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How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#21

Post by 0xff00ffee »

llamataboot wrote: post #8
cousin_it wrote: post #4

I've seen this pattern a few times now: someone encounters NVC - claims that his interpersonal skills have massively increased - starts trying to recruit others into it - others don't follow because he's mostly talking in canned robotic phrases - when others point it out to him, he uses NVC tools to ignore/deflect - all efforts to reach him fail. In contrast, I've never seen anyone who could be described as an NVC su…

IMHO this stage of NVC lasts about 6 months, and it is rarely "doing NVC" - ie; if you get really angry/scared/etc you prob haven't built up the muscle memory yet to even reach for those canned phrases (probably applies more in more intimate relationships than the workplace - partner(s), parents, kids, etc) but maybe you do, and surprisingly even a clumsy canned phrase about your own feelings or needs rather than jum…

> prob haven't built up the muscle memory yet

For me, it took YEARS of practice, and it amazes my that my limbic system is still the first responder! It comes and goes and you're right, you really need to practice. The canned phrases are the training wheels.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#22

Post by BeetleB »

jshevek wrote: post #9

In theory, it seems like nvc should enable higher degrees of emotional authenticity and transparency, but in practice, at least in my experience, it seems to do the opposite for most people. Anecdotally, the vast majority of the nvc people I've observed are some combination of manipulative, dishonest, or severely passive aggressive. I wonder if the explanation for this is found here: because I need [universal need] .…

> It's never because the speaker is selfish

Trust me: Everyone is selfish. They just manifest it in different ways. That person who gives everything he has for charity is being selfish.

Most sane people do things because it satisfies something in them. The one who is very generous is getting something out of it. Even when dealing with selfish people, it's good to identify what they are getting out of it.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#24

Post by 0xff00ffee »

BeetleB wrote: post #20
cousin_it wrote: post #4

I've seen this pattern a few times now: someone encounters NVC - claims that his interpersonal skills have massively increased - starts trying to recruit others into it - others don't follow because he's mostly talking in canned robotic phrases - when others point it out to him, he uses NVC tools to ignore/deflect - all efforts to reach him fail. In contrast, I've never seen anyone who could be described as an NVC su…

Here's the deal: I've yet to come across someone who is critical of NVC but can provide something better . And in my experience, the status quo is rarely better. NVC has its flaws. It won't always work. Nor will anything else we know of. If something comes along that works better (higher "success rate"), I'll jump on that bandwagon. If you can't be bothered to read the rest of this long comment, here's a TLDR: Most c…

This is a great post: it stitches together the benefits of NVC, what turns people off about it, and lastly, what it looks like in the techworld.

Right on!

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#25

Post by BeetleB »

lidHanteyk wrote: post #19

When I see people teaching "non-violent" communication, I become disappointed with their selfishness and inability to empathize with other people. I don't need anything from them, but I mark them well so that I understand that I will have to constantly have word-duels with them when they come to me with their passive-aggressive bullshit. > When you didn’t bring me a cup of coffee, I felt disappointed because I have a…

If this is how you're going to behave in these situations at work, I'll have you off the team/company in a heartbeat.

Your concerns are valid. Your method of expressing them is problematic. And your automatic assumptions are lethal to a good work environment.

I was going to address some of the specifics, but you're not exactly giving the impression of someone who wants input.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#26

Post by peterwwillis »

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.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#27

Post by wintermutestwin »

NVC (I prefer "Compassionate Communication") is not a complete conflict resolution framework. It is a communication strategy that is designed to help people turn on their innate compassion. It doesn't have a clear answer on what you do when people don't agree to requests. As a professional mediator, I find that it can work well for some types of conflict if I bolt on a problem solving step at the end.

I find Compassionate Communication useful for resolving:

1. Relationship Conflicts, which are caused by: Strong emotions, Faulty communication, Misperceptions, Recurring negative behavior

2. Identity Conflicts, Which are caused by: Negative comments or actions relative to personal or group identity (gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.)

3. Value Conflicts, which are caused by: Different ways of life, Ideology and religion, Different criteria for evaluating ideas or behavior

In a startup context, I think that there are two more common types of conflict that lend themselves to an interests-based negotiation (or Principled Negotiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_Yes ) approach:

1. Interest Conflicts are caused by perceived or actual competitive: Substantive interests, Procedural interests, Psychological interests

2. Structural Conflicts are caused by: Faulty or deficient organizational structures, Unequal power and authority, Time constraints, Geographic, physical, or environmental factors that hinder cooperation

I don't recommend relying on a blog post to address substantive conflict.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#28

Post by quanticle »

Suppose product development has slowed down, reported bugs have increased 30% since last month, and sprint velocity is down by 40%. Your engineer is feeling desperately unhappy and is terrified of building new features because of the risk to the system as a whole.

They want to stop building new features and refactor some of the system architecture. But what do you think their unmet universal need is here?

If I were in a situation like that, my "unmet universal need" would be "a manager that understands the concept of technical debt and taking time for unit testing as opposed to spouting mindless psycho-babble at me".

More seriously, this article reinforces my view of NVC as a fundamentally hostile communication framework. By framing itself as the "non-violent" option, it makes any other form of communication "violent" by default, allowing the first person to wield NVC to claim an advantage. "See, I'm being non-violent," he or she will say, and it will serve as an universal shield against all who would object to their claims.

My take is that if you're in a situation where reported bugs have increased 30% and sprint velocity is down by 40%, no amount of NVC is going to solve that. What is going to solve it is management that's clued in to the problems at hand. Is it that too much feature work has been done, too quickly, leaving no time for the engineers to attend to technical debt? Is it that the application's architecture is unfit for the problem to which it is being applied, leading to lots of hacks and workarounds? Is it that the engineers are incompetent, and should be replaced?

In my experience situations where the bug-count goes up by 30% and sprint velocity goes down by 40% don't just happen out of nowhere. In every situation I've been in where that's happened, management has been warned repeatedly and well in advance that engineering was implementing short term hacks that would come back to bite us later on. To respond to something you were warned about with NVC baby-talk (as opposed to a clear and forthright, "Yeah, we screwed up, how do we go forward from here?") seems like it would just make the problem worse.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#29

Post by wintermutestwin »

im3w1l wrote: post #23

Allow me to explicitly pose the implicit question I see in this thread "What does it mean to be wise, as opposed to robotic on the one hand, and sly on the other?" How might one cultivate wisdom?

Practice active listening principles. Effective active listening requires giving your full attention AND actually being curious enough to shift your perspective to the other.

Re: How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

#30

Post by brlewis »

cousin_it wrote: post #4

I've seen this pattern a few times now: someone encounters NVC - claims that his interpersonal skills have massively increased - starts trying to recruit others into it - others don't follow because he's mostly talking in canned robotic phrases - when others point it out to him, he uses NVC tools to ignore/deflect - all efforts to reach him fail. In contrast, I've never seen anyone who could be described as an NVC su…

If your comment is still editable, could you please change it to be a response to the article? Its current phrasing makes it sound like you stopped reading before the heading, "Why NVC Can Fail in Practice". The article describes failures similar to the one you mention, and has recommendations that your comment doesn't respond to.
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