NVC Training for leaders

1. The challenge

Have you seen a conflict at work that caused significant harm to individuals or teams' morale? Have you seen passive aggressive behavior and tension between teams that go unaddressed for a while? What if you had a powerful tool that everyone in your organization can adopt in a few hours which helps resolve the root of conflicts to everyone's satisfaction?

2. Suggested solution

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a process to build stronger relationships while resolving disagreements and conflicts. The idea is that everyone can be compassionate and empathetic. We use behavior that harms others only when we do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting our needs or the needs of others.

3. Learning Objectives of the session

At the end of the session, you will:

Understand what Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
Recognize what situations you can use NVC it for.
Recognize the 4 elements in NVC.
Be able to help co-workers resolve a conflicts by practicing NVC with them.

4. Session Structures

Time: 1.5 hour

Structure 1: Impromptu networking (10 minutes)

Outcome: Rapidly Share Challenges and Expectations, Build New Connections.

How:

Prompt: “share one of the worst conflicts you were part of or observed at work. Pair everyone randomly into breakrooms. One person shares their story and the other one takes notes of anything interesting. After 2 minutes, switch roles. After 4 minutes bring everyone to the main room.

Structure 2: User Experience Fishbowl (30 minutes)

Outcome: Share Know-How Gained from Experience with a Larger Community.

How:

10 minutes: Coaching simulation between Oren & Lon; audience to listen and take notes.
10 minutes: Oren and Lon describe the NVC framework that was simulated.
5 minutes: questions from audience (option for more questions at the very end of session)

Structure 3: practice coaching (25 minutes)

Outcome: Discover gaps in NVC knowledge by practicing

How:

Pair randomly into breakrooms. Prompt: “pretend that one of you is facing a conflict at work. Share the situation with an NVC coach and ask them to help you with an upcoming meeting”.

10 minutes: NVC coach and a client.
10 minutes: switch roles.

Note: if there are many participants, group size can be 3 instead of 2. The third person take notes and assess the NVC coach.

Structure 4: What, so what, now what (W3) (20 minutes)

Outcome: Together, Look Back on Progress to Date and Decide What Adjustments Are Needed.

How:

5 minutes: “What happened? What did you notice, what facts or observations stood out?”.
5 minutes: “Why is that important? What patterns or conclusions are emerging? What hypotheses can I/we make?”.
5 minutes: “Now what? What actions make sense?”.

5. Tools and frameworks that help plan and facilitate this session

Liberating Structures
Clean Language
System Thinking
Sense-making
Cynefin

6. Meeting invitation

Subject: NVC Training for CTOs

Body:

[challenge]

Have you seen a conflict at work that caused significant harm to individuals or teams’ morale? Have you seen passive aggressive behavior and tension between teams that go unaddressed for a while? What if you had a powerful tool that everyone in your organization can adopt in a few hours which helps resolve the root of conflicts to everyone's satisfaction?

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a process to build stronger relationships while resolving disagreements and conflict. The idea is that everyone can be compassionate and empathetic. We use behavior that harms others only when we do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting our needs or the needs of others.

[learning objectives]

At the end of the session, you will (1) understand what Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is, (2) recognize what situations you can use NVC it for, (3) recognize the 4 elements in NVC, and (4) you will be able to help co-workers resolve a conflicts by practicing NVC with them.

Resources:

5 minutes intro to NVC: https://oren.github.io/articles/nvc/.
Session agenda and a shared document we will use during the session: [insert shared document here if you want one].

[about the facilitators]

Lon Binder is Chief Technology Officer at Ophelia Health, using bespoke tech to treat patients with opioid use disorder. Lon has worked in e-commerce and online advertising since 1995 and has founded several companies including SnapFood.com and Broadway Bandwidth. In 2001 he helped launch AIG’s e-business risk group. Most recently, Lon was CTO at Warby Parker for eight years and CTO at Cityblock Health for two years. In addition to being an entrepreneur and technologist, Lon is a volunteer, cook, dog trainer, maker, dad, and husband.

Oren Golan: “I spent the last 15 years building, operating, and scaling product and engineering teams. My operating principles are empathy, inclusivity, transparency, and a sense of urgency. I gravitate toward challenges that are in the complex domain and require emergent, bottom-up strategies. I have worn engineering, product, and business development hats at startups in Israel and the US. I recently worked at Amazon and AWS."