbers.
X could say "Z, you are sloppy."
Z could easily respond "No I am not, how could you say that?"
By focusing on a concrete example, X and Z can both discuss the actual problem (inaccurate report numbers) instead of bickering about whether or not Z is sloppy.
NVC is also a check on the person initiating the communication.
It's possible X's view of Z as a slob is not based in reality. If X can't find a specific thing, but just thinks Z is a slob, NVC makes it hard for X to say anything until they can point to a specific event/action. It's not perfect (X can just look for the first example that proves their belief) but it does prevent totally baseless claims of "you are a slob."
It's funny, his very first paragraph hints at what I've found to be the most effective way to handle difficult conversations:
"All my biggest regrets as a founder are around not having difficult conversations sooner. I could have helped team members improve faster, fired people with the wrong fit earlier, had so many more productive meetings. I could have created a more open company culture."
"Sooner". Give difficult information out in small bit immediately. Waiting and letting things bottle up only makes it harder. You also build a relationship with the person receiving the bad news of honesty and openness from the get go.
If I'm managing a report that did something wrong, I address it immediately. They get used to me being honest and prompt with my feedback. Addressing a single issue immediately also mean things don't build up and you're not forced to "bundle" bad news together.
Of course you should also do this with positive feedback but I think you'll find that when you regularly and openly address negative issues, it becomes much easier on all parties involved.
Depends on culture and formality of the relationship. I noticed some key differences working with people in the US, Scandinavia, Netherlands, India, Germany, Russia, and other places.
In the US, people will insist everything is awesome and great right until they get fired. Reason, they can be on the street in under 15 minutes and that kind of puts some filters in place. It also means that you need to follow up with some questions to get a real feel for what is going on. A peculiar thing with Indians I've worked with (superiors even) is that they seem reluctant to say no even when they mean to. So if you ask a direct question and you get an evasive answer, more questions are needed.
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 517 ms ] threadHis framework is remarkable because it sets up a non-confrontational approach that lets you speak the truth without hurting or upsetting people. Being able to do that on demand is ... really quite a stunning skill. Certainly more useful than any technical trick I've ever learned.
Communication requires two people to be willing to talk. If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what can I do?
This includes them not listening to me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing to listen (in more, or even fewer words than that).
There is no magic trick to make people do what you want them to do.
> me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing to listen
Well, that attitude isn't going to fix any of your problems. Review the fine article; Heading 1, "Observations vs. evaluations". I might try ask them why what you are saying doesn't seem to provoke much of a response, but honestly you aren't going to get much joy out of an internet forum for solving communication problems.
I want to point out though that you propose "I might try ask them". I want to point out that that would get no response. That is the whole issue which I'm trying to find an "out" for.
Otherwise, tell them that you find that the meetings aren't adding value since you've already exchanged all the info that can be communicated, and excuse yourself.
Odds are pretty good that any problem is building up over a couple of conversations before it manifests, people are usually obviously walking into trouble, sometimes weeks before things get obviously bad. Often a presentation problem (always doing something that does a little damage but isn't important, like 'joking' insults or forcefully characterising the situation), sometimes an attitude problem (it is surprisingly easy to clearly perceive things that are not there, like the situation being extremely positive or negative - there are some unbelievable whingers out there), often an expectations problem (wanting something out of the conversation that just isn't going to be given, like firm commitment to a radical idea).
When I see people who can't get a straight answer, or when it happens to me and I reflect carefully with hindsight, usually it is an expectations problem that leads to other issues. It isn't much fun accepting to that sort of problem though, so bad luck it that fits you. On rare occasions, I've identified expectation problems and then just abandoned a relationship because I don't want to change.
One related addendum I make to the NVC framework is people make all decisions by copying other people who look successful. Expect no exceptions unless proven otherwise.
Frustrating sometimes? Definitely. But it works.
A typical situation would be someone trying to deflect blame by ensuring they have talked to someone else before making a mistake, just so they won't take 100% of the fallout.
Have not tried it, but the NVC book says to keep empathizing (without agreeing) until they stop. I think it works for most people. But for the pathological folks who just ramble on and on and keep changing topics, the book actually has a phrase along the lines of "I'm having trouble connecting with you in this conversation. Would you please ...?" (I don't remember the phrase, but the request is to explain the purpose of the conversation). I have not tried it.
If your concern is they are not listening to you (i.e. you can talk but they don't process it), that's actually very normal. And the solution in the book is to empathize for a while, and then specifically point it out and request they reflect back what you have said to them. Now I can tell you from experience that this needs practice - most ways of saying it will trigger defenses.
At the end (which will come eventually, especially if you only answer with yes and no, so there are no follow up possible) you suggest a great solution for some problem they mention, which you can do because a) you are detached and b) they talked a lot and you had ample time to figure things out...
One thing I would be interested in either from the OP or someone with experience with NVC, is how you recognize when you are being patronizing. Much of this communication style is the artifact of an implied power relationship, where the speaker already has the power, or is asserting power.
In negotiations, there is the idea of appealing to shared principles and interests, and NVC can be a way to depersonalize the issue to focus on that. But the example of handling, "No," with empathy is to directly personalize the issue and address feelings, vs. the negotiation view which would be to ask, "if no, given we agree on X, let's leave my perceived solution aside for a moment and find out how we get X."
I think empathy in business can often be zero sum, where it is just an expression of sympathy for someones lack of power in the situation, that is both psychologically horrible, and destroys value. I call that approach of fabricated empathy "seduce and smother," which is common in organizations today.
This article provides an essential and valuable tool. However, this difference between empathy and principle, is that an accurate interpretation of the distinction?
I use NVC frequently to people with a lot more power than me, and I'd actually suggest NVC is actually about putting yourself (and your needs) on the same level as those of the person your speaking with.
The fundamental premise is that fundamental needs are shared by all humans... and the ideal strategy is one where all needs are met.
So, you can avoid patronising someone by truly seeking to understand the other person's feelings and needs without judgement and taking those needs seriously. Again, easy to say, hard to do.
This is why it's important to be conscientious about spirals of passive aggression with this communication style. Mastering it is mastery, trying is, well, doing it wrong. Great thread.
Examples? I'm struggling to understand how one could "frequently" have to use NVC with "people a lot more power".
Having to do this frequently itself is a problem with the organization, right?
It's patronizing if you have made your mind and only involve others into discussions to get support or ease them into going along and accepting. "I have to do X, I'm here to listen how you feel about X and empathize with you." is not real NVC. "Have to" is denying responsibility to outside conditions.
NVC is best used when you have to do something and have a problem and are willing to communicate it to others as way to learn and find a solutions..
That's a good point. I'm fairly adept at recognizing when someone is trying to negotiate with me based on some kind of taught methodology. Because most of what's taught is counter to how you would do it naturally...thus it stands out.
Once you recognize it, the natural reaction is to feel like you're being manipulated with some technique.
For example, when I did tech support I would occasionally get chat messages from my supervisor along the lines of:
"Hey, I see that you closed out Ticket #XYZ without any resolution or response sent to the requester."
(waits for response)
(waits for response)
(waits for response)
...and it would make me furious, regardless of whatever the situation was.
"The petitioner did not make a request upon which relief can be granted." might set off a snark detector, and "The ticketing system already automatically notifies the requester that their ticket has been closed." might inadvertently imply that the supervisor does not know how to do their job.
> "Hey, I see that you closed out Ticket #XYZ without any resolution or response sent to the requester."
> "yes" / "yup" / "indeed" / "true"
It's an effective way to sidestep having to pay attention until the person comes up with an actual question or request.
Personally, if I'm on the receiving end of that, I'd rather the boss say, "please update this ticket with X and Y" rather than making an "observation." It can't be condescending nor manipulative since that person is plainly exercising their authority. And you can generally resolve problems with an instruction by pointing out that it won't work, or it conflicts with others, etc., which avoids it getting personal.
(This may be why I rarely had these issues in the military, and noticed that many veterans report a great deal of confusion when they get into civilian life because "nobody knows their lane.")
I asked if there was some way I could speak to them that would help them meet their need for freedom. Then we both laughed and the situation defused.
In my current line of work (and previous one, finance), if you cite observations as the main way of communicating, the other person is just going to cut you off and tell you to hurry the fuck up and tell them what they did wrong.
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (just an FYI for next time, no big deal)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (and I am annoyed that I had to deal with the consequences, please ensure it doesn't happen again)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (but I understand the pressure you were under and the volume of work you had, so I don't see it as an ongoing problem)
"3 numbers were inaccurate" (and I see it as part of an ongoing, worrisome pattern of sloppy work coming from you, and I expect you to correct it)
Sometimes the recipient of the message really does need the speaker's evaluation, not just the bare factual observations, to put the message in proper context. "My order took 4 days to arrive" is a lot less useful than "Thanks, my order only took 4 days to arrive" or "I had to wait a whole 4 days for my order to arrive".
Personally, I don't get it either. No one I'm frustrated with seems to understand that if I tell them in an unhurried, matter-of-fact way. They may say that they prefer me to express frustration that way, but it gets no results. I don't see the appeal.
The magic of NVC comes from the recipient empathizing with the person making the request.
I genuinely have no idea what this means. What are you trying to say here? So I can be in any feeling except frustration when I'm conveying that I'm being frustrated? This sounds like snake oil.
And, in fact, people can be different in different scenarios.
In a work scenario I'm going to respond best if you're bringing up something I need to improve in a constructive way, with feedback that is actionable on my part, and doing so fairly dispassionately. "Hey Z. Here's what happened and how/why it was incorrect. Here's how you can make up for it/do better next time. No harm, no foul as long as you do better in this one area and keep rockin' it everywhere else."
But I need my wife to tread more lightly for some reason. Being dispassionate would be perceived by me as uncaring in that scenario.
In my experience there are two types of coworkers: those that respond well to BS (read: couched language) and those that don't. You just have to recognize who is who.
Often a speaker doing this feels that the sheer number of data points makes their strategy (that they will argue for shortly after finishing their list of observations) all but inevitable. People who have interacted with such arguers get understandably defensive when shown a barrage of facts painting them a certain way.
In the presence of a pattern of behavior, one example followed by every means necessary of keeping the offender on your side while building a strategy should be enough if the pattern is real and the offender has good intentions.
As soon as I was old enough to recognize the pattern it became an infuriatingly depersonal way to be talked to. Sometimes the lack of “umm, like, just, kind of, etc.” will reveal speech as inorganic and make the whole thing seem false. After awhile it’s hard to even relate to someone who speaks to you like that as a person.
Step #1 in this kind of conversation is to listen attentively to the other person. Trying to acknowledge someone’s feelings is much better than denying or ignoring them, but if the kid is obviously getting frustrated/annoyed at the response, then the parent needs to adjust what they are saying and doing. (Yes, this is hard.)
In particular, if the kid is very heatedly angry and the parent calmly tells them “it sounds like you are upset”, that can be incredibly frustrating. If the mom had said “Your teacher must have really pissed you off!” (or whatever) the kid might have felt more understood and been willing to elaborate.
The words by themselves can feel empty and patronizing.
NVC practice aims connection, not changing the other person’s emotional state. Thus the term manipulationnin my response.
But consider the alternative: most people never actually get any acknowledgement of their thoughts and feelings. They are fully expecting to just be ignored and responded to with the argument that the other party was building in their head while they were talking.
The Mom was preparing GGGP to expect people to give a sh*t when he speaks, he just hasn't realized it yet.
His own response was annoyance and disappointment with the mechanical approach. He did not experience connection and he did not feel understanding. That’s pretty much the perfect example of empty words vs true connection.
When I teach NVC I focus on finding a sincere space of care which always starts with self empathy. I was taqught as a language practice but I find it most productive to teach it as a body/emotional/somatic/language practice as the language becomes fake without full alignment.
Empathy as defined by M.R. In his nvc work is “I know what’s alive in you and you know that I know.” That’s it. There’s no other outcome.
Many business use fake empathy as manipulation. There’s no sincere interest in understanding, just a technique to try and make people less mad. South park’s skit on Comcast workers was spot on with this.
It definitely requires actual practice though. It is a skill to be grown, not just knowledge to be acquired or memorized.
At the same time, it implies an emotional investment in the issue at hand, which I would see either as unnecessary or insincere in a work environment.
Forming a connection is critical when communicating in a difficult situation. It might seem like 'fluff', but I believe it's what separates the mediocre and great communicators. Sadly, logic is rarely enough.
You answered the question. The NVC answer is that it's just a pattern of human behavior. If you speak only to the feelings and not the needs, you get labeled as sensitive. If you speak only to the needs, you get labeled as needy. If you speak to both, you are connecting the dots. People are more likely to empathize and help.
>At the same time, it implies an emotional investment in the issue at hand, which I would see either as unnecessary or insincere in a work environment.
An important point I read in a non-NVC communications book: If people are getting upset at work (raised voices, venting, whatever), emotions are very much at play. So why pretend they're not there? If people will insist on putting a pretense of objectivity without putting the feelings on the table, usually problems will not get solved well.
Also, avoiding talking about emotions leads to the annoying artefact where the person starts invoking all kinds of principles, appeals to authority, morality, etc to justify their stance. These are all less effective than simply expressing their feelings. They often devolve to arguments on which principles the team should follow, etc. It's a lot easier to disagree to an objective standard than it is to tell someone their feelings are invalid (yes, yes, we all know someone who does it, but it is not the norm).
It also leads to a lot of "should" phrases. "An employee should..." "A manager should..." "It is the responsibility of a ... to ..." "The customer should ..." "A programmer should ..."
All of these statements have poor effectiveness. I've explained it in another comment, but on occasion I've told people that should is not in my vocabulary. They need to explain why they need something and not just hide behind "shoulds".
>Thought: ‘I feel that you aren’t taking this seriously.’
>Emotion: ‘I feel frustrated.’
I definitely agree that the "emotional" way of looking at this statement is better. The "thought" here is accusatory and puts the other person on the defensive. Moreover, like the article says, saying the person is not taking things seriously is just an evaluation of their actions; you don't know that its true, you don't know how the other person feels and its not good to tell them how they feel. That evaluation is based on how YOU feel, so its more honest to just share that than your own theory on how someone else feels.
In other words, it helps get past your own assumptions about people and deal with what you actually know.
I agree that evaluating the actions of the other person is not useful for resolving the problem, but the article also doesn't provide a justfication for sharing my own feelings (thank you BeetleB for shining some light).
Personally, if someone from the management told me "I feel X", I would completely discount it, because first, I don't care, and second, they have an incentive to be dishonest if it reduces the trouble they have to deal with.
Articulating your own emotional state gives the other person a better chance to evaluate your perspective. Furthermore, even if it might look like you don't really care about the topic as you act detached, you can show that you have rather strong feelings too, but keep them in control to stay constructive and professional.
>To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
>To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, would you mind getting back to me with responses to my questions in the last update?’
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
I have two problems with them. They're pretty passive aggressive and focus on feelings instead of consequences. Going one by one:
>To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
It gets the problem wrong. It's very unlikely the problem is a lack of opportunity for co-founders to provide one on one feedback. The solution is one that no one really wants and wouldn't fix the issue. The problem is the co-founder poorly choosing words and poorly choosing the venue to deliver them. I also don't think it focuses on the right negative consequence. The negative consequence is being undermined in front of subordinates. Not to mention the relationship dynamics. Co-founders should be equal and it's not really the place of one to be "not happy" with the other's work.
I'd say something like:
‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate. I want us to be able to give each other feedback, but it's important that it happens at the appropriate time and respectfully.
>To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, would you mind getting back to me with responses to my questions in the last update?’
This one is a bit odd because typically updates don't require responses. That aside, if it's something you need input on:
"Can you please weigh in on X? We can't do Y without your go ahead and it's causing Z problems. I understand that you have a lot on your plate, but this is important and we need an answer by next week."
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
> This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
+1 to this. I get the point that the OP was trying to make and think it's valid, but the specific phrasing provided would likely cause more harm than good in many cases. Specifically, it comes across more as "you better come up with a good excuse or you're in trouble" than "I care about you and hope everything is OK, and am here to help if there's a fixable problem at the root of your lateness".
I think it’s true that many people would prefer to get scolded in silence, but in actual fact, what the other people involved in a rude behavior that needs to stop need, is for you to discuss it with them. If there’s a need for discussion, I don’t see how this approach would cause more harm than alternative ways of insisting that the rude person discuss their rudeness.
Depends on the situation. A reliable employee that suddenly starts showing up late would get the "Is everything ok?" talk. A perpetually late employee on there last strike would get the "cut it out" talk without a lot of need for discussion. The point is that you need to pick one. A "cut the crap but is everything ok?" message doesn't work.
It is also pretty direct and far from passive-aggressive behavior in my opinion.
The message is "Stop being late for meetings because it's making the team ineffecient". That's an 'aggresive' statement but you're delivering it in a 'passive' way because it makes it look like you're asking to see if everything is ok.
If you want to deliver the "Stop being late" message then say that.
If you want to ask what's going on, then do it without pointing out the problems they are causing.
Agreed, and I think an unintended consequence of 'focusing on feelings' is that it basically ensures that future interactions will also be all about feelings. (ie. we get more of what we reward)
As an aside: Early in my career I had a manager who was really tough. He was quick to point out problems and was very direct in his language. At first I hated it and was fairly intimidated by him. However I noticed a few things: It was never personal, no personal language was used. It was always factual and consequential. Second, he was good a making decisions and sticking with them. In the end I enjoyed working with him because I knew were he stood on virtually every issue, so it was easy to adjust my work to his expectations.
Next in my career, I worked for a very very different manager. She was very nice, but passive aggressive. That was actually not much of a problem, but her biggest fault is she didn't like making decisions. She would refuse to commit and want everything to be as fluid as possible. In the end, I hated my time there. I normally felt that any meeting with her was totally pointless because she refused to produce any actionable decisions from the meeting. It may sound like a dream job to some to have a boss that "never tells me what to do", but after a year or so it becomes a soul-grinding nightmare.
I don't know - to me that was clear from the statement.
>When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate.
This is what NVC calls an evaluation. The other person can simply disagree about it undermining the authority.
There's a reason negotiations books (not just NVC) emphasize talking about how you felt. It is because few ordinary people would deny your feelings. The cofounder is not going to jump in and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed". It is, however, very easy for them to say "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined."
Also, your phrasing is clearly blame oriented. That'll automatically set up the defenses.
>Co-founders should be equal and it's not really the place of one to be "not happy" with the other's work.
Even before I read the NVC book, I started telling people "should is not in my vocabulary" (I told my last manager this). And not surprisingly, it's a "forbidden" word in NVC (with a few exceptions, of course). In my experience, should statements make conversations go downhill. Should is often a lazy word. It is often used as an excuse not to explain something. My former manager had a habit of "The team should ..." and "An employee should ...". The team often disagreed, but without her giving a well thought out rationale that people could discuss, there were just should statements. It is intellectually lazy.
(And of course, in reality, many cofounding relationships are not equal).
>I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
I'm surprised you say this, given how often I've been through this and observed managers go through this. One of my former bosses had a meeting with our team and a team across the globe who dialed in (one meeting with all of us in the "room"). Few people from our team attended. So after a few weeks, instead of expressing frustration, he said he noticed many people weren't attending, and inquired as to why. And he did get variants of "waste of my time", but since he was inviting in his query instead of complaining, he got valuable feedback on why it was a waste of time. As a result, he alone met with the remote team, and then would summarize the outcomes of the meeting to our team during one of our other meetings. It also allowed for a better time for the remote team since there were fewer people to satisfy.
There have been plenty of times where using the NVC style for people who are late to meetings has resulted in fruitful outcomes. Sometimes the person who is late has stuff going on with his health, and we move the time to accommodate his medical needs. In my experience, telling someone he is always late and needs to shape up under these circumstances will usually mean he will never express why he is late.
>There's a reason negotiations books (not just NVC) emphasize talking about how you felt. It is because few ordinary people would deny your feelings. The cofounder is not going to jump in and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed". It is, however, very easy for them to say "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined."
It's true that people are less likely to openly disagree with your feelings but that doesn't mean they agree with you. So yes, a person is unlikely to say "No, you did not feel embarrassed" but that doesn't change that they're actually thinking "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined". It depends on what your goal is. In a negotiation you want them to sign the deal and you don't really care about their true feelings. With a co-founder relationship you want them to express their true feelings. The point isn't to manipulate them into doing what you want. The point is to get to the root of the issue and resolve it.
>So after a few weeks, instead of expressing frustration, he said he noticed many people weren't attending, and inquired as to why.
So he didn't do what the article said he should do:
"I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency."
> ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
Are you suggesting that the other party would think "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined"? If so it sounds like it would be an evaluation on their part, and I guess it would be dealt with as such.
>I'd say something like: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate. I want us to be able to give each other feedback, but it's important that it happens at the appropriate time and respectfully.
Okay, but that's very similar to the way it's originally phrased, but it makes a mistake because your definitions of "undermines my authority" and "inappropriate" might differ from those of your cofounder. By using the universal needs of trust and recognition, you avoid that miscommunication. Your cofounder might ask in response, "How was that inappropriate? I didn't think it was." What do you reply? "It didn't meet my needs of trust and recognition"?
>Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
I think this analysis shows your problem most clearly. The problem is communicated (with statements, even!): the teammate was 10 minutes late three times and it is negatively impacting team efficiency. The question at the end is purposeful, and to just assume that you already know the answer completely defeats the purpose of communicating. YES, the answer should be honest! Maybe there's a legitimate unknown problem. Asking a question instead of making another statement would clear this up. And if the answer is "I think these meetings are a waste of my time", that's even more valuable! You can then communicate about how to waste less time, whether that's changing the style or frequency of the meetings, excusing that particular person from the meeting, or canceling it all together.
Your analysis of these examples is just baffling to me. Complete backwards and missing the point.
Passive aggression is about saying one thing, but doing something that doesn’t match your words. All of these examples are about stating what you perceive as facts, then stating what you’d like to go differently.
I think many people use “passive aggressive” to mean “you said something in a way/tone/phrasing that irritated me”, and by that definition, I can imagine anyone getting annoyed by any of these: the recipient is being put in an uncomfortable position.
But being put in an uncomfortable position is the whole point, here; the situation demands it.
I’m very receptive to the idea that NVC has an emotional tone that frustrates people, but I think it’s very inaccurate to call it passive aggressive.
Nearly everyone's conclusion, after 3 years of being deeply embedded in NVC, was that they hated it. And for the same reasons you describe.
I know programmers how hated parts of school and are bad programmers. And some who are great programmers...
I can, however, speak to my girlfriend's skills. She's incredible. And when she talks about NVC, she's far less charitable than OP.
It's only after you have a few big unrecoverable screwups in life, will some of this stuff make more sense.
You are better off being aware and not understanding its value, than not being aware at all of NVC.
Once you hit an issue where you find yourself automatically avoiding things, attacking someone or defending yourself and producing all kinds of misery, just remind yourself that there is another tool available. And then pick up the book. You will find value.
But also notice that they are very subtly positioning themselves as someone who has learned some Very Big Life Lessons, whereas who they are talking to has not. And then they close off. With small sentences. For. Dramatic. Effect.
See how wise they are?
1. kodz4 is advocating NVC
2. kodz4 is being arrogant and condescending;
3. Therefore, NVC makes you arrogant and condescending,
4. And so, finally, you should reject the recommendation to use NVC.
They weren't saying that kodz4 was using NVC. They were saying that the problem they have with NVC is that it has the potential to come off the same way that kodz4's comment has the potential to come off.
They were saying that kodz4's comment felt disingenuous to them because it asserts their opinion that NVC is good by stating it as fact, and that they would eventually realize this "fact" only once they have "a few big unrecoverable screwups in life" (thereby implying that since they don't like NVC, the only explanation is that they have never experienced such things in life).
The implication is that the reason for their disagreement on the value of NVC is because those who value it have learned more from life than those who don't value NVC.
And yet, the comment is worded empathetically, starting with, "It takes time." And it ends with the advice, "And then pick up the book," which could be interpreted as veiled condescension since it again assumes the person hasn't read the book, because if one knew the information contained in the book, there's no way they could disagree.
It re-frames the discussion of two alternate opinions, as an assumption of fact versus "haven't yet learned the fact." This is disingenuous, since it assumes one side must have more information than the other, instead of acknowledging the possibility that each side just has different information.
And I think they were simply saying that this disingenuous re-framing of discussions to further one's own goals or opinions in hopes the other side doesn't recognize the disingenuous re-framing of the discussion, is something that NVC and kotz4's comment had in common.
In the same way that the person using NVC may not be doing it disingenuously though, so to might kodz4 realize they're treating their own opinion as a fact. But that may also be the problem with such forms of communication, that they have the potential to be interpreted as disingenuous even when they're not.
I too have experienced big, unrecoverable losses: several were caused by manipulative people thinking NVC or similar allowed them to force resolutions to their misconduct by manipulating others’ emotions, while never engaging in direct discussion.
Many of these discussion frameworks are most often used by toxic and manipulative people, so they become associated with that behavior — though the framework itself is neutral to good.
This would work better if both parties practiced NVC, as they may reply with what your comment made them feel and that would help clarify the confusion. But it's going to be hard to find that type of situation given that NVC is not quite that widespread, so the NVC happening on only one side of the conversation truly make it difficult.
So we have to either be very careful with our wording and be aware of all possible misinterpretations, to make sure our wording only says what we want it to say, and/or we have to keep clarifying ourselves until our true meaning is clear and confirm with others what they've understood, which can be awkward. No wonder NVC is hard.
If you want to post something like this, the thing to do is not stop with the initial version of the comment but iterate further: take out the personal swipes and replace them with detailed, neutral information about what you noticed. Then we all can learn something. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, but in that case it would be better not to post anything.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Yes, there are better options, but most people are manually copy/pasting files into backup folders before making big changes.
People hate being called to task. In many ways it makes it harder for me, in my distress, when the person pointing out my flaws does so in a way that doesn’t leave a lot of room for me to blame others for my failures, or to blame others for my distress.
So the actual experience of NVC (regardless of whether it’s wielded as a subtle tool of manipulation) is often very frustrating.
The only way the recipient of an NVC confrontation will perceive the experience as positive is if the recipient legitimately cares about the person calling them to task, AND also cares about doing better next time.
In the absence of these prerequisites, the recipient will just be annoyed that they weren’t able to get away with whatever they did.
But the recipient’s annoyance doesn’t seem to me like an indictment of the conversational tactic. The point of NVC is to hold people’s feet to the fire; people complaining that having their feet held to the fire is uncomfortable doesn’t seem like a reasonable critique.
The key they said was to work out what the person's motivation was and then adapt your communication to suit what was appropriate.
The general rule was to (at least appear to) match the emotional intensity of the person you were talking to. If you're negotiating with someone who's ready to jump off a bridge, rational argument and NVC is not as likely to help as an emotional appeal to their underlying concerns.
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-De...
It's a great balance of story-telling and teaching. He teaches some simple rules then provides examples of how he actually used to practices to get the results he wanted.
Also, none of his suggestions felt fake or pandering. Just small tweaks to how you word and approach things can have a huge impact without necessarily being an expert.
Which is also a tool used by narcissists, if I remember correctly.
This is tough. Sometimes people need a lot of prodding to start expressing a strong emotion because it invites judgement. It's kind of the end of artifice - 'this is who I am and what I'm really feeling'
Also, I find it exhausting to deal with high emotion.
But once that's over with, folks are more open to hearing the 'feeling statements' and observations.
--------------------
And can't resist old NVC joke -
Person 1 - "I'm really mad! This is so unfair!"
Person 2 - "I FEEL your anger"
Person 1 - "Everything's so chaotic, I don't know what to do!"
Person 2 - "I FEEL your confusion"
Person 1 - "I've got a lot of shit going down in my life!"
Person 2 - "I FEEL your shit going down!"
You have to "know your audience." This means you need to know your employees, bosses, or colleagues as people and work to understand what motivates them. This is challenging, risky, and requires an opening of the mind to not just understand different psychologies but to accept them as viable alternatives to your own.
NVC communication will be very effective for some and thoroughly ineffective for others, and if you know your audience you'll know which is which.
I'm an example of the latter: I absolutely despise the NVC communication pattern because very few people actually speak like this and when they do so it's an obvious deviation from their status quo. It feels fake because it is, and it feels fake because I know the pattern. It's like when I get "feel/felt/found"[1] from a salesperson...I know what they're doing and it's not going to work.
[1] http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/presentation/the-feel-felt-fo...
>I absolutely despise the NVC communication pattern because very few people actually speak like this and when they do so it's an obvious deviation from their status quo.
After learning NVC, and then observing people who are effective at destressing others in the work place, I've found most speak like this. What's more, while it felt artificial in the book, no one in real life even notices.
I agree, but the trick is how to get them to be open with you about what is going in their mind, and I think NVC is a good way to get that to happen. But I would also add some people are sociopaths (or are stuck in a situation where they have to act that way), and NVC won't work there.
I absolutely despise the NVC communication pattern because very few people actually speak like this and when they do so it's an obvious deviation from their status quo. It feels fake because it is, and it feels fake because I know the pattern. It's like when I get "feel/felt/found"[1] from a salesperson...I know what they're doing and it's not going to work.
NVC is for when you genuinely want to respect both your own needs and those of the other person, which is not at all true for the salesman case.
Someone using NVC can still be forceful and rude. I'm struggling with how to describe this. I suppose all it does it remove unrestrained emotion and moral blame from the interaction. Unrestrained emotion and moral blame are not a given. (ie, they may not be injected into a conversation, even if NVC is not implemented) And further, I suppose, it's possible to push somebody around and refuse to listen to their concerns while employing NVC. For example, under the guise of empathy a boss may "feel" your perfectly valid concern, equivocate it to the concern of others in the room, and then simply ignore your recommendations. It's possible that your recommendation was actually best, but instead of understanding the value of your idea, the boss has simply made sure not to trample your emotions.
I can think of plenty of situations where I don't care if someone tramples my emotions, but I'd be pretty distraught if they adopted a flawed idea, or couldn't understand why one idea was superior and another was inferior.
[edit]
Just to clarify, I think I talked myself into a conclusion I feel comfortable with. Empathy is not inherently useful. An approach that focuses on the feelings a person might demean them (since their feelings are not actually so fragile) while also equivocating all the ideas in the room. (all ideas might not be created equal, but it is necessary to treat everyone -- and their feelings -- with the same respect.)
Could you share some examples?
Alternately, if someone were interested in empathizing with the team and protecting egos, we might navigate towards a worse solution. One which took into account everyone's feelings, instead of a cold calculation of method and results.
But for certain, you could go too far in in the other direction: completely ignoring everyone's emotions.
Specifically, if you're in an environment that's swung too hard in the direction of totally ignoring people's emotions, then my advice probably sounds awful.
Nothing about respecting teammates and their emotions says you have to accept their pull request.
It is not even hard. Just keep it factual instead of using words like "stupid", "shitty", "crap" or passive aggressivity. Discuss issues before they become big. Listen when they disagree with your assessment - they might have reasons.
I already met enough people who claim to criticise while actually venting their emotions and settle scores with those they dislike.
That's not all it does, and is arguably opposed to something important it does. It keeps honest emotion in and displaces the injection of description of “thoughts” that are really rationalizations for emotional responses.
OTOH, in formalized transactional relationships, the assumption of mutual concern for the emotional state of the other that it rests on is not given.
I have worked on remaining calm in high stress moments. In certain situations it drives my wife nuts that she is stressed/excited and I'm calm looking for a solution. What I learned is to reflect back some of her excitement from a stressful situation, but not quite to her level. This then calms her down.
Is it easy? No. Do I manage to do this 100%? I wish. Is is manipulation? I don't think so. It's building a relationship to better communicate. Too often people think about communication as what I say and not what do people hear and also say.
I noticed this one time when I was in college: I had come home on a break and couldn't relax, I was super stressed out and felt generally bad. I went over my best friend's house down the street, bitched to her about some small stuff that had annoyed me that day, she mirrored me and I INSTANTLY relaxed. I remember it 15 years later because it was such a marked effect.
But...you should be. The entire problem you relate is about NVC as an insincere, indirect tactic (most likely, to avoid an ultimatum in a situation where the speaker isn't seeking mutual understanding and accommodation but submissive compliance.) NVC as a tactic relied on an implicit lie about the relationship which forms the context of the communication.
As a honest tool in a relationship where the parties actually care about each others feeling, NVC is a useful communication tool for addressing that mutual concern. As a tactic in relationships where that isn't a mutual concern, and especially as a top-down tactic in a relationship where the speaker would not have the concern that is being called for in the listener, where it is a passive-aggressive way of framing commands, it's obviously toxic and manipulative.
In the presence of a power imbalance, combined with a lack of mutual respect, I think you’re absolutely right that NVC style observations are worse than a direct command. If there’s no explanation that would lead me, the more powerful person, to change my mind about the behavior, then offering conversational space for it is disingenuous.
I personally try to avoid situations where my direct managers, or my direct reports, don’t feel mutual respect, so I don’t think a power-imbalance is enough in and of itself to invalidate observation-request style discussions.
As it happens, if there’s no power imbalance, but also no mutual respect, I still tend to prefer NVC style communication; but I’ll admit that’s just a personal choice, it’s just a tool in the toolbox, and I tend to reach for it first, because I like the outcomes better. If my counterparty obviously hates it, “let’s get real” is next in the list.
Meanwhile, putting in effort or even naturally just being someone that wants to empathize, find common ground and work towards a compromise is noble. When paired with good communication strategies and frankly when practiced through experience, you end up with highly likeable leaders who are the people you turn to in difficult times.
Don't hate the people who mean well but haven't learned to communicate like a pro. Save your anger for the people who are full of self-serving lies that don't even bother to manipulate you successfully because they don't really care how you feel.
The next time someone deploys Inexperienced Manager 101 aka "the shit sandwich" on you, ask yourself if they are malicious or just ignorant. It could be that they are just trying and failing.
I was taqught NVc as a quite cerebral language practice but I find it most productive to teach it as a body/emotional/somatic/language practice as the language becomes fake without full alignment.
Ultimately, use it as a tool to move the focus to what’s alive and what’s common in all participants. It is not a negotiation tool or a manipulation tool.
THIS IS IT!
This is exactly what the problem is with this bullshit; when it's not actually constructive, it's disingenuous. When you're not trying to come to a better understanding, you're trying to drag someone by the nose, it gives you a way to avoid the actual problem/conversation.
I like to think of NVC a little differently than most people. It is not a tactic or a strategy, it is a reframing of the problem in your own mind. Instead of the thinking "how can I get this person to do what I want" you should instead be thinking "I need something and can this person help me?". One is manipulative, the other is collaborative.
What I have found is that the person you are enlisting for help may actually have a better idea than you on how to solve the problem than you do. But for this to work, you genuinely need to believe that the person on the other side of the table wants to be a good person. If you don't believe that then you tend to see this as a way to manipulate them and it comes across in your words and actions.
"Look, fuckery abounds, and it's not time to pass judgement because I'm not ready to be hung, drawn and quartered myself. So for now, let's deal with the facts and only the facts: ..."
The real skill, it seems to me, is to be able to know what one is feeling, stay connected to it, and take responsibility for it, especially in high-stress situations. If you can't do that, techniques only make things worse. And if you can do that, maybe you don't need so much technique.
(Not to dismiss NVC though. NVC is very interesting. But I have found it much more interesting and compelling to watch how Rosenberg did it than in the limited cases where I've run across it in the wild.)
In a sense, someone using NVC for deescalation and resorting to the actual formula of Saw [x], felt [Y], request [Z] is likely to not be very good at NVC. People who are really good at that style of communications are going to separate it out so they tell you needs up front, well before you need to know about them, make requests at the moment they want something, and then observations as things become apparent. All 3 at once usually means a surprise has emerged.
There is a pretty basic tell here - it isn't at all obvious why you'd be seething if someone observed a fact, felt strong emotion about it and bought it to your attention, even in a high stress situation. So either you've misinterpreted something (possible) or they aren't communicating - they are pressuring (pretty likely). It isn't called Non-Violent Get People To Do What You Want and trying to use it that way isn't going to work.
Perhaps I'm missing something, because I'm not familiar with NVC. After reading the article, it seems that having empathy and curiosity are necessary for NVC to work, and if someone doesn't approach it that way, then they aren't really engaging in NVC.
In these comments, there seems to be many people who dislike it, and I'm wondering why. If someone in a powerful position, like my boss, sought me out to discuss something and expressed empathy and wanted to find out why I did something the way I did, I would feel impressed and appreciated.
Such a game changer in my pull request comments and life.
Non-violent Communication is not easy, it takes continuous practice.
I even blogged on each chapter: http://redgreenrepeat.com/2017/05/12/nonviolent-communicatio... and still feel I can improve my communication, especially when I get emotional.
I was working in an American company (I'm German) and had to learn to adapt to the style of being too nice (in my opinion). E.g. an "it might be better to do it like this", wasn't really meant as a weak suggestion, but a strong one. Something completely counterintuitive to my German mindset. I took it as a "might" and was met with negativity that I didn't exactly follow the "suggestion".
I much prefer language being direct at work. Treat the subjunctive as what it is: expressing uncertainty, not politeness.
I know however that many people, especially outside of Germany, prefer the indirect language, even though they learned to understand it with the same meaning as the direct speech.
Most people never get to specifics and stop at generalities. That would be my definition of indirect.
My understanding based on a YouTube video I watched many years ago is that a request is either fulfilled or not fulfilled, and that is the end of it. A demand is backed up by some sort of threat, like threat of a negative reaction. The key was that to distinguish a request from a demand was impossible based on the language used. It was only detectable by the reaction if you don't act on it.
So, ironically "Go get me a beer" can be a request but "do you think it is a good idea to open the window?" might be a demand, depending on what happens on a flat "No".
Nothing in NVC says you have to be nice, and I'm not sure it takes a position on direct or indirect. But a negative response from not following a suggestion is exactly the sort of violence that NVC is trying to avoid.
I believe it is: If you make a request that is denied, and you are upset about it, then it wasn't a request, but a demand disguised as one.
Send me an email and I'll send a list of links and/or PDFs for you:
andrew_at_redgreenrepeat.com
Non-Medium reformatting: http://download.nova.anticlack.com/nvc.txt
But I have continued to use that approach as a manager and had never heard of NVC before I saw this article. I really appreciated the expanded guidance and a better way to plan the conversation. I also found the section on Consequences to be helpful as well. When you are in an authority position, I believe it is important to help people understand that there might be consequences to their actions or continued in-action.
1. I feel... (Insert feeling word) 2. when... (tell what caused the feeling). 3. I would like... (tell what you want to happen instead). (from [0])
I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have really helped me - in solving conflicts, but also in growing as a person. Because, again purely subjective, my impression is that once you give others your I-messages, they are more likely to also respond with I-messages. Which again helps me to understand others and their needs better.
That said, NVC looks like a great addition, by making things more explicit with those four distinctions (observations vs. evaluations, etc.).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message
I've also found the pattern:
You have [Problem]. Lots of people feel [how you feel] about [Problem]. If I did [X] would it solve [Problem]?
To be helpful in every relationship:
"I get that you're mad that I didn't take out the garbage. The kitchen stinks now and everyone hates that. Do you think it'd help if I added a reminder to my phone?"
I think as a programmer I am not atypical in that I sometimes struggle with empathy or how people reacted to things I said, but NVC gave me a framework to communicate in a healthier way. This wasn't just something that helped at work, it had an enormous effect on my personal life as well and I credit it to having strong relationships now.
I think the only frustrating piece is sometimes dealing with other who have not read (or do not subscribe) to the same philosophies. It can be very trying to respond to attacks with empathy but in the end that's still always the best strategy.
Highly recommended and not just if you are a manager, if you deal with other human beings at all, read it.
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Surprised there isn't more of a brouhaha about it in the comments.
Can anyone comment on the relative merits of these articles' / books' approaches?
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Art-Hard-Conversations-Biblical-Matte...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143118447/ref=oh_aui_sear...
I've been thinking about how to apply this in two of the most important areas of interpersonal interaction in our lives, in our careers and in interpersonal relationships. We often discuss on HN why it's difficult in careers (conflicting interests, hard to measure results, under-specified goals, etc.). In relationships, I think the main difficulty is that we enter relationships with so many expectations (i.e. "my partner should love me and spend time with me and give me gifts" or similar) that these can't really be used for positive motivation, instead we interpret the absence of them as negative motivation. One idea I had, though, is to explicitly verbalise rewarding in addition to the actual reward (i.e. instead of just spending time with them, say "I really liked that you did X yesterday" and spend time with them).
It's important to keep this in mind when looking at scientific literature so that you know exactly what they're talking about.
Can that (i.e. non-manipulative rewarding behaviour) still backfire? Probably, although I'm then not sure what the solution is... to influence reality and your own well-being, you have act, and even the most fail-safe behaviour (like not spending time with a person anymore) is described by the above framework (i.e. it's a type of punishment), and furthermore it's not always possible (e.g. with children, or if you want a job and a relationship, most people seem to).
The intention behind the reward might not even be to control, but unfortunately that doesn't change that that it does do control even if inadvertently. Yes, according to Alfie Kohn, such rewards, even innocent seeming things like praise, can indeed backfire.
Marshall Rosenberg had this question: When someone does something that you want them to do, what reason would you like for them doing that thing? Would you like them to do it purely due to the reward (or fear of the withdrawal of the reward, which is functionally a punishment)? Or would you like them to do it because they themselves see the value in it and are self-motivated?
This is not to say that rewards have no place in life, just that they are a tool that should be carefully considered, and to understand that they will not solve most problems and may make things worse sometimes.
The alternative to rewarding or punishing others involves working with them in a less coercive fashion. But that's hard, and I don't know that there's a ready answer for what exactly to do in each situation. NVC could help sometimes.
The point is to deliver the observation, not the evaluation.
You seem to be saying that those evaluation statements are lazy/unhelpful. And NVC advocates agree! That’s why they recommend observations, not evaluations!
Let's say X and Z are coworkers. Z messed up some report numbers.
X could say "Z, you are sloppy." Z could easily respond "No I am not, how could you say that?"
By focusing on a concrete example, X and Z can both discuss the actual problem (inaccurate report numbers) instead of bickering about whether or not Z is sloppy.
NVC is also a check on the person initiating the communication.
It's possible X's view of Z as a slob is not based in reality. If X can't find a specific thing, but just thinks Z is a slob, NVC makes it hard for X to say anything until they can point to a specific event/action. It's not perfect (X can just look for the first example that proves their belief) but it does prevent totally baseless claims of "you are a slob."
"All my biggest regrets as a founder are around not having difficult conversations sooner. I could have helped team members improve faster, fired people with the wrong fit earlier, had so many more productive meetings. I could have created a more open company culture."
"Sooner". Give difficult information out in small bit immediately. Waiting and letting things bottle up only makes it harder. You also build a relationship with the person receiving the bad news of honesty and openness from the get go.
If I'm managing a report that did something wrong, I address it immediately. They get used to me being honest and prompt with my feedback. Addressing a single issue immediately also mean things don't build up and you're not forced to "bundle" bad news together.
Of course you should also do this with positive feedback but I think you'll find that when you regularly and openly address negative issues, it becomes much easier on all parties involved.
In the US, people will insist everything is awesome and great right until they get fired. Reason, they can be on the street in under 15 minutes and that kind of puts some filters in place. It also means that you need to follow up with some questions to get a real feel for what is going on. A peculiar thing with Indians I've worked with (superiors even) is that they seem reluctant to say no even when they mean to. So if you ask a direct question and you get an evasive answer, more questions are needed.