Making Collaboration Real – Report from the Field

This past week I co-led and then led (my co-leader left on the 3rd day for family health reasons) a residential training dedicated to using Nonviolent Communication in the workplace retreat. We called it Making Collaboration Real: Empowering Organizations with Nonviolent Communication. There was no easy access to email, or I would have written much more as we went. Now I can only write about some of what I still remember.

We had three groups of people: a few who work within organizations, a few who work with organizations as consultants, coaches, or facilitators; and a few very experienced practitioners and trainers of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), who came for the learning on how to adapt NVC to the workplace.

Bringing a Needs-Consciousness to Organizations

If there had ever been a question about whether a needs-consciousness is relevant in the workplace, the answer from this week is a very resounding yes. The people who came, some of them without any previous NVC experience, were so hungry and so happy to have the tools, and could see plenty of ways to apply what they were learning immediately in business situations they were facing. Some of them used the tools while still there. One woman for whom this was her first experience told me that a phone call in which she used NVC saved a delicate negotiation between two of her clients.

We practiced together how to be authentic and empathic in the workplace without appearing “touchy-feely,” the main concern that keeps people from showing up as fully as their hearts and souls wish for. We did a series of listening exercises, for example, that lasted about 90 seconds each, in which people practiced finding ways of showing their empathy verbally and non-verbally. I was, as I often am when doing these exercises, so inspired by how 90 seconds of being heard can be so powerful for people, even in a practice setting. Imagine what it would be like if workplaces provided built-in opportunities for people to have that experience in their work life.

Negotiating Agreements

The interpersonal and conflict management parts of the training culminated in an activity in which people experimented with negotiating agreements using the NVC perspective: empathic presence, authenticity, making clear requests, and in particular considering everyone’s needs in proposing agreements. During the practice I was supporting a negotiation with two teams, where one team was practicing using NVC and the other was not. The non-NVC team started the negotiation with wanting to take an item off the table that had previously been agreed to without giving the reasons, then they lied about their reasons for that move, and in the end were compelled to reveal the truth during the negotiations. It came from inside their own humanity and integrity – they couldn’t find sufficient comfort to continue the lie given how much they were trusted by the other group. I really saw how powerful it is for people to experience the assumption of innocence combined with such clear authenticity. What could have easily turned into an escalating conflict by being protected and scheming became the occasion for reaching a place of sharing, together, for solutions that work for everyone.

Facilitating Collaborative Decision-Making

My favorite moment, perhaps, was when we did a mock facilitation session using a real life example from one of the participants. His corporation is in the process of a merger with another one. They are charged with creating a new compensation plan, and there is a lot of tension about it, because the two corporations had used diametrically opposed systems, one quantitative and one qualitative. We sat in a circle as people chose a position about the topic, and everyone was affiliated with one or the other of the two companies. The man who provided the scenario was sitting with his jaw dropped as the facilitation uncovered, with ease, efficiency, and hardly any tension (and with support for diffusing tension when it did arise), all the important criteria people wanted for the new compensation plan instead of focusing on the either/or that he had previously envisioned. At the end of the allotted time, we had a small team entrusted with crafting a plan, supported by the pretend-CEO and the group, and including all the tension in the room within it. Everyone agreed to move forward with that plan.

What’s Next?

I have every intention of continuing to write my empathy and authenticity in the workplace series. Beyond the 3^rd piece of the original series, I already have more to say, especially about power relations in the workplace, which we also practiced this week. Until then, you can just ask yourself, whenever you find a difficult moment in your workplace: how can I bring more of my authentic self into this situation while caring for everyone else? How can I understand this situation through the lens of shared human needs? What can I do to support a resolution that works for everyone?

by Miki Kashtan

Dialogue across the Divide?

Since I started writing about empathy between liberals and conservatives, (April 2; April 3; April 9) I have been thinking about facilitating dialogues between the two groups. As a first step I wanted to meet people who identify as conservative. This past Monday I had the good fortune of meeting Peeter, who identifies as a “dye in the wool” conservative, and who is a sympathizer of the Tea Party movement. Whether or not this meeting will lead to the dialogue I am wishing to establish, I learned a lot, I was surprised, and my heart was touched. Out of care and respect, I showed Peeter this entry before posting it. I am heartened by what he wrote back: “The whole point of us living in this country and society of ours all together is that we accept the inherent differences in our humanity, and deal with them in a civilized manner.”

A particularly poignant moment was when I looked in Peeter’s eyes and saw just how deeply sacred human life is for him. So deep, in fact, that for him it supersedes freedom, another cherished core value of his, when no strategy exists for upholding both at once. This is the basis of his opposition to abortions. What can I say? I felt deeply connected to him in those moments even though I support women’s choice to have an abortion. I had an abortion myself, and what I was left with was just a depth of anguish about how complex, painful, and impossible the dilemma is. I want women to have the choice, and at the same time I completely see that an abortion is the end of a life that could be. I want to live in a world where abortions aren’t necessary. What would it take to create good options for women?

Peeter expressed a concern about having people depend on the government for their basic needs. I wanted to understand fully what values informed this view. It’s one thing to know in theory that all opinions, views, and strategies stem for shared human needs and values. It’s a whole other thing to experience this in a moment of conversation with someone whose views are very different from my own. One value that informs Peeter’s desire to eliminate dependence on government was his wish for people to take responsibility for the consequences of their choices. Of course I want that, too. I could easily resonate with this wish even though I mix this value with the desire for compassion, so everyone is supported no matter what.

Peeter also expressed a deep faith in the capacity of human beings to take care of themselves and of each other, including those in need, in the absence of government legislation, monitoring, and bureaucracy. This part was completely surprising to me, and goes contrary to my previous semi-unconscious bias, which was that conservatives had a much more negative view of human beings than liberals. Not so for Peeter. Do I have this much faith? I am not so sure. I know I am nervous about leaving the needy without societal guarantees because I am not trusting that all people could overcome their habits of scarcity and greed.

As we were winding down our conversation I asked Peeter if he would join me in trying to organize the dialogue I so want to have. Peeter was doubtful about it. He didn’t see what would the point. Conflict and differences, he thought, were unavoidable. No dialogue would bring people together, he thought. Did he feel heard by me? Yes, he did. He liked me, and would be happy to meet with me again. Still, he didn’t see that mutual understanding between conservatives and liberals could lead to anything. This got me thinking. I have more faith than he does in dialogue. He has more faith than I do in people’s ability to care for each other. Am I limited in not trusting that, or is he naïve? Is he limited in not trusting dialogue, or am I naïve? Who is to say?


by Miki Kashtan

Empathy and Authenticity in the Workplace (part 2 of 3)

by Miki Kashtan

Part 1 of this mini-series was posted on April 24.

Bringing Our Authenticity into the Workplace
In the workplace, as in the home and elsewhere, many people forget about including themselves when it comes to connection. I have already written (April 16) about how leaving ourselves out can lead to resentment. How does this apply in the workplace?

Including yourself means bringing your opinions and visions when you have them, even when there may be disagreement. It also means being willing to say no when you are being asked for something that will not work for you. In addition, if you really want to bring yourself fully into the picture, you will need to learn to ask for what you want.

Discussing Disagreements
Many people are used to hiding their opinions when they are not aligned with the general flow of things. Others argue for them forcefully, to the point of expressing disrespect for others’ opinions. Rarely have I seen the capacity to express divergent opinions and lead a productive discussion about them. What can help?

As an example (loosely based on a real situation I am now working with in a company I am supporting), suppose a new person comes into your department whom you completely dislike and don’t think is a fit for the position. Maybe everyone else in the department is happy with the hire, and one co-worker expresses relief that now you have extra support. What do you do? You could pretend to agree when you don’t. For most people, that creates a level of distance and alienation which can destroy goodwill. You can express your different opinion like this: “I can’t believe you appreciate this new person. He/she is just a lump, totally inept. I don’t know why he/she was hired.” (Remember – this is based on a true story…) You are likely to lose your co-worker’s trust, and in some situations and workplaces word will get around and you may lose your job. When given these two alternatives, most people choose the former, which in part explains why so many of us are unhappy going to work.

A third alternative does exist, though. You can express your disagreement by taking ownership of your response instead of making it sound like a fact with which anyone would have to agree. You could say, for example: “I wish I shared your opinion. I am actually quite concerned. I am worried I and others may not be able to get our work done as efficiently. Do you want to hear more?” In addition to recognizing that this is your opinion and not “the Truth,” you are also expressing what’s under your opinion by linking it to a shared goal or value, in this case efficiency. Lastly, you are also expressing openness to dialogue. During the dialogue you can continue to bring empathic listening and caring authenticity to the conversation. Make your goal be mutual understanding rather than agreement. This is not about “agree to disagree.” When you work towards mutual understanding you will often be surprised by how much you can learn and change along the way.

Saying “No” Respectfully
Whenever anyone makes a request of you, whether at work or elsewhere, the request is made on two levels. One is the content: the person making the request wants something to happen, and s/he has chosen you as the strategy of choice. The second level is about the quality of relationship between you. We all want to know that we matter. That includes everyone who makes a request of you, including your boss.

What this means is that if you are going to say no to someone, it’s vitally important that you express care even as you say no. That means developing your inner muscles so that you can care. And then finding ways of expressing the care. How?

You start by explicitly expressing an understanding of and interest in how what’s being asked of you is important to this other person and/or to the organization. You follow by stating clearly what’s keeping you from saying yes, and you finish by working together with the other person to find alternate strategies to address the underlying need.

(To be continued again. Part 3 will address asking for what you want. I plan to return to the topic of workplace relationships in the future to address power differences and working with groups)

Taking Action in the Face of Despair and Helplessness

“I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit." Dawna Markova

Penny Spawforth asked me in a comment: “I would love to hear how you transform the despair you feel about where the world is heading and your helplessness about contributing sufficiently as I daily experience and feel a sense of helplessness that creates despair and minimal action ('no action seems large enough to be of use'). What I see as my tiny contribution to the world I want to help create just doesn't feel 'enough.'”

Before discovering my current passion for Nonviolent Communication, I was in exactly the kind of place that Penny describes. I saw no way that I could support movement towards what I wanted to see in the world. Then, while talking with my friend Tom Atlee, we came to realize that having a calling, knowing what you are to do in your life, is a form of privilege. It provides clarity and focus, eliminates or drastically diminishes certain forms of struggle, and provides a sense of meaning, and energy for action.

Today I still often fall into pits of profound despair. What helps is that I now know what I am called to do, and do it to the best of my ability. Then I think of all the people who, like me years ago, don’t have a clear sense of what they can do to contribute, and I remember how wrenching and helpless this experience can be. I want to offer Penny and others some tips and milestones about how to move from despair to action.

Opening to Despair
The first thing I learned was to embrace my despair. This was no easy task. Many times over I shut down instead of feeling the despair. Over time I found ways of keeping my heart open to the pain and anguish that live in me. They’re still there. What’s changed is my ability to keep breathing, thinking, moving, and connecting with myself and others when the despair is present. I am no longer afraid of despair, because I learned to see it as a manifestation of my immense care.

Letting Go of Outcome
You and I are likely to die in a world not dramatically closer to what we want than the one we live in now. I derive relief and patience from realizing that I am not able to control the outcome no matter how hard I try. As a result, I keep moving closer and closer to doing what I am doing because it’s the only thing I could be doing. While I have truly no idea about the long-term effects of anything that I am doing, in the moment I experience more effectiveness when I am able to be present and connected instead of fueled by the frantic energy of urgency.

Risking My Significance
Since I started inviting people to risk their significance I am deeply saddened to see how many of us have been trained to believe that we don’t matter and that what we have to offer doesn’t amount to anything. Risking my significance hasn’t meant guaranteed success. I have at times experienced, instead, ridicule or harsh judgment, and often tremendous loneliness. It’s still what I choose to do. I have committed to following my heart, however feeble its voice may initially be. That voice has grown, and with it my trust in myself. If I have any inkling of what I want to do, I do it. When I manage to let go of outcome, I choose to take any action, however small.

And since I can’t know the effect of my actions, large or small, I want my motivation to be, more and more, the effect that my actions have on me. Whether or not I create what I want in the world, I want to die knowing that I lived with the integrity of trying.

Empathy and Authenticity in the Workplace (part 1 of 3)

by Miki Kashtan

When I talk with people about Nonviolent Communication and about empathy and authenticity, I often hear skepticism in the form of “Yes, but what about_______.” Frequent candidates for filling in the blank are teenagers that don’t respond to anything; Hitler; very angry people; and workplace situations. It seems many of us are habituated to thinking that empathy and authenticity belong only in some contexts and not others. Today I want to look at the workplace context, because so many of us are at work more of our awake time than anywhere else.

Can Connection and Effectiveness Coexist?
On the surface, it appears that the time it would take to reach mutual understanding and collaboration would detract from task-oriented focus, thus taking away from productivity and efficient decision-making. On closer look, I see at least three ways in which connection could enhance effectiveness. First, people who are heard and understood, have more goodwill to contribute. Second, people who are often operating within the fear and discomfort arising from conflict and mistrust literally have less of themselves available to produce. Lastly, when decisions and agreements are based on true connection and mutual understanding, such that “yes” is really a “yes,” people are much less likely to back out of what they said they would do.

How Can We Connect without Appearing “Touchy-Feely” to Others?
Rachel Naomi Remen tells in Kitchen Table Wisdom of two surgeons from the same department who were seeing her for therapy. Each of them said that he was the only one in the department who cared about patients, and that everyone else was there for the money, while she knew at least one other person in the department who also cared about patients and just didn’t show it. This story has stayed with me, because it helps me remember that no matter what the surface presentation is, everyone has a heart like mine underneath it. If I want to connect, to be present empathically and to show up authentically, whether in a workplace or anywhere else, I want to reach out to others in a way that is most comfortable for them. How can you do that?

For starters, be clear on the purpose of your reaching out. In particular, consider what amount of connection is needed to achieve the purpose at hand. More often than not, in my experience, people balk at the language of feelings and needs when the speaker is trying to connect without such clarity. In such instances often the speaker, eager and excited about using their newly acquired skills of empathy, ends up inviting more connection and especially more vulnerability than the culture of the workplace supports. In almost every situation it may be possible to find a way to express to others your understanding of what’s important to them without invoking language that’s challenging for them. For example, the act of pausing to reflect in and of itself supports relief of tension without requiring going into any depth of feelings.

Similarly, when choosing to express with more authenticity, you have a wide range of choices about what to say and how to say it. For myself, when I manage to be as conscious as I would like, I tend to focus my expression on those aspects of my experience that point to shared purpose with whomever I am speaking with. For example, if I want to say “no” to someone who asks me for something, I make a point of saying (if it’s true, of course) how much I want to support them and why it doesn’t work for me to do what they want. This is a way of tending to relationships. Whether in the workplace or anywhere else, everyone wants to know that they matter, and you can prioritize conveying that with sufficient clarity.

In short, put your empathy and your authenticity in the service of finding common ground and mutual understanding. My own choice of what I focus on is not random. To the best of my ability, I strategically offer transparency, authenticity, and empathic presence that are likely to support those goals. More often than not, this focus results in solutions that are likely to work for everyone involved.

More on empathy and authenticity in the workplace in the days and weeks to come. In the meantime, if you are inspired and want to learn more, I will be co-leading a 5-day intensive training May 10-14 called Making Collaboration Real: Empowering the Workplace with Nonviolent Communication. It would be lovely to meet some of my readers I don’t already know.

Empathy and Good Judgment

President Obama ignited controversy when he named empathy as a necessary quality in a Supreme Court judge. Wendy Long, legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said, "Lady Justice doesn't have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law and that's really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution." Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) referred to empathy as “touchy-feely stuff." During Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked her, “Have you always been able to have a legal basis for decisions you have rendered and not rely on extralegal concepts such as empathy?”

Long, Graham, and Kyl understand empathy as an uprising of emotion that is irrelevant – even harmful – to sound reasoning and the application of justice. I see empathy as the capacity to understand the world from another’s perspective, part of what Daniel Goleman refers to as emotional intelligence. Empathic reasoning recognizes that others are human like us, thereby shedding light on the facts and making sound judgment more likely.

The concern about empathy reflects a long tradition of valuing rationality, and the Enlightenment's imperative to overcome instincts, passions, and emotions through exercising reason. This exclusive focus on reason applies across the board: to moral theory, to the law, to professional conduct, and to our assessment of our own choices and decisions.

I want to challenge the idea that we make better decisions without emotions. In Descartes’ Error, Antonio Damasio examined the rare people who have lost their capacity to have emotions as a result of losing their prefrontal lobes. While usually capable of impeccable and intelligent reasoning, such people are unable to make any decisions. Without the capacity to feel and be guided by their emotions, these individuals become entirely dependent on the kindness of their families for navigating even the simplest daily choices. Even though we can reason our way to some decisions, without our emotions we lose the moral and practical compass for making sound ones.

Instead of attempting to overcome emotions, it seems that goal would be determining which emotions can support us in making sound decisions and in living a decent, moral human life. If so, then empathy would be a clear candidate to cultivate. More and more studies indicate how profoundly widespread access to empathic capacity would change human culture. In particular, empathy plays a decisive role in sustaining or preventing violence.

Nowadays, violence is commonly seen as a failure to curb passions and act rationally. My own studies, however, bring me to see violence more as a failure to experience empathy. Modern rationality, with its efficiency and impersonalism, creates conditions that make it more likely for people to ignore empathy. This has resulted in an unprecedented proliferation of violence on a global scale. Indeed, a brief exploration of an admittedly extreme example – mass violence in Nazi Germany – can provide some insight into the significance of empathy.

In Modernity and the Holocaust, Zygmunt Bauman suggests that “The Holocaust did not just, mysteriously, avoid clash with the social norms and institutions of modernity. It was these norms and institutions that made the Holocaust feasible.” (Italics mine). When people focus more on doing a good job and following orders than on the impact of their actions, their innate capacity for empathy ceases to function as a guide to moral action. Bauman concludes: “Mass destruction was accompanied not by the uproar of emotions, but the dead silence of unconcern.”

Empathy is the lifeblood of a vibrant democratic society. It is necessary not only for Supreme Court Justices; it is vital for members of Congress, teachers, doctors, police officers, business owners, workers, parents, and children.

The gift of empathy is that it integrates mind and heart in the very same act as it brings together self and other. When we ignore empathy, we pay an enormous price in the form of depression, apathy, victimization, and anger on an individual level, and crime, neglect, alienation, bullying, even war, on a societal level. When we cultivate empathy, our emotional health improves, and in addition also our sense of hope, and our capacity, both individually and collectively, to act as moral agents in addressing the enormous challenges facing us today.

by Miki Kashtan

Is Resentment Inevitable?

by Miki Kashtan

Recently I talked with a friend about why he harbors so much resentment towards his partner and their 13 year old child, that he sometimes reacts with intense anger to relatively minor snappy expressions. My friend, let’s call him Fred, wanted to free himself from the grip of unconsciously chosen anger, so he could choose how to respond.

Invisible Contracts
As we talked, Fred recognized that it’s highly unlikely that he can transcend his reactivity in the moment. It’s almost always too late. The moment of true power is earlier, when he makes his own choices about what he will or will not do.

Fred suffers from a common affliction I like to call being “overly nice.” Simply put, Fred tends to stretch towards his partner and his child, or say “yes” to what they ask of him. That “yes” often comes with an expectation, usually unconscious, that they will appreciate him later. Then, when they don’t show appreciation, he can easily experience it as a breach of an invisible contract they don’t even know they signed! No wonder he gets so angry.

Complete Ownership of Our Choices
The first practice Fred decided to adopt was simple: before he says “yes” he will check to see if he is genuinely able to do so without expecting anything later. Fred was shocked to discover how often he would then have to say “no.” I then offered him a middle strategy as well. If he couldn’t release his expectation, maybe he could be honest about it. He could say something like: “I'm willing to do it. I am so sad to say that I don't have the capacity inside to do it without building resentment. Would you like me to do it given how much of a stretch it is for me?”

Asking for What We Want
Fred was excited about how much freedom he could get just from learning to identify and honor his limits. For greater freedom, he decided to become equally honest and exacting with himself about what he wanted from his family and to take explicit action to make it happen. His continuous willingness to stretch had been hidden from his family, making it so much easier for them to take his “yes” for granted. Now he plans to be transparent about stretching so he could be seen.

He also intends to let his family know how much he wants appreciation, and to ask them to express appreciation whenever they notice it. Working his way towards expressing his need, Fred had further insight that self-respect is about how he treats himself, and has very little to do with how others treat him. This allowed him to glimpse the possibility of expressing to his partner in full the pain he sometimes experiences in their interaction, rather than masking his vulnerability with anger.

Freedom
I heard from Fred that in the first 24 hours of applying his practice he already experienced much more freedom than before. He said “no” to his child on a number of occasions. He noticed how much harder it was to say “no” to his partner. Even without changing all his habits, he experienced growing clarity, self-honesty, and choice, and reduced resentment. I like to believe that many of us can increase our sense of power in life if we become more honest about saying “no” when anything less than unattached generosity is motivating our choice, and if we grow in our capacity to ask for what we want.