As someone who has never heard of NVC, I recall echos of such tactics in the language a former teammate employed at work. However, nobody found him sincere or honest. Instead, he cam across as mechanical even though it was clear that he was trying to foster a transparent and open environment. There was always a disconnect between this noble goal and the hostility he made everybody feel when he talked with them.
I think this proposed quote from the article represents it well:
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings.
>I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency.
>Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
This comes across as very aggressive. First off - they are peers. The author makes a power grab by immediately painting the coworker in a negative light. I don't put a lot of stake in hierarchies, but I am sensitive to power dynamics. If I were witnessing this, I would immediately see that author conquered the high ground. This puts the coworker on the defensive from the get go.
Second - it's fair to assume the coworker simply had back-to-back meetings. But now the coworker has to explain this in the author's terms.
The conversation feels hostile and I don't believe the author has his peer's interests in mind.
Instead the author should trust that peer has a good reason for being 10 minutes late and talk through a strategy that can help the peer arrive on time. But the author needs to give something away.
I don't get it. What part of that question is aggressive? Arriving late is a fact. The author requests helping him understand what's happening -- not an unreasonable request, unless you think that author magically understanding the situation without any communication counts as reasonable. The author feels an emotion -- again, not unreasonable because emotions are private and are not a choice. The author does not give an evaluation, so it sounds like you think having the emotion is the evaluation.
It sounds like you expect people to give you the benefit of the doubt all the time, without needing to expend any effort communicating.
> It sounds like you expect people to give you the benefit of the doubt all the time, without needing to expend any effort communicating.
I am saying there should be a culture of trust. What do you lose by trusting that your peer coworker did not intend to be late? If you don't trust your peers, you will create a hostile environment where everyone is on the defensive.
I trust that my former coworker did not intend to raise tensions by interrogating his peers and I trust that he really thought he was helping and creating a culture of radical transparency.
I agree that arriving late thrice is a fact. Calling it out can be done in a fair and neutral way.
Where I disagree is that as peers we have the expectation for a full explanation for banal coworkers actions. I have seen this exact scenario play out with my former coworker.
> "can you help me understand why you were late?"
> the cross team sync ran 10 minutes late and I needed to present - i notified slack)
> "could you have left the meeting early?"
> No, i needed to present and I was at the end.
> "could you have reordered the meeting?"
> No, other people also needed to present and were late to meetings.
. . .
What a pointless conversation. Nothing of value is gained!
Instead, we can trust our coworkers - ask to diagnose the problem and help work towards a solution.
"hey, _____, you have been late to the last three meetings, and we need to have you present. I am frustrated that we have lost 30 minutes of the team's time. Can we sync up after to adjust our timings so this works better for everyone?"
Here, we make clear that we are going to do a blameless postmortem to find a solution. I don't need to know exactly why my coworker is late, all I want to understand is if there are process inefficiencies that we can fix.
It seems that you read some implied blame in the question about understanding what's happening. I believe this implication is the problem, and may or may not actually exist, depending on the speaker and listener. A valid interpretation of the same question is that it is asking for a blameless postmortem to find a solution, which may only be inferred by the listener if they understand the speaker to not be blaming them.
And I think it’s so easily improved by just not sounding like a robot manager: “Hey, is 1pm not a good time for the team meeting? We had to wait for you the last few.”
The formal-speak sets off most people’s “I am being disciplined” alert right away.
I think this proposed quote from the article represents it well:
>To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. >I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. >Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’
This comes across as very aggressive. First off - they are peers. The author makes a power grab by immediately painting the coworker in a negative light. I don't put a lot of stake in hierarchies, but I am sensitive to power dynamics. If I were witnessing this, I would immediately see that author conquered the high ground. This puts the coworker on the defensive from the get go.
Second - it's fair to assume the coworker simply had back-to-back meetings. But now the coworker has to explain this in the author's terms.
The conversation feels hostile and I don't believe the author has his peer's interests in mind.
Instead the author should trust that peer has a good reason for being 10 minutes late and talk through a strategy that can help the peer arrive on time. But the author needs to give something away.