Being as critical as I am (2/2)

สรุปการอบรม (ภาษาไทย) ที่ทางผู้จัดได้กรุณาส่งมาให้

I felt more natural on the second day of the Level-1 Nonviolent Communication Workshop. In the last post, I wrote about how awkward and unconvinced I was on the first day.

In the morning, we were taught four types of responses when being talked to:

1. a fox with outward ears: biting the speaker right back and putting blames on him
2. a fox with inward ears: biting himself, sulking, and blaming oneself
3. a giraffe with inward ears: understanding the speaker's needs
4. a giraffe with outward ears: : understanding one's own needs.

We got to practice what constituted each types of responses by doing a role playing exercise.  For example, one person in our group acted as a frustrated employee who told her boss that "Again!, I was given a rush job."  The rest of us (3 persons) acted like a boss and behaved like foxes and giraffes above (one "boss" with one "animal" at a time).  Perhaps I was naturally a fox, and I could pretend to be a giraffe.  I found the two extremes very easy: hitting right back was impulsively reflexive and required zero thoughts, while being understanding was not that difficult because I just needed to put myself into his shoes...

Theoretically speaking, I was told that communication consisted of four parts and their seemingly close equivalence, and it was important to distinguish them:

1. Observation vs. Interpretation, e.g., we saw that people are crying and we could interpret it in different ways: they're being overly joyous or in mourning
2. Feelings vs. Thoughts: like I said, I can't tell them apart.
3. Needs vs. Means, e.g., a couple wanted to be together.  The means may be (a) to order pizzas and eat at home; or (b) to make sandwiches from the leftover foods in the fridge and go picnic in the park
4. Request vs. Orders.  Requests are done mostly to (a) get something done; or (b) to build relationships, like how some women acted stupid and helpless to get guys' help.  This is my own example, by the way.

The last bit of class is what I find helpful though it's a bit rigid: the framework of how we should make requests or do comments:

1. Knock on the door: to check out if the listener is ready to listen
2. Give factual observations.  Be specific, e.g., saying who, what, when, where, and how.  For example, "I notice that you've been late" should be "During the past week, I've noticed that you came after 8.30 everyday."   I agreed with this point because it avoided unnecessary arguments and excuses.
3. Say your thoughts (or substantiate it with feelings): 
4. State your needs
5. Ask how the listener feels about what I just said and what needs of mine he gets from what I just said.
6. Make a request (or suggest some options).  If my request can't be fulfilled entirely, try to reach for a compromise.  

Though this framework sounds nice, it can mislead one into wishful thinking that one will get 100% of what one needs.  I mean, I could make my request in a very convincing way, but it's still up to the other party whether or not my request is granted or how a consensus is reached.

All in all, I don't think I wasted my weekend there, but I don't think I'd return for Levels 2 and 3 classes.  It gives good guidelines but, like many good techniques, I need to practice it and fine tune it so that it won't sound so robotic or script-like.