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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

#61

Post by jph »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #27

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 Compassi…

Your comments are excellent throughout this thread. I would like to know how to hire you. PM me if you're open to talking.

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

#62

Post by wintermutestwin »

uk_programmer wrote: post #45
llamataboot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The very acronym itself redefines violence to something it isn't which is always a red flag. This all sounds like the worst parts of working in a lot of modern offices where people don't speak frankly and instead everything is done through this sort of political office speak which is lets be honest here all about politics and not about solving problems. When I read things like this. I find it very insidious.

The WHO includes emotional and psychological in the definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence

That said, I do prefer the AKA of "Compassionate Communication"

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

#63

Post by jshevek »

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…

>I've yet to come across someone who is critical of NVC but can provide something better.

This makes sense from the perspective of seeking single, coherent, generalized system. If you embrace the chaos, complexity, and diversity of human goals, emotional experiences and communication styles, there is no need for some individual better "thing". My suggestion of "better" is to learn from a variety of sources, including NVC, but reject the premise of universality. Embrace the idea that a diversity of circumstance-dependent, participant-dependent communication styles is healthy.

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

#64

Post by pmichaud »

jshevek wrote: post #59
Ididntdothis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for all these methods to work there is the prerequisite that the user has some level of internal balance already or at least is willing to develop it. Otherwise something like NVC is just a way of papering over one’s own flaws. I had such a phase too a long time ago when I learned some communication skills. I enthusiastically applied my new methods and was constantly pissed off at other people because they di…

Thank you for your response. Would you agree that introspection and character development are important parts of a healthy NVC process? That an individual's application of NVC suffers without it?

I think it's probably more than just that. I think when applied ideally, NVC is just a method of character development. I think the point of the format is to create internal clarity about what is happening inside you (your beliefs and values) and in your interactions with other people. I think that sentence is about NVC, but is also just a general description of character building (at least a substantial part of it).

So yeah, people who now have a new format to say sentences in, but who make no changes internally are doing NVC wrong :)

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

#65

Post by jshevek »

peterwwillis wrote: post #17
redis_mlc wrote: post #5

What Dave Bailey proposes with NVC is a cancer for engineering. All things being equal, anybody's opinion or emotion is equally valuable. That is rarely the case in engineering. Some of his examples indicate the lack of a roadmap is causing friction, not the request itself. If you can't frame your request in logical terms, don't make the request. In other words, do the opposite of what Bailey proposes.

You do realize that proposing that NVC is a cancer is a negative and threatening statement, right? (Cancer is generally considered negative, being that it's a fatal disease...) People who don't already agree with you are going to have a negative emotional reaction to this and immediately disagree without trying to understand your point of view. If you are trying to convince someone of your opinion, you are failing. I…

>If you are trying to convince someone of your opinion, you are failing

Are you speaking for yourself or for other people? If for other people, how do you know?

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

#66

Post by nailer »

quanticle wrote: post #28

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…

> By framing itself as the "non-violent" option, it makes any other form of communication "violent" by default

I like and use NVC, but the naming is terrible. Violence is violence. Communication is not. Not only does the silly name throw aspersions onto other forms of communication, it trivialises actual violence and mars the actual NVC methodology, what I personally have found to be an effective way of resolving disputes.

And yes I like NVC: someone else on the thread mentioned they want to talk about their feelings with their SO, not their PM. It doesn't have to be that kind of wishy washy conversation or feel like bullshit. Here's an example:

"When we push updates without facing technical debt, it slows down our velocity for future updates as we're having to deal with things like flaky tests and infrastructure outside our configuration. I'm worried we're actually losing long term speed with our current focus"

It's a good methodology, but agreed completely on the terrible name.

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

#67

Post by jasonv »

peterwwillis wrote: post #26

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 tru…

I take this one kind of like, "How's your day?" It's there as a politeness, but it's also an opportunity when something more substantial is necessary.

If there's something that needs to be said, starting your answer with, "Actually..." usually is the easy-to-acknowledge way to dive deeper.

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

#68

Post by uk_programmer »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #62
uk_programmer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very acronym itself redefines violence to something it isn't which is always a red flag. This all sounds like the worst parts of working in a lot of modern offices where people don't speak frankly and instead everything is done through this sort of political office speak which is lets be honest here all about politics and not about solving problems. When I read things like this. I find it very insidious.

The WHO includes emotional and psychological in the definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence That said, I do prefer the AKA of "Compassionate Communication"

> The WHO includes emotional and psychological in the definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence

And? They have also redefined violence to mean something else. It doesn't mean they are correct in doing so and in no way does this address my complaint.

In the link you posted the very first line:

> Violence is "the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy."

That is the definition and that is what most people think when they hear the term violence. Your link itself says it is a unconventional definition. One that I do not care for. So both the WHO and this acronym as far as I am concerned is redefining violence.

> That said, I do prefer the AKA of "Compassionate Communication"

Again. This is more newspeak. It just being empathetic. I absolutely abhor people inventing their own terms when there is already suitable word.

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

#69

Post by codingdave »

quanticle wrote: post #28

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…

> 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

I've found those result are just as likely to come from a team with low morale. Still a management problem, but if people do not feel valued and don't believe their work matters, they tend to not care about quality. In those cases, improving communication to get to the root cause of problems, re-establishing trust, and making people feel better about their team, role, and work does have an improvement on the velocity and quality of the work.

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

#70

Post by Ididntdothis »

jshevek wrote: post #59
Ididntdothis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for all these methods to work there is the prerequisite that the user has some level of internal balance already or at least is willing to develop it. Otherwise something like NVC is just a way of papering over one’s own flaws. I had such a phase too a long time ago when I learned some communication skills. I enthusiastically applied my new methods and was constantly pissed off at other people because they di…

Thank you for your response. Would you agree that introspection and character development are important parts of a healthy NVC process? That an individual's application of NVC suffers without it?

“Would you agree that introspection and character development are important parts of a healthy NVC process? That an individual's application of NVC suffers without it?“

That’s my firm belief. It’s pretty much the same with all methods. If you just use technique without deeper understanding the result will always be shallow. We see the same with Agile. A lot of companies are practicing the methods but don’t really understand or follow the underlining reasoning.

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