Nonviolent Communication
Based on Marshall B. Rosenberg's books Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, Speak Peace in a World of Conflict, The Surprising Purpose of Anger and We Can Work It Outby Train To Negotiate · 12 modules · 36 cases · Free
36 sparring drills on Marshall Rosenberg's method: observing without judging, naming feelings and the needs behind them, making requests that are not demands, receiving the other side empathically even when they attack or say no, giving yourself empathy first, expressing anger fully, resolving conflict through needs, speaking with people in power, and expressing gratitude that can be received.
What you'll practice
Each case is a short role-play against an opponent who wants something else. You play it out in your own words, a referee rules on every move, and a coach debriefs you after the sparring match.
Module 1 · The Two Questions and the Four Components
What is alive in us, and what would make life more wonderful? Replace labels, comparisons, 'have to' and demands with observation, feeling, need and request.
The Sink at Midnight
Three nights this week the dinner dishes waited in the sink until morning. You have called your partner lazy twice, and now he answers in silence. Tonight you want something different to happen.
Three Late Reports
Your analyst has delivered three of her last four reports late, and the client publishes on a fixed date. The sentence on your tongue is the one your own boss used on you. She has heard it before, and it closed her down.
Who Deserved the Bonus
Your bonus was $1,500. A peer with a year much like yours got $4,000. You have twenty minutes with the director who decided, and every sentence in your head starts with the word deserve.
Module 2 · Observing Without Evaluating
Say what the person did, with dates and counts, and keep the evaluation separate. 'Always', 'never', 'lazy' and 'too much' are heard as criticism and answered with defense.
Always and Never
Nine days before the meeting that decides your funding round, you and your co-founder are trading the words always and never. Somewhere under them are five meetings with actual dates.
Eleven Weekends of Twelve
Since your father's stroke you have done nearly all the visits and most of the appointments, and you have described your brother to friends in one word. Tonight you are talking to him instead of about him.
The Ninety-Minute Hour
The department's weekly hour has not ended in an hour for a month, and three colleagues have asked you to be the one who says so. The head of department does not take kindly to being told what she is like.
Module 3 · Feelings, Not Thoughts
'I feel that', 'I feel ignored' and 'like living with a wall' are judgments wearing the word feel. Name the actual emotion, and let the vulnerability do the work.
Seventeen to One
The physicians voted your proposal down seventeen to one. You have twenty minutes with the medical chief to ask for a second vote, and your whole plan is a better set of slides.
The Empty Chair
Your sister cancelled your fortieth birthday dinner by text an hour before it started. You have a speech ready, and every line of it describes what she did to you. She has a June of her own to bring up.
One-Word Evenings
Three evenings this week your partner answered in single words and the only conversation was about who was picking up what. You have told her it feels like living with a stranger. It did not help.
Module 4 · The Needs Behind the Feelings
Others' actions are the stimulus, never the cause. 'I feel ... because I need ...', the four ways to hear a hard message, needs that are not strategies, and emotional liberation.
It Hurts Me When You Don't Visit
Your mother says it hurts her that you come only twice a month and that a good child would come every week. For years you either drove over resentfully or snapped that her feelings were her problem. There is a third way, and it is the hardest of the three.
The Locked Calendar
Every weekend for the next six weeks is already planned on the shared calendar, and you have been calling it controlling in your head for months. Tonight you want some empty Saturdays. Saying what you actually need is harder than it sounds.
You Never Listen
You moved the release date by two weeks without calling a meeting, and the engineering lead has walked into your office with a verdict on your character. What you hear in his sentence decides the next ten minutes.
Module 5 · Requests, Not Demands
Positive, concrete action language, asking for a reflection, requesting honesty. A request is a demand if a no is met with blame or guilt; empathize with the no before you persuade.
Stop Being on Your Phone
Five dinners out of seven this week, your partner's eyes were on a screen. You have told him to stop, and now the phone lives in his pocket at the table instead. Telling him what you don't want has produced exactly that.
The Checklist Nobody Follows
Three memos have made the labeling checklist mandatory, and the audit still found one sample in five mislabeled. The senior technician has come to speak for a team that is sick of being told. A fourth memo will not work. Something else might.
The No on Saturday
The cutover runs across the 14th and 15th, your most reliable engineer is the one you need, and he has just said no without an explanation. What you do with his no will decide whether you ever made a request at all.
Module 6 · Receiving Empathically
Presence before advice: no fixing, consoling, educating or one-upping. Hear the observation, feeling, need and request behind any message, paraphrase as a question, and stay until the release.
My Son Is Impossible
Your sister's fifteen-year-old skipped school twice this week and she says she is at the end of her rope. You teach teenagers for a living and you have the answer. The answer is the one thing that will end this conversation.
The Furious Client
A delivery promised for Monday arrived on Thursday and cost your client a twelve-thousand-dollar penalty. She is on the phone and she is furious. You have the explanation ready, and the explanation is the one thing she cannot hear yet.
The Offer That Fell Through
Your friend told everyone about the new job. This morning the offer was withdrawn, and he is on the phone. You have three good ideas and a comforting line ready. None of them is what he called for.
Module 7 · The Power of Empathy
Empathy with people who hold more power, with hostility, with a no, with silence and with a dead conversation. Never put your 'but' in the face of an angry person; hear them first, then be heard.
Liar
Fourteen months into a six-month road rebuild, a resident stands up at the public meeting and calls you a liar in front of eighty neighbors. You have the facts. The facts are not what he needs first.
No. Not This Week.
You need a colleague's eyes on a 40-page compliance file by Friday, and her answer is three words long. What you do with that no decides whether the file gets read at all.
Not What We Pay You For
Your director wants the four hours a week you spend mentoring two juniors to stop, today. Everything in you wants to defend it or apologize for it. Neither is what he needs to hear first.
Module 8 · Self-Empathy Before You Speak
When you have made a mistake or feel compelled: mourn without self-hatred, find the need you were serving, translate 'have to' into 'choose to', and only then open your mouth.
What I Said This Morning
This morning you yelled at your partner's fourteen-year-old and said the one thing you swore you would never say. Tonight she is waiting, and a grovel will not fix it any more than a defense would.
Eight Thousand Dollars of Boxes
You ordered the same $8,000 of packaging twice, and the warehouse manager wants to know how. Between calling yourself an idiot and blaming the supplier there is a third way to talk about it.
The Report Nobody Reads
Twelve hours a month, thirty pages, two years, and you suspect not one person reads past the first chart. You are about to tell your manager, and the version in your head sounds like a martyr.
Module 9 · Expressing Anger Fully
Stop and breathe, find the judgment that is making you angry, connect to the need beneath it, give the other person empathy, then express the feeling and the need so that they actually hear it.
The Remark at Lunch
At a team lunch a colleague says, within your hearing, that working mothers check out at four and the rest of the team carries them. You are a working mother. Calling it what it is would be easy. Making him actually hear you is the work.
Thirty Minutes in the Rain
Your partner is thirty minutes late to pick you up, the fourth time this month, no text. You have had half an hour in the rain to write the speech. The car has just pulled up.
Three Weeks, No Answer
You asked facilities for a standing desk on your doctor's advice three weeks ago and have heard nothing. You finally have the coordinator on the phone, and you are angry enough to say something you will regret.
Module 10 · Resolving Conflict Through Needs
Express needs, not strategies; sense the other side's needs however they are voiced; check they were received; heal the pain that blocks hearing; then propose strategies in present, positive action language.
Movie or Couch
Third Friday in a row: you want to go out, your partner wants the couch, and the same argument is already warming up. Tickets are still available for one more hour.
The Far Lot
Since the 1st, the night shift parks a nine-minute unlit walk from the hospital. Two requests have already been refused. You are the nurse who agreed to try once more with the man who wrote the policy.
The Two Systems
Seven months of meetings about which ticketing system to use, and both teams can only describe what is wrong with the other one. Today it is just the two team leads in a room.
Module 11 · Speaking Peace with Power
Hear the human being behind bureaucratic language, drop the enemy image, ask what the decision-maker needs to hear, and keep the flow going until everyone's needs are on the table.
Five Minutes
You prepared a twenty-minute pitch for a $50,000 grant. The assistant has just told you the program director can give you five.
Thank You for Coming In
The official is warm, grateful for your input, and has just said the fee waiver is not possible at this time. Your two colleagues are already reaching for their coats.
The Councilman Who Called You a Fraud
He said in a public meeting that your housing program is a fraud run by outsiders. He has given you thirty minutes in his office, and you have a rebuttal ready for every claim.
Module 12 · Gratitude
Appreciation as celebration, not reward: what they did, how you feel, which need it met. Receive appreciation without ego or false humility.
Before It's Too Late
Your aunt took you in at sixteen and never once asked for thanks. She moves into assisted living next month, and every time the conversation turns warm she tells you not to be silly.
Oh, It Was Nothing
Your manager opens your review with warm, specific thanks for how you handled the March crisis. Your whole life you have answered thanks with 'oh, it was nothing' and a change of subject.
You Saved the Launch
A colleague stayed until 2 a.m. and rewrote the broken script that would have sunk the launch. You want to thank him, and he deflects everything warmer than a nod.