Communication

I’ve just finished a book on Nonviolent Comunication and thought it would have made a good pairing with one I read last year, Never Split the Difference, as a lesson in effective communication. The latter is about getting what you want from your counterparty, no matter your relationship afterwards. An adversarial, zero-sum situation is assumed, and Voss (the author, a former FBI hostage negotiator) urges the reader to push for everything, using empathy toward the counterparty only as a weapon.

By contrast, Rosenberg urges something of the opposite approach: creating a peaceful relationship even at the risk of not achieving your goals. He has a somewhat Buddhistic approach to life, seeing all people as essentially good and the goal of communication as seeing the goodness in the counterparty, validating their feelings without criticising (this applies equally to oneself), and trying to find a way in which everyone’s goals can be achieved.

Both authors present a bevy of case studies in which they used their principles to achieve miraculous results, even in cases which seemed like certain exceptions. I think that both authors imply a falsehood, without making it explicit: my principles will work in all situations. When push comes to shove, both would have to admit that some situations are simply insoluble; no amount of negotiating savvy or peace-building communication will lead to a positive outcome. Nonetheless, such cases are rare, and some hyperbole is probably needed in order to convince sceptical readers to apply these rules among their families and colleagues.