A Conversation Without an Indictment

Conflict culture likes to explain a single episode with a full history of character: “you always,” “you never,” “you’re just like that.” After that the other person is left defending a personality instead of solving a problem.

Marshall Rosenberg proposed a structure for nonviolent communication: separate observation from evaluation, name the feeling, link it to a need and formulate a concrete request. The method became popular precisely because it turned a vague “you don’t respect me” into an action that can be discussed.

The structure is not a magic spell, though. The sentence “I feel that you are irresponsible” can be delivered in a therapeutic voice, and the accusation stays an accusation. What helps is not a vocabulary of feelings but the discipline of not passing your own interpretation off as video footage.

The phrases “you always,” “you never” and “you’re just like that” move the discussion straight from behaviour to personality. A person will defend a personality more energetically than he will discuss one episode.

The working structure looks like this:

Observation

Over the past week the meeting started later than the agreed time three times.

Consequence or feeling

I cannot plan the next piece of work and I am angry about the waiting.

Need

I need predictability.

Request

If the delay is more than ten minutes, message me in advance. If that is impossible, we will move the meetings to another time.

A request should describe an action, not a required internal state.

“Respect me” is hard to carry out to instruction. “Do not discuss this topic in front of colleagues” is more specific.

After the request a conversation begins, not the reading of a verdict. The other person may have his own data, constraints and proposal.

Sometimes the problem is solved by a simple agreement. Sometimes it turns out the sides want incompatible things. That is a result too. A conversation does not have to end in reconciliation to be useful.

It matters not to turn the language of feelings into a new instrument of accusation:

I feel that you are selfish.

That is not a feeling but a characterization of a person in protective packaging.

Feelings are usually named more briefly: angry, afraid, upset, lonely.

Not every conflict calls for an analysis of inner needs. Sometimes a person simply did not do the work, and a new deadline is needed. Psychological depth should not flood the operational task.

A request is conveniently tested by asking whether an outsider could carry it out. “Be more attentive to the house” cannot be done: it is unclear at what moment the task counts as finished. “Take out the rubbish on the days you leave later” can be done and can be checked, and that is exactly why such a wording is harder to say — it shows at once how small the real subject of the argument is. After a doable request the argument ends in an evening, and that does not always suit both sides.

A vague complaint has the convenience of being impossible to close. It preserves the complainant’s right to return to the topic at any moment, and sometimes that is the point of the conversation.