"No one deserves our gratitude more than the late Marshall Rosenberg, who lived his life just as the title of one of his books states: Speak Peace in a World of Conflict. He was keenly aware of the maxim (or warning) that’s contained in the subtitle of that book: What You Say Next Will Change Your World. Personal reality always contains a story, and the story we live, beginning from infancy, is based on language. This became
the foundation of Marshall’s approach to conflict resolution, getting people to exchange words in a way that excludes judgments, blame, and violence." ... "He leaves footprints that the rest of us can follow. If we have true self-interest at heart, we will follow. It’s the only alternative in a world desperately seeking wisdom and the end of strife." —Deepak Chopra
11 Conflict Resolution and Mediation • 161
Now that you are familiar with the steps involved in Nonviolent Communication, I want to address how to apply them in resolving conflicts. These could be conflicts between yourself and someone else, or you may be asked to—or choose to—involve yourself in a conflict between others: family members, partners, co-workers, or even strangers in conflict.
Whatever the situation may be, resolving conflicts involves all the principles I outlined previously in this book: observing, identifying and expressing feelings, connecting feelings with needs, and making doable requests of another person using clear, concrete, positive action language.
In NVC-style conflict resolution, creating a connection between the people who are in conflict is the most important thing. This is what enables all the other steps of NVC to work, because it's not until you have forged that connection that each side will seek to know exactly what the other side is feeling and needing.
With NVC, we're trying to live a different value system while we are asking for things to change. What's most important is that every connection along the line mirrors the kind of world we're trying to create. Each step needs to reflect energetically what we're after, which is a holographic image of the quality of relationships we're trying to create. In short, how we ask for change reflects the value system we're trying to support.
To resolve conflicts using NVC, we need to train ourselves to hear people expressing needs regardless of how they do the expressing. If we really want to be of assistance to others, the first thing to learn is to translate any message into an expression of a need. The message might take the form of silence, denial, a judgmental remark, a gesture—or, hopefully, a request. We hone our skills to hear the need within every message, even if at first we have to
rely on guesses.
Empathy to Ease the Pain That Prevents Hearing • 170
The more experience I have gained in mediating conflicts over the years and the more I've seen what leads families to argue and nations to go to war, the more convinced I am that most schoolchildren could solve these conflicts. If we could just say, "Here are the needs of both sides. Here are the resources. What can be done to meet these needs?," conflicts would be easily resolved.
Using Present and Positive Action Language to Resolve Conflict • 172
Using Action Verbs • 173
Translating “No” • 174
NVC and the Mediator Role • 175
Although in this chapter I have offered examples from mediations I've facilitated between conflicting parties, the focus so far has been on how to apply these skills when resolving conflicts between ourselves and another person. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind at those times when we want to use our NVC tools to help two other parties reach a resolution and we take on the role of mediator.
The mediator's role is to create an environment in which the parties can connect, express their needs, understand each other's needs, and arrive at strategies to meet those needs.
When People Say “No” to Meeting Face to Face • 181
Informal Mediation: Sticking Our Nose in Other People’s Business • 182
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