YEARS AGO, WHEN I FIRST STARTED working in collaborative communication, I spent a lot of time worrying about my endgame. When I sat down to do a mediation, I thought I should know at the outset exactly how the conflict would be resolved. When I...
FOR MY SOMETIMES SKEPTICAL clients and students: Two stories to prove that yes, Nonviolent Communication works in real life. While we probably won’t use NVC’s formal language (“Are you feeling sad, because you need support?”), as we select our own words, we can still embody...
SO HERE WE ARE at the beginning of January and the annual question arises: Will we set personal goals for the new year—or just burrow into the sofa with a warm blanket? Resolutions are hard: we love them, we make them, sometimes we don’t keep...
Recently I presented a workshop in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to a group that wanted to learn how to talk across a political divide. During Q&A, the participants cut straight to the chase: “What is the one most important thing to know about NVC?” they asked....
Over the years I’ve encountered many people—friends, colleagues, clients—who are put off by the language of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). It’s too jargony, they say. Too artificial. And way too “woo-woo.” And I get it because sometimes I don’t like the vocabulary of NVC either. Because...