Nonviolent Communication Summary
Nonviolent Communication (NVC), by Marshall Rosenberg, whose Wikipedia profession is listed as peacekeeper in addition to psychologist, is a book that I re-read quarterly (yes, I read to escape, and there is a lot to escape). I try to draw on it daily (although my execution is imperfect), and it's the book that I recommend most frequently; however, every recommendation comes with a preamble:
“I wish it had a different title. Don’t be turned off by the title. Here’s this book I think you should read. Don’t worry about the fact that the cover page is torn off. Yes, I am aware that I recommended this to you yesterday….”
I say this because NVC has lessons and structured strategies to up our communication game as parents, managers, employees, children, soccer coaches, customers, a human with an internal dialog, as a driver trying to get out of a traffic ticket, social media commenters, etc., etc. It’s for all of us regardless of our take on peace and violence.
This book awakens us to the language we use. Those words that make it difficult for other people to help us get what we want; and for us to hear what others are asking from us. If this were a business book, it would be called, Getting to Yes. If this were a parenting book, it would be called, How to Talk, So Kids Listen. If this were a self-help book, it would be called, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Rosenberg—no stranger to violence, having grown up in rough and tumble Detroit—suggests that violence is a consequence of people’s last-ditch efforts when not getting their needs met (and many psychologists would agree). His definition of violence is wide-ranging, from gang violence and genocide to our inner-critic scolding us for not going to the gym.
We don’t meet our needs because we’ve been culturally conditioned to ignore them. Women are conditioned to minimize their needs in the service of others. Men are taught that having needs is weak—best to ignore them. And when our kids were babies accommodated their every need, and it wasn’t hard. Sleep. Eat. Poop. And then they got more complex. And some of us forgot that we needed to teach them that we don’t know everything in their brains and how to identify and ask for what they need.
All this ☝️ rather than leaning on the language of rightness and wrongness, a language that breeds contempt, criticism, and defensiveness (internally and externally), making it hard to get what we want or need. Rosenberg challenges us to acknowledge that we have needs (more than just the need for food and shelter) and believe in a world where we can meet our needs and the needs of others. We can simultaneously contribute to our well-being and the well-being of those around us—a world that is not a zero-sum game. A world of peace.
Here are some methods of communicating that undermine effective communication:
Enacting or Threatening Rewards & Punishment
When someone acts out due to the threat of punishment, they’re motivated by fear, guilt, or shame. This may yield some desired short-term results, but the cost is diminished goodwill and a decreasing probability that they’ll joyfully respond to our future needs.
Even if the action is in their best interest, it's not in their ultimate best interest to do so for fear of punishment. That deprives folks of the opportunity to learn the intrinsic value of doing what you’re requesting. For example, “brush your teeth, or you don’t get a book tonight” vs. “brush your teeth, so you don’t get cavities, which are painful.” Behaviors change because it's in their best interest, not to avoid punishment. Long-term interests served.
There are all sorts of punishment that we as parents deploy: corporal punishment, labeling a child as wrong, selfish, or immature, withholding of some kind of gratification like favorite toy, allowance, fun activity, respect.
Punishment—okay, easy-ish to understand why we might want to avoid. But rewards, what’s the problem there? While rewards such as ice cream or praise tend to work in the short term, they can lead to rebellion (and cavities, aka ‘toothy rebellion’). Their manipulative nature is revealed. And rewards—like punishment—deprive someone of understanding the intrinsic value behind what they’re doing (either fulfilling a need for themselves or someone in their community). For example, read Happy Volcanoes, or I’m not making dinner for you vs. read Happy Volcanoes, you might learn something about parenting, which might make your kid’s life a little bit better.
Exercise:
Ask yourself two questions:
What would you like the other person to do differently?
What reasons would you want them to do what you’re requesting? Fear? Learning?
Evaluating Rather Than Observing
When we evaluate, we invoke judgments—right or wrong. When we come from a place of judgment (either good or bad), we start to assume someone deserves to be punished or rewarded (pitfalls noted above).
Rosenberg quotes a study, that showed a strong correlation between the use of judgmental words like should, deserve, good, bad, best, worst and rates of violence.
There are countless opportunities with our kids where we are choosing between evaluating and observing. Think of every our kid shows us their latest drawing (or soccer skills or experiment). We can say ‘awesome’ or ‘I love it’ or we can say the more empowering version. ‘You used two rolls of toilet paper and one empty toilet paper to make something that looks like a smoking toilet to me, which makes me feel happy and silly.’
Exercises:
Start to become aware of your use of judgmental terms (good, great, bad, ugly, beautiful, should, deserve, etc.)—if it's an opinion, then it's judgment.
The next time your kid shows you something, describe what you see and how it makes you feel.
Act like an anthropologist rather than a judge, describe what you see in factual terms
Making Demands Rather than Requests
“My kids realize that I could not make them do anything, all I could do is wish that they had. And if I made them wish they had, they would make me wish I hadn’t made them wish they had.” - Marshall Rosenberg
People are more likely to fulfill a request when they hear it as an opportunity to help rather than a threat or demand. As humans, our brains light up with dopamine when we can help or problem solve, while orders tend to activate threat centers—cue fight mode.
After re-reading this book, I saw how many demands I was making of my kids every minute: put on your socks, eat at the table, stop pulling your sister’s shirt, don’t eat the dog food. Rather than: it would help us get to school on time if you put your socks on or are you able to save the dog food for the dog (and refraining from adding the sarcastic ‘or would you like me to put it in a bowl on the floor for you?’)?
Exercise/How to make a request not demand:
You are making a request only if you are okay with the person not complying with our request. Otherwise, it's a demand.
You have empathy when someone does not comply with your request, and you try to seek understanding. It doesn’t mean you give up; it just means that you don’t continue until we understand what prevented them from complying initially.
You initiate the request from a belief that it's possible to get everyone’s needs met. Again, not a zero-sum game.
People are more likely to hear demands if they’ve had a lot of demands in the past or if we’re speaking from a position of authority.
If in your mind you’re thinking, “should/supposed/I deserve/I’m justified/I have a right,” it's likely a demand, not a request.
Internal Demands vs. Play
“Please don’t try to be perfect at Non-Violent Communication, try to be progressively less stupid.” -Marshall Rosenberg
In pursuit of perfection, if you make a mistake it's a catastrophe, so don’t try. You can’t fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.
Our internal critic often judges ourselves harshly for not being perfect, liberally deploying the word ‘should.’ I should go for a run, I should read more, I should sleep more, I should start that YouTube channel where I travel the country reviewing donut shops…. The problem with ‘should,’ it’s a supremely judgmental word. It’s difficult to do something out of joy when you are doing so under the threat of punishment (aka threat of internal criticism).
People have a natural aversion to ‘should’ because it removes autonomy.
Rosenberg is a big proponent of not doing anything out of guilt, shame, or fear. Instead, act out of joy or play. An otherwise joyful activity (having coffee & donuts around the country) out of fear will not be joyful. Operating out of joy reminds us that we are autonomous and empowered beings that make choices about how we govern our lives.
Exercise:
List on a paper every activity that you dread but do anyway. All the things that you “should do’ or ‘have to do.’
Re-write the list with “I choose to” in front of all the items.
Take inventory
Add a “because I want to XYZ” behind the list.
Now what we know what not to do…
When you call a child “lazy” for not hanging up their coat, the task turns joyless and they probably won’t do it. Likewise, when you call your spouse a milk-swillin' circus peanut for not putting the forks pointing down in the dishwasher, you provoke a battle rather than get your way.
So…Rosenberg developed a very clear and short structure to improve communication, one that can be adapted for conversations with your four-year-old, your boss, or your forking partner. To practice, I made myself a nonviolent mad lib (you can try for yourself here). I’ve been known to copy and paste the results directly into an email or read them verbatim. I challenge you to test before a difficult conversation. And remember Rosenberg’s words: “Please don’t try to be perfect at Nonviolent Communication, try to be progressively less stupid.” (Realizing now what a judgmental word stupid is… Not judging, not judging.)
Steps to Improving Communication and Getting What You Need:
1. Start with clear observations.
As mentioned ☝️ this is where we report factual information devoid of any judgment or opinions. The observations should be specific; they should refer to particular times and contexts. If you introduce evaluation into your observation, the other person will likely hear criticism and stop listening to what you’re saying.
Common Pitfalls + 👎👍 Examples:
Confusing observation with prediction certainty.
👎If you overeat sugar, your health will be impaired.
👍I fear your health might be impaired if you overeat sugar.
Not being specific.
👎The kids do not take care of their toys.
👍I have not seen the kids pick up their toys.
Signaling ability without making it clear it’s your opinion or judgment.
👎Suzie is a poor soccer player.
👍Suzie has not scored in 20 games.
😬Ben Simmons is at the free-throw line.
Using adjectives that don’t signal an opinion or judgment is being made.
👎Jim is ugly.
👍Jim’s looks don’t appeal to me.
Using exaggeration (always, never, seldom, rarely)
👎She never listens to me.
👍There have been several times when she did not respond to what I was asking.
2. Express your feelings.
Chances are this’ll feel foreign, frightening, exhausting, unbearable, overwhelming, etc. to you if you have not had a lot of practice articulating your feelings. The English language has many ways to use ‘I feel’ without actually saying a feeling (examples below).
I identify as emotionally illiterate, so I made myself a spreadsheet (because that is what an emotionally illiterate person does, go crying to Excel) with a bunch of primary and secondary emotions (online version here). You can use this to increase your literacy; like Feldman Barret and John Gottman showed in their research, having more emotional literacy was associated with better immune function, academic performance, and social success.
Common Pitfalls + 👎👍 Examples:
Expressing an opinion rather than a feeling.
👎I feel it wasn’t right to yell at me about the forks pointed down in the dishwasher.
👍I felt scared when you yelled at me.
😵Forks up again? Let’s solve this Squid Game-style.
Following ‘I feel’ with ‘that.’
👎I feel that it is good to get exercise.
👍I feel rejuvenated when I get exercise.
Following ‘I feel’ with pronouns.
👎I feel she doesn’t understand what I’m going through.
👍I feel sad when she doesn’t ask questions about my life.
Making a judgement of yourself or how we think others feel about us (aka using words like (abandoned, abused, attacked, betrayed, cheated, coerced, interrupted, manipulated, neglected, overworked, unwanted, unappreciated, rejected, put down).
👎I feel I am an inadequate pinball player.
👍I feel self-conscious and mortified when I score zero points on a pinball turn. Again.
If ‘I feel’ isn’t followed by a feeling in the attached list, you are either a double Jedi emotionator, or it’s not a feeling.
3. Express a need.
If I identify as emotionally illiterate, then I am almost certainly ‘needs dead’—unresponsive. I could not tell you what needs are beyond a vague reference to a pyramid, so… Excel (here). Rosenberg suggests that one’s need(s) (either met or unmet) is the cause of one’s feeling. For example, if your friend is late to dinner, you could feel annoyed or joyous, depending on whether you need food, a benefit, or a break. The list of needs comes from research by economist Manfrad Max Neif, who identified a universal set of needs like connection, physical well-being, honesty, play, peace, autonomy, and meaning.
4. Make a Request.
An explicit request of the other person that, if enacted, will alleviate your discomfort. Last week we noted several ways a request can sound like a demand. As a reminder, orders have a much lower chance of succeeding than requests—after all, autonomy is a basic human need.
Not every needs-based request can be met. Rosenberg gives an example in the book of one of his patients wanting to ‘be loved.’ When pushed to be more specific, the client eventually landed on, ‘he wanted people to know what he was thinking before he did.’ The client's ability to articulate this, led to the breakthrough that he was requesting the impossible.
Common Pitfalls + 👎👍 Examples:
Making requests with a ‘kick-me’ attitude rather than ‘Santa Claus’ attitude. As we learned weeks ago, compassion (aka being able to help solve a problem for someone) lights off the reward centers in our brains. On the other hand, if we don’t know what our needs are or we grovel, “demand people” are less likely to want to help us out.
👎Um, I’m sorry to ask, and to take up your time, but can you turn down the music?
👍You could really help me get some sleep if you turned down your music.
Making your request unspecific.
👎I need food.
👍I’m hungry. I need food.
Using negative-action language rather than positive-action language. Requests worded in the negative leave people confused about what you do want and are more likely to be heard as a criticism rather than in the land of problem-solving, aka dopamine.
👎Stop pulling the cat’s tail.
👍Are you able to pet the cat gently?
Requesting without also expressing a feeling and a need. Doing so can sound demanding.
👎Feed me.
👍I’m hungry. I need to eat. Are you able to get me food?
🙃I’ve decided to become a competitive eater… where did you put my fork?
5. Find Empathy for the Other Person’s Response.
Take a minute to reflect on the other person’s response to your observations + feelings + needs + requests. Did you find an agreement? Woo hoo, you are 55% on your way to enlightenment. Did they reject your proposal? Get curious about why? What needs of theirs conflict with yours?
Common Pitfalls + 👎👍 Examples:
Not realizing that the other person also has needs that they are protecting.
👎I can’t believe you won’t stay up and binge-watch Ted Lasso with me?
👍Oh, do you need sleep, and that’s why you’re saying no?
🧛♂️If we become vampires, we can stay up all night!
Ending the conversation after the first denial of your request.
👎You told me ‘no.’ My day is ruined.
👍Hmmm. Can you help me understand what is behind your ‘no?’
