Making Meetings Better with Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

By Alan Rafael Seid, CNVC Certified Trainer

Any significant accomplishment was made possible not by a single individual working alone, but by a group of people working together.

The individual working in isolation and making something remarkable happen is mostly a myth.

One of my mentors taught me the phrase it takes teamwork to make the dream work.

Working well together is important and valuable, and yet — people dread and avoid meetings (for good reason)!

I have participated in more meetings than I could count in which the process was so inefficient that I was left with intense frustration and disappointment, and the sense that I was wasting my time!

Meetings can be events during which topics of consequence are discussed and important decisions are made.

Meetings can also leave us drained, exhausted, and discouraged.

And meetings can provide understanding, clarity about a course of action, and leave participants feeling inspired and energized.

Since learning and improving my facilitation skills, I have facilitated possibly thousands of meetings in my career.

One consistent observation in meetings I’ve run over the last 10 years: people report leaving my meetings inspired and more energized.

In this article I define Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and then look at the role NVC plays in running efficient and effective meetings — after which participants leave feeling more connected to the team and with more clarity about next steps.

Though I am trained in several styles of group facilitation, I aim to describe to you why NVC is really the secret ingredient that makes my meetings connecting, efficient, and energizing.

What Is NVC and Why It Belongs in Every Meeting Room

NVC is a simple yet powerful methodology for achieving a high quality of connection so that you can arrive at mutually agreeable outcomes, consistently.

NVC is used in a wide variety of contexts including parenting, couples work, schooling, conflict mediation, and positive social change.

When they learn NVC, meeting facilitators, and others who attend a lot of meetings, immediately see its applicability.

The NVC Framework in a Nutshell

The framework of NVC includes four components: Observation, Feeling, Need, Request.

It’s not always necessary that these be spoken out loud or articulated. It’s often sufficient that you can put your attention on these four categories of information.

Observations are the neutral facts, without mixing in evaluations, interpretations, or judgments.

Feelings and emotions act like indicators that tell us there is something deeper going on — in particular, that our needs are met or not met. In NVC we distinguish true feelings from faux feelings, which sound like feelings but contain evaluations, judgments, or thoughts. Faux feelings don’t contribute much to connection — in fact they can do the opposite! The expression of genuine feelings brings us closer.

Needs are the ways Life is showing up in this moment, in you, in me, in any human being. Needs, as we define them in NVC, do not connote lack or that something is missing. They are energies that want to flow, not holes to be filled. Needs can also be seen as the conditions necessary for any human to thrive, independently from geographic location and cultural background. We often experience needs as core human motivators which impel us to speak or act. Whenever someone speaks or acts, it is in the service of one or more universal human needs, whether that person is aware of it or not. Needs are differentiated from strategies, which are simply the ways we go about fulfilling needs. Strategies are not universal, and when needs and strategies are confused, conflicts ensue.

Requests are a way for you to take responsibility for what you want. They are the way another can tell us how we can make their life more wonderful. An NVC request is specific, doable, contains positive action language (what we want the person to do rather than not do), and is present, in the sense that it gives others the opportunity to respond to you in this moment.

These four components of the NVC Model — observations, feelings, needs, and requests — operate and are applied in three different areas: (1) self-connection, which includes self-empathy, (2) empathy — the presence with which we show up for another, also known as empathic listening, and (3) honesty, also known as authentic self-expression.

Honesty and empathy equate to speaking and listening, whereas self-connection involves interior clarity.

Essentially, you can connect with what is true for you, what is true for another — or express yourself — using observations, feelings, needs, and requests.

Formal vs informal NVC

The distinction between formal and informal NVC is often missed by beginners, and it is a crucial distinction!

In most of life we want to use informal NVC — every-day, colloquial language. However, it often takes integrating the formal model for our informal NVC to be fluid.

Formal NVC is something we learn in a workshop, classroom, or practice group setting. It has two important purposes: training your attention for where to go and keeping some key differentiations clear. I’ll expand on this below.

A sentence constructed using formal NVC would have all four components, and sound something like:

“When I notice we haven’t spoken in three weeks, I feel sad because I have a need for connection. Would you be willing to tell me how you feel when you hear this?”

This sentence has observation, feeling, need, and request… but the problem is that nobody speaks like this!

The purpose of NVC is connection, so it’s ironic that formal NVC can actually get in the way of connection!

The two important purposes of formal NVC, again, are (1) it trains your attention for where to go, and (2) it helps you keep the key differentiations clear in your mind when you employ informal NVC!

Where does formal NVC train your attention to go? It trains it to go to all four components, but in particular feelings and needs, feelings and needs, feelings and needs.

Formal NVC helps you keep the key differentiations around the four components clear. These can be summarized as:

• observations versus evaluations,
• feelings versus faux feelings,
• needs versus strategies, and,
• requests versus demands.

NVC Consciousness, and why it’s so crucial

Though NVC has a concrete framework, as described above — a set of “tools” you can get better at using — NVC is primarily the consciousness and the intentionality that you bring to your interactions.

If your intention is to create a high quality of connection, and you have the willingness to work toward mutually beneficial solutions, that is consistent with NVC!

I may be skilled at expressing with observation, feeling, need, and request — but if my intention is to get my way or manipulate a specific outcome, then it wouldn’t be NVC at all! This is how NVC becomes weaponized. Someone uses the framework on others, and it becomes a subtle or overt form of manipulation.

If the intention and purpose is clear in your mind — connection, win-win outcomes — then the specific words you use become less important.

The consciousness is paramount. Your skills can improve over time.

NVC Consciousness for Leaders and Meeting Facilitators

There is an outdated paradigm for leadership which we could summarize as power-over.

NVC teaches you to employ power-with. One of the principles in NVC is that we are more powerful with power-with.

Sometimes in a work setting, or in a meeting, it can be easy to lose sight of our interdependence, interrelatedness, and interconnectedness outside of the roles we might be playing in that context.

Sometimes in a meeting it’s easy to lose sight of our shared purpose in the work we’re doing and to begin to relate adversarially instead of perceiving ourselves as a team with common goals.

This creates a conundrum for leaders and facilitators because we end up expending significant energy enforcing behaviors.

With a team-centered, power-with approach, a leader can instead use enrollment into a shared vision or purpose.

When compliance is not a goal, misbehavior does not become a problem.

When people are enrolled in a common vision, there is almost never a need to enforce behaviors.

Needs vs. Strategies: The Key to Inclusive and Productive Meetings

Let’s define needs and strategies, and then unpack how they are important keys to meetings in which everyone feels heard and which result in better decisions.

Needs, as defined above, are universal — all human beings have the same needs. Needs themselves are not in conflict (strategies, on the other hand, are frequently in conflict).

As stated earlier, needs can be defined as:

•  the conditions necessary for any human to thrive, independent of geographic location and cultural background.
• core human motivators — that which impels us to speak or act. Whenever someone speaks or acts, it is in the service of one or more universal human needs whether that person is aware of it or not.
• Needs are the ways Life is showing up in this moment, in you, in me, in any human being.
• Needs are energies that want to flow, not holes to be filled. (You can find a list of universal human needs here.

Strategies, on the other hand, are not universal. They are important, however, because they are the ways we go about fulfilling needs.

When we mix up needs and strategies, confusion, misunderstandings, pain, and conflicts ensue. This is because for any set of needs there could be many possible strategies.

If I think my strategy is my need I’ve made the world very scarce and it would be easy to fall into some form of pressing urgency or even desperateness over this one particular strategy!

Needs: what people really want in meetings.

The more participants are aware of the underlying needs behind any position, the more they can articulate those needs so that others can connect with them, and the more flexible and creative they can be as to how those needs might be met.

Hypothetical example: when a team can differentiate needs & strategies:

A manager says they need the report by 4pm. Why? Perhaps they are under pressure from their supervisor and are afraid of losing their job. (Keeping the job is another strategy that potentially meets many needs.) The person working on the report says they need 2 more hours to produce a quality product which will be useful. As the needs get clear, creativity can ensue. Someone at the meeting who has seniority may offer to speak to the supervisor to explain why extending the deadline could meet more needs. Or perhaps colleagues offer to support completing sections of the report so that it can be complete by the original deadline request.

For any set of needs there could be 100 or even 10,000 strategies!

Another example:
Two team members argue over remote vs. in-person work. The facilitator slows it down: “Let’s first name what needs each strategy is serving — maybe connection, efficiency, or autonomy?”

Again, if we separate needs from strategies and get clear on the needs first… then we can co-create strategies that are more likely to meet more needs for more people.

Furthermore, when people are connected on the underlying needs the process naturally becomes collaborative, which means the solutions you arrive at will have more buy-in than otherwise.

When a meeting gets stuck and how to get unstuck

If you are at an impasse, clarify all the needs first, before going to a strategy or solution. Get out of the crisis of imagination. Once the needs are on the table you can be extremely creative as to how the needs could be met. Your main limitations will be your knowledge and your imagination.

Create space to hear the needs first. Once the needs are on the table discuss, debate, explore, and co-construct the strategies that make the most sense in any given context.

One of the benefits of using an outside facilitator is that everyone in the meeting can be freed up to fully participate rather than having to run the process too.

The Deep Value of a Check-In

What I’m calling a check-in is one of the most underrated, least used, and most misunderstood tactics you can employ at the very beginning of a meeting to create more connectedness, trust, and efficiency. (That said, a check-in by itself cannot override the overall organizational culture if it is one of fear and mistrust.)

A check-in is essentially the answer to the question, “how are you
in this moment?” — and it does not have to be long!

Doing a check-in has two important purposes for teams and meetings:

– A check-in helps everyone feel more connected with each other.
– It gives us emotional context by letting us know if someone is having a hard moment or a hard day. If I’m the boss or the facilitator, I would want to know if someone’s mother died that morning!

But a check-in goes deeper than that!

Consider:

– Rarely do we take time during our day to slow down enough and ask ourselves how am I?
– Doing the check-in at the beginning of the meeting also gives people an additional opportunity to land and arrive.
– The check-in is an exercise in both self-connection (how am I?) as well as for how to articulate our inner state so that others can relate or connect to it.
– The check-in is also an exercise in being present! Other participants are encouraged to be present, rather than multitasking or in thought wondering what they’re going to say when it’s their turn. Giving each other our presence is a huge gift.
– Therefore, this is also an exercise in self-trust — trusting that the right words will come when it’s your turn.

Anecdotally, it is clear to me that meetings that include a check-in at the beginning go more smoothly and are more collaborative — because people feel more connected — than meetings that don’t.

Conducting a check-in at the beginning of a meeting can also reflect an organizational culture in which people trust that their needs matter — even if they don’t always get met how they originally thought.

Why Meetings So Often Go Off Track — and What to Do About It

Much of my personal facilitation prowess was honed by experiencing hundreds or possibly thousands of hours of poor process.

I’ve been able to see first-hand much of what doesn’t work!

That said, you do not need to re-invent the proverbial wheel or suffer through unending poor process to learn what does work!

Two key questions for meetings

Author David Allen contends that there are two key questions that many meeting attendees and facilitators forget to ask — and that when we ask these two questions it automatically contributes to greater clarity.

Though these two questions do not come from NVC, they are consistent with NVC in the clarity they can bring to a meeting.

1. What are we trying to accomplish?
2. What is the time we have in order to accomplish it?

When people are clear on the purpose and time-frame, it’s easier to keep the meeting on track.

Self-Awareness and Tracking

I work as a professional facilitator, have studied various facilitation techniques, and frequently receive positive feedback for my facilitation. With this background as context, I can assert that the number one factor for effective and efficient meetings is the level of self-awareness of participants!

Meetings go off track because people lose the thread of what the main point is that they’re trying to convey or solve. There is something that the meeting is about — or that this agenda item is about — and people lose sight of it. That’s the most fertile ground for all the tangents and side discussions to mushroom.

This is a critical skill that NVC can help you develop: clarity about the present request, and tracking the requests on the table so that they can be addressed in the order that most makes sense.

It is part of your role as facilitator to discern whether or not the current discussion meets the meeting’s needs.

When in doubt, you can interrupt by asking clarifying questions.

You can also discern if there are certain conversations that could happen outside the meeting — for example, two individuals trying to schedule a follow-up call that only involves the two of them.

Meeting participants often express points they want to make without being clear what exactly they would like back from the group — a clear present request.

As a facilitator you can help people clarify what their request is.

As a participant, you can also help the facilitator regain the reins if the meeting has gone off track.

The Power of Clear Requests in Group Process

Any time someone speaks there is a request, whether they are aware of it or not.

NVC gives you a sort of super-power which I will call needs-and-requests consciousness.

Needs-consciousness allows me to stay connected to what is alive in me — what is most important — in this present moment.

Based on those needs, I can make an actionable request for what I suspect will contribute to my needs, in a way that is in harmony with the needs of others.

Before bringing something up in a meeting, I try to also be clear of my request: what I’m wanting back from others in response. Do I want to know who is in agreement? Am I looking for support outside the meeting? Am I requesting feedback of some kind? Am I looking for specific information?

There are requests that could help us make a decision: “I’d like to see a show of hands of people who have concerns or objections around my proposal.”

There are requests that increase clarity: [raises hand] “May I ask a clarifying question?”

There are requests that keep the process moving: “Anything else on that topic?” or “Is there anyone who is not ready to move on to the next topic?”

There are requests during a discussion that help us confirm if we were understood, “I’d like to see a show of hands of everyone who trusts they understood my concern,” or “Could one person tell me back right now what they’re hearing is important to me? This would give me reassurance that I was as clear as I was hoping.” (Adding this last part helps people understand the why behind the request — which can be very helpful to the listener.)

Bottom line: omitting expressing a request, or making an unclear request, leaves others confused or guessing for how to respond — so the likelihood that your needs will be met is low.

Another way requests help me in a meeting is that I use them to clarify who is doing what, by when, how, and with whom — with as much detail as is practical. This takes the vagueness out of decisions and agreements, preventing future friction and conflicts.

A Couple of Key Differentiations Around Requests

Remember, an actionable request is:

• Specific
• Doable
• Contains positive action language
• Present.

Two simple differentiations around requests.

• A desire is not a request.
• A proposal is not a request.

A desire is not a request!

Example:

“Could someone email the client, please, and ask whether the new meeting date works?” — is neither specific, nor doable, nor present. It requires others to interpret the desire and for someone to take initiative without being asked clearly. Therefore it requires guessing. It is a desire rather than a request, which could then lead to inaction.

Alternatively:
“Kate, would you be willing to email the client or make sure that someone on the team does, to ask whether the new meeting date works for them?”

In this version, Kate can say yes or no. And part of what Kate would be agreeing to is to receive this as a delegated task, to make sure the email to the client happens.

Example:
“I would love a glass of water right now!” – is a desire, not a request.

“Ted, could you tell me if it works for you to bring me a glass of water right now… and if yes, could you bring it?”

This last one is an actionable request. I intentionally made it a bit more formal in order to draw out the kind of clarity that supports actions that meet needs.

A proposal is not a request!

I see this in meetings and work places all the time! Somebody makes a proposal, and then they lean back and wait to see how others react or respond.

When somebody makes a proposal, the first thing that pops in my head is, “I wonder what they are wanting in relation to their proposal.”

Here are some examples:

• I’d like to see a show of hands of people who like my proposal.
• I’d like to see a show of hands of people who can identify concerns or objections to my proposal being adopted.
• I’d like to see a show of hands of people who are willing and available to meet with me right after this meeting so that we can draft the letter to the project manager.

For any proposal, there may be multiple potential requests!

Story of Marshall Rosenberg during the Civil Rights movement.

During the 1960s, Dr. Rosenberg was asked to help a group that
was working to further the civil rights of marginalized groups.

The person inviting Marshall expressed one of their concerns:
“People are leaving our meetings because they feel like they are a waste of time!”

Marshall attended the next meeting that he could, and decided to simply observe their process.

Within a couple of minutes, someone was holding up a newspaper, showing it to the group and pointing to the headline:
“You see! I told you they were a bunch of racists!”

A discussion ensued.

Approximately 20 minutes later, a couple of members of the group turned to Marshall and said, “Please help us!”

Marshall replied, “I would ask the person who showed the newspaper headline, ‘what was your request? What would you have liked back from the group in relation to showing them the newspaper and the headline?’”

The person who showed everyone the newspaper headline responded, “I just thought it was interesting!”

When we don’t have clear requests, precious time is wasted!

When people in groups develop a consciousness around needs and clear, doable requests, everyone benefits, meetings become more efficient and clear, and there is a higher likelihood that everyone’s needs will be met!

The Power of Simple Empathy in Group Process

I was once in a meeting comprised of a group of people in local positions of power. I was fairly new and had no structural power in the group.

Suddenly, one of the participants stands up and points his finger at everyone around the room. “You people… are just a bunch of rich people who only care about other rich people. You don’t care about members of our community who live up the road and how much they’re suffering!”

Then he sat down. He seemed frustrated and upset.

The facilitator didn’t seem to know what to do with this. She looked at him, she glanced down at the piece of paper in front of her, which had the agenda. She then looked back at him, and at her agenda again. Then she said, “OK!… Next item on the agenda…” And that’s when I rose my hand, interrupting.

When she acknowledged me, I said: “Madam Chairperson, I just have a simple question for Jerry…” Then I turned to the man who had spoken, and asked:

“Jerry, are you saying that you really care about people in our community who are struggling economically, and you would like to see more evidence in this group of that level of care… and that you would like to see this group try to do things that alleviate the suffering of people in our community who are struggling financially?”

With a big sigh of relief, he said, “YES!”

I followed up: “And was it enough to be heard, or were you hoping for something back from the group about that?”

“Oh, it was enough to be heard!” he replied quickly, seemingly relieved to be done with the spotlight on him.

I turned to the facilitator and said, “Thank you. I feel complete with that.”

The whole exchange took about two minutes.

Afterwards, in the hallway, he approached me: “Thank you for saving my butt in there!” He seemed relieved and grateful.

I was curious what he meant. And after his explanation it became clear: giving the empathic reflection, clarifying what he meant, — specifically getting to what was in his heart — accomplished a few things:

1. It helped him have more clarity about the values underneath his judgments.
2. By helping others hear it a second time, this time from the standpoint of what was important to him, it took some of the sting out of his initial judgment and helped him trust that he was understood in a way he preferred.
3. Helping others hear his values rather than only his judgments may have saved his relationships with other people in the room. Developing NVC skills gives you tools to greatly serve any group of which you are a member. You don’t need to have structural power in the group, or even permission. All it takes is your skills, your clear intention to serve, and a little bit of courage to speak up!

How to Help Everyone Feel Heard (Without Taking Forever)

Sometimes it is impractical for everyone to get heard as much as or in the way they want.

However, as a leader or facilitator I want everyone to trust that their needs matter — even if they are not going to get met the way they want.

This reminds me of a lesson from parenting:
When my son was about 12 I asked him two questions. The first, what percentage of the time are your needs met in our relationship? He thought about it, and then answered: 75% of the time; three quarters. My follow-up question: What percentage of the time do you trust that your needs matter? His response, without hesitation: 100% of the time, no question.

As a leader, I want the people who work with me to have the
same sense of care and trust — that they matter — even though
not everyone gets everything they want all the time.

Balancing Inclusion and Efficiency — Yes, It’s Possible

It is not only possible to have both efficiency and inclusion — in many cases, it’s the only way because when people feel excluded things can become very inefficient.

The person who feels excluded, marginalized, or shut-down will act out in other ways.

Real life example — a very challenging meeting:

I remember a meeting I was facilitating — it was the third and final meeting of a group transitioning from one leadership team to another.

The group had already decided that unanimity was not possible and were starting to settle for the idea of a majority decision. But I took on that challenge, hoping I could weave the threads together into a single decision everyone could be happy with.

There was one person in particular that was having a lot of issues with the decision the group was approaching. She was having strong concerns, fears, and simply wasn’t understanding how the approach most of the group seemed to favor could work. I made a professional decision in that moment to give her a little more space — I was not about to let one person “hijack” the time or the meeting — but I was prepared to see if I could deeply understand her concerns and help bring her around.

It only took about 10 minutes — which out of a two and-a-half hour meeting was not that much, though to some people in the room it probably felt interminable.

I asked her clarifying questions, sincerely trying to understand the needs or values underlying her perspective.

Once I was able to understand her needs, I was able to clarify the difference between what is important (needs and values) and the various possible strategies for how to get there.

Once she felt understood, she trusted in my care more, and was much more receptive.

I was then able to re-cap the process and the conversation for her, pointing out the various needs I was hearing in the room, as well as the various strategies that had been proposed, discarded, and modified along the way.

I was able to point out how I, personally, saw the group’s preferred strategy as taking into account the needs and values she was holding as important.

At this point she softened. She wasn’t simply giving in to the group or giving up on her own needs. It seemed like the picture was more clear to her, and she appeared satisfied.

She withdrew her objection and the group reached a decision with unanimity, and we still had 20 minutes to spare in the meeting (which I used to invite the voices of people who had not spoken up much during the process).

Some facilitators would have allowed this person’s objections to stall or derail the process. Other facilitation styles would have crushed her dissenting voice or opinion in order to maintain forward movement and group cohesion.

Neither of these two things would serve. If the process is stalled or derailed by one person I have failed as a process facilitator and I would have most of the group upset and resentful at me. If I had steamrolled over her dissent, she would be resentful of me, the process, and the group. In some cases this turns into subtle forms of sabotage. And given her position in the community, suppressing her voice, besides it being against my values, could have backfired in ways that could have impacted the group negatively.

Instead, by using NVC, I was able to meet the moment and meet this person where she was at. Because she felt heard and understood she was then more open to an alternative perspective. Once she saw how that also met her needs, she was able to support the group in their overall decision.

The group that had given up on consensus ended up landing in unanimity with time to spare.

Sometimes taking the time saves time — but you have to have the skills!

Having a great set of tools, like NVC, is one thing. Being skillful with those tools is another! So I invite you to commit to the process of developing your skills!

Conclusion: Bringing Humanity into Meetings with NVC

Human beings struggle enough as it is with too many meetings, but especially with poorly run meetings in which their needs for clarity and effective use of time are not met.

NVC accomplishes a remarkable number of things at once: people feel heard, they trust that their needs matter, they benefit from clear requests to keep the process moving, and experience clear requests which eliminate ambiguity regarding deliverables.

By separating needs from strategies groups can arrive at better solutions, which include people’s buy-in — and this by itself prevents a lot of grief in the form of conflicts, misunderstandings, resentments, and subtle and overt sabotage.

Bringing NVC skills to meeting facilitation is good for both the humans who attend meetings as well as for the purpose that brought people together to accomplish something that can help make things in the world a little better.

Needs and Requests for Meetings: Dr. Marshall Rosenberg on Clarity in Communication

This personal anecdote of a conversation I had with Dr. Marshall Rosenberg is not overtly about meetings, but it is about a challenge he gave me that speaks directly to the kind of clarity I wish everybody brought to meetings!

In the spring of 1999 I worked with Marshall in Colombia, South America as his Spanish interpreter for about 10 days. It was a remarkable trip given all the different types of meetings we had and people we met with.

On the last day, the team in Colombia had a “harvest” — essentially a meeting to acknowledge all the lessons as well as to share any mournings and celebrations from the trip.

At a certain point in this meeting, Marshall shared about a conversation he and I had had in the car a few days prior, which had been very painful for him, even though I had no idea at the time it happened!

I listened to Marshall as he recounted how anxious he felt when I was using many more words than he was enjoying, and without a clear, present request.

As he shared, I was merely present. I remember reflecting back my understanding, and him expressing gratitude for how I had received his pain.

Then I asked for his advice! “Marshall, what suggestion or recommendation do you have for me so that this never happens again?”

And I will never forget his answer!

Before you open your mouth, be clear on your present need and request!

I have tried to live this ever since.

Puddledancer Press Books on Meetings and Group Process

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NVC has shown time and again that human beings are capable of arriving at mutually crafted solutions.

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