非暴力沟通践行记录

《非暴力沟通》英文原版第11章

2020-05-20  本文已影响0人  胡一凡_非暴教练

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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