Live data from Hacker News

How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right

medium.dave-bailey.com

121–130 of 167 posts

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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handling a problem dispassionately requires resolving the meta-problem of emotional response around the problem in the first place, especially if it's part of what made the problem happen. EG. A co worker's parent has been hospitalized from covid19 and therefore their emotions are preventing them from matching previous velocity in the previous sprint, which puts heat on the project manager. This is a conflict that re…

I would send that person home and just accept that things will not get done as quickly or find additional resource from somewhere else. I solved the problem by accepting the facts of the matter (they are upset and are not going to be productive). I didn't need to go through all this other nonsense. > In my experience feelings-type problems are significantly more numerous than technical problems to resolve dispassiona…

> That is because people don't think about things objectively which they should be doing. But I am an objectivist so I suppose I am biased.

But whether or not they are thinking about things objectively has no basis on whether or not they are thinking objectively right now. Neither is whether or not you are an objectivist with your own bias (a feeling) relevant to the fact that someone has their own feelings that need to be understood during the analysis part of problem solving.

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

#122
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name makes sense, though they have a very explicit definition of violent which is laid out at the beginning of the book. (Which I suspect very few commenting here have read.) The definition is that, by only acknowledging your own needs, you are attempting to persuade others to meet your needs and disregard their own. It's violent in the way that telling someone "you're worthless" is violent -- it's the implicit m…

> It's violent in the way that telling someone "you're worthless" is violent That is not violent.

"How not to resolve a conflict?" by Anonymous

Chapter 1 - definitions

When the source of a conflict is definition of a word and somebody defines it, just say "No, it's not!".

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

#123
post #20

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…

Controlling someone else’s language and implying they are selfish for not changing is a lack of the social skills this framework purports to instill. You do not need to control someone’s language with a framework to enquire about their feelings. The majority of your comment is waffle littered with unsolved problems.

This NVC is fundamentally predatory on another’s mindset by controlling language under the guise of caregiving. It is an attempt to prime people for being heavily micromanaged in a few years by clogging up language with identifying feelings whilst real decisions are made by the nvc practitioners.

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

#124
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These are all good points, though I think a deeper point may be missing regarding employing empathic, curious, positive communication tools (If you prefer a term besides NVC, please use it--the politics of taxonomy could only distract us from the potential benefit of ideas). Here's a theorem: For common personal or professional conversation types, I maximize the expected outcome of "difficult conversations" (both to…

The deeper point is true, but hits at an even deeper point. Which is what lay behind the attitude in the comment that I was responding to.

Are you familiar with https://www.triballeadership.net/? Based on language patterns, people and organizations can be classified into 5 levels. The linguistic patterns are (1) Life Sucks, (2) My Life Sucks, (3) I'm Great (but you suck), (4) We're Great (but some other organization sucks), and (5) Life Is Great.

There are formal tools behind that classification, and formal ways to measure it, but in general the opinion of people you interact with will be fairly consistent. That notwithstanding, most people judge themselves as operating at a level or two better than they actually do.

Here is where that becomes a problem. Most successful executives operate at level 3, but think that they operate at level 4 or 5. They can adopt any linguistic pattern that they think will make them more successful, but the tools make them more effective at being level 3, with the attendant problems that result for others.

This is not a slight on the communication tools. Emotional people will tend to escalate until the emotion is noticed and acknowledged. Therefore doing that up front really does calm the other person down, and really does facilitate communication. Conversely, approaching challenges with openness, curiosity and openmindedness really does make problems easier to solve.

However if you give a person the tools without changing their underlying attitudes, what looks and sounds wonderful will, over time, create the exact same type of problems in the long run. It just creates them more effectively.

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

#125
post #25

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.

This is how someone under unreasonable pressure behaves. Withholding support because of his erratic swearing and hip fire assumptions is going to perpetuate a sinking ship. Your reaction depends on having authority over him and will not fix disorganised companies.

This guy needs reassurance that his boat isn’t going to be rocked anymore as it stabilises. It’s a great key to the health of the company that all the business analytics in the world and discussions about feelings can’t see.

You are behaving in a predatory manner expecting him to submit rather than solving problems. It’s petty.

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

#126

> 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? No. The…

[deleted]

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

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would send that person home and just accept that things will not get done as quickly or find additional resource from somewhere else. I solved the problem by accepting the facts of the matter (they are upset and are not going to be productive). I didn't need to go through all this other nonsense. > In my experience feelings-type problems are significantly more numerous than technical problems to resolve dispassiona…

> That is because people don't think about things objectively which they should be doing. But I am an objectivist so I suppose I am biased. But whether or not they are thinking about things objectively has no basis on whether or not they are thinking objectively right now. Neither is whether or not you are an objectivist with your own bias (a feeling) relevant to the fact that someone has their own feelings that need…

No my own bias isn't a feeling. It is how I tend to think.

The fact of the matter that most problems need to be solved in a manner which is directed by the facts. What someone else feels is almost completely irrelevant. We need to achieve , we need to do the following. When does feelings really come into that process? It doesn't.

I find it completely mind boggling that "root cause analysis" has something to do with someone's feelings. It has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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

#128
post #107

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 i…

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…

(Hint: Refactoring is usually an inefficient way to write a second system, with all of the downsides of the second system effect.)

Sounds like you are saying that refactoring is usually incompetently done to me.

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

#129
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Controlling someone else’s language and implying they are selfish for not changing is a lack of the social skills this framework purports to instill. You do not need to control someone’s language with a framework to enquire about their feelings. The majority of your comment is waffle littered with unsolved problems. This NVC is fundamentally predatory on another’s mindset by controlling language under the guise of ca…

I'll bite.

> Controlling someone else’s language and implying they are selfish for not changing is a lack of the social skills this framework purports to instill.

This is explicitly false. Please tell me where in the NVC book this is recommended. It never suggests criticizing someone else's language. In fact, quite the opposite - it puts the burden on you not to be upset at how people phrase things - even if they're shouting at you. Of course, if you are upset at the general communication approach with a coworker, it does give you a way to express it. It doesn't mandate it, though.

The NVC book is quite clear that there should be no judgment from you if the other party doesn't change. To the extent that part of NVC is defined that way. I mean, you can dislike it and disengage with the person (quit, divorce, etc). But blame the other person for not changing after asking them to? That's a clear no-no in the NVC book.

> You do not need to control someone’s language with a framework to enquire about their feelings.

You and the NVC author are in complete agreement.

> This NVC is fundamentally predatory on another’s mindset by controlling language under the guise of caregiving. It is an attempt to prime people for being heavily micromanaged in a few years by clogging up language with identifying feelings whilst real decisions are made by the nvc practitioners.

I must mirror a sentiment expressed in another comment. Has anyone who is critical of NVC over here actually read the book? The impression we who have are getting is that this thread is full of people who have little to no understanding of NVC and yet are quite critical of it.

None of what you wrote here is advocated for in the NVC book. There is an NVC cult out there who take things further, and while they annoy me, I have yet to hear anything like what you say from them either. It's certainly quite possible there are manipulative managers (i.e. assholes) at work who exploit it for their own gains, but a more likely prior is that people are entirely misinterpreting their efforts and in those people's world view such language is triggering.

I cannot alter a person's world view if he is not willing to discuss it. I do wonder which alternate universe these people are from where NVC is about labeling people for their refusal to change. It's like criticizing Gandhi's nonviolence movement for aiming to increase beheadings. It's just so antithetical to the concept that the criticism is so ... bizarre.

I stand by my comment above: It's totally OK with me if you don't like NVC. However, in a thread of over 100 comments, no one has pointed to an alternative that works when dealing with a wide variety of people. Sure - you can always filter people for "culture fit" and get a group where such language is not necessary. As your company grows in size, though, this becomes impossible.

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

#130
post #107

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 i…

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…

> sprint velocity goes down by 80% and bug counts go up by 90% as stuff randomly breaks in the refactor

Do you mean during the refactor, or after they claim it's finished?

Post reply on HN