The premise of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is that all human beings have needs that need to be met to survive and thrive. This goes beyond water, food and rest, and even beyond love or joy. It also includes needs like belonging or meaning, self-expression, contribution or stimulation.
When needs are met or unmet, we have feelings. For example, sadness or loneliness can be a symptom of an unmet need for companionship. Excitement and happiness can indicate that the need for stimulation is fully met.
NVC introduces a clear sense of self-responsibility for feelings. Instead of saying that something directly “makes me sad”, it identifies the needs within a person and therefore points out the agency and responsibility of the person over their feelings and actions.
People are also encouraged to take care of themselves by making requests of other people. The idea is that if people are free to choose and feel well connected, they often choose to contribute to someone’s wellbeing by helping to meet their needs.
Using the language of this book, NVC talks about the patterns of the emotional realm by showing the relationships between feelings and needs – and the basic premise that a universal set of needs show up in our longing to be human.
NVC is often focused on empathy – recognizing someone else’s feelings and needs. Having deeper insight into someone else’s emotional states can help us understand the emotional realm better. Since it commonly focuses on finding the most fitting feelings or needs word to identify someone’s state, it also serves as model for emotional contexts that helps us communicate about it. For example, if I have better literacy of emotional states and feeling words, I might be able to express that “I am more disappointed than frustrated” or “it’s less about belonging to me than it is about my sense of togetherness.”
Modeling this kind of space then allows us better nuances in our communication about that space.
In organizational life, Nonviolent Communication can act as both lens and practice: a way of modeling the emotional realm and a relational pattern for restoring coherence.
Often, emotional currents in organizations, the emotional realm, remains unnamed and often unnoticed. NVC offers a structured way to bring these undercurrents into view. It does that without blame, making it possible to look at those undercurrents in a matter of fact style. In this way, NVC functions as a weaving practice, context-stewardship on the emotional realm.
Wiser organizations 