Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is a powerful tool for enhancing business and personal relationships. At a high-level, it involves the integration of four things:
- Consciousness: a set of principles that support living a life of compassion, collaboration, courage, and authenticity
- Language: understanding how words contribute to connection or distance
- Communication: knowing how to ask for what we want, how to hear others even in disagreement, and how to move toward solutions that work for all
- Means of influence: sharing “power with others” rather than using “power over others”
The outcomes NVC aspires toward are, in general:
- Increasing our ability to live with choice, meaning, and connection
- Connecting empathically with self and others to have more satisfying relationships
- Sharing of resources so everyone is able to benefit
More specifically, regarding implementing NVC within day to day conversation, the framework involves communicating four things:
- The concrete actions I observe or others observe that affect well-being
- How I feel or others feel in relation to what has been observed
- The needs, values, desires, etc., that create my feelings or another’s feelings
- The concrete actions I request or others request in order to enrich life
For a deep dive into NVC, check out this book.
Meanwhile, I plan to blog about this topic on a regular basis. Please contact me and share any success stories you have related to implementing NVC.
