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As a math student considering a teaching career, I recently took a course on math education taught by a retired high school math teacher. One of the things she placed a heavy emphasis on was our questioning techniques and classroom management strategies.

Every single one of the non-violent communication strategies you listed from the article were specifically singled out as things we should never say when asking questions to students. It was actually difficult to get out of the habit, since most of us in the class were used to couching our phrases that way.

By the end of the term, we had all gotten much better at speaking in a direct and pointed fashion, and our teaching abilities showed considerable improvement.

NVC shouldn’t be practiced in uneven relationships (teacher - student, parent - child, employer - employee, customer - server) for the exact reason mentioned by GP. It’s simultaneously condescending and confusing to the party with less power, inviting them to test what leverage they can gain - usually none.

The article acknowledges this point, albeit somewhat indirectly:

>We think it's important to note that NVC should only be used in situations where people have each other's best interests at heart

That caveat makes it vey hard to find situations where NVC is valid, as it relies on the motivation of both parties. It’s not enough for the speaker to have the listener’s best interest at heart (as is presumably the case with a teacher speaking to a student); the attitude must be reciprocated as well.

This is the sort of escape clause that enables No True Scotsman-like defenses of the methodology: “You did everything by the book and didn’t get your desired result. It must be because he doesn’t actually care about you.”

NVC is for finding mutual purpose. A classroom setting, the goal is to encourage students to push themselves. Their is no mutual purpose. Their goal of staying silent and doing as little as possible directly opposes your goal of wanting them to learn and push themselves. This is why I like the book crucial conversations. Step 1 is: identifying a crucial conversation. And you only apply the techniques in those situations. They are only intended for those types of situations, not everything. A crucial conversation is a conversation where 1. Stakes are high 2. Emotions run strong 3. Opinions vary

All three have to be true for these techniques to be useful.

Uh-oh, I think I might be doing this (as a college lecturer). Do you have some references, or some examples of how this might arise in a classroom?

This course was geared toward teaching high school. In college you have a totally different dynamic. You're not responsible for your students and you have no authority over them besides grading. People in college otherwise tend to be very respectful of their lecturers, however, since they are paying tuition to attend class and so they're invested in their education. It's rare to see anyone screw around like a high school student.

As for references, I don't really. Everything in that course was on paper handouts made specifically for us by our instructor (we had a class of 5 people). Essentially, what you want to do is ask a question directly, without couching it in any NVC-style language. Don't say "Would you like to...?" or "Does anyone know...?" Those sorts of queries open you up to a sarcastic response, though as I said I wouldn't expect that tone from college students.

I tend to agree with this. I struggle with non-violent communication. All the violence I've experienced in communication has been high social skill people passive aggressively using "appropriate channels" and "emotional intelligence" to harm me. I tend to prefer directness whether it's up or down the power ladder, and yet the trend is away from that overall. It's sort of minority rule too, where most people prefer directness, but a few people really hate it and force "non-violence" on everyone. Of course, the forcing bit implicates violence...

NVC is a framework for direct communication. To quote the article:

1. Observe Facts - observe the specific facts that are affecting our wellbeing, and bring them up with the other person

2. Note Feelings - introspect about what exactly we are feeling in response to what we've observed, and communicate these feelings

3. Uncover Desires - figure out the desires, wants and values that are creating our feelings, and explain them to the other person

4. Make Requests - ask for concrete actions to help resolve the situation

What you described is none of the above.

You're describing an algorithm, albeit an informal one. The problem is that there is no general algorithm for social skills, which means that this algorithm is useless in the general case. Now, if one treats your listed points as a set of heuristics rather than an algorithm and then perceptively applies them to a given social interaction, they probably will be useful. But, of course, the ability to do that is exactly the same thing as having social skills. This explains why it strikes many people as both patronizing and unhelpful: because it is.

There obviously is a general algorithm for social skills; otherwise humans couldn't socialise.

However there is no algorithm independent from what other people say and do. So any strategy that doesn't involve carefully considering what other people say and do is bound to fail.

You’re implying human social interaction is decidable. That’s a pretty bold claim and I’m not aware of any evidence for it. Please elaborate.

I disagree that a thing has to be decidable for there to be a relevant algorithm; an algorithm is a defined set of steps to take for a given input. And there is always the option of modelling social interaction as a decidable system then come up with an algorithm for the model (which is how most algorithms are used in practice, any decidable algorithm performs strangely in a physical world when it has to cope with cosmic rays hitting the CPU).

For people to be able to interact socially they have to make predictions about the consequences of their actions. That can be formulated as some sort of stochastic model. This is enough of a hook that algorithms can be used.

Anyway, that is fairly academic because in practice humans are obviously very predictable and tend to have quite stable personalities over time. There is a wealth of psychological literature classifying major personality traits [eg, 0] and most people respond in a normal way to incentives and social hierarchy with some adjustments for their cultural background.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Personality_traits

> All the violence I've experienced in communication has been high social skill people passive aggressively using "appropriate channels" and "emotional intelligence" to harm me.

What would be useful is a kind of "defense against the dark arts" program aimed at teaching people who prefer and practice direct communication to defend against these harms without feeling like they have to start using manipulative tricks themselves.

This is what I've been building for the last four years—mostly offline, but putting more stuff online:

emotionalselfdefense.com

...unless you were referring to NVC itself, as I think it could also be used for this, although much of the work that I do is trying to build on the shoulders of NVC.

Sounds interesting, just subscribed.

I actually find the “step-by-step instructions” the least useful part of the nonviolent communication books. I think the most important part of communication, especially in conflicts, is being genuine and authentic, which is very difficult if you’re following some sort of recipe.

I do find NVC extremely helpful as a tool to understand communication and conflicts though. There are many great insights on how conflicts appear and how having an empathic understanding of each other can help resolve them.

I’m not sure whether following the steps outlined by the method helps with that though, especially if a person sees the method as a “turnkey solution” to get other people to “behave” rather than trying to do the introspection of why you are bothered by something and to separate what the other person did from how you feel about it.

> Brilliant marketing move though, calling it "nonviolent communication", implying that any other form of communication is violent.

Thanks, I've been trying to put my finger on what irks me about this and I think this is it. I tend to have a strong negative reaction to people trying to control a conversation by framing it with loaded language. It's dishonest and manipulative and you see it all the time.

I think what frustrates me about speaking with some people who have learned NVC is that they seem to speak it with a very rigid formula and then they seem frustrated when I don't respond with the same sentence structure. Almost like they're speaking a different language and want me to conform to their language instead of meeting me halfway.

Does that sound related to what you're talking about?

Yeah, exactly. They're trying to control the language used in such a way to make disagreement with them impossible. (I don't know if this is an NVC thing, it could just be the people doing this).

A great example in fiction is the scene in Donnie Darko where the teacher is trying to make everyone classify things on a scale from "fear" to "love" and not accepting any answers not on the scale.

I agree it comes across as incredibly disingenuous and unnatural. It's like a salesperson saying your name over and over. It's not normal and FEELS like a performance to elicit a response.

I don't know why reasonable and honest communication is so hard for so many. You can speak plainly but kindly and be genuine in the process. Nobody likes being or feeling like they are being manipulated and nobody who uses "techniques" to do this is not obvious.

I think the reason it seems to work more than it actually does is because it's worst-case reaction is covert rather than overt. Someone who patronizes me or tells me sweet sounding bullshit will probably get me to hate them in silence rather than fire back immediately, since I couldn't easily prove their intent. It doesn't mean it's any better of a situation, and may result in delayed retaliation rather than just getting everything out in the open.

Actually that sounds like bad NVC. The point of NVC isn’t to obscure what you need from the other person. It’s to frame it in a way that’s objective about what you need and indicating what having what you need will allow you to do/be/feel/etc. The objective description is to remove your own emotionally loaded or offensive language.

I’m sure the HR departments of the world are misusing it though as means to an end and at the cost of employees.

An interesting side effect of making the tradeoffs clear to the listener is that their cost-benefit analysis may still fall on the side of the status quo. Especially in the case of a relatively impersonal relationship like HR-employee, it’s likely that the employee will be fine with large amounts of inconvenience for the HR department as long as the paychecks still come on time.

Yup what works and doesn't work depends on many factors (personality type, what people have been through in life, number of dumbasses they are currently surrounded by etc) so the outcomes can be highly unpredictable no matter what you do.

But having different tools in the toolkit and awareness of what's available makes a big difference.

So I look at NVC in that context, as one tool that falls under the 'communication strategy' category. There are many tools under many categories to build trust, respect and connection with others. At the end of the day what outcomes you produce are what matters. And many times it requires a combo of tools.

> Brilliant marketing move though, calling it "nonviolent communication", implying that any other form of communication is violent.

On one hand, effective marketing, on the other hand, extreme irony.

I think it's a tool. Sometimes, you need to touch on something so intrinsically tied to someone's identity, that any other form of communication doesn't tend to work.

This is, from my experience, rare. Especially among emotionally mature adults who have a well rounded life.

The problem is the people who develop these techniques, like someone who develops a good hammer, thinks that all problems are nails.

Personally, I hate the inauthentic communication style in general, and I agree with you on how it makes me feel.

I've found that folks who take "How to Win Friends and Influence People" as a roadmap for getting what they want the same way. I personally think that it's easy to detect when someone is faking empathy, being insincere, etc... And it instantly sours me on whatever conversation I am having when I find myself on the receiving end of these techniques.

Funny, I didn't see that as a book of techniques at all. More a reminder that other people all have their stories and are mostly fascinating beings if you only take the time to take an interest. The interest needn't be insincere, but the reminder is still useful for a natural recluse like myself.

(but then again I'd be rubbish at sales).

In those situations, everyone is assumed to be an adult who is strong enough to take direct criticism.

This is the example given in the article:

[1. Observe Facts] Felix, when I see two balls of soiled socks under the coffee table, [2. Note Feelings] I feel irritated because [3. Uncover Desires] I want more order in the rooms that we share in common - [4. Make Requests] would you be willing to put your socks in the washing machine?

Seems direct enough to me. Obviously stating your feelings matters less at work; maybe you'd replace "feelings" with "implications for the project" or something.

Vs “quit leaving dirty socks under the coffee table.”

That’s direct & natural.

Natural is not always better. Human behavior on average doesn't actually respond well to direct criticism. Our flight or fight responses kick in ("uggh fine" or deflecting) and cause us to handle the situation in suboptimal ways. This is probably not a great example as it feels more like a parenting example, but even in parenting, a lot of parenting material suggests that "commands" (pick up your socks) often leads to the opposite behavior where as stating your feelings helps the child learn feel empathy for you, and make the decision themselves to respect you or not. In work situations, imagine telling a coworker that you find their desk messy. Are you just going to say "clean up your desk"? No, because you cant control them. Are you going to say "you have a messy desk" or "you are a slob" no, because they take that as accusatory. Accusing is like saying "its about me not you". While this NVC framework may feel disingenuous, its actually significantly more empathic than just being direct because it forces a conversation where you can find mutual purpose. (How is this a win win?) A direct statement is actually a lie you tell yourself where you are assuming a lot and not allowing a process of changing your own mind. So being direct is actually succumbing to your own biases.

Why are you bothering yourself with the state of someone else's desk in the first place?

And less likely to achieve desired results...

The request part looks like something out of Cialdini's Persuasion. Which doesn't mean it isn't effective, mind, but it definitely sets off "someone is phrasing things like a car salesman, beware, you may be talking to a jerk who's trying to screw you" alarms.

It comes across to me as inhuman, corporate-drone speak. It also comes across as trying to manage the other person, treating them as a child or less than human themselves.

The whole idea just screams "fake" to me.

It's possible that if you're talking to someone who's really good at NVC, it might not register as NVC at all. There might be a selection effect here. (Though I guess I could also be pulling a "no true Scotsman".)

I agree, I’m seeing selection bias in some replies. NVC, like any framework, can be applied poorly. When it is applied effectively, it just comes across as clear and direct communication.

It is not intended for casual conversation, but to provide a framework for difficult conversations to increase the chances of a positive and productive result.

It sounds like passive-aggressive to me. Yeah, it's annoying.