When my boss asks me "How are you feeling?", that feels weird. I don't know this person very well, so it's odd that they would ask me how I feel, out of the blu

When my boss asks me "How are you feeling?", that feels weird. I don't know this person very well, so it's odd that they would ask me how I feel, out of the blue. But then I realize it feels weird because I'm cynical; I don't expect people that I don't know well to care about my feelings. So in some ways, the NVC framework is like "level 2" of developing empathy, whereas "level 1" should really involve developing trust and close connections. Aside from that, this quote seems problematic: "Creating a place where people can be vulnerable without fear of abuse is critical for any form of conflict resolution. Vulnerability is the source of connection." Connections happen through development of trust, and trust makes you vulnerable, but vulnerability wasn't the source of the connection, it was incidental. If anything, the workplace encourages us to develop trust as well as verification, as a part of quality assurance. By verifying the quality of work, we can trust in it, and thus others. This doesn't result in connections, but it can reduce conflicts, by focusing one's attention on a process rather than a person. So it's not "stupid Frank's fault that the build broke", it's "our SDLC is not developed enough yet to ensure that the build doesn't break". This isn't exactly NVC, but it is another tool one can use to redirect a conflict towards a resolution.