Additional Resources - Our Approach to Communication and Feedback

For everyday feedback, the previous page should suffice. This page provides extra material if you're struggling to give or receive feedback. Do come chat to us in P&C as well if you would like support

Communication Norms

Some of our norms that help us communicate effectively and with care include:

• Respectful attention. We listen to each other with real interest. We give others our full attention. We may not always agree but we respect the person who is speaking and their efforts to contribute to the group.

• Learning and inquiry. We approach disagreements in the spirit of inquiry. What can we learn from the other person’s point of view? What information does this tension hold for us? We test inferences, check our assumptions and are willing to learn from one another. We can admit ignorance and confusion and embrace the mystery of another’s point of view.

• Constructive conflict. We don’t hold back in advocating for our suggestions, but we separate ideas from the people who hold them and don’t engage in personal attacks. We may not always succeed in persuading the group of our point of view. We yield gracefully and support others when the will of the group goes elsewhere.

• Direct and respectful dialogue. When we have an issue, a problem or a conflict with someone, we speak to them directly and respectfully face to face or at least on zoom/on the phone, not via email, slack, or text. We are willing to express our feelings and to listen. If we can’t resolve the problem ourselves we ask for help from others.

• Empathy. We do our best to understand how others are feeling and where they are coming from. We give each other the benefit of the doubt and we strive to remember, even in the midst of misunderstanding or conflict, that we are all vulnerable humans trying to meet our needs the best way we know how.

Most of us have not been taught to speak our truth without hurting others. We often end up attacking others or suppressing our true thoughts and feelings by being ‘nice’ for fear of confrontation or upsetting people. In both cases we lose the opportunity for deepening connection and understanding with others and sharing our insights which may hold important information and feedback.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is one way of helping us to communicate authentically and deepen our empathy and connection with ourselves and each other. It is used in lots of self-managing organisations and is one of the frameworks we use at ATT to guide us.

Some fundamental principles of NVC are:

• Needs consciousness. Humans have universal needs such as autonomy, safety and connection. All of our behaviour or actions are an attempt to meet one or more of our needs.

• Connection between feelings and needs. Feeling are indicators of needs either being met or unmet. For example feelings such as anger or disappointment might indicate needs such as love or honesty are not being met. This means the actions of others might stimulate but not cause these feelings.

• Strategies are ways to meet needs. Our feelings and needs guide our behaviour. Our behaviour results from the strategies we choose to take to meet our needs. There are many different strategies we can take to meet a certain need. Conflict often occurs at the level of strategies rather than needs.

NVC (Non-Violent Communication) Framework

The NVC framework consists of sharing the following in conversation:

• Observations: (with your senses): a situation, someone’s action etc.

• Feelings: (emotions): I feel [hurt, disappointed, reassured] by that observation

• Needs: I need [trust, respect, understanding]

• Requests: a concrete action I’d like taken to change things.

By focusing on these four steps, we can boil down ‘difficult’ conversations to the feelings and needs we all have without attacking the other person. It’s simple but not easy because we’re not used to connecting with or focusing on our needs. When we do focus on our needs, and our shared needs with others, the difficult conversations can be easier to handle, hence more frequent.

In the context of self-management, the practice of NVC gives us a way to process interpersonal tensions, without relying on managers or bosses. The NVC process also uses “power with” others to get things done together rather than “power over” others found in traditional hierarchies. In addition, the NVC process helps us take responsibility for our own experience by identifying our feelings and needs rather focusing on “what’s wrong with the other person”. This opens up much more space to explore different strategies to meet the needs.

NVC also helps us listen with empathy to ourselves (self-empathy) and others by offering an explicit process for developing and deepening the practice of empathy. This helps us to hear the feelings and needs under our own and others’ stories and promotes greater understanding and connection. NVC also increases our literacy and awareness of our feelings and the needs they are pointing to. Most of us have not been taught these empathic skills growing up.

Once we are more experienced with NVC we may find we don’t want or need to stick to the NVC framework. After all, NVC is not just a language or set of techniques, at its core it is an empathic stance, a consciousness of deeper needs, and a compassionate intent, which means it can be done with silence.

Guidelines for Giving Feedback

This is not a linear process, you will go back and forth between different stages and skip some.

• Understand your intention for giving feedback.

• Ask - “how can this contribute to the person hearing it? How can this contribute to the whole?”

• Can you genuinely see that this feedback would support the receiver or do you have a need to be heard?

• Do you have an emotional charge about this person’s actions? If so make sure you have done the inner work to understand your feelings and needs (self-empathy, ‘clarify your story’ exercise, NVC transforming enemy image (LASER) exercise, journaling etc.). This will also reduce the likelihood of a defensive response.

• If the intensity of feelings remains after inner work – you may need a different process than feedback

• Check you’re ready to give feedback - Use the Dare to Lead engaged feedback check-list

• Ask for consent before you talk, share the topic of the feedback

• Offer appreciation and/or care early on (only if it feels authentic)

• Speak from your experience with ‘I’ sentences (NVC)

• Take responsibility for your own needs in the situation and your own emotional baggage (NVC)

• Don’t assume what happened for the other person, what they thought or felt (NVC separate observation from judgement/evaluation)

• Be specific – give a specific observation - focus on behaviours, actions and ideas not on individual characteristics (NVC)

• Example: Instead of saying “You're an inconsiderate person” a concrete statement can be “Last week you spoke loudly in the office a number of times and distracted me from my work”...

• Share the impact on you if you feel comfortable doing so (NVC feelings & Matrix).

• Example: “The impact on me was that I became frustrated"

• Share the impact on your connection (Matrix).

• Example: "It has made me feel like I can trust you less in an office environment."

• Tie the observation with why this matters to you (in terms of purpose and function, values, and relationships) (NVC needs/values)

• Example: "This matters to me because I value having a space where I can focus. But it also matters to me that we have a space to socialise"

• Ask for the receiver’s perspective and respond with empathy

• The receiver often wants to be seen for their intentions and efforts, and to experience care in the process. Empathy in those moments can shift the dynamic and make for fruitful dialogue designed to find solutions that work for everyone.

• Example: In the above example, the person receiving feedback may say something like: “I have a naturally loud voice and I find it hard to speak quietly" or "I find short conversations in the office useful breaks to keep my long-term concentration. I wasn't aware and it wasn't my intention to distract others"

• Make a request or suggestion for what can be done to improve, not a demand. “Would you be willing to…..”

• Suggestions work best when offered as the beginning of a search for solutions rather than as commands. Example: “Would you be willing to trial having these short breaks outside the main office" or "would you be willing to really focus on lowering your voice when you have these conversations"

• Collaborate to find strategies that work for everyone

• Respond constructively and with empathy to defensiveness - put your NVC ears on and support the person with compassion and empathy - defensiveness usually comes from a place of vulnerability/insecurity.

• Example: In the above example, the person receiving feedback may say something like: "I'm not that loud and I don't do it that often, I think you might be over sensitive" And the empathic response could be: “It sounds to me like you have a preference for a particularly quiet room to work in, I can understand if I we're in your shoes why my talking loudly might have impacted you in this way".

• Make it timely - not too soon when things might be raw, but not too late when they may have forgotten the incident

• Constructive feedback may need to be given more than once - be patient, it’s hard to change

• Give it in private first before giving it in public

• Let’s be gentle with our truth telling!

Guidelines for Receiving Feedback

• When you are asked for consent consider if you are ready to listen, if you are not sure you can ask what the topic is, if it is constructive or appreciative and then decide on an appropriate time for you.

• Try to stay grounded and emotionally neutral - remember to breathe

• You may be triggered by what is said into a defensive mode

• You may end up denying, discarding, justifying, or blaming the other person

• Try to just listen, seize the gift, consciously choose to learn rather than defend

• The more self-acceptance we have, the easier it is to hear feedback, because we can relax into ourselves and receive it as information rather than confirmation that there is something wrong with us.

• Ask questions to make sure you understand the feedback

• Listen empathically for the feelings and needs under what people are saying to you, especially if it is hard to hear – listen with NVC ears!

• Take responsibility for emotions rising - name this without blaming the giver

• Use self-empathy if you feel emotions rising

• Ask for space to reflect - if it feels too much or you really don’t agree with what they’re saying - ‘I’ll think about that”

• Integrating feedback - decide what you want to do with it

• Overcome any self-judgments, shame etc.

• Connect with your own interests and goals in terms of your growth. Is this feedback aligned with areas you want to work in? If not, you can mourn the unmet needs that arise from your existing behaviours and choices, and relax into self-acceptance. You don’t have to work on anything and everything that someone says is an issue for you. You are the one who sets your priorities. If you do want to work in this area, can you come up with incremental steps that you can put in place to implement the changes you want? What support can you find? Can you maintain sufficient self- acceptance so that your attempt to change behaviours or choices does not turn into harshness and violence towards yourself?

• Express gratitude if authentic!