One critical NVC concept that this article leaves out is that people often express judgements as feelings. A small cut and paste from the list of "non-feelings:"
Unheard Unimportant Unseen Untrusted Unwanted Unworthy Used Violated Worthless
Yeah this is huge, and the sophomore mistake here is to try to "aikido" the people who are using feeling words to describe judgement. Ie. to immediately rephrase their statement into more a "correct," NVC-style format. It's a mistake for a couple reasons.
First, it's a violent move (in the sense of NVC)--"I hear that you have a judgement that I don't want you" is a dangerous rephrase specifically because it substantially changes the meaning (both denotationally and emotionally) of what the person said. It tries to force the person into a different ontology (that's the violent part). Your way of parsing the world may be more correct, but it doesn't change their internal reality. Their internal reality includes a feeling they are identifying as "unwanted," and you magic-ing it away with a reframe doesn't remove the feeling. It just attacks the validity of the feeling and makes it harder to see or talk directly about. That's exactly the sort of rhetorical warfare that NVC is trying to avoid.
Second, the aikido is defensive in an unproductive way. The reason someone attempts the move is to remove the implied responsibility the other person laid on you. If they "feel" unwanted, then that means you don't want them, which makes this whole thing your problem, rhetorically speaking. Your rephrase doesn't clarify their feelings or beliefs. The only function it serves is to remove your potential responsibility in an indirect way.
Maybe you're a very clever person who deserves a gold star because you already know that unwanted isn't a feeling, it's a belief. But at this point in the conversation you don't know whether you're responsible for wanting the other person, or if you want to be responsible, or if you know what they mean by "want," or if you do or do not "want" them in that way, or what any of that implies to them, or what the the true feeling they are gesturing at is actually like for them to experience. All of this stuff could be (and probably is) hugely important to actually resolving the issue, but the sophomoric aikido move has moved you farther from unearthing it.
I wish I could provide a concise alternative, but I think the details here are why skilled facilitation and communication is a practice/discipline/art, instead of a listicle that everyone already knows by heart. I think if I had to gist it down to a sentence it would be: In addition to your usual truth-seeking faculties, cultivate profound openness to other perspectives, and learn when to apply either mode.
I think you've touched on the core problem with the implementation of NVC (and lots of other communication frameworks). People score themselves and others on their adherence to NVC instead of actually just doing it.
It makes sense after you read a book. The author spends all of this time judging conversations. A sentence is put out, and then the author says whether or not it's NVC. After reading the whole book, you come to think that's what NVC is: judging whether other people's sentences are correct or not.
So when someone says "I feel unwanted" the listener's natural instinct is to act like the author and say "Unwanted isn't a feeling, it's a projection of judgement". This is not NVC. This is not helpful. A simple "You're feeling unwanted." is 100 times better.
I have this theory that NVC, especially for listening, is done way better in "secret". It should be an internal process that the other person isn't really aware of. You don't have to force someone into your definition of observation, feeling, need and request to understand them. Maintain curiosity and respect, and you can get to those things.
Especially with all the negative connotation that NVC carries, if someone leaves a conversation with you thinking "That person did NVC", you probably fucked up. If they leave thinking "that person knows how I feel and what I want", you did it right.
I think you are pointing out that reframing can be misused. Do you think that this cut from my conflict resolution doc is a "concise alternative?"
"The art of reframing is to maintain the conflict in all its richness but to help people look at it in a more open-minded and hopeful way." -- Bernard Mayer
How to reframe a statement:
Acknowledge the emotion
Restate the problem or issue removing the inflammatory language
Request or wait for clarification or validation from the speaker
I think your steps are a decent approximation, but I don't think they are fully general. For example, sometimes clarifying the details and reality of a conflict causes the conflict to be more directly inflammatory. And if you're following a procedure that has "be less inflammatory" as a metric, then you'll fuck that up. (For the record, I don't think it's a bad heuristic to follow. Most of the time you do actually want "less inflammatory").
A few months ago I facilitated a conversation in which some old friends/coworkers were trying to have a conflict, and they were being SO careful, and SO polite, and SO open to each others' perspectives. Yet neither of them was willing to be fully honest about the pain and blame they were feeling. Things didn't really move forward until I started making clarifications that sounded like impassioned, inflammatory accusations, which really got to the heart of what was at stake emotionally.
I think the real guiding principle is truth tracking, at its core--ie. as a facilitator noticing when something is being confused or hidden, and bringing it more out. In practice, bringing more truth to light normally causes relief and feelings of safety, but sometimes what the reality of the situation calls for is more like "honorable combat," which is made honorable because it's direct, straightforward, and open hearted.
So maybe I'd change that step to "Restate the problem in a more truthful way."
Yes, you are spot on with that example and I have had similar experiences when mediating with parties that have higher EQ, but lack a rich set of soft skills. My process doc addresses the basics of facilitating conflict resolution as could be taught in a one day class. Your example is something I would consider to be more advanced and requiring an experienced mediator. I'll also say that most conflicts requiring "honorable combat" lend themselves better to an interests-based negotiation approach. I really appreciated your comments here and would love to get your feedback on my doc. Email me if you are interested.
Unheard Unimportant Unseen Untrusted Unwanted Unworthy Used Violated Worthless