Organizational Services

Purpose

Organizations of all kinds, including yours, often experience the need to improve communication and cooperation among staff as well as with the people they serve.

NVC Aims for Connection

It is common for organizations to seek out training to help staff deal with common troubling situations. These often involve disagreement, tension, or even hostility that staff people feel frustrated by, afraid of, or exhausted from handling ineffectively or just too often. De-escalation methods, focused primarily on creating safety and resolving conflict without the use of force may meet some of those needs. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) skills are sometimes embedded in de-escalation training packages. NVC adds value by its focus upon the skills for establishing and maintaining empathic human connection through which the other objectives are more easily achieved.

Needs-Awareness Leads To Cooperation

Though it is well known for its effectiveness at resolving conflict at all scales – from interpersonal to inter-group and international conflict – Nonviolent Communication is also highly effective at creating open, trusting, cooperative work relationships for people of all ages because of its attention on the fundamental human needs that drive virtually all behavior, even needs specific to the workplace. When the needs of the participants in a situation are identified and acknowledged, the people are cognitively freed up to work together on devising solutions and motivated to cooperate on action.

Depths of Integration

There are different levels to which an organization may aim to integrate NVC skills into their communication culture:

Individual level practice – individual staff learning, practicing and applying NVC skills as their need for it arises

Team level practice – working groups applying NVC to internal communications, group discussion patterns, and client-oriented situations

Organization level practice – integrating NVC principles into the internal and external communications culture and protocols of the organization at all levels

Practice Required

Many organizational trainings are educational and inspirational. An introductory exposure to Nonviolent Communication is certainly that. However, while NVC concepts are fairly easy to understand, it is more challenging to start using them. NVC is explicitly a set of skills that are meant to override deeply-ingrained patterns of less-than-effective communication. Because of this, they need to be practiced regularly in order to be useful in the more intense emotional interactions, when we need them most. Like with any marital art, this communication art requires practice for mastery, and so some form of regular practice is recommended for individuals and teams to truly integrate these skills into their habitual way of interacting, smoothing out the formerly rough spots.

Training Package

First, A Workshop

An initial workshop experience can be set up for your staff to allow participants to try out the skills on personally meaningful situations, and convince them of its efficacy and build hope that these skills can really make a difference in the situations they find personally challenging.

Then, Practice

After an initial workshop experience, we urge organizations to consider with us how to connect their staff with ongoing practice opportunities. These could be conducted in-house, or we could invite staff to join externally-hosted practice groups. We recommend that groups organize their practice around the 14 chapters of the Nonviolent Communication (3rd Ed.) by Marshall Rosenberg, which take us, step-by-step, through the basic concepts and skills.

Internal Leadership

People within the organization can be mentored to champion the integration process and facilitate internal practice groups. One of our external trainers can be contracted to train-the-trainers, and help establish that in-house leadership to facilitate the ongoing integration of skills.

External Coaching Support

One of our external trainers could be contracted on an hourly basis, on-demand, to provide coaching to small groups of individuals who have specific situations they would like to work out their responses under our guidance.

Connection To Community

In our region, internationally, and online, there are numerous opportunities to connect with the larger community of NVC practitioners and teachers for ongoing learning and practice.

Please reach out to us to discuss how Nonviolent Communication could be used in your context and integrated into your organization’s communication culture.