How to deliver constructive feedback in difficult situations (2019)

They are somewhat orthogonal. You can have guilt with or without empathy. You definitely can have empathy without guilt.

If I give charity to a beggar, it is not because I feel guilty. I just want the help out the guy and I hope his condition improves. If I don't give charity to him, I don't feel guilty.

Guilt and responsibility often arise from cultural constructs, and indeed they partly exist to compel people who are not having empathy to act. Often it's a case of "You are a bad person for not giving money to that beggar" and so I give money to avoid being a "bad" person. NVC eschews the notion of "good" person and "bad" person, and encourages you to remove it from your internal dialogue. Give the guy money because you want to, not because of how others may perceive it.

I think the sandwich technique is flawed. Probably not worse than many alternatives, mind, but in my mind it only serves to highlight the criticism. When I notice it I laugh because, well, its the sandwich technique, and this person is trying to be nice when what I need is for them to be critical. I think it has its place where you are giving feedback to many people sequentially to help ensure no one is going to get accidentally picked on. Like when teaching, you don't want to have only negative things to say to the slow student (whose work in comparison will appear even worse).

The 'non violent communication' stuff feels useful as a pattern of conversation when you need to strengthen and clarify your own communication. It helps lead to statements that can't be quibbled with or creatively re-interpreted. Have you ever noticed some one making a big deal out of an offhand remark that wasn't really core to your point anyway? Sandwich technique can't help with that, but the meat of the article does.

Anyway, thanks for the spring board! Hope you enjoy the soliloquy.

I think you're being needlessly downvoted. Sorry.

> Voicing observations such as “you were ten minutes late this morning” to someone who’s knowingly been late already before could be easily perceived as passive aggressive.

I can see your concern, because it's not clear from the article. It is passive aggressive if you leave it at that. NVC does not recommend leaving at that - you have to state all 3: Observation, Need and Feeling[1] - and the book explicitly calls out what happens if you omit any one. In that sense, your position is in line with the NVC book.

A more complete NVC approach is:

> You were ten minutes late this morning. I was annoyed at having to wait for you and lose productivity. Could you explain why you were late?

And no, I should never assume you know you were late, or how late you were. Because I may well be wrong to begin with (my clock is wrong, got you confused with someone else, etc). Without stating this fact, you would be confused.

Or in this conversation we may discover that your watch was off, and the simple correction is to fix your watch. Or you may know you were 10 minutes late, but you also know that others tend to be 15 minutes late and you may want to bring up with me that I hold them to the same standard as I'm holding you. If any of these is true, the conversation is tougher if I don't mention that you were late by 10 minutes.

> Most of the examples read as passive aggressive to me, because you’re renouncing to a very direct evaluation that doesn’t require a specific knowledge framework and present instead your interlocutor with an emotionless remark about their actions.

Definitely true if you merely make the observation.

Edit: Another commenter raised a very good point. One of the benefits is to make the observation (without judgment) clear in your own head. It's quite easy to have your brain quickly jump to "lazy" or "tardy" - particularly for repeat offenders. And if you do that, it becomes equally easy to vocalize it, which would be a very big mistake.

In most cases, there is no good reason to make that judgment. If someone is always late, it's quite fine to fire him because he cannot be on time, without having to portray him as a "tardy" person. You and your business have your needs and he couldn't meet them. What he is need not enter into the discussion or narrative.

[1] In this case there is also a fourth: Request

As much as it is manipulative per se, and might likely seem unnatural ("false"/"calculated"), it's at the same time quite effective. This form of communication accomplishes its stated goals, and being a natural, ummm, bloke is not it.

Your intent and persistence is enough. A team-game's outcome is dependent on the entire team. In a team-game, you alone can't do the change alone. Expect real change to take about a decade, and mostly driven by other people than yourself.

Focus on what is in your control and on the longer plays.