Tag Archives: nonviolent communication

As a meta of fact

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Sometimes, the words and phrases which are so well understood in one sphere require translation in another. I was reminded of this last week when I shared with a coaching client the idea of taking a meta-position and was asked to explain this term. It seemed like a good opportunity to write a posting.

The prefix “meta-” from the Greek seems to refer to a change e.g. of position or form. Various definitions point to something that refers to itself or something that is one step removed. In the world of neurolinguistic programming (or NLP) this prefix has been used in a variety of ways and it is from this use in NLP that I borrow the term. One powerful process in NLP is called the “meta-mirror”, a process by which the individual steps fully into his or her emotions and the script that accompanies these emotions about another person (“first position”), then steps into the metaphorical shoes of the person about whom he or she is talking (“second position”), then steps into the position of observer of self and other (“third position”) before stepping into a “fourth” position to observe the initial self (in “first position”) and the second self (in “third position”) and to decide which version of the “self” is more resourceful in responding to the original stimulus.

In nonviolent communication (or NVC) the metaphor “jackal” is used to refer to the kind of things we say when we are in first position and without awareness of our self-talk and the term “giraffe” is used to describe the thoughts and speech that come when we have stepped back to observe our feelings and to connect with the needs that underpin our feelings. The point about our “jackals” (or gremlins as they are often called in wider circles) is that they guide our lives in certain directions whether we want them to or not. At the same time, when we develop the ability to stand back and observe them – well, frankly, they often don’t stand up to close inspection.

So why is the NLP “meta-mirror” process so powerful? Precisely because the ability to step out of one’s shoes and observe oneself at one step removed opens up choices and possibilities which are not there without this ability to self-reflect. In our own shoes for example, we might say “John is so irritating. He always arrives late at meetings and he is never prepared”. In saying this, our attention is on John and John alone. The minute we are able to take a meta-position and to become an observer of the self we add all sorts of information to the picture. We can learn for example, that we feel angry. And we can examine whether John’s behaviour is the cause of our emotion or simply a stimulus, recognising that the cause of our anger is actually the thoughts we have about John’s habitual lateness. With this comes the ability to reflect on our response to John’s lateness and to adopt a different approach – if we want to.

So much for the jargon, what does this mean in practice? The “jackal” or “gremlin” has an inbuilt belief (which he does not recognise as such) that his belief is the truth. If you like, in the absence of being able to step back and observe himself, the jackal can hold the most questionable beliefs and maintain a story as if it were a truth. This means that he acts as if his belief or story were true. This could be beneficial or not depending on the nature of the belief or story. Everyday examples include the person who believes he will never get far because he didn’t do well at school versus the person who believes anything is possible. Good stories or bad? You decide.

Empathy’s natural, nurturing it helps

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Research into ’emotional intelligence’ highlights the importance of empathy – the ability to identify and connect with the feelings and experience of another. This is not quite the same as sympathy, when an individual recognises feelings in another which they also hold. When we are sympathetic, those with whom we sympathise can experience confusion and frustration (“hang on, is it me or you we’re talking about here?!”). When we are able to demonstrate empathy, we are able both to hold another in a safe emotional space no matter what their emotions – a wonderful skill for a parent, manager, coach etc. – and to understand the effect our actions might have or have had on another.

In short, empathy provides the basis for creating a particular kind of environment – followers of non-violent communication might call it a compassionate environment – in which individuals are able to attend to each others’ feelings without judgement. In this environment, it is more likely that everyone’s needs will be understood and respected. This in turn makes it more likely that everyone’s needs will be met.

At the same time, whatever our innate ability, it does seem that many of us lack the skills of empathy or fail to exercise them. Today, I was curious to receive a link to an article about empathy in the New York Times, entitled Empathy is natural, but nurturing it helps. Reading this article raised several questions for me.

My first question is this: to what extent is it possible that an individual might have no innate capacity to develop the skills to empathise with another? The article mentions those people who have autistism or schizophrenia and suggests they may be wholly or partially lacking in this innate ability. As I write I wonder if a key challenge for the majority of people with limited innate ability is not so much the total inability to empathise as the failure to learn the skills of empathy. For whilst well-meaning parents, teachers and other adults may well invoke the need to show consideration, not all of them demonstrate empathy (‘lead by example’) and fewer still are able to break empathy down into its component parts.

As I second question, I wonder: to what extent are there people who, lacking skills in empathy, do not have the capacity to acquire them later in life? In truth, I am more optimistic than not that for many – the majority? – of adults it is possible to acquire them. For some, this will involve undoing the damage caused by growing up in an environment in which emotions were discouraged or dismissed. For many, it will involve becoming aware of abilities they already have and of which they were not aware. Approaches ranging from therapy through neurolinguistic programming and nonviolent communication right through to business approaches such as Roger Schwarz’s skilled facilitator approach all help individuals to develop self empathy and empathy towards others – skills that go hand in hand.

And what of those people who, on the surface, ‘can’t’ develop empathy skills? I would hazard a guess that, for the vast majority of these people the ‘impossible’ is perfectly possible and begins with a very simply step: believing they can. For once this belief is present, it is a matter of exploration to discover new ways of doing things and to develop new skills.

Connecting – via the written word

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Recently I have wondered whether to put my name forward to join the published list of NVC (that’s nonviolent communication) trainers in the UK. I am not a certified trainer and don’t plan to become one – at least for now. And still, I’d enjoy having some coaching clients coming my way who are interested to develop a compassionate (‘nonviolent’) approach. Equally, since I work extensively with clients in corporations, I’d enjoy having someone – an HR Director, perhaps – contact me one day and ask to talk about the use of nonviolent communication in organisations.

What better way, I thought, than to seek the view of people who are already listed? So I put out an invitation to my colleagues to share their thoughts. One e-mail touched me deeply – I had the sense of being seen at my very best. It also reminded me of the power of social media, coming as it did from someone I have yet to meet and whose impressions of me come largely via the written word. With her kind permission, I share it with you.

This e-mail came to me from Jo McHale, whose business (at http://www.talking-truly.com/) focuses on converting conflict into connection. Here’s what she wrote:

Dear Dorothy

We haven’t met yet – and I trust we will before long – yet I feel moved to respond to your e-mail about joining the NVC-UK trainers list.

I have read your contributions to the NVC-UK group’s discussions. I have heard your voice on the conference call. I have read your response to a thread on the LinkedIn Coaching At Work group in which you commented on something Bill Tate wrote (Bill is my partner). I’ve also read your website/blog. And let’s not forget I first encountered you in the UKHRD Forum [now the Training Journal Daily Digest].

From each of these I have a sense of someone who is grounded, compassionate, passionate, thoughtful and wise. I find it easy to listen to what you say with an open mind and open heart, and to trust the place you’re speaking from.

It would indeed gladden my heart if you were to join the list. My understanding of the procedure is that you need the endorsement of three (not sure of the number of) people who know you and are prepared to ‘speak’ on your behalf. If my words contribute to this, I’m very happy for them to be used.

In anticipation of future connections,

Jo

Jo McHale

When science proves ancient wisdom: the empathy neurons

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In the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, our understanding of the brain has accelerated to an extraordinary degree. Some of this work has been brought to a wide audience (if you like, ‘popularised’) by Daniel Goleman in his books on Emotional Intelligence.

Sometimes, the new brain science helps us to make sense of things we already knew. Why is it, for example, that to visualise something ahead of time (from having a baby to winning the Olympics) is to make it far more likely that it will happen? How is it that we are able to empathise with others? To what degree is the Eastern philosophical idea that we are all connected (and that any idea that we are not is an illusion) an objective truth?

Today, I enjoyed watching VS Ramachandran sharing just 8 minutes’ worth of new science, in which he describes the role played by ‘mirror neurons’. You can find this clip at http://www.ted.com/ under the heading The neurons that shaped civilization.

I am grateful to Gina Lawrie for sharing this clip. Gina is one of the UK’s foremost trainers in the field of Nonviolent Communication – and happy to see more and more examples of science proving ancient wisdom.

To be or not to be

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Shona Cameron, one of my colleagues in the world of Nonviolent Communication (or NVC) sends through a link to a fascinating article in the Guardian about something called e-prime: This column will change your life: to be or not to be…

The article, by Oliver Burkeman, refers to an idea I had not come across before. David Bourland, proposes – in an essay about something he calls e-prime – to eliminate the use of the verb “to be”. Burkeman references one of Bourland’s teachers, Alfred Korzybski, known especially for his assertion that “the map is not the territory”.

It seems to me that Bourland’s idea, put forward some 45 years ago, reflects Korzybski’s teaching. For if you can no longer say “John is lazy”, you are obliged to find some other way of putting your idea forward, perhaps a way that reflects you own responsibility for reaching this conclusion (“It’s my view that John does not work as hard as some of his colleagues”, for example). This new linguistic turn of phrase does more to highlight the gap between the map and the territory it seeks to represent, making clear the role of the viewer in the viewing. Perhaps this different turn of phrase might even highlight this gap to the viewer and invite greater self-accountability. How many performance appraisals might be transformed by such a fine distinction? How many family arguments might never take place?

The article’s author asserts that e-prime never really caught on and yet the distinctions made by Bourland and Korzybski have found their way into many schools of thinking. Our ability to distinguish between what we observe and our response to what we observe is an essential part of Nonviolent Communication, for example, whilst Korzybski’s phrase “the map is not the territory” has been adopted as a core presupposition in the world of Neurolinguistic Programming (or NLP).

How widely understood is the gap between the “map” and the “territory”? Not very. One might even observe that in any relationship in which one party wishes to expercise power and influence it can help to obscure the distinction. If, though, we aspire to honest open relationships in which people make free, informed choices, we might find that e-prime’s elimination of the verb “to be” invites greater transparency of thought.

Mmm… before I press the “publish post” button, let me just check this posting for my use of the verb “to be”…

NVC and the Skilled Facilitator Approach

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This posting is for those people in my network who are interested in Marshall Rosenberg’s work in the area of nonviolent communication and/or Roger Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Approach (SFA). How do they compare? And because this is a blog posting rather than a full article I’m sharing – for now at least – my first impressions.

Let’s start with values. A core value amongst practitioners of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is compassion. As it happens, compassion is also a core value of the Skilled Facilitator Approach – amongst others. As I look down the list of values on my SFA card – transparency, curiosity, accountability, informed choice, compassion – I wonder whether the Skilled Facilitator Approach doesn’t make explicit some of the values implicit in NVC. None of them seem at odds.

In the Skilled Facilitator Approach, the mutual learning cycle begins with something which is also at the heart of NVC – making an observation. In NVC this may be noticing your own thoughts and actions or noticing someone else’s. It may also be noticing the voice with which you are speaking – with compassion (called speaking in giraffe) or from a place of non-compassion or anger (speaking in jackal).

There are some similarities here and some differences between NVC and the Skilled Facilitator Approach. In NVC our attention is on the needs we have or the needs we think the other person is expressing, together with the feelings that give rise to those needs. In the Skilled Facilitator Approach, the same focus is reflected in a rule: focus on interests, not positions. At the same time, the Skilled Facilitator Approach places a great deal of emphasis on checking our observations (“I think I heard you say…”) and our inferences (“I’m thinking you might be thinking… What do you think?”) This seems to me to be at odds with the view held by Marshall that to focus on thinking can get in the way of understanding needs. Whilst the goal of each approach is the same, the route seems to be different.

There’s a rule in the Skilled Facilitator Approach that seems to me to add something to the practices of Nonviolent Communication: explain reasoning and intent. According to this rule, you might add to a question an explanation (“the reason I’m asking is…”). In NVC, we share the needs that might be met when we make a request – again, a different route to the same end – so I wonder what it is this different approach adds. Perhaps it’s a different way of expressing the same thing – and perhaps it’s the language in which an intention is expressed. Sometimes in NVC the language of needs can be a barrier to easy understanding because it is so foreign in our wider culture.

I notice that I could go on – making comparisons – and yet the more I do the more I encounter a challenge. For it seems that for every aspect I identify of the Skilled Facilitator Approach I find an equivalent in NVC. For now, I am left with a belief that engaging with both approaches is adding each to the other and yet, I don’t know what.

I wonder if you, my reader, have thoughts? If you do, I’d be glad to hear them.

Parallels between Nonviolent Communication and Gestalt

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Last week I met with Marion Gillie, who brings a background in business psychology to her work as a coach, consultant and coaching supervisor, including a good dose of Gestalt.

As it happens, I have been discussing Gestalt with my friend and colleague Len Williamson and wondering about any connections between Gestalt and Nonviolent Communication. Len is ahead of me with his reading – he has just finished reading Marshal Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life and I have yet to read his recommended text on Gestalt, Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory and Practice by Erving & Miriam Polster.

I am curious to receive Len’s initial thoughts on parallels between the two. He writes:

I am struck by the parallels between Gestalt and NVC. Both start with description. In Gestalt you cannot see that someone is happy you can only describe their physical features and describe what ‘is’. You must accept they may be happy, sad or something else and if you want to know which then you must ask them. There can be no judgement. In NVC there is non judgemental observation and description of what is taking place in a situation. In both approaches this one step is immensely powerful to help relationships between people.

In Gestalt there is scanning of yourself to notice your sensing, meaning making, intuition and emotions. Noticing the distinctions of each brings richness to the experience you are having and gives insight for any situation you are in. NVC considers what we feel in relation to what we observe and again applies non judgemental description. Insight arises from what our feelings are telling us through this form of description. Both approaches bring the power of recognising what our emotions are telling us.

NVC then moves to understand what needs are creating our feelings. Gestalt works hard to help someone describe very precisely what they want. Sounds easy but it is often surprising what we find out when we look closely at this question. Wars are started, relationships broken and extreme violence often occur around misunderstandings of wants, desires and needs. Immense healing is available with powerful use of this process.

The final move in NVC is in the request we make to enrich our lives. Built from non judgemental descriptions of observation, feeling and wants there is always a request that can be constructed that is nonviolent in nature and positively moves the world forward. In Gestalt seeking to complete what is incomplete is a possible parallel. Helping people finish the most troubling piece of unfinished business enables people to grow and move on to something new.

Thanks to Dorothy for drawing me in to explore NVC. I welcome thoughts from others on these powerful ways of being in the world.

As I read Len’s words I think of how Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist and came to view the diagnoses and judgements he made in this role as “professional jackal” – if you like, judgements like any other, judgements that block compassionate communication between human beings.

I’m not sure what understanding (if any) he has of Gestalt. I know he studied with Carl Rogers. I know he was inspired by George Miller and George Albee to think about how he might “give psychology away”.

Nonviolent communication is designed to be easy to understand and to practice (even though practitioners find it has challenges and depths which are not immediately obvious).

Perhaps the last word belongs with Marion, for something she says during our meeting resonates for me: that coaches, whether clinically trained or not, need to be psychologically minded. Sometimes the coaching supervisor’s role with those who are not is to help them to develop this interest and capability.

Restorative Justice – what’s this got to do with work?

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Yesterday I shared some links to Dominic Barter’s work in the field of Restorative Justice. This is something which is both dear to my heart and a long way away from the experience of many of my clients in the workplace. Today I thought I’d take a moment to make some links.

The phrase Restorative Justice implies that something is broken that needs to be restored. It also implies that some injustice has been done that needs to be rectified. I invite you as you read to ask yourself, are these ideas that I associate with the workplace? No matter where you are and what kind of organisation you work for – even one you have set up yourself – I am guessing that you may recognise these ideas.

How often, for example, do the fragile relationships amongst colleagues in the workplace stand in the way of the kind of conversation that could help them to move beyond some current impasse? What more might be possible if only these relationships were founded in honesty, trust, respect?

And how often do people in the workplace have a sense of injustice? This may be in relation to a particular incident or experience. Or it may be in relation to the ongoing culture and practices of the organisation within which they work or of an individual or individuals within that organisation.

If these thoughts ring true to you, you might like to go back to Dominic’s brief interview entitled “What is restored in Restorative Justice?” In it, Dominic points to what he calls “connection”. This, he says, is the thing that is broken and which Restorative Justice seeks to restore. To what does he refer? Some call it communication, relationship, rapport. No doubts other terms are also used.

As I share these brief thoughts I wonder, what need there is in your workplace to restore connection? And what means do you and your colleagues have to achieve this? I do not intend to suggest that Restorative Justice is the way to restore relationships in the workplace (thought it might be). At the same time, I do wonder what our work experience might be like if we all had confidence in a process or in our own skilful means to build, maintain and restore relationships with our colleagues.

I wonder what thoughts you have as you read this?

Restorative Justice – the NVC way

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In 2006 I was privileged to hear Dominic Barter talk about his work in the field of Restorative Justice. Dominic, who is based in and works in Brazil, told the story of a baker who, when he learnt that the man who had killed his son when attempting to steal a loaf of bread had no other way to get food that day, was moved to offer the man a job in his bakery. I find it hard to share this story (as I have done many times) without being moved to tears. This is the power of the kind of deep mutual understanding that can come from Restorative Justice.

What is Restorative Justice? Searching the internet I find a source of information at http://www.restorativejustice.org/. This website offers a set of slides which provide background before offering a definition – an invaluable resource for those who are searching for information. In essence (my brief attempt at a definition) Restorative Justice recognises that there is scope to build understanding between the “offender” and his or her “victim” in ways which repair the damage done – hence the term “restorative” – and that this in turn can have a positive, even healing effect across whole communities. Perhaps the most famous example of Restorative Justice is the Truth and Reconciliation process that took place in South Africa after the ending of apartheid.

I think of this when an e-mail lands in my in-tray from a member of the NVC-UK e-group, a group of committed practitioners of Nonviolent Communication. The e-mail, in response to a query, highlights Dominic’s work and provides sources of information which I decide to include here. They are:

As I write I imagine that some of my readers might be asking “what’s this got to do with us in the workplace?” I’d love to read your thoughts here – and share my own tomorrow.

How do you change a thought?

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It’s the end of the day and I find myself responding to a question on the Coaching At Work LinkedIn group – a great forum for coaches. There is already a line of responses to Len Williamson’s provocative question: “How do you change a thought?”

I decide to offer a few thoughts of my own before I close at the end of the day:

I smile when I read you say “I am trained in Gestalt (but still learning so much)”. What a different thought this is if you replace the “but” with an “and”!

What a rich diversity of responses, too. I am so grateful to Coaching At Work for providing this place of exchange as well as to you for asking the question and to everyone who has (and has yet to) respond.

A few random thoughts of my own. NVC (Nonviolent Communication) uses feelings as a route to awareness. Why am I angry, sad etc.? The aim is to connect with underlying needs that are or aren’t being met. Also some emotions (anger, guilt, shame etc.) point to a particular way of thinking – that somebody (self or other) has done something “wrong”. A practitioner of NVC understands that thinking this way gives away our power and limits our options.

Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) offers all sorts of ways to change one’s thinking – and so it should! Bandler and Grindler and their followers have set out to beg, borrow and steal (a matter of perspective!) the best that’s out there.

As coaches, don’t we ask loads of questions that invite awareness, open up options, facilitate thinking choices – at the “this thought” and “all thoughts” (meta-programme) level?

Maybe the most liberating thought of all is this: that we get to choose what we think and it’s OK to do so.