11
Conflict Resolution and Mediation
ow that you are familiar with the steps involved in
Nonviolent
Communication, I want to address how to apply them in
resolving
conflicts. These could be conflicts between yourself and
someone else, or you
may be asked to—or choose to—involve yourself in a
conflict between others:
family members, partners, co-workers, or even strangers in
conflict.
Whatever the situation may be, resolving conflicts involves
all the principles I
outlined previously in this book: observing, identifying
and expressing
feelings, connecting feelings with needs, and making doable
requests of
another person using clear, concrete, positive action
language.
Over the course of several decades, I’ve used Nonviolent
Communication
to resolve conflicts around the world. I’ve met with
unhappy couples,
families, workers and their employers, and ethnic groups at
war with each
other. My experience has taught me that it’s possible to
resolve just about any
conflict to everybody’s satisfaction. All it takes is a
lot of patience, the
willingness to establish a human connection, the intention
to follow NVC
principles until you reach a resolution, and trust that the
process will work.Human Connection
In NVC-style conflict resolution, creating a connection
between the people
who are in conflict is the most important thing. This is
what enables all the
other steps of NVC to work, because it’s not until you
have forged that
connection that each side will seek to know exactly what
the other side is
feeling and needing. The parties also need to know from the
start that the
objective is not to get the other side to do what they want
them to do. And
once the two sides understand that, it becomes possible—
sometimes even
easy—to have a conversation about how to meet their needs.
Creating a connection between people is the most
important thing.
With NVC, we’re trying to live a different value system
while we are
asking for things to change. What’s most important is that
every connection
along the line mirrors the kind of world we’re trying to
create. Each step
needs to reflect energetically what we’re after, which is
a holographic image of
the quality of relationships we’re trying to create. In
short, how we ask for
change reflects the value system we’re trying to support.
When we see the
difference between these two objectives, we consciously
refrain from trying to
get a person to do what we want. Instead we work to create
that quality of
mutual concern and respect where each party thinks their
own needs matter
and they are conscious that their needs and the other
person’s well-being are
interdependent. When that happens, it’s amazing how
conflicts that
otherwise seem irresolvable are easily resolved.
When I’m asked to resolve a conflict, I work to lead the
two sides to this
caring and respectful connection. This is often the tough
part. Once that is
accomplished, I help both sides create strategies that will
resolve the conflict
to both sides’ satisfaction.Notice that I use the word
satisfaction instead of compromise! Most
attempts at resolution search for compromise, which means
everybody gives
something up and neither side is satisfied. NVC is
different; our objective is
to meet everyone’s needs fully.NVC Conflict Resolution
versus Traditional Mediation
Let’s consider the human connection aspect of NVC again,
this time looking
at third-party mediation—a person stepping in to resolve a
conflict between
two other parties. When I’m working with two people, or
two groups, that
have a conflict they haven’t been able to resolve, I
approach this very
differently from the way professional mediators often
approach a conflict.
For example, once I was in Austria meeting with a group of
professional
mediators who work on many kinds of international
conflicts, including
those between unions and management. I described several
conflicts I had
mediated, such as one in California between landowners and
migrant workers
where there had been considerable physical violence. And I
talked about
mediating between two African tribes (which I discuss fully
in my book Speak
Peace in a World of Conflict) and a few other extremely
entrenched,
dangerous conflicts.
I was asked how much time I give myself to study a
situation I was to
mediate. He was referring to the process most mediators
use: educating
themselves about the issues involved in the conflict and
then mediating with
those issues as the focus instead of focusing on creating a
human connection.
In fact, in typical third-party mediation, the conflicting
parties may not even
be in the same room. Once, as a participant in mediation,
our party was in
one room and the other party was in another room, with the
mediator
traveling back and forth between rooms. He’d ask us,
“What do you want
them to do?” and he’d take that back to the other side
and see if they were
willing to do it. Then he would come back and say, “They’
re unwilling to do
that, but how about this?”
Many mediators define their role as a “third head” trying
to think of a way
to get everybody to come to an agreement. They are not at
all concerned with
creating a quality of connection, thus overlooking the only
conflict resolution
tool I have ever known to work. When I described the NVC
method and the
role of human connection, one of the participants at the
Austria meetingraised the objection that I was talking
about psychotherapy, and that
mediators were not psychotherapists.
In my experience, connecting people at this level isn’t
psychotherapy; it’s
actually the core of mediation because when you make the
connection, the
problem solves itself most of the time. Instead of a third
head asking, “What
can we agree to here?,” if we had a clear statement of
each person’s needs—
what those parties need right now from each other—we will
then discover
what can be done to get everybody’s needs met. These
become the strategies
the parties agree to implement after the mediation session
concludes and the
parties leave the room.
When you make the connection, the problem
usually solves itself.NVC Conflict Resolution Steps—A
Quick Overview
Before we get deeper into a discussion of some of the other
key elements of
conflict resolution, let me give you a thumbnail sketch of
the steps involved in
resolving a conflict between ourselves and somebody else.
There are five steps
in this process. Either side may express their needs first,
but for the sake of
simplicity in this overview, let’s assume we begin with
our needs.
First, we express our own needs.
Second, we search for the real needs of the other person,
no matter how
they are expressing themselves. If they are not expressing
a need, but
instead an opinion, judgment, or analysis, we recognize
that, and
continue to seek the need behind their words, the need
underneath what
they are saying.
Third, we verify that we both accurately recognize the
other person’s
needs, and if not, continue to seek the need behind their
words.
Fourth, we provide as much empathy as is required for us to
mutually
hear each other’s needs accurately.
And fifth, having clarified both parties’ needs in the
situation, we
propose strategies for resolving the conflict, framing them
in positive
action language.
Throughout, we’re listening to each other with utmost
care, avoiding the
use of language that implies wrongness on either side.
Avoid the use of language that implies wrongness.On Needs,
Strategies, and Analysis
Since the understanding and expression of needs are
essential to resolving
conflicts through NVC, let us review this vital concept
which has been
emphasized throughout this book, and particularly in
Chapter 5.
Fundamentally, needs are the resources life requires to
sustain itself. We
all have physical needs: air, water, food, rest. And we
have psychological
needs such as understanding, support, honesty, and meaning.
I believe that all
people basically have the same needs regardless of
nationality, religion,
gender, income, education, etc.
Next, let’s consider the difference between a person’s
needs and his or her
strategy for fulfilling them. It is important, when
resolving conflicts, that we
can clearly recognize the difference between needs and
strategies.
Many of us have great difficulty expressing our needs: we
have been
taught by society to criticize, insult, and otherwise
(mis)communicate in ways
that keep us apart. In a conflict, both parties usually
spend too much time
intent on proving themselves right, and the other party
wrong, rather than
paying attention to their own and the other’s needs. And
such verbal conflicts
can far too easily escalate into violence—and even war.
In order not to confuse needs and strategies, it is
important to recall that
needs contain no reference to anybody taking any particular
action. On the
other hand, strategies, which may appear in the form of
requests, desires,
wants, and “solutions,” refer to specific actions that
specific people may take.
For example, I once met with a couple who had just about
given up on
their marriage. I asked the husband what needs of his weren
’t being fulfilled
in the marriage. He said, “I need to get out of this
marriage.” What he was
describing was a specific person (himself) taking a
specific action (leaving the
marriage). He wasn’t expressing a need; he was identifying
a strategy.
I pointed this out to the husband and suggested that he
first clarify his and
his wife’s needs before undertaking the strategy of
“getting out of this
marriage.” After both of them had connected with their own
and each other’sneeds, they discovered that these needs
could be met with strategies other
than ending the marriage. The husband acknowledged his
needs for
appreciation and understanding for the stress generated by
his rather
demanding job; the wife recognized her needs for closeness
and connection in
a situation where she experienced her husband’s job
occupying much of his
time.
Once they truly understood their mutual needs, this husband
and wife
were able to arrive at a set of agreements that satisfied
both their needs while
working around the demands of the husband’s job.
In the case of another couple, the lack of “needs literacy
” took the form of
confusion between the expression of needs and the
expression of analysis, and
ultimately led to their inflicting physical violence on
each other. I was invited
to mediate in this situation at the end of a workplace
training when a man
tearfully described his situation and asked if he and his
wife could speak with
me in private.
I agreed to meet them at their home, and opened the evening
by saying:
“I’m aware that you’re both in a lot of pain. Let’s
begin with each of you
expressing whatever needs of yours aren’t being fulfilled
in your relationship.
Once you understand each other’s needs, I’m confident we
can work on
strategies to meet those needs.”
Not being “needs literate,” the husband started off by
telling his wife, “The
problem with you is that you’re totally insensitive to my
needs.” She answered
in the same manner, “That’s typical of you to say unfair
things like that!”
Instead of expressing needs, they were doing analysis,
which is easily
heard as criticism by a listener. As mentioned earlier in
this book, analyses
that imply wrongness are essentially tragic expressions of
unmet needs. In the
case of this couple, the husband had a need for support and
understanding
but expressed it in terms of the wife’s “insensitivity.”
The wife also had a need
for being accurately understood, but she expressed it in
terms of the
husband’s “unfairness.” It took a while to move through
the layers of needs
on the part of both husband and wife, but only through
truly acknowledging
and appreciating each other’s needs were they finally able
to begin the processof exploring strategies to address
their long-standing conflicts.
I once worked with a company where both morale and
productivity took
a dive due to a very disturbing conflict. Two factions in
the same department
were fighting over which software to use, generating strong
emotions on both
sides. One faction had worked especially hard to develop
the software that
was presently in use, and wanted to see its continued use.
The other faction
had strong emotions tied up in creating new software.
I started by asking each side to tell me what needs of
theirs would be
better fulfilled by the software they advocated. Their
response was to offer an
intellectual analysis that the other side received as
criticism. A member on the
side that favored new software said: “We can continue to
be overly
conservative, but if we do that, I think we could be out of
work in the future.
Progress means that we take some risks, and dare to show
that we are beyond
old-fashioned ways of doing things.” A member of the
opposing faction
responded, “But I think that impulsively grabbing for
every new thing that
comes along is not in our best interest.” They
acknowledged that they had
been repeating these same analyses for months and were
getting nowhere
other than increasing tension for themselves.
Intellectual analysis is often received as criticism.
When we don’t know how to directly and clearly express
what we need,
but can only make analyses of others that sound like
criticism to them, wars
are never far away—whether verbal, psychological, or
physical.Sensing Others’ Needs, No Matter What They’re
Saying
To resolve conflicts using NVC, we need to train ourselves
to hear people
expressing needs regardless of how they do the expressing.
If we really want
to be of assistance to others, the first thing to learn is
to translate any message
into an expression of a need. The message might take the
form of silence,
denial, a judgmental remark, a gesture—or, hopefully, a
request. We hone our
skills to hear the need within every message, even if at
first we have to rely on
guesses.
For example, in the middle of a conversation, if I ask the
other person
something about what they’ve just said, and I am met with
“That’s a stupid
question,” I hear them expressing a need in the form of a
judgment of me. I
proceed to guess what that need might be—maybe the
question I asked did
not fulfill their need to be understood. Or if I ask my
partner to talk about the
stress in our relationship and they answer, “I don’t want
to talk about it,” I
may sense that their need is for protection from what they
imagine could
happen if we were to communicate about our relationship. So
this is our
work: learning to recognize the need in statements that don
’t overtly express
any need. It takes practice, and it always involves some
guessing. Once we
sense what the other person needs, we can check in with
them, and then help
them put their need into words. If we are able to truly
hear their need, a new
level of connection is forged—a critical piece that moves
the conflict toward
successful resolution.
Learn to hear needs regardless of how people
express them.
In workshops for married couples, I often look for the
couple with the
longest unresolved conflict to demonstrate my prediction
that, once each side
can state the other side’s needs, it would take no more
than twenty minutes
for the conflict to come to a resolution. Once there was a
couple whosemarriage suffered thirty-nine years of conflict
about money. Six months into
the marriage, the wife had twice overdrawn their checking
account
whereupon the husband took control of the finances and
would no longer let
her write checks. The two of them had never stopped arguing
about it since.
The wife challenged my prediction, saying that even though
they had a
good marriage and can communicate well, it wouldn’t be
possible for their
historically entrenched conflict to resolve so quickly.
I invited her to begin by telling me if she knew what her
husband’s needs
were in this conflict.
She replied, “He obviously doesn’t want me to spend any
money.”
To which her husband exclaimed: “That’s ridiculous!”
In stating that her husband didn’t want her to spend any
money, the wife
was identifying what I call a strategy. Even if she had
been accurate in
guessing her husband’s strategy, she had nowhere
identified his need. Here
again is the key distinction. By my definition, a need
doesn’t refer to a specific
action, such as spending or not spending money. I told the
wife that all people
share the same needs, and if she could only understand her
husband’s needs,
the issue would be resolved. When encouraged again to state
her husband’s
needs, she replied, “He is just like his father,”
describing how his father had
been reluctant to spend money. At this point, she was
making an analysis.
I stopped her to ask again, “What was his need?”
It became clear that, even after thirty-nine years of
“communicating well,”
she still had no idea what his needs were.
I then turned to the husband. “Since your wife isn’t in
touch with what
your needs are, why don’t you tell her? What needs are you
meeting by
keeping the checkbook from her?”
Criticism and diagnosis get in the way of peaceful
resolution of conflicts.
To which he responded, “Marshall, she’s a wonderful wife,
a wonderfulmother. But when it comes to money, she’s
totally irresponsible.” His use of
diagnosis (“She is irresponsible.”) is reflective of
language that gets in the way
of peaceful resolution of conflicts. When either side hears
itself criticized,
diagnosed, or interpreted, the energy of the situation will
likely turn toward
self-defense and counter-accusations rather than toward
resolution.
I tried to hear the feeling and need behind him stating
that his wife was
irresponsible: “Are you feeling scared because you have a
need to protect your
family economically?” He agreed that this was indeed the
case. Admittedly, I
had merely guessed correctly, but I didn’t have to get it
right the first time
because even if I had guessed wrong, I would still have
been focusing on his
needs—and that’s the heart of the matter. In fact, when
we reflect back
incorrect guesses to others, it may help them get in touch
with their true
needs. It takes them out of analysis toward greater
connection to life.Have the Needs Been Heard?
The husband had finally acknowledged his need: to keep his
family safe. The
next step is to ascertain that the wife heard that need.
This is a crucial stage in
conflict resolution. We must not assume that when one party
expresses a
need clearly, that the other party hears it accurately. I
asked the wife, “Can
you tell me back what you heard to be your husband’s needs
in this
situation?”
“Well, just because I overdrew the bank account a couple
of times, it
doesn’t mean I’m going to continue doing it.”
Her response was not unusual. When we have pain built up
over many
years, it can get in the way of our ability to hear
clearly, even when what is
being expressed is clear to others. To continue, I said to
the wife: “I’d like to
tell you what I heard your husband say, and I’d like you
to repeat it back. I
heard that your husband says he has a need to protect the
family, and he’s
scared because he wants to be sure that the family is
protected.”Empathy to Ease the Pain That Prevents Hearing
But she was still in too much pain to hear me. This brings
up another skill
that is needed if we are to effectively engage the NVC
process of conflict
resolution. When people are upset, they often need empathy
before they can
hear what is being said to them. In this instance, I
changed course: instead of
trying to have her repeat what her husband had said, I
tried to understand the
pain she was in—the pain that kept her from hearing him.
Especially if there
is a long history of pain, it is important to offer enough
empathy so that the
parties feel reassured that their pain is being recognized
and understood.
People often need empathy before they are able to
hear what is being said.
When I addressed the wife with empathy, “I sense that you
’re feeling
really hurt and you need to be trusted that you can learn
from past
experience,” the expression in her eyes showed me how much
she needed that
understanding. “Yes, exactly,” she replied, but when
asked to repeat back
what her husband had said, she answered, “He thinks I
spend too much
money.”
Just as we are not trained to express our own needs, most
of us have not
been trained in hearing the needs of others. All this wife
could hear was
criticism or diagnosis on part of her husband. I encouraged
her to try to
simply hear his needs. After I repeated his need—for
safety for his family—
two more times, she finally was able to hear it. Then,
after a few more rounds,
they were both able to hear each other’s needs. And just
as I had predicted,
once they understood—for the first time in thirty-nine
years—each other’s
needs concerning the checkbook, it took less than twenty
minutes to find
practical ways to meet both their needs.
The more experience I have gained in mediating conflicts
over the yearsand the more I’ve seen what leads families
to argue and nations to go to war,
the more convinced I am that most schoolchildren could
solve these conflicts.
If we could just say, “Here are the needs of both sides.
Here are the resources.
What can be done to meet these needs?,” conflicts would be
easily resolved.
But instead, our thinking is focused on dehumanizing one
another with labels
and judgments until even the simplest of conflicts becomes
very difficult to
solve. NVC helps us avoid that trap, thereby enhancing the
chances of
reaching a satisfying resolution.Using Present and Positive
Action Language to Resolve
Conflict
Although I addressed the use of present, positive action
language in Chapter
6, I’d like to present a few more examples to demonstrate
its importance in
resolving conflicts. Once both parties have connected with
each other’s needs,
the next step is to arrive at strategies that meet those
needs. It’s important to
avoid moving hastily into strategies, as this may result in
a compromise that
lacks the deep quality of authentic resolution that is
possible. By fully hearing
each other’s needs before addressing solutions, parties in
conflict are much
more likely to adhere to the agreements they make to each
other. The process
of resolving conflict has to end with actions that meet
everybody’s needs. It is
the presentation of strategies in clear, present, positive
action language that
moves conflicts toward resolution.
A present language statement refers to what is wanted at
this moment. For
example, one party might say, “I’d like you to tell me if
you would be willing
to—” and describe the action they’d like the other party
to take. The use of a
present language request that begins with “Would you be
willing to …” helps
foster a respectful discussion. If the other side answers
that they are not
willing, it invites the next step of understanding what
prevents their
willingness.
On the other hand, in the absence of present language, a
request such as
“I’d like you to go to the show with me Saturday night”
fails to convey what’s
being asked of the listener at that moment. The use of
present language to
hone such a request, for example, “Would you be willing to
tell me whether
you will go to the show with me Saturday night?,” supports
clarity and
ongoing connection in the exchange. We can further clarify
the request by
indicating what we may want from the other person in the
present moment,
“Would you be willing to tell me how you feel about going
to the show with
me Saturday night?” The clearer we are regarding the
response we want right
now from the other party, the more effectively we move the
conflict towardresolution.Using Action Verbs
In Chapter 6, we touched upon the role of action language
in forming NVC
requests. In situations of conflict, it is especially
important to focus on what
we do want rather than what we do not want. Talking about
what one doesn’t
want can easily create confusion and resistance among
conflicting parties.
Action language requires the use of action verbs, while
also avoiding
language that obscures, or language that can readily be
inferred as an attack.
I’d like to illustrate this with a situation where a woman
expressed a need for
understanding that wasn’t being met in her primary
relationship. After her
partner was able to accurately hear and reflect back the
need for
understanding, I turned to the woman and said, “Okay, let
’s get down to
strategies. What do you want from your partner in order to
meet your need
for understanding?” She faced her partner and said, “I’d
like you to listen to
me when I talk to you.” “I do listen to you when you
talk!,” the partner
retorted. It’s not unusual, if someone tells us they’d
like us to listen when they
are talking, for us to hear accusations and thus feel some
resentment.
Action language requires the use of action verbs.
They went back and forth, with the partner repeating, “I
do listen,” and
the woman countering, “No, you don’t.” They told me they
’d had this
“conversation” for twelve years, a situation that is
typical in conflicts when
parties use vague words like “listen” to express
strategies. I suggest instead the
use of action verbs to capture something that we can see or
hear happening—
something that can be recorded with a video camera.
“Listening” occurs inside
a person’s head; another person cannot see whether it is
happening or not.
One way to determine that someone is actually listening is
to have that person
reflect back what had been said: we ask the person to take
an action that we
ourselves can see or hear. If the other party can tell us
what was just said, weknow that person heard and was indeed
listening to us.
In another conflict between a husband and wife, the wife
wanted to know
that her husband respected her choices. Once she expressed
her need
successfully, her next step was to get clear on her
strategy for meeting that
need and to make a request of the husband. She told him, “
I want you to give
me the freedom to grow and be myself.” “I do,” he
replied, and just as with
the other couple, this was followed by a fruitless volley
of “Yes, I do,” and
“No, you don’t.”
Non-action language, such as “Give me the freedom to grow
” often
exacerbates conflict. In this instance, the husband heard
himself being judged
as domineering. I pointed out to the wife that it wasn’t
clear to her husband
what she wanted: “Please tell him exactly what you’d like
him to do to meet
your need to have your choices respected.”
“I want you to let me—,” she began. I interrupted that
“let” was too vague:
“What do you really mean when you say you want somebody to
‘let’ you?”
After reflecting for a few seconds, she arrived at an
important
understanding. She acknowledged that what she really meant
when she said
things like “I want you to let me be” and “I want you to
give me the freedom
to grow” is for her husband to tell her that no matter
what she did, it was
okay.
When she got clear as to what she was actually requesting—
for him to tell
her something—she recognized that what she wanted did not
leave him much
freedom to be himself and to have his choices respected.
And maintaining
respect is a key element in successful conflict resolution.
Maintaining respect is a key element in successful
conflict resolution.Translating “No”
When we express a request, it’s very important to be
respectful of the other
person’s reaction, whether or not they agree to our
request. Many mediations
I have witnessed consist of waiting for people to wear down
to the point
where they’ll accept any compromise. This is very
different from a resolution
in which everyone’s needs are met and nobody experiences
loss.
In Chapter 8, we discovered the importance of not hearing
“no” as
rejection. Listening carefully to the message behind the “
no” helps us
understand the other person’s needs: When they say “no,”
they’re saying they
have a need that keeps them from saying “yes” to what we
are asking. If we can
hear the need behind a “no,” we can continue the conflict
resolution process
—maintaining our focus on finding a way to meet everybody
’s needs—even if
the other party says “no” to the particular strategy we
presented them.NVC and the Mediator Role
Although in this chapter I have offered examples from
mediations I’ve
facilitated between conflicting parties, the focus so far
has been on how to
apply these skills when resolving conflicts between
ourselves and another
person. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind at
those times when
we want to use our NVC tools to help two other parties
reach a resolution and
we take on the role of mediator.Your Role, and Trust in the
Process
When entering a conflict process as mediator, a good place
to start might be
to assure the people in conflict that we are not there to
take sides, but to
support them in hearing each other, and to help guide them
to a solution that
meets everyone’s needs. Depending on the circumstances, we
may also want
to convey our confidence that, if the parties follow the
steps of NVC, both of
their needs will be met in the end.Remember: It’s Not
About Us
At the beginning of the chapter, I emphasized that the
objective is not to get
the other person to do what we want them to do. This also
applies to
mediating someone else’s conflict. Though we may have our
own wishes for
how the conflict is resolved—especially if the conflict is
between family,
friends, or co-workers—we need to remember that we are not
here to
accomplish our own goals. The mediator’s role is to create
an environment in
which the parties can connect, express their needs,
understand each other’s
needs, and arrive at strategies to meet those needs.
The objective is not to get the parties to do what
we want them to do.Emergency First-Aid Empathy
As mediator, I stress my intention for both parties to be
fully and accurately
understood. Despite that, as soon as I express empathy
toward one side, it is
not unusual for the other side to immediately accuse me of
favoritism. At this
time, what’s called for is emergency first-aid empathy.
This might sound like
“So you’re really annoyed, and you need some assurance
that you’re going to
get your side on the table?”
Once the empathy has been expressed, I remind them that
everyone will
have the opportunity to be heard, and their turn will be
next. It is then helpful
to confirm they are in agreement with waiting by asking,
for example, “Are
you feeling reassured about that, or would you like more
reassurance that
your opportunity to be heard will come soon?”
We may need to do this repeatedly to keep the mediation on
track.Keep Track: Follow the Bouncing Ball
When we are mediating, we have to “keep score” by paying
careful attention
to what has been said, making sure both parties have the
opportunity to
express their needs, listen to the other person’s needs,
and make requests. We
also need to “follow the bouncing ball”: being conscious
of where one party
left off so we can return to what that party said after the
other party has been
heard.
This can be challenging, especially when things get heated.
In such
situations, I often find it helpful to use a white board or
flip chart to capture
the essence of what was spoken by the last speaker who had
opportunity to
express a feeling or need.
This form of visual tracking can also serve to reassure
both parties that
their needs will be addressed because so often before we
have a chance to fully
draw out one party’s needs, the other will be jumping
ahead to express
themselves. Taking the time to note those needs in a way
that is visible to
everyone present can help the listener feel comfortable
that their own needs
will also be addressed. In this way, everyone can more
easily offer their full
attention to what is being expressed in the current
moment.Keep the Conversation in the Present
Another important quality to bring to mediation is
awareness of the moment:
who needs what right now? What are their present requests?
Maintaining this
awareness requires a lot of practice in being present in
the moment, which is
something most of us have never been taught to do.
As we move through the mediation process, it is likely that
we will hear a
lot of discussion about what happened in the past and what
people want to
happen differently in the future. However, conflict
resolution can only
happen right now, so now is where we need to focus.Keep
Things Moving
Another mediation task is to keep the conversation from
getting bogged
down; this can happen very easily, as people often think
that if they just tell
that same story one more time, they will finally be
understood and the other
person will do what they want.
To keep things moving, the mediator needs to ask effective
questions, and
when necessary, maintain or even speed up the pace. Once,
when I was
scheduled to lead a workshop in a small town, the event
organizer asked if I
would help him with a personal dispute related to the
division of family
property. I agreed to mediate, aware there was only a
three-hour window in
between workshops to do so.
The family dispute centered on a man who owned a large farm
and was
about to retire. His two sons were at war over how the
property was to be
divided. They hadn’t spoken in eight years even though
they lived close to
each other at the same end of the farm. I met the brothers,
their wives, and
their sister, all of whom were involved in this set of
complicated legal matters
and eight years of pain.
In order to get things moving—and to stay on schedule—I
had to speed
up the mediation process. To keep them from spending time
telling the same
stories over and over, I asked one of the brothers if I
could play his role; then I
would switch and play the part of the other brother.
Use role-play to speed up the mediation process.
As I was going through my role-play, I joked about wanting
to see if I was
playing the part right by asking if I could check in with
my “director.”
Looking over at the brother whose part I had been playing,
I saw something I
wasn’t prepared for: he had tears in his eyes. I guessed
that he was
experiencing deep empathy, both with himself from my
playing his role, as
well as for his brother’s pain, which he had not seen
until then. The next day,the father approached me, also
with tearful eyes, to say that the night before
the whole family had gone out to dinner for the first time
in eight years.
Though the conflict had persisted for years, with lawyers
on both sides
working unsuccessfully to come to agreement, it became
simple to resolve
once the brothers heard each other’s pain and needs as
revealed through the
role-playing. If I had waited for both of them to tell
their stories, the
resolution would have taken much longer.
When relying on this method, I periodically turn to the
person whose role
I’m playing, addressing them as “my director” to see how
I am doing. For a
while I thought I had acting talent because of how often I
find them crying
and saying, “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to
say!” However, when I
started training others in role-playing, I now know that
any of us can do it as
long as we are in touch with our own needs. No matter what
else is going on,
we all have the same needs. Needs are universal.
I sometimes work with people who have been raped or
tortured and
where the perpetrator is absent, I would assume their role.
Oftentimes the victim is surprised to hear me in the role-
play saying the same
thing they had heard from their perpetrator, and press me
with the question,
“But how did you know?” I believe the answer to that
question is that I know
because I am that person. And so are we all. As we apply a
literacy of feelings
and needs, we are not thinking about the issues, but simply
putting ourselves
in the other person’s shoes, trying to be that person.
“Getting the part right” is
not in our thoughts, although from time to time we check in
with the
“director” because we don’t always get it right. Nobody
gets it right all the
time, and that’s fine. If we’re off the mark, the person
whom we are playing
will let us know one way or another. We are thus offered
another opportunity
to make a closer guess.
Role-play is simply putting ourselves in the other
person’s shoes.Interrupting
Sometimes mediations get heated, with people shouting at or
talking over one
another. To keep the process on track under such
circumstances, we need to
get comfortable with interrupting. Once when I was
mediating in Israel, and
having a difficult time because my translator was too
polite, I finally taught
him to be nasty: “Shut them up!,” I instructed. “Tell
them to wait until we at
least get the translation out before they go back to
screaming at each other.”
So when both sides are screaming or talking at the same
time, I insert myself:
“Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me!” I repeat this as
loudly and as often as
necessary until I regain their attention.
When we are grabbing their attention, we have to be quick.
If the person
reacts with anger when we interrupt, we can sense that they
are in too much
pain to hear us. This is the time for emergency first-aid
empathy. Here is what
it might sound like, using an example from a business
meeting.
Speaker: This happens all the time! They’ve already called
three meetings,
and each time there is some new rationale as to why it can
’t be
done. Last time they even signed an agreement! Now another
promise and it will be just that: another promise! There’s
little
point in working with people who …
Mediator: Excuse me, excuse me, EXCUSE ME! Could you tell
me back what
the other person said?
Speaker: (realizing he had not listened to what had been
said) No!
Mediator: So you’re feeling so full of distrust right now
and really need some
trust that people will do what they say?
Speaker: Well, of course but …
Mediator: So could you tell me what you heard them say? Let
me repeat it for
you. I hear the other side saying they have a real need for
integrity.
Could you just say it back so I’m sure we all understand
each
other?Speaker: (silence)
Mediator: No? Then let me say it again. And we say it
again.
We might view our role as that of a translator—translating
each party’s
message so as to be understood by the other. I ask them to
get used to my
interrupting for the sake of resolving the conflict. When I
do interrupt, I also
check that the speaker feels that I’m translating them
accurately. I translate
many messages even if I am only guessing, but the speaker
is always the final
authority on the accuracy of my translation.
It’s important to remember that the purpose of
interrupting and grabbing
people’s attention back in this way is to restore the
process of making
observations, identifying and expressing feelings,
connecting feelings with
needs, and making doable requests using clear, concrete,
positive action
language.
The purpose of interrupting is to restore the
process.When People Say “No” to Meeting Face to Face
I am optimistic about what can happen when we bring people
together to
express their needs and requests. However, one of the
biggest problems I’ve
encountered is simply getting access to both parties.
Because it occasionally
takes time for a party to become clear about its own needs,
mediators require
adequate access in order for both parties to express, and
then receive each
other’s needs. Oftentimes, what we hear from someone in
conflict is: “No,
there’s no use talking—they won’t listen. I’ve tried to
talk and it doesn’t
work.”
To solve this problem I’ve sought strategies to resolve
conflicts where
people in conflict are unwilling to meet. One method that
shows promising
results relies on the use of an audio recorder. I work with
each party
separately while playing the role of the other side. If
there are two people in
our own lives who are in too much pain to be willing to
meet, this would be
an option for us to consider.
As an example, a woman was suffering heavily from a
conflict with her
husband, particularly from the way he was directing anger
toward her. First, I
listened in a way that supported her to clearly express her
needs and to
experience being received with respectful understanding.
Then, I took on the
role of her husband, and asked her to listen to me as I
expressed what I
guessed to be the husband’s needs.
The needs of the conflicting parties having been clearly
conveyed in this
role-play, I asked the woman to share the recording with
her husband for his
reaction.
Because I had, in this case, been accurate in guessing the
husband’s needs,
he experienced huge relief when listening to the recording.
With the
increased trust that came from hearing himself understood,
he later agreed to
come in so we could work together until the two of them
found ways of
meeting their needs in mutually respectful ways.
When the hardest thing about resolving a conflict is
getting the partiestogether in the same room, the use of
recorded role-plays may be the answer.Informal Mediation:
Sticking Our Nose in Other People’s
Business
Informal mediation is a polite way to refer to mediating in
situations where
we’ve not been invited to do so. In so many words, we’re
sticking our nose in
other people’s business.
I was shopping in a grocery store one day when I saw a
woman strike her
toddler. She was about to do it again when I jumped in. She
didn’t ask,
“Marshall, would you mediate between us?” Another time I
was walking in
the streets of Paris; a woman was walking alongside me when
a rather
inebriated man ran up from behind, turned her around, and
slapped her in
the face. As there wasn’t time for me to talk with this
man, I resorted to the
protective use of force by restraining him just as he was
about to strike her
again. I inserted myself between the two, and stuck my nose
in their business.
On another occasion, during a business meeting, I watched
two factions in a
repetitious exchange, arguing back and forth over an age-
old issue and again I
stuck my nose in between them.
When we witness behaviors that raise concern in us—unless
it is a
situation that calls for the protective use of force as
described in Chapter 12—
the first thing we do is to empathize with the needs of the
person who is
behaving in the way we dislike. In the first situation, if
we wanted to see more
violence directed at the toddler, we could, instead of
offering empathy to the
mother, say something to imply that she was wrong to hit
the child. Such a
response on our part would only escalate the situation.
We need to be well practiced at hearing the need
in any message.
In order to be truly helpful to people in whose business we
are sticking
our nose we need to have developed an extensive literacy
regarding needs,and be well practiced at hearing the need
in any message, including the need
underneath the act of slapping another person. And we need
to be practiced
in verbal empathy such that the people sense that we are
connected with their
need.
We need to remember, when we choose to stick our nose in
someone’s
business, it’s not enough to simply support someone to get
in touch with his
or her own needs. We aim to practice all the other steps
covered in this
chapter. For example, after empathizing, we may tell the
toddler’s mother that
we care about safety and have a need to protect people, and
then request her
willingness to try another strategy to meet her need with
her child.
We refrain, however, from mentioning our own needs
regarding the
person’s behavior until it is clear to them that we
understand and care about
his or her needs. Otherwise people will not care about our
needs nor will they
see that their needs and ours are one and the same. As
expressed so
beautifully by Alice Walker in The Color Purple: “One day
when I was sitting
quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it
come to me: that
feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I
knew that if I cut a
tree, my arm would bleed.”
Unless we make sure that both sides are aware of their own
as well as each
other’s needs, it will be hard for us to succeed when we
stick our nose in other
people’s business. We are likely to get caught up in
scarcity thinking—seeing
only the importance of our own needs being met. When
scarcity thinking
then gets mixed with right-and-wrong thinking, any of us
can become
militant and violent, and blinded to even the most obvious
solutions. At that
point, the conflict seems unresolvable—and it will be if
we don’t connect with
the other person by first offering empathy without focusing
on our own
needs.Summary
The use of NVC to resolve conflict differs from traditional
mediation
methods; instead of deliberating over issues, strategies,
and means of
compromise, we concentrate foremost on identifying the
needs of both
parties, and only then seek strategies to fulfill those
needs.
We start by forging a human connection between the parties
in conflict.
Then we ensure that both parties have the opportunity to
fully express their
needs, that they carefully listen to the other person’s
needs, and that once the
needs have been heard, they clearly express doable action
steps to meet those
needs. We avoid judging or analyzing the conflict and
instead remain focused
on needs.
When one party is in too much pain to hear the needs of the
other, we
extend empathy, taking as long as necessary to ensure that
the person knows
their pain is heard. We do not hear “no” as a rejection
but rather as an
expression of the need that is keeping the person from
saying “yes.” Only
after all needs have been mutually heard, do we progress to
the solutions
stage: making doable requests using positive, action
language.
When we assume the role of mediating a conflict between two
other
parties, the same principles apply. In addition, we keep
careful track of
progress, extend empathy where needed, keep the
conversation focused on
the present, moving it forward, and interrupting where
necessary to return to
the process.
With these tools and understanding, we can practice and
help others
resolve even long-standing conflicts to their mutual
satisfaction.
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