A guide to difficult conversations - <AUTHOR> https://medium.dave-bailey.com/the-essential-guide-to-difficult-conversations-41f736e63ccf <comment><USER3> I'm generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself.

My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He's currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they're unsure if he will ever regain consciousness.

My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next available flight and were at the hospital 21 hours later.

Because we were unavailable, my younger brother-in-law was given Power of Attorney. This "power" went to his head within minutes. He's now decided that he is the sole arbiter of information. Nobody but him is allowed to talk to the doctors or ask questions.

I spent over 2 hours with him trying to talk it through. I never insulted or condescended him. My goal of the conversation was to allow his sister (both are the patients children) to participate in conversations with the medical staff.

At the end of the 2 hours, he attempted to assault me so I left. I felt like a failure. I've never not been able to talk someone down from an irrational position before.

I think I subconsciously used some of these NVC tactics, but failed miserably.

Is there an online course one can take on having these difficult conversations? I need to up my skills.

<comment><USER4> Don't give up on your brother-in-law. He's making seemingly irrational decisions but look at it from is point of view. His father may be dying. Regardless of his relationship with his father, this is a very difficult thing to go through. And then he suddenly has a lot of responsibility placed on him. He's having to answer questions he's never been asked before much less having given much thought to. He's being told things that he may not understand well or at all (medical and legal). His power trip probably stems from feeling like he needs to be "the man of the family" and be strong for everyone else to the detriment of himself. He likely feels like he'd be perceived as weak if he reached out and asked for help, when that's actually the number one thing he needs to be doing right now.

My recommendation would be make some space for the way he's acting and let him know you and his sister love him regardless, know how difficult this must be, and are there for anything he needs and then, don't say anything else. Don't provoke him. Let him come to you. He may not and if he doesn't, then accept that there is nothing else you can do that won't make the situation worse. But it's just as possible that simply listening to him if and when he talks, almost playing into his power trip, may actually open him up to sharing more information with you.

We humans are such strangely paradoxical creatures sometimes. :) Good luck and I wish you and your family the best.

<comment><USER5> Instead of making space, what are your thoughts on OP leveraging these perceptions to find common ground? E.g., "We understand that we need you to be the man of the family, and appreciate that you have stepped up to be strong for all of us. We would like to support you in doing so and feel that our greatest assistance would be in helping to facilitate communications for you. Is this something you're able to allow?"

Such a communication should probably come from someone other than OP since he's on bad terms following the assault. Thoughts?

<comment><USER6> This is speculatively projecting a lot of thoughts and feelings on the brother-in-law, which is quite patronizing. It also awkwardly uses overcomplicated words and overcomplicated passive grammar.

Try reading the linked blog post again, and hold up your proposed question against each of Dave Bailey's suggestions.

<comment><USER5> >This is speculatively projecting a lot of thoughts and feelings on the brother-in-law, which is quite patronizing.

Isn't that what negotiation is about, when dealing with someone who won't effectively communicate their thoughts? Speculating the wants/needs of that person and addressing them directly? This isn't something I'm making up, I've just read it in "Never Split the Difference". The book was written to address situations just like OPs.

The example sentence structure was meant to be paraphrased. I was hoping for critique on the subject matter not the grammar. I feel uncomfortable turning OP's anecdote into a hypothetical anyway so I'll back off.

<comment><USER7> > "We understand that we need you to be the man of the family, and appreciate > that you have stepped up to be strong for all of us. We would like to > support you in doing so and feel that our greatest assistance would be in > helping to facilitate communications for you. Is this something you're able > to allow?"

That's corpo-marketing style. The angle is to coerce the other in a corner and he'll see it coming from a thousand mile and react badly to it.

> "We understand that we need you to be the man of the family,

That's exactly the problem and what OP don't want/need. They want to communicate with the medical and legal staff. They don't need him to be the man of the family, they need him to approach this as a family. They need him to let them be family and they need him to be family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a valuable post. I have not taken an NVC course before, but I have done a lot of work in negotiations, writing, and was brought up to use this style of communication.

One thing I would be interested in either from the OP or someone with experience with NVC, is how you recognize when you are being patronizing. Much of this communication style is the artifact of an implied power relationship, where the speaker already has the power, or is asserting power.

In negotiations, there is the idea of appealing to shared principles and interests, and NVC can be a way to depersonalize the issue to focus on that. But the example of handling, "No," with empathy is to directly personalize the issue and address feelings, vs. the negotiation view which would be to ask, "if no, given we agree on X, let's leave my perceived solution aside for a moment and find out how we get X."

I think empathy in business can often be zero sum, where it is just an expression of sympathy for someones lack of power in the situation, that is both psychologically horrible, and destroys value. I call that approach of fabricated empathy "seduce and smother," which is common in organizations today.

This article provides an essential and valuable tool. However, this difference between empathy and principle, is that an accurate interpretation of the distinction?

<comment><USER9> _" how you recognize when you are being patronizing"_

That's a good point. I'm fairly adept at recognizing when someone is trying to negotiate with me based on some kind of taught methodology. Because most of what's taught is counter to how you would do it naturally...thus it stands out.

Once you recognize it, the natural reaction is to feel like you're being manipulated with some technique.

<comment><USER10> I think part of it is that the observation needs to be genuinely objective rather than veiled evaluation.

For example, when I did tech support I would occasionally get chat messages from my supervisor along the lines of:

"Hey, I see that you closed out Ticket #XYZ without any resolution or response sent to the requester."

(waits for response)

(waits for response)

(waits for response)

...and it would make me furious, regardless of whatever the situation was.

<comment><USER11> "Is there something you want me to do?" is a slightly less hostile way of saying "Get to the point."

"The petitioner did not make a request upon which relief can be granted." might set off a snark detector, and "The ticketing system already automatically notifies the requester that their ticket has been closed." might inadvertently imply that the supervisor does not know how to do their job.

<comment><USER12> My habitual response to these sorts of messages has been to just affirm the statement.

> "Hey, I see that you closed out Ticket #XYZ without any resolution or > response sent to the requester."

> "yes" / "yup" / "indeed" / "true"

It's an effective way to sidestep having to pay attention until the person comes up with an actual question or request.

<comment><USER11> "That is a true statement." is one that is frequently used around here. It sounds very engineer-y, and has no inflectional or emotional connotations whatsoever. It's about as sterile as a SYN-ACK packet. I heard what you just said, and evaluated it for correctness. Current computation completed, and ready for additional input.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's funny because few things make me seethe like someone talking to me in this way during a high stress moment. The artifice is transparent and if the conversation is tense the tone is quite easy to read as condescension. I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, just that when done poorly it's worse than simply being direct.

<comment><USER14> > I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic,

But...you should be. The entire problem you relate is about NVC as an insincere, indirect tactic (most likely, to avoid an ultimatum in a situation where the speaker isn't seeking mutual understanding and accommodation but submissive compliance.) NVC _as a tactic_ relied on an implicit lie about the relationship which forms the context of the communication.

As a honest _tool_ in a relationship where the parties _actually care_ about each others feeling, NVC is a useful communication tool for addressing that mutual concern. As a tactic in relationships where that isn't a mutual concern, and especially as a top-down tactic in a relationship where the speaker would not have the concern that is being called for in the listener, where it is a passive-aggressive way of framing commands, it's obviously toxic and manipulative.

<comment><USER15> You know, I was about to write a retort that disagreed vehemently, but I re- read and I think you've changed my mind.

In the presence of a power imbalance, combined with a lack of mutual respect, I think you're absolutely right that NVC style observations are worse than a direct command. If there's no explanation that would lead me, the more powerful person, to change my mind about the behavior, then offering conversational space for it is disingenuous.

I personally try to avoid situations where my direct managers, or my direct reports, don't feel mutual respect, so I don't think a power-imbalance is enough in and of itself to invalidate observation-request style discussions.

As it happens, if there's no power imbalance, but also no mutual respect, I still tend to prefer NVC style communication; but I'll admit that's just a personal choice, it's just a tool in the toolbox, and I tend to reach for it first, because I like the outcomes better. If my counterparty obviously hates it, "let's get real" is next in the list.

<comment><USER16> Nothing poisons my respect for a manager faster than NVC style communication when they're not actually listening to me, they're merely trying to manipulate my emotions: it shows a deep contempt for me, as a person, and a view of me as a piece of equipment to be maintained rather than a partner in a collaboration.

<comment><USER17> Seeing through someone's half-assed attempts to use woo woo management strategy pablum is unquestionably infuriating. They don't have the integrity to just be wrong... they have to wrap it in passive-aggressive management talk. And then they do THAT poorly.

Meanwhile, putting in effort or even naturally just being someone that wants to empathize, find common ground and work towards a compromise is noble. When paired with good communication strategies and frankly when practiced through experience, you end up with highly likeable leaders who are the people you turn to in difficult times.

Don't hate the people who mean well but haven't learned to communicate like a pro. Save your anger for the people who are full of self-serving lies that don't even bother to manipulate you successfully because they don't really care how you feel.

The next time someone deploys Inexperienced Manager 101 aka "the shit sandwich" on you, ask yourself if they are malicious or just ignorant. It could be that they are just trying and failing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The formative years of my career were spent as a software engineer at Microsoft where communication was direct and sometimes harsh. Code reviews could be particularly harsh with comments like "this code is bad because..." or "this is unreadable." At first it was really hard, but eventually my skin got pretty think. I even came to love the efficiency of direct communication in programming.

When I became a founder, the communication style I had developed as an engineer DID NOT work for communicating with other disciplines like sales, marketing or customer success. At first I thought it was the people I hired just being overly sensitive. After some time I realized that it wasn't them, it was me. I needed to unlearn many of my engineering communication habits and adopt a different style.

<comment><USER19> It's an anti-pattern to call abrasiveness an "engineering" habit. It's an orthogonal axis. "saying things are 'unreadable' or 'bad'" is not efficiten -- that's not actional feedback. Skip the "this code is bad", and the unsupported univeral claims of "unreadable" (obviously the author and the compiler could both read it, and get directly to the point of your concern with the code -- this code has a logic bug, or is inneficient, or you can't follow the changing state or don't know what this variable refers to, or what have tou.

<comment><USER20> I agree. I think talking about code is a critical skill, but not everyone has a strong practice of doing it. When I was first learning to code I never had anyone to talk to about my code, so I didn't get to learn the vocabulary until later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At the risk of getting a lot of heat for this, I find this type of thinking more of a plague that has cast its ugly web on tech as a whole. An analogy would be anti-something drugs to damp down people who are hyper, might have ADHD and have so much energy and short attention span. As a society if we try to normalize all things and people we're only left with the mediocrity almost by definition and boring middle of the bell curve. This type of communication damps down powerful human interaction that a lot of us are capable of in favor of a much more passive style of communication and muted way of making a point so you don't offend anyone immediately. It's ok if they're offended later because they thought about what you said and read what NVC is and then found out what you "really" meant to tell them, but didn't have the audacity to say it. If we were to truly believe points made in NVC (dogmas?) that would probably be even worse as we would be modifying the way our brain was evolved to reason about things and may be making an un-natural change that may have drastically negative individual and societal impacts in the future.

If my manager tells me "You arrived ten minutes late to the meeting this morning" I would have to be an idiot to think next time he's not going to fire me if I'm late so this is more passive aggressive and nerve racking than if he just told me "don't be late or else!"

<comment><USER22> It seems like your line of reasoning implies that threats are a necessary part of being an adult in the working world. And that's just not the case. That should never be the case.

This style of communication isn't angled at 'normalizing' anything. It's meant to give you a framework to identify what the real problem is, to communicate it clearly and efficiently, and to work with the other person to move past the problem. If you don't say exactly what you're trying to say, and someone later 'found out what you "really meant to tell them' \- you 100% did it wrong.

It's not a way to get out of having a difficult conversation. It's a framework to help you remove your personal beliefs, remove values judgments, and instead rely on the facts of the situation.

Your whole post comes across as you believe, genuinely believe, that being awful to other people via threats is a natural human state of being.

It isn't.

If my boss ever told me "don't do 'x' or else", it would be the last day I ever worked for that a-hole.

<comment><USER21> That was just a tongue and cheek example to make my point clear ie. direct communication in favor of passive aggressiveness. I'm not advocating for threads, I think you found a straw man.

<comment><USER23> The original post was not intended at teaching the reader how to make a passive aggressive conversation effectively. It was actually about making honest and direct communication without biases and preconceptions. The whole post, to me, was about how to not jump into conclusions about the other person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I learned about Non-Violent Communication at a programming conference when the speaker said: "If you want to be a better programmer, read this book"

Such a game changer in my pull request comments and life.

Non-violent Communication is not easy, it takes continuous practice.

I even blogged on each chapter: [http://redgreenrepeat.com/2017/05/12/nonviolent- communicatio...](http://redgreenrepeat.com/2017/05/12/nonviolent- communication-chapter-1/) and still feel I can improve my communication, especially when I get emotional.

<comment><USER25> I'm curious, if NVC goes for indirect instead of direct conversation.

I was working in an American company (I'm German) and had to learn to adapt to the style of being too nice (in my opinion). E.g. an "it might be better to do it like this", wasn't really meant as a weak suggestion, but a strong one. Something completely counterintuitive to my German mindset. I took it as a "might" and was met with negativity that I didn't exactly follow the "suggestion".

I much prefer language being direct at work. Treat the subjunctive as what it is: expressing uncertainty, not politeness.

I know however that many people, especially outside of Germany, prefer the indirect language, even though they learned to understand it with the same meaning as the direct speech.

<comment><USER26> Memory suggests NVC has some pretty nasty things to say about people who "suggest" things and they later turn out to be orders. Heading 4 of the fine article is the relevant one, bit it actually gets Requests vs. Demands wrong based on the telling of it I heard.

My understanding based on a YouTube video I watched many years ago is that a request is either fulfilled or not fulfilled, and that is the end of it. A demand is backed up by some sort of threat, like threat of a negative reaction. The key was that to distinguish a request from a demand was impossible based on the language used. It was only detectable by the reaction if you don't act on it.

So, ironically "Go get me a beer" can be a request but "do you think it is a good idea to open the window?" might be a demand, depending on what happens on a flat "No".

Nothing in NVC says you have to be nice, and I'm not sure it takes a position on direct or indirect. But a negative response from not following a suggestion is _exactly_ the sort of violence that NVC is trying to avoid.

<comment><USER27> >Memory suggests NVC has some pretty nasty things to say about people who "suggest" things and they later turn out to be orders.

I believe it is: If you make a request that is denied, and you are upset about it, then it wasn't a request, but a demand disguised as one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 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.

<comment><USER29> 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.

<comment><USER28> > 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.

I trust my coworker, first.

<comment><USER30> > I agree that arriving late thrice is a fact. Calling it out can be done in a > fair and neutral way.

Boss: Bob! Good you're here _looks around the room_ we were all waiting for you.

Johnny: Sorry Bob I got hungry waiting so I ate your donut.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> When [you use NVC on me], I feel [patronised] because I'm needing some [respect as a fellow human being]. Would you be able to [drop the insincere MBA bullshit and treat me like an adult]?

<comment><USER32> I never heard of NVC until today, but I'm realizing many of the "fake" people I've communicated with in my business career have been using this type of speaking, and it makes sense why they couldn't give me direct answers - <USER2> were hyper-focusing on how their reply should be crafted as NVC instead of simply answering my questions.

It's infuriating when you are simply trying to get something done and the other person is more concerned with the alignment of their spoken words than actually giving you the information you need. Just tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it ffs.

<comment><USER33> That's most likely an over usage of NVC. I can see how this format of conversation could be useful for difficult conversations. Applying it to all your professional communications not only seems like a lot of effort and burdensome, but for the reasons you mentioned, might actually be counterproductive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There are a fair few people in the world who would find a good video of Marshall Rosenberg life changing. His perspectives on how to use language are fundamentally superior to what people stumble into in everyday use.

His framework is remarkable because it sets up a non-confrontational approach that lets you speak the truth without hurting or upsetting people. Being able to do that on demand is ... really quite a stunning skill. Certainly more useful than any technical trick I've ever learned.

<comment><USER34> I struggle a lot with communication, but have not found a panacea for the biggest issue I regularly face.

Communication requires two people to be willing to talk. If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what can I do?

This includes them not listening to me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing to listen (in more, or even fewer words than that).

<comment><USER26> > If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what > can I do?

There is no magic trick to make people do what you want them to do.

> me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing > to listen

Well, that attitude isn't going to fix any of your problems. Review the fine article; Heading 1, "Observations vs. evaluations". I might try ask them why what you are saying doesn't seem to provoke much of a response, but honestly you aren't going to get much joy out of an internet forum for solving communication problems.

<comment><USER34> Thank you for your input.

I want to point out though that you propose "I might try ask them". I want to point out that that would get no response. That is the whole issue which I'm trying to find an "out" for.

<comment><USER35> IMO You can't force people to behave in a manner that is most condusive to you- especially if the manner they're behaving is most advantageous to themselves (a previous example you provided is to be able to deflect blame by sharing tasks). There is no NVC strategy to force people to behave in manners you want them to, only to try and convince them that your goals are aligned- if they're simply not, then that's just how it goes.

<comment><USER34> Thank you. I believe your final sentence has really helped me understand an actual issue I am currently facing, but hadn't realized yet.

<comment><USER35> You're sincerely welcome and I wish you best of luck in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Calling it "nonviolent communication" is a brilliant marketing move, as it implies that not conversing in this manner is violent.

I've seen this style many times in my career, and it always comes off as patronizing. It also tends to be used far more often than recommended. Instead of being deployed in difficult conversations, it gets used in every one-on- one.

My guess is that NVC ends up like power posing[1]: pop-psych that fails to replicate and continues to be espoused long after it has been shown not to work.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_posing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_posing)

<comment><USER37> In general I'm also not a fan of changing definitions of words for the extra pathos and marketability. I also would be surprised if Rosenberg has any sort of malicious intent here in his choice of wording.

Violence is, by definition, physical, and claiming that "speech is violence" seems like a trivialization of actual physical violence.

While there is evidence that certain types of psychological abuse can cause a physical reaction akin to that experienced by victims of physical violence, those cases are extremely rare and shouldn't be used as justification for this sort of rebranding.

<comment><USER35> _" While there is evidence that certain types of psychological abuse can cause a physical reaction akin to that experienced by victims of physical violence, those cases are extremely rare"_

Is this actually true? I was under the impression that trauma quite often results in physical responses afterwards regardless of source. eg. panic attacks, night terrors.

<comment><USER38> Trauma generally involves either violence, or the credible threat of violence. The three greatest factors underlying trauma are the fear of imminnat death or grievous injury, and/or the loss of control and resulting sense of helplessness, and a destruction of bedrock assumptions such as "I am a good person" or "I'm safe at home."

It's not common for PTSD to emerge in the context of purely psychological abuse, although it does happen. Almost inevitably abuse resulting in PTSD has a component of either physical harm, or the threat of physical harm (including witnessing violence or threats of violence).

<comment><USER6> I know lots of people who had panic attacks in response to emotional abuse with no physical violence involved.

Probably not rising to the level of a PTSD diagnosis though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I read the Nonviolent Communication ([https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent- Communication-Language-Mar...](https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent- Communication-Language-Marshall-Rosenberg/dp/1892005034)) book at the recommendation of a counselor a decade or so back and it really changed my life and how I interact with people.

I think as a programmer I am not atypical in that I sometimes struggle with empathy or how people reacted to things I said, but NVC gave me a framework to communicate in a healthier way. This wasn't just something that helped at work, it had an enormous effect on my personal life as well and I credit it to having strong relationships now.

I think the only frustrating piece is sometimes dealing with other who have not read (or do not subscribe) to the same philosophies. It can be very trying to respond to attacks with empathy but in the end that's still always the best strategy.

Highly recommended and not just if you are a manager, if you deal with other human beings at all, read it.

</comment><comment><USER40> There seems to be quite some overlap between NVC and I-messages [0], which are constructed in a similar manner:

1\. I feel... (Insert feeling word) 2\. when... (tell what caused the feeling). 3\. I would like... (tell what you want to happen instead). (from [0])

I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have really helped me - in solving conflicts, but also in growing as a person. Because, again purely subjective, my impression is that once you give others your I-messages, they are more likely to also respond with I-messages. Which again helps me to understand others and their needs better.

That said, NVC looks like a great addition, by making things more explicit with those four distinctions (observations vs. evaluations, etc.).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message)

<comment><USER41> >I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have really helped me - in solving conflicts, but also in growing as a person. Because, again purely subjective, my impression is that once you give others your I-messages, they are more likely to also respond with I-messages. Which again helps me to understand others and their needs better.

I've also found the pattern:

You have [Problem]. Lots of people feel [how you feel] about [Problem]. If I did [X] would it solve [Problem]?

To be helpful in every relationship:

"I get that you're mad that I didn't take out the garbage. The kitchen stinks now and everyone hates that. Do you think it'd help if I added a reminder to my phone?"

<comment><USER42> My answer to that would be "I don't give a shit what you do, as long as you take out the garbage" and I would _still_ be mad at you (plus annoyed that you asked me for a solution to something that shouldn't be my problem in the first place).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> NVC has been a game-changer for me, not only in terms of my relationship with my partner, but my relationship with myself. Not only does it allow someone to communicate more effectively, it allows someone to be way more conscious of what they need and that they are ultimately responsible for meeting those needs.

It definitely requires actual practice though. It is a skill to be grown, not just knowledge to be acquired or memorized.

</comment><comment><USER44> The NVC system has some useful insights but suffers from a fatal flaw. It punts on the question of _where_ the universal needs come from and the important task of distinguishing between true needs and simple desires. For example, an NVC practitioner could come to you complaining that a particular need is not being met. But by seeing that need as "universal", they've already potentially given up any leverage they might have in a conversation with a rational person.

It seems perfectly healthy (indeed essential in some ways) to develop an ability to distinguish between thoughts and emotions or observations and evaluations. But it's highly suspect to apply an ill-defined term like "universal need" to what could just as easily be described as a "personal preference."

It's not surprising to me that, in this day and age, I would start seeing people regain interest in things like NVC. In these times when everyone has an opinion and everyone is angry, people probably want a quick way to categorize people or ideas as good or bad. Ironically, by relying on vague concepts like "universal needs", NVC ends up being a pretty good system for making blanket judgements. But the real world is not that simple and takes more adaptability and agility to make sense out of.

<comment><USER45> >NVC ends up being a pretty good system for making blanket judgements

Could you give an example of this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The way NVC has helped me the most is ironically not with conversations with other people but with conversations with myself, and helping me explain to myself why I'm feeling a certain way in response to something. Specifically, what has helped me were the distinctions between feelings and thoughts, and needs being universal while wants are just the ways you try to fulfill a need in a certain moment.

Applying NVC with myself is also a lot less awkward -- with people early on I often overdid it and got a lot of funny looks :) But over time, using NVC primarily to understand a situation, I can pick and choose the way I say it to a person so that person trusts that I'm being genuine instead of just applying a formula.

In my case, the ideas in NVC probably saved my life by giving me a tool to work through several personal crises. In my social group no one really knows NVC or that it's important to me, I often try to be subtle about it. It's fascinating to see it on the front page of HN.

I'd be happy to share my experience with NVC, which I primarily use with myself but often guides my approach to problems at work or with friends.

</comment><comment><USER47> It's interesting, because I believe as a child we learned a simplistic version of this in elementary school. The basic construct was the "I feel ______, when ______." Obviously, this was for child-level conflict resolution, so unlike the guidance provided in NVC it most likely left it open to making accusations ("I feel hurt when you pull my hair"). But it's possible that children might do better with that sort of directness compared to adults in more complicated situations.

But I have continued to use that approach as a manager and had never heard of NVC before I saw this article. I really appreciated the expanded guidance and a better way to plan the conversation. I also found the section on Consequences to be helpful as well. When you are in an authority position, I believe it is important to help people understand that there might be consequences to their actions or continued in-action.

</comment><comment><USER48> Some of the things in there are incredibly condescending and foster ambiguity. For example, the observation "three of the numbers in your report were inaccurate" is an observation of a mistake made, which people do. It only means "you are sloppy" if it's a regular occurrence without signs of improvement. Using that as a stand in for "you are sloppy" is itself sloppy, and also lazy and unhelpful.

<comment><USER49> I don't think that the "observations vs evaluations" section was literally suggesting replacing the evaluation line with its corresponding observation line.

<comment><USER48> He does exactly that further down in the article, although those examples further down are a little better than the one I highlighted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> What's the purpose of expressing the feeling? It seems like it's there only to underline the urgency of the unmet needs.

At the same time, it implies an emotional investment in the issue at hand, which I would see either as unnecessary or insincere in a work environment.

<comment><USER51> The article has the example:

>Thought: 'I feel that you aren't taking this seriously.'

>Emotion: 'I feel frustrated.'

I definitely agree that the "emotional" way of looking at this statement is better. The "thought" here is accusatory and puts the other person on the defensive. Moreover, like the article says, saying the person is not taking things seriously is just an evaluation of their actions; you don't know that its true, you don't know how the other person feels and its not good to tell them how they feel. That evaluation is based on how YOU feel, so its more honest to just share that than your own theory on how someone else feels.

In other words, it helps get past your own assumptions about people and deal with what you actually know.

<comment><USER50> The example starts from the point of "let's express an emotion", and shows two sentences, right and wrong. Without trying to say "I feel", while following the other steps, there's no opportunity to even make the mistake of choosing the "wrong" one. That's why I asked why the article bothers describing step 2. at all.

I agree that evaluating the actions of the other person is not useful for resolving the problem, but the article also doesn't provide a justfication for sharing my own feelings (thank you BeetleB for shining some light).

Personally, if someone from the management told me "I feel X", I would completely discount it, because first, I don't care, and second, they have an incentive to be dishonest if it reduces the trouble they have to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Very nice and concise writeup. For me it is always hard to deliver the feedback to the point (the 40 words rule), because i'm afraid it'll simply go under in all the other information people take in during the day. That's why i tend to keep pressing the matter. Has anyone some relevant experience to share on that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Often, the most concentrated the message, the higher the impact. Sometimes a single sentence followed by silence is more powerful than a 1-hour talk. Counter-intuitive (but who said communication was straightforward).

<comment><USER52> You're right, it is far from easy. I will definitely give it a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is a very timely article for me. I just ended a romantic relationship due to, in my perspective, a failure of communication in our disagreements.

I had generally thought of myself as someone who was able to communicate clearly, in recognition of whatever emotion triggered a disagreement but without letting that emotion color the discussion. To at least to keep it in check while discussing our needs. But I consistently failed with my partner, and I found it so incredibly frustrating. I got more exasperated and upset in our conversations than I ever been, and it spiraled out of control.

I had been seeing a therapist, and he instructed me briefly in NVC, and I suddenly saw that I had been unable to say things without inherently assigning blame. I felt cowed.

But the thing is, my partner had always reacted negatively to my calm approach to the disagreements. I had gone so far as to demand her to get on my level (which I acknowledge was an over-the-top condescending statement) to which she rejected as being sanctimonious. It was more than just that statement that she was rejecting, though.

And now, I can't help but feel that NVC would be just another crutch to approaching difficult conversations, and possibly even counter to my goals. My synthesis of these experiences is that I am practically blind to my emotions, and I am only barely better at recognizing motivations and emotions in others. Once I've built up the ability to recognize what the hell is going on, then I have to figure out what to say. It's all about the audience.

</comment><comment><USER54> After reading the comments in this thread I feel there are two broad categories people seem to fall in. These categories are independent of whether they use it themselves or it is used on them. The first category is of people who think it is a tool to manipulate people into doing what they want. The second category is of people who think it is a tool for introspection and starting a meaningful conversation.

I think that in human communication intent matters much more than the tool or framework you use.

</comment><comment><USER55> Another interesting idea: apparently, positive motivation (reward) works much better than negative motivation (punishment). Allegedly it's "scientifically proven" (for some definition of "scientifically") which I haven't yet taken the time to research, but I plan to.

I've been thinking about how to apply this in two of the most important areas of interpersonal interaction in our lives, in our careers and in interpersonal relationships. We often discuss on HN why it's difficult in careers (conflicting interests, hard to measure results, under-specified goals, etc.). In relationships, I think the main difficulty is that we enter relationships with so many expectations (i.e. "my partner should love me and spend time with me and give me gifts" or similar) that these can't really be used for positive motivation, instead we interpret the absence of them as negative motivation. One idea I had, though, is to explicitly verbalise rewarding in addition to the _actual_ reward (i.e. instead of just spending time with them, say "I really liked that you did X yesterday" _and_ spend time with them).

<comment><USER51> I know I'm being pedantic here, but in psychology, negative motivation is when you take away something averse as a reward for a certain behavior. Negative here relates to the fact you're negating or removing something to act as motivation, whereas if something is positive, you're adding something (like a treat for a dog). What a lot of people refer to as "negative motivation" is actually positive punishment because you are adding something aversive (like a spanking) in response to a behavior you want to decrease.

It's important to keep this in mind when looking at scientific literature so that you know exactly what they're talking about.

<comment><USER55> Ah, useful to know. So I guess what my post was about, was preffering to scale the rewards between positive and negative ends of the spectrum, instead of punishment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's funny, his very first paragraph hints at what I've found to be the most effective way to handle difficult conversations:

 _" All my biggest regrets as a founder are around not having difficult conversations sooner. I could have helped team members improve faster, fired people with the wrong fit earlier, had so many more productive meetings. I could have created a more open company culture."_

"Sooner". Give difficult information out in small bit immediately. Waiting and letting things bottle up only makes it harder. You also build a relationship with the person receiving the bad news of honesty and openness from the get go.

If I'm managing a report that did something wrong, I address it immediately. They get used to me being honest and prompt with my feedback. Addressing a single issue immediately also mean things don't build up and you're not forced to "bundle" bad news together.

Of course you should also do this with positive feedback but I think you'll find that when you regularly and openly address negative issues, it becomes much easier on all parties involved.

<comment><USER57> Depends on culture and formality of the relationship. I noticed some key differences working with people in the US, Scandinavia, Netherlands, India, Germany, Russia, and other places.

In the US, people will insist everything is awesome and great right until they get fired. Reason, they can be on the street in under 15 minutes and that kind of puts some filters in place. It also means that you need to follow up with some questions to get a real feel for what is going on. A peculiar thing with Indians I've worked with (superiors even) is that they seem reluctant to say no even when they mean to. So if you ask a direct question and you get an evasive answer, more questions are needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> The article begins with the need to fire people as an example of an important but difficult conversation, but then doesn't show us how that should be handled. The article seems more about correcting tardiness, which doesn't seem like it should be a very difficult conversation.

I am not in a position to fire someone, nor would I want to be. But let's say that Jane really needs to fire Bill, what universal need should she express and how does that help the conversation? What observations would actually help such a conversation? How does expressing her feelings help?

How is that different from a simple "Bill, you aren't the person we need on this team right now, and we have to let you go. Here's what I can do to make this transition as easy as possible."

This post is very highly rated so there must be some gem here that I'm missing.

</comment><comment><USER59> It seems his teachings are based on the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. There are some good audio books by him on Youtube, like _Freedom from the Known_. On a slightly related note, Jonathan Blow also has a talk called _Techniques for dealing with lack of motivation, malaise, depression_ ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7kh8pNRWOo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7kh8pNRWOo)), where he also talks about the importance of observational skills as a means of understanding / "putting out" your (negative) emotions and thoughts.

<comment><USER60> I was shocked when I saw that Krishnamurti quote.

J Krishnamurti's talks are some of the most insightful and clear-headed that I've ever encountered. And yet it's very rare to encounter references to him in the wild.

Sounds trite to say but some of "his" teachings (he hated that phrasing) got me through some very difficult times in my life. There was a time when I realized that my relationship with my parents was twisted; that they were hurting me by being oppressive/overbearing/controlling. Hearing his thoughts on love and the relationship between perception and action (namely, that perceiving a problem without running away from it _is_ the act of fixing the problem) gave me the insight and clarity I needed to cut my parents off [ASTERISK], pay my way through college and build a life that I was happy with.

[ASTERISK] This sounds weird or callous when you have to say it "out loud", but to be clear, I had very good reasons to do so. I did it to protect myself, not to hurt them.

edit: how the hell do I escape an asterisk? I tried single asterisk, triple asterisk, backslash asterisk before giving up and just putting [ASTERISK]

<comment><USER59> True about the rarity of Krishnamurti. Not sure how Krishnamurti would feel about Rosenberg, though, since he seems to be offering template solutions.

What comes to your asterisk issue, the help says: "Text surrounded by asterisks is italicized, if the character after the first asterisk isn't whitespace."

<comment><USER61> I think this summary offers template solutions. They are an approximation of the insights of the book. The book is more about relating a human experience to a conversation,

<comment><USER59> Ah, silly me. I forgot to mention that I was referring to his 3 hour Youtube workshop (link was in the summary), not the summary itself. Hard to imagine the book would be that different. Still, I appreciated the applied Krishnamurti :).

<comment><USER62> I don't believe Marshall's idea is to apply a template-based approach to communication, if that is what you mean. The templates themselves are not NVC, but are rather a guide to help the uninitiated to apply the philosophy behind NVC.

Aside: I'm definitely interested in learning more about Krishnamurti after reading this thread of conversation.

<comment><USER59> Ok, sounds great :). Have patience with Krishnamurti, because he's very subtle. First time I read his book, _The Awakening of Intelligence_ , I thought he was nice but rather empty in content, because I saw his message intellectually, which just the thing you shouldn't do. A few years later I read it again, and started to see, and the things I agreed with kept increasing the more I listened to him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> > move them on

When I see these disingenuous alternative ways to say that you've fired someone I just think that person is being an asshole. Why is it so hard to say you fired someone? Why is it always some bullshit like "we transitioned them out" "we moved them on" and no bullshit, "they graduated".

Using these euphemisms makes you come across as tone deaf and dishonest. Your audience can take hearing that you fired someone. If you have a hard time using the words required to effectively describe what you're doing maybe you're in the wrong line of work and shouldn't be coaching others.

<comment><USER64> Because you are not in target audience. Target audience is not top 20% of Gauss distribution or probably not even top 40% of confident people. It is all those people who fear they will be fired but are still needed (you still can have top performers with anxiety). If they hear someone "graduated" it becomes OK in a day or two, but "fired" will trigger them and all anxiety will make them think not about working harder but about what they will do when they are next.

"Your audience can take hearing that you fired someone", that is situation specific, company specific, yes audience specific.

If you think we are all adults and should treat everyone who is over 21 as perfectly reasonable person, you are in world of surprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Great article, thanks for the concise and actionable NVC intro!

Non-Medium reformatting: [http://download.nova.anticlack.com/nvc.txt](http://download.nova.anticlack.com/nvc.txt)

</comment><comment><USER44> I went through a phase where I was pretty interested in NVC. I learned some useful things mostly have to do with the distinction between observation and evaluation and emotion and thought.

However, I feel the system can't justify its particular choice of words used to describe universal needs and also can't justify the notion that those concepts would apply in any situation. I remember seeing Marshall Rosenberg speak in person once at Naropa University in Boulder, CO. During the question and answer part, one person asked where the universal needs came from and why Rosenberg chose those particular needs instead of others. At first, he acted confused by the question. Then he paused for a moment and finally answered, "I'm not sure. God I suppose. The universe. Whatever you want to call it." What I felt he had done, perhaps unintentionally, in that moment, was to give every person in the room a method to make _righteous_ requests with NVC, not just requests. It made me realize that there's easily a debate to be had about what needs apply in what situation. A person might not be reasonable in suggesting that their needs aren't being met and may develop a really wrong attitude on top of that in viewing their needs as universal (i.e. being righteous and requiring no justification).

<comment><USER62> Based on that answer, and given the initial confusion, I can't help but speculate that Marshall took the question to literally mean "where do needs originate", to which the obvious literal answer is a creator or the Universe. I think the question was meant to understand how the list of needs was determined, to which I would imagine Rosenberg may have had a different answer.

I can't know this for sure, but my understanding is that these needs were identified via some sort of introspection, and probably seemed somewhat obvious to Marshall. This is clearly subjective in some way, but it does seem that most humans do share many of the same needs, so I'm not sure that your criticism holds much weight.

The idea behind calling needs universal is to ensure we are talking about the same kinds of needs. eg. I don't need you to accept whatever I do and say it's ok no matter what. But I do need autonomy. The need should not reference specific people, things, times or situations. It should be very general, which helps frame the conversation in a less combative way and makes sure we are talking about the underlying values that motivate all our actions.

It's very hard for me to try to think of something that follows those rules of generality and that may be characterized as a need by someone, but is not a real universal need and is overly righteous. Could you help me by giving an example of such a mis-characterized need?

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I prefer the actual title of the article (How to Deliver Constructive Feedback rather than A guide to difficult conversations); a difficult conversation could be about anything and the object of the article seems very vague, whereas delivering feedback is something most of us would have to do and so is something of interest (and is more precise). I nearly didn't read the article because of this, which would have been a shame since it was an interesting read.

</comment><comment><USER67> Corollary (to the whole article): act/do the way you expect others to act/do in a _small set_ of areas that are very important to you.

I've often seen leaders/managers get upset about the little shit while not acting the way they expect others to act in the areas they care about.

My step dad and a few bosses I've had over the years are great at this; they jump in and start _doing_ the work and its amazing to see others jump right in along side them. Also, and this is key: they jump in and work along side their own reports who are doing the right things (this is a powerful message to a team).

One boss and mentor (and now a good friend) - would write documents/presentations and share them with an employee: "hey, I'm doing this presentation to _______ , check it out. I'd like you to ramp up and next month take it over. I'll be happy to help if required"

One time, some people were arguing one day about how to test some software and hardware. Boss observes the argument and comes in the next day with a little circuit board he made to help complete the tests. The model within the team from then on was often "hey I built this thing to help with the _____ ..what do you think, will this help?"

Another example, eng boss in a standup : "hey, I like how you did that thing with ____ in the code, I'm going to fork that and try an experiment". Comes back a few days later "hey check out this branch.. its a way to do _____; You can see what I'm getting at - and maybe figure out how something like this can work in the main codebase ..food for thought".

</comment><comment><USER68> >> 'The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.' — Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian Philosopher

First of all, he was a mystic than being a philosopher. The quality of observing is a by-product, a consequence. If you directly try to achieve this by using your mind based on some moral principles or disciplines mentioned through this article you are bound to get frustrated. It is like one thought fighting with other thought but in the end, it leads to the creation of a chain of many complex thoughts entangled. But because it appeals more many people fall prey.

I see many such articles focus more on the mind and how to change thoughts. This article is nothing but an offshoot of a limited part of psychology. A real inner transformation happens when you experientially go beyond thoughts. Psychology is just a temporary cure. Vipassana can help you in a true experiential manner.

Jobs such as software engineering and others which requires constant use of thinking and sitting at one place throughout the day makes the mind stronger than other faculties of a human being. it needs to be balanced with exercise (to remove physical and to certain extent mental blocks ) and proper meditation guidance.

</comment><comment><USER69> If anyone is interested in an IRC channel for NVC, a few friends and I run ##nvc on freenode. It's small, but we'd love to grow it and spread NVC.

</comment><comment><USER70> I have a feeling people will read this blog post and implement it by stating some of those observations are going to come across really passive aggressive.

</comment><comment><USER61> I've personally found this book more valuable than any other mentioned in the thread and I challenge skeptics to read it.

</comment><comment><USER71> Maybe I am misunderstanding empathy, but the following paragraph sounds more like sympathy: "But when it comes to difficult conversations, I've found that empathy has a side-effect. I can get so focused on how the conversation might affect the other person's feelings that I lose sight of why the conversation is needed in the first place."

In the above circumstance, I thought empathizing with the person would be understanding they (may) benefit from the information you're providing. Sympathizing with them would be reacting to their feelings, which seems to be the approach here.

Am I wrong?

An analogy could be made to a person who recently had a friend die. Sympathizing would be reacting to their sadness and feeling bad for them. Empathizing would be understanding how they're feeling and taking steps to support them (e.g. spending quality time with them).

</comment><comment><USER72> If anyone wants to have some real-time chat about NVC, or ask questions of people who have years of experience using the technique, you can come here:

[https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=##nvc](https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=##nvc)

It's the ##nvc channel on Freenode.

<comment><USER49> Thanks! I joined and I'm glad I did :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> The problem, as I've experienced with this, is that it requires cooperation of the other part; more specifically, it requires them to acknowledge these feelings as being pertinent to reality. Take this example from the article:

"When you said, 'I'm not happy with your work,' to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn't meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?"

What when the other party says 'well I didn't mean to make you feel embarrassed, and if you did, that's your problem - just change the way you feel about these things because this is just the way things go around here.' What then? And a similar response can be phrased for every statement that uses this terminology/method.

</comment><comment><USER74> Great article and very timely as I need to have a difficult conversation with a co-worker today! :)

</comment><comment><USER75> I've also heard good things about "The Art of Hard Conversations: Biblical Tools for the Tough Talks That Matter" [0] and "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" [1].

Can anyone comment on the relative merits of these articles' / books' approaches?

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Art-Hard-Conversations-Biblical- Matte...](https://www.amazon.com/Art-Hard-Conversations-Biblical- Matter/dp/0825445558)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143118447/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143118447/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

<comment><USER61> Read them all. The ROI is so high you may as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I saw a similar article about workplace conversations that suggested a similar track.

The gist was to make a request for help instead of a demand, while also being frank about what is happening and that there is a need for change.

I can appreciate the idea of presenting it in a collaborative way. Instead of "I am telling you to do this because you made a mistake and I know better" you can present it as "I can understand the issue, and we can work as a team to come up with a solution that works for everyone."

</comment><comment><USER77> While this looks very nice and fun to read, in the real world we deal with very emotional people. There are times I use these subconsciously when needed but I know there are many clients I dealt with would reject me the moment I start talking like this.

I personally find people using NVC tactics very insincere. It is very obvious they are using some "you can't use this sentence against me later" tactics.

<comment><USER78> Sometimes what people really want is old-fashioned give-and-take, or to engage you in open conflict.

When you make it clear by your actions you're not interested in that game, it will throw them off balance. Not many people are prepared for this and the only tactic they know is to escalate. "You're being an insincere prick" is all they've got.

The key is that you know that you, yourself are sincerely open to making a connection, and you go the extra mile to avoid condescension. At a basic level, you are indeed pushing them to confront something about their own feelings that they'd rather not deal with at that moment.

Sometimes folks just don't want to connect with you when they're feeling vulnerable, and the best you can do is let them know that you're safe to be vulnerable around by respecting that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Book is here: [http://web.archive.org/web/20050308042540/www.algonet.se/~jo...](http://web.archive.org/web/20050308042540/www.algonet.se/~johnnyfg/books/noviolnt/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER80> Great article! Thanks for highlighting this often neglected aspect of communication!

<comment><AUTHOR> Pleasure :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> The video linked at the bottom of the article doesn't work for me ("the video is unavailable <mock concern face>"). Is this a regional thing (I'm in the UK), or is it broken for everyone?

<comment><AUTHOR> I fixed it. Great catch, thanks for letting me know :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I also highly recommend the book "Difficult Conversations", which has a similar overall idea with a slightly different way of framing and breaking down the hard parts of these conversations.

</comment><comment><USER83> Is this article paywalled? Medium presents me with a box saying:

You read a lot. We like that. You've reached the end of your free member preview for this month. Become a member now for $5/month to read this story and get unlimited access to all of the best stories on Medium.

<comment><USER84> That showed up for me as well but there was an X icon on the top right to close the pop-up and continue to the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> It just occurred to me while reading this that the entire job of counsellors is to usher non-violent communication between people. Fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER86> "When ____[observation], I feel ____[emotion] because I'm needing some ____[universal needs]. Would you be able to ____[request]?"

The typical/traditional response to such a request is somewhere between "uh, no" and "absolutely not - and making such a request is itself an unforgivable offense; if you value your (job/career/life/relationship/etc.) you will never speak of it again."

The only exception is if the requester is a boss or another person whose "requests" are actually orders.

</comment><comment><USER87> "consequences should be protective, not punitive." \- Couldn't have put this any better

</comment><comment><USER88> I highly recommend Celeste Headlee's We Need To Talk. A good audiobook as well.

</comment><comment><USER89> From the example dialog, NVC seems to my ears as extremely patronizing.

</comment><comment><USER90> So, a tutorial on "how to be a greedy, hypocritical, toxic asshole without sounding like one" :)

</comment><comment><USER61> There are a lot of bad communicators on this thread

</comment><comment><USER91> This seems pretty great!!

</comment><comment><USER92> Nonviolent Communication? Words are _not_ violent. There are better ways and worse ways to say things. You can be more empathetic and use words that result in less "triggering", but calling words violence is dangerous. It erodes the distinction between thoughts and opinions and real physical action.

</comment><comment><USER93> So if I understand the article, one should use the communication pattern:

When ____[observation], I feel ____[emotion] because I'm needing some ____[universal needs]. Would you be able to ____[request]?

For instance:

When [you're acting like a dickhead], I feel [the urge to punch you] because I'm needing some [f __king professionalism]. Would you be able to [stop acting like a dickhead]?

<comment><USER15> There are several sentences in the piece dedicated to explaining that treating the [emotion] section as a synonym for [attack that happens to be prefixed with the word feel] is a corruption of the practice.

There's also a section explaining the difference between requests and demands.

But your formulation does tend to highlight why people get incensed at amateurish imitations of NVC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Imho just beat him: imho again if it's my father, and laws are specific so dumb, there are no questions denying me to talk to my father, would it be a brother in law or natural brother. It is not a matter of choice that he has to take by himself (other than think he "has the possibility to feel responsible", but that's also not a question and not an option, imo). I would make him understood that it is not a choice, nor me that I'm asking him if he will allow me, he has to understand (imho) within goods or bads: if it's for my father, he will come after, on a different level of importance. Really to me allowing him to take responsability as to "help" himself, or make him to feel this experience, is something that might even be silly, like what: "have a solace try?", whitin the life of another person? Because hospital's laws are dumb? Imho no way, and no no fight if needed (you also older).</comment>


Ask HN:  Why do web frameworks always use database? - <AUTHOR>

I'm designing an information-heavy web site (static content, no user content), and have been wondering the best way to do it.  Drupal, django, RoR all get the information through a database.  It seems to me like this has a number of problems:
* All those database lookups are going to be slow
* All your data is locked up in a binary file
* How do you update your site?  It doesn't seem like you can easily merge two databases, or update just the change deltas.
Instead, if all the content lives in separate files with other files telling how to put it together, then you can use a compiler (of sorts) to generate the site as a bunch of static pages for the site.  The advantages would seem to be:
* Fast to serve content
* Easy to redesign (edit files, re-run `make` on the static pages)
* Easy to update the server:  cvs update -d -P; make
* If there is user content, CGI could add files (assuming availability of locking).  Then a backup would be as simple as `cvs commit`.
* Rolling back after an update gone bad would be easy.
The drawbacks seem to be minimal:
* Requires extra disk space (cheap)
* CPU-intensive to change site layout (infrequent)
* CPU-intensive to add content (presumably rarer than reading content, which is fast)
So am I missing something?  Why are databases so popular, given that they seem to be slower, and harder to update/backup?
[Edit:  slightly better formatting] <comment><USER2> Taking 'information heavy' to mean large data size/ volume. File system can be seen as a basic database. When data access paths are not pre-defined e.g. URL, slug, tag, etc., a systematic way to organize and query is required. Three examples: (a) not knowing what user may query, text indexing today almost index every words. (b) given predefined access path, NNTP have used mostly files. (c) mail servers have both. IMO, in general, addressing domain specific requirements, database systems (relational, logical, network...) are not slower, harder to update/ backup. As pointed out in another comment, disk IO is slow. Both file and database systems feature various ways to speed that. Understanding requirements, then architect, design, and choose a solution stack carefully.

</comment><comment><USER3> _I'm designing an information-heavy web site (static content, no user content), and have been wondering the best way to do it._

Look into Movable Type (<http://movabletype.com/>). It is written in Perl and it writes static html files. I did the redesign of <http://www.steves- digicams.com/> in Movable Type 4.23 and there are over 12,000 pages. Movable Type generates the static files at publish time in about as much time as Wordpress takes.

A big advantage of using static files on Steve's Digicams is that it is very easy to replicate across a load-balanced network of servers without the hassle of having to load-balance MySQL with a master-slave configuration.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing me to MT. I looked at it a bit, and it seems promising. It looks like it stores everything in a database, and generates the static files from that. How do you deal with a major site update? Would you copy the database to the dev machine, do the update, and then have some SQL magic to merge in only the parts that have changed? (Since you can't copy it back, as then you'd lose all the forum posts since the copy-to-dev)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Disk I/O is a huge limiting factor in a filesystem based approach to data persistence. Using a database for the persistence of data allows the db to schedule flushing the state to disk, independent of the actual requests. The situation you're specifically talking about, where there's nothing but static pages, there's no point in using a framework that's designed around building dynamic pages. You could just as easily write/use a templating system that takes content files and generates the HTML files from that content, and just run it when you have new content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't disk I/O be equally bad for a database? I assume the database gets cached in memory (as much as possible), but I would think that the file cache would have the same effect.

<comment><USER4> The database can make all the disk I/O operations asynchronous because it provides an interface on top of file system itself. What you had listed would require either your own implementation (which you'd be better off using existing DB/Berkeley DB systems) of similar functionality, or actual disk I/O.</comment></comment></comment>


Extending the web - <AUTHOR> http://clint-hill.com/2012/12/03/extending-the-web/

<comment><USER2> Maybe I haven't thought about this hard enough, but what's the distinction between a prollyfill and a library?

<comment><USER3> A prollyfill is attached to a proposal/draft for new or improved native features and it provides a way of changing the evolutionary model of the Web...

Let me use the popularity of selector engines as an example: Only after a giant swath of the community of developers decided that this was a useful thing and even extended a few selectors did it get real consideration as something that was needed natively - and at that point it really had no draft/spec to it beyond: 'It matches CSS'. It didn't have use-cases or tests or prose or anything --- So we got querySelectorAll, and really didn't match a lot of expectations or needs - but it did 'match CSS'. Likewise, some things in most of the selector engines proved to be kind of problematic if the idea was to 'match CSS' - but since there was no draft and no one looking at that, it just kind of slipped under the radar.

See if this helps at all: [http://briankardell.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/w3c-extensible-...](http://briankardell.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/w3c-extensible- web-community-group/)

<comment><USER2> I think I get it - so by creating a polyfrill for a proposed native feature, one can show the benefits of said feature in practice and push for its native implementation?</comment></comment></comment>


Supercomputing on Nitro in AWS Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9167399 <comment><USER2> The Monday Night Infrastructure keynote from re:Invent was all about the changes required to support true super-computing use cases inside a placement group. The nitro virtualization layer is a huge part of it (the other being the networking between hosts within a placement group).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPUWATKe15E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPUWATKe15E)

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like Amazon trying to make excuses for being the only cloud provider who thinks they can pursue HPC workloads without Infiniband. I can't help but notice that this paper consists of nothing but network bandwidth testing, and their latency testing was bulk-only. Also, IEEE Micro is a weird place to publish real supercomputing work.

Does Amazon have a plan for tightly-coupled large-scale software on AWS? Is there an exascale team at AWS?

edit: I found a thread on Twitter[1] where it is explained to us that the protocol in question will remain proprietary because nobody is smart enough to keep up with Amazon engineering, and Amazon engineers' convenience is more important than standards.

This is extremely disappointing -- it turns the entire fabric into a black box and slams the door on meaningful repeatability for large-scale modeling efforts. It's so frustrating to see all this effort fenced off behind 90s Business Dude mindsets.

[https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1297231949895831553](https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1297231949895831553)

<comment><USER4> OTOH, why should we want an Infiniband monoculture (which is also a Mellanox/Nvidia monopoly)? Why not let AWS try their weird stuff and let it fail on its merits?

<comment><USER3> Breaking the infiniband monoculture is _why_ I am sad they're sitting on this protocol. I would like to deploy it to my cluster in my datacenter for testing. I cannot, and that sucks.

Even if SRD is the greatest thing ever, it doesn't do me any good to replace an infiniband monoculture with an AWS monopoly. I can't even use public-cloud computing for about two thirds of my workload, so this is a non-starter.

<comment><USER4> Even if the protocol was documented you couldn't use it without hardware which AWS won't sell you.

<comment><USER3> We'll never know. I have access to network hardware that is extremely configurable via FPGA.

"What hardware does this protocol require for successful deployment" is just one of the many questions that are currently only answerable via Amazon trademarks.

<comment><USER4> I have a feeling that anyone competent enough to implement SRD in an FPGA could also invent their own similar protocol.

<comment><USER3> That may be true, but I'm not funded to develop similar protocols. I _am_ funded to _evaluate_ them, which, again, I cannot do because of how they're handling this work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Instead of preserving packets order, SRD sends the packets over as many network paths as possible, while avoiding overloaded paths."

From my naive perspective, this sounds like a great way to end up overloading all the paths that aren't currently overloaded. I suppose maybe this works out when you have global information about the network, unlike the regular internet though?

<comment><AUTHOR> AIUI the sender manipulates bits in the packets that the switches use for ECMP (equal cost multipath) to shard the traffic across the available paths. The protocol is designed for very fast feedback about path latency so it can avoid building up queues in switches; if any path seems congested then the sender stops using its ECMP value. There isn't any duplication of packets (unless they are lost) nor does it rely on global information (because that is far too slow).

(Based on this discussion [https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1297223835519815681?s=21](https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1297223835519815681?s=21) as well as the paper)</comment></comment>


Sam Altman Is Attending Bilderberg 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2016/06/08/bilderberg-2016-annotated-members-list/ <comment><AUTHOR> This meeting sets the agenda on how governments plan to take our liberties so they can force world government down our throats Ala 1984. A fashionable event for globalist war criminals who steal from their people and lie to the public. Cannot believe Sam Altman is attending, big black eye to his credibility. Oh and he flagged the other article that mentions his participation, what does he have to hide ? If theres nothing wrong with the meeting, why wont he allow discussion about the topic ? TBH He shouldn't be worried because all of the discussion thus far on that thread shows zero understanding for the purpose of the meeting.

2016 topic list - [http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-leak-secretive-group- to-d...](http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-leak-secretive-group-to-discuss- internet-id-global-tax/)</comment>


Reaction Housing's temporary shelters - <AUTHOR> http://www.reactionhousing.com/

<comment><USER2> Seems impractical compared to something like the Ikea flat pack shelter.

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/26/8287509/ikea-refugee- shelt...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/26/8287509/ikea-refugee-shelter- flatpack-photos-iraq-syria)

</comment><comment><USER3> The wrist band lock seems rather impractical the majority of circumstances that you'd encounter in the aftermath of a disaster or in refugee camps. And the advantage of no assembly seems to be a rather small advantage compared to the cost (a rather bulky construction). The amount of shelters you can put on a truck ([http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52e6ca70e4b0aeaf06546d...](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52e6ca70e4b0aeaf06546dfb/t/54f52911e4b02c0acdf6c119/1425352982937/Shell+carryingFeb10.jpg?format=1500w)) seems to be quite little.

I like the techy look and the idea seems cool, but it also seems to look like a very technocratic approach to shelters. This might work well for first world countries that have to deal with the fixing shelters after a disaster when conditions are quite good. But I can't see this helping out afters disasters like the one in Nepal.

<comment><USER4> Yeah imagine how many tents you can fit on a truck that size! 100s maybe a thousand. Let alone can a truck get into the disaster zone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In summary - how does this compare (technology and/or cost) to common container housing, as seen on building sites and refugee centers today?

</comment><comment><USER6> Is not clear how the unit is powered. Does it have batteries, solar panels or do you have to plug it in?

<comment><USER7> I'm wondering about this too. That, combined with what looks like a lack of windows, would make this somewhat impractical in emergency housing situations where the restoration of electricity is likely to take a lot longer than setting up shelters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good luck getting trucks with this into Nepal. Tents or even wood for cabin can be air droped.

</comment><comment><USER4> Roadmap: After 7 years exos capable for space launch? Did I hear that correctly?</comment>


Ask HN: Non-solicitation agreements/cofounders - <AUTHOR> How are non-solicitation agreements typically viewed for colleague leaving to start a business together?
For instance an engineer and product manager decide to leave a company that they're both working for to create a startup in a non-competing space. Are they opening themselves up to liability for "soliciting" each other to leave their current job?
Disclaimer: not looking for legal advice, and if I actually needed it I would find an employment lawyer. I'm merely curious and my searches are coming up empty and tend to only focus on the customers/sales aspect on non-solicitation. <comment><USER2> solicitation usually refers to customer accounts. If your contract prevents you from poaching other employees usually it says so explicitly and specifies a time period.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that is exactly the kind of clause I'm asking about. 1 year I believe is typical.</comment></comment>


Five big questions about Apple putting iTunes on Samsung TVs - sahin-boydas https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/6/18170820/five-big-questions-about-apple-putting-itunes-on-samsung-tvs <comment> sahin-boydas [https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/06/apple-is-bring-itunes- cont...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/06/apple-is-bring-itunes-content-to- samsungs-smart-tvs/)</comment>


Australian Android phone specs announced - <AUTHOR> http://www.kogan.com.au/blog/2008/dec/4/here-it-kogan-agora/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Shame they are not available until January next year.</comment>


Ask HN: Encountering implicit and explicit bias during job hunt and interviews - <AUTHOR> This is a very sensitive topic (hence the throwaway) and one I wish I did not have any first hand experience with but here we are. I recently started looking for a new job and in the process started talking to an acquaintance that happens to be a very senior person at a well known company about possibly working for them. What transpired has me in awe and disgust. This person openly admitted to hiring only from their racial and cultural background (a background I share and undoubtedly why they felt comfortable sharing this nugget with me). I should admit that my anecdotal evidence may not amount to any real indication of widespread prevalence of such behavior but this led me to wonder, are there stories like this that should come to light so that people like this can be held to account and hiring anomalies and clusters of university (opposite of diversity?) flagged/monitored by their managers or hr departments?
What I am asking is, can you could share data regarding preferential or detrimental treatment of candidates based on racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, cultural or any other basis if you have first hand knowledge or have experienced this phenomenon as a candidate.
p.s. I should probably mention that I have severed all ties with this person. <comment><USER2> > p.s. I should probably mention that I have severed all ties with this > person.

This might not be what you hoped for but after reading this I will ask you if you have done some introspection.

Since this is my sockpuppet account I'll feel free to point out that I'm a person who have stood up for the less privileged against dumb practices and I'm really proud of actually getting my boss to hire the girl who cleaned the floor but had an it degree from another country.

But severing ties with a person over this doesn't make sense to me at all. Also, since this is a sockpuppet account and since I can't cash in my Karma points here (and wouldn't anyway to prevent self-doxxing), let me steel man your former friend:

\- are you sure he wasn't exaggerating?

\- are you sure you didn't provoke him into saying this?

\- maybe he tried to be funny and you have just discriminated against someone who just had a bad sense of humour, - or just as likely, you didn't catch the joke?

\- working with people from other cultures often has significant issues. If someone has been burned a few times, can you see why they might be careful going forward?

\- does he come from a very homogeneous background? Something HN really struggles to grasp is that there are people like me who grew up in places where we didn't meet anyone who had a different skin colour, spoke another language, had another religion (there were only the official religion or atheism). Should we judge people coming from such a background equally harshly?

Finally and most importantly: do you think you will have any chance of changing your friends ideas going forward or is there a chance that you have instead made him distrust all of us who could have tried to nudge him/her?

<comment><AUTHOR> \- are you sure he wasn't exaggerating?

He was specific about several instances so I don't think this was an exaggeration.

\- are you sure you didn't provoke him into saying this?

Oh I hope not. I only mentioned that I was looking and he went into this rabbithole all by himself leaving me practically speechless.

\- maybe he tried to be funny and you have just discriminated against someone who just had a bad sense of humour, - or just as likely, you didn't catch the joke?

See above. And personally I don't consider this form of humor acceptable in personal or professional setting so even if this were a joke, I am not okay with this.

\- working with people from other cultures often has significant issues. If someone has been burned a few times, can you see why they might be careful going forward?

I don't believe in collective punishment or stereotyping. Given the anecdote you shared about yourself, I don't think you do either. And being careful about a hiring decision is everyone's right but to base your scrutiny on demographics or other factors beyond one's control is not okay.

\- does he come from a very homogeneous background? Something HN really struggles to grasp is that there are people like me who grew up in places where we didn't meet anyone who had a different skin colour, spoke another language, had another religion (there were only the official religion or atheism). Should we judge people coming from such a background equally harshly?

Yes he does (so do I). And yes, we must be fair in both how we treat others and how we hold people that are not fair accountable regardless of their cultural baggage.

<comment><USER2> Ok, good, thanks for answering so detailed.

> Given the anecdote you shared about yourself, I don't think you do either.

Thanks for trusting me, I've long since lost count of the number of people here who immediately dismiss me and disbelieve me when I say I actually care and try to make a difference even as I argue against some of them.

For me I haven't really intentionally severed ties with anyone and I believe we are better of keeping the communication going even if there were years were I only met a certain relative of me in formal settings such as funerals for common friends/relatives as he burned through his rage agains my group.

After a few years he realized he was part of the problem. At that point it was good that I (and we) hadn't done anything against him and while he isn't part of our group anymore and maybe won't be in the future either he now behaves like a relative again and I look forward to meeting him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Based on the lack of response, I am going to assume that this may have been a one off. Thanks everyone.</comment>