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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 conversa

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.

davesuperman 8y ago
I won't lie... NVC is really, really hard to achieve. But sometimes it's worth risking making mistakes to achieve your goal.
- treis 8y ago
  These three examples: >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".
  - leroy_masochist 8y ago
    > >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".
    - mercutio2 8y ago
      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.
      - treis 8y ago
        >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.
tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
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.
- hopler 8y ago
  Which of them became good therapists? I know programmers how hated parts of school and are bad programmers. And some who are great programmers...
  - tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
    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.
    - kodz4 8y ago
      It takes time. 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.
      - tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
        ^ 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. See how wise they are?
hopler 8y ago
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.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  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.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    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.
kdelok 8y ago
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.
- js2 8y ago
  The book “Never Split the Difference” was recommended on HN recently: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805 https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-De...
  - SkyPuncher 8y ago
    Very good book (audiobook is very well done). 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.
ritchiea 8y ago
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.
- renholder 8y ago
  >...and not just that you're caring about the emotions of other's as a chore to get what you want. Which is also a tool used by narcissists, if I remember correctly.
HarryHirsch 8y ago
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.
- neatcoder 8y ago
  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.
  - woodandsteel 8y ago
    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.
rukuu001 8y ago
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!" Person 2 - "I FEEL your shit going down!"
crikli 8y ago
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. [1] http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/presentation/the-feel-felt-found-strategy http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/presentation/the-feel-felt-fo...
- Udik 8y ago
  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?"
- BeetleB 8y ago
  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.
- woodandsteel 8y ago
  >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.
jcadam 8y ago
Meh, anything labelled "non-violent" is bound to be an ineffective waste of time. Pass.
deleted 8y ago
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everdrive 8y ago
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.)
- tome 8y ago
  > 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. Could you share some examples?
  - everdrive 8y ago
    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.
matwood 8y ago
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.
- rhgg 8y ago
  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?
  - 1auralynn 8y ago
    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.
  - matwood 8y ago
    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.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, 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.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  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.
  - joyeuse6701 8y ago
    Based on just this comment alone, your username is fitting :).
  - FakeComments 8y ago
    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.
el_cujo 8y ago
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.
grok2 8y ago
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).
Nemi 8y ago
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.
- woodandsteel 8y ago
  That's a very valuable comment.
ben509 8y ago
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: ..."
- andyidsinga 8y ago
  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.
dang 8y ago
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.)
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roenxi 8y ago
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.
mitchdoogle 8y ago
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.

davesuperman 8y ago

I won't lie... NVC is really, really hard to achieve. But sometimes it's worth risking making mistakes to achieve your goal.

treis 8y ago
These three examples: >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".
- leroy_masochist 8y ago
  > >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".
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    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.
    - treis 8y ago
      >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.

tenaciousDaniel 8y ago

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.

hopler 8y ago
Which of them became good therapists? I know programmers how hated parts of school and are bad programmers. And some who are great programmers...
- tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
  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.
  - kodz4 8y ago
    It takes time. 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.
    - tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
      ^ 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. See how wise they are?

hopler 8y ago

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.

mercutio2 8y ago
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.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  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.

kdelok 8y ago

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.

js2 8y ago
The book “Never Split the Difference” was recommended on HN recently: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805 https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-De...
- SkyPuncher 8y ago
  Very good book (audiobook is very well done). 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.

ritchiea 8y ago

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.

renholder 8y ago
>...and not just that you're caring about the emotions of other's as a chore to get what you want. Which is also a tool used by narcissists, if I remember correctly.

HarryHirsch 8y ago

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.

neatcoder 8y ago
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.
- woodandsteel 8y ago
  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.

rukuu001 8y ago

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!" Person 2 - "I FEEL your shit going down!"

crikli 8y ago

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. [1] http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/presentation/the-feel-felt-found-strategy http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/presentation/the-feel-felt-fo...

Udik 8y ago
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?"
BeetleB 8y ago
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.
woodandsteel 8y ago
>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.

jcadam 8y ago

Meh, anything labelled "non-violent" is bound to be an ineffective waste of time. Pass.

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everdrive 8y ago

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.)

tome 8y ago
> 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. Could you share some examples?
- everdrive 8y ago
  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.

matwood 8y ago

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.

rhgg 8y ago
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?
- 1auralynn 8y ago
  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.
- matwood 8y ago
  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.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, 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.

mercutio2 8y ago
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.
- joyeuse6701 8y ago
  Based on just this comment alone, your username is fitting :).
- FakeComments 8y ago
  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.

el_cujo 8y ago

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.

grok2 8y ago

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).

Nemi 8y ago

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.

woodandsteel 8y ago
That's a very valuable comment.

ben509 8y ago

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: ..."

andyidsinga 8y ago
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.

dang 8y ago

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.)

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roenxi 8y ago

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.

mitchdoogle 8y ago

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.