I won't lie... NVC is really, really hard to achieve. But sometimes it's worth risking making mistakes to achieve your goal.
>To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
>To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, would you mind getting back to me with responses to my questions in the last update?’
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
I have two problems with them. They're pretty passive aggressive and focus on feelings instead of consequences. Going one by one:
>To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
It gets the problem wrong. It's very unlikely the problem is a lack of opportunity for co-founders to provide one on one feedback. The solution is one that no one really wants and wouldn't fix the issue. The problem is the co-founder poorly choosing words and poorly choosing the venue to deliver them. I also don't think it focuses on the right negative consequence. The negative consequence is being undermined in front of subordinates. Not to mention the relationship dynamics. Co-founders should be equal and it's not really the place of one to be "not happy" with the other's work.
I'd say something like:
‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate. I want us to be able to give each other feedback, but it's important that it happens at the appropriate time and respectfully.
>To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, would you mind getting back to me with responses to my questions in the last update?’
This one is a bit odd because typically updates don't require responses. That aside, if it's something you need input on:
"Can you please weigh in on X? We can't do Y without your go ahead and it's causing Z problems. I understand that you have a lot on your plate, but this is important and we need an answer by next week."
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
> This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
+1 to this. I get the point that the OP was trying to make and think it's valid, but the specific phrasing provided would likely cause more harm than good in many cases. Specifically, it comes across more as "you better come up with a good excuse or you're in trouble" than "I care about you and hope everything is OK, and am here to help if there's a fixable problem at the root of your lateness".
I think it’s true that many people would prefer to get scolded in silence, but in actual fact, what the other people involved in a rude behavior that needs to stop need, is for you to discuss it with them. If there’s a need for discussion, I don’t see how this approach would cause more harm than alternative ways of insisting that the rude person discuss their rudeness.
Depends on the situation. A reliable employee that suddenly starts showing up late would get the "Is everything ok?" talk. A perpetually late employee on there last strike would get the "cut it out" talk without a lot of need for discussion. The point is that you need to pick one. A "cut the crap but is everything ok?" message doesn't work.
It is also pretty direct and far from passive-aggressive behavior in my opinion.
The message is "Stop being late for meetings because it's making the team ineffecient". That's an 'aggresive' statement but you're delivering it in a 'passive' way because it makes it look like you're asking to see if everything is ok.
If you want to deliver the "Stop being late" message then say that.
If you want to ask what's going on, then do it without pointing out the problems they are causing.
Agreed, and I think an unintended consequence of 'focusing on feelings' is that it basically ensures that future interactions will also be all about feelings. (ie. we get more of what we reward)
As an aside: Early in my career I had a manager who was really tough. He was quick to point out problems and was very direct in his language. At first I hated it and was fairly intimidated by him. However I noticed a few things: It was never personal, no personal language was used. It was always factual and consequential. Second, he was good a making decisions and sticking with them. In the end I enjoyed working with him because I knew were he stood on virtually every issue, so it was easy to adjust my work to his expectations.
Next in my career, I worked for a very very different manager. She was very nice, but passive aggressive. That was actually not much of a problem, but her biggest fault is she didn't like making decisions. She would refuse to commit and want everything to be as fluid as possible. In the end, I hated my time there. I normally felt that any meeting with her was totally pointless because she refused to produce any actionable decisions from the meeting. It may sound like a dream job to some to have a boss that "never tells me what to do", but after a year or so it becomes a soul-grinding nightmare.
I don't know - to me that was clear from the statement.
>When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate.
This is what NVC calls an evaluation. The other person can simply disagree about it undermining the authority.
There's a reason negotiations books (not just NVC) emphasize talking about how you felt. It is because few ordinary people would deny your feelings. The cofounder is not going to jump in and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed". It is, however, very easy for them to say "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined."
Also, your phrasing is clearly blame oriented. That'll automatically set up the defenses.
>Co-founders should be equal and it's not really the place of one to be "not happy" with the other's work.
Even before I read the NVC book, I started telling people "should is not in my vocabulary" (I told my last manager this). And not surprisingly, it's a "forbidden" word in NVC (with a few exceptions, of course). In my experience, should statements make conversations go downhill. Should is often a lazy word. It is often used as an excuse not to explain something. My former manager had a habit of "The team should ..." and "An employee should ...". The team often disagreed, but without her giving a well thought out rationale that people could discuss, there were just should statements. It is intellectually lazy.
(And of course, in reality, many cofounding relationships are not equal).
>I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
I'm surprised you say this, given how often I've been through this and observed managers go through this. One of my former bosses had a meeting with our team and a team across the globe who dialed in (one meeting with all of us in the "room"). Few people from our team attended. So after a few weeks, instead of expressing frustration, he said he noticed many people weren't attending, and inquired as to why. And he did get variants of "waste of my time", but since he was inviting in his query instead of complaining, he got valuable feedback on why it was a waste of time. As a result, he alone met with the remote team, and then would summarize the outcomes of the meeting to our team during one of our other meetings. It also allowed for a better time for the remote team since there were fewer people to satisfy.
There have been plenty of times where using the NVC style for people who are late to meetings has resulted in fruitful outcomes. Sometimes the person who is late has stuff going on with his health, and we move the time to accommodate his medical needs. In my experience, telling someone he is always late and needs to shape up under these circumstances will usually mean he will never express why he is late.
>There's a reason negotiations books (not just NVC) emphasize talking about how you felt. It is because few ordinary people would deny your feelings. The cofounder is not going to jump in and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed". It is, however, very easy for them to say "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined."
It's true that people are less likely to openly disagree with your feelings but that doesn't mean they agree with you. So yes, a person is unlikely to say "No, you did not feel embarrassed" but that doesn't change that they're actually thinking "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined". It depends on what your goal is. In a negotiation you want them to sign the deal and you don't really care about their true feelings. With a co-founder relationship you want them to express their true feelings. The point isn't to manipulate them into doing what you want. The point is to get to the root of the issue and resolve it.
>So after a few weeks, instead of expressing frustration, he said he noticed many people weren't attending, and inquired as to why.
So he didn't do what the article said he should do:
"I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency."
> ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’
Are you suggesting that the other party would think "You're overreacting. People know you're the boss. Nothing is being undermined"? If so it sounds like it would be an evaluation on their part, and I guess it would be dealt with as such.
>I'd say something like: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, it undermines my authority and the way it's phrased is inappropriate. I want us to be able to give each other feedback, but it's important that it happens at the appropriate time and respectfully.
Okay, but that's very similar to the way it's originally phrased, but it makes a mistake because your definitions of "undermines my authority" and "inappropriate" might differ from those of your cofounder. By using the universal needs of trust and recognition, you avoid that miscommunication. Your cofounder might ask in response, "How was that inappropriate? I didn't think it was." What do you reply? "It didn't meet my needs of trust and recognition"?
>Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be statements and not questions. I mean, do you really want or expect an honest answer to the question? Because it's probably something along the lines of "I think these meetings are a waste of my time".
I think this analysis shows your problem most clearly. The problem is communicated (with statements, even!): the teammate was 10 minutes late three times and it is negatively impacting team efficiency. The question at the end is purposeful, and to just assume that you already know the answer completely defeats the purpose of communicating. YES, the answer should be honest! Maybe there's a legitimate unknown problem. Asking a question instead of making another statement would clear this up. And if the answer is "I think these meetings are a waste of my time", that's even more valuable! You can then communicate about how to waste less time, whether that's changing the style or frequency of the meetings, excusing that particular person from the meeting, or canceling it all together.
Your analysis of these examples is just baffling to me. Complete backwards and missing the point.
Passive aggression is about saying one thing, but doing something that doesn’t match your words. All of these examples are about stating what you perceive as facts, then stating what you’d like to go differently.
I think many people use “passive aggressive” to mean “you said something in a way/tone/phrasing that irritated me”, and by that definition, I can imagine anyone getting annoyed by any of these: the recipient is being put in an uncomfortable position.
But being put in an uncomfortable position is the whole point, here; the situation demands it.
I’m very receptive to the idea that NVC has an emotional tone that frustrates people, but I think it’s very inaccurate to call it passive aggressive.