[camillomiller]

I think the observation vs evaluation examples are sloppy (yes, that’s an evaluation).

I understand this is not a general assessment of the value of observations over evaluations outside of the framework of NVC. Most of the examples would be perceived - at least by me - as impersonal and dishonest. Voicing observations such as “you were ten minutes late this morning” to someone who’s knowingly been late already before could be easily perceived as passive aggressive. Passive aggressivity is, I believe, the most subtly violent form of communication, and it really leads to nothing useful or constructive.

Most of the examples read as passive aggressive to me, because you’re renouncing to a very direct evaluation that doesn’t require a specific knowledge framework and present instead your interlocutor with an emotionless remark about their actions.

[pmichaud]

I think some missing context here is that the "observation" phase of an NVC communication:

1. Is in large part for you, the speaker. It forces you to get clear about what you really know to be true. I'm surprised at how often I'm trying to communicate some reaction I'm having, and it's really hard to even say what triggered it. In the process of figuring that out I get a lot of clarity about hat I was expecting or hoping for, what was missing, what the other person actually did, and just by virtue of the reflection, often some "free" insight into what they might have been thinking.

2. Is always followed by a feeling, need, or request (or some combo of those). This, I think is the key to making it not passive aggressive. If I start with "I need for you to not be late anymore," it's a bit disorienting in the conversation for the other person. What caused you to say that? Why now? Providing an objective observation as context for the rest of what you say allows both people to be on the same page about what the subject even is. Being late is a bit of a trivial example, but just like making the observation alone leaves a lot of work on the listener to infer what you expect to happen as a result of the observation, making the request alone leaves a lot work on the listener to infer what generated the request in the first place, ie. what you think has been happening, what matters to you, etc.

I think the strongest move is actually: observation, then impact, then request. Like:

> Hey, you were ten minutes late this morning. We had to push back the client meeting because you weren't there, and I'm afraid we looked disorganized and untrustworthy as a result. I need you to be on time from now on.

It's quite direct that way.

Also much like the observation step triggering useful self-reflection, the impact step requires you to know why the request matters to you at all. Like if there was no client meeting, what do you care if the other person was 10 minutes late? Maybe you still care, but you need to reflect enough to actually understand why, so that you can say it.

[BeetleB]

I think you're being needlessly downvoted. Sorry.

> Voicing observations such as “you were ten minutes late this morning” to someone who’s knowingly been late already before could be easily perceived as passive aggressive.

I can see your concern, because it's not clear from the article. It is passive aggressive if you leave it at that. NVC does not recommend leaving at that - you have to state all 3: Observation, Need and Feeling[1] - and the book explicitly calls out what happens if you omit any one. In that sense, your position is in line with the NVC book.

A more complete NVC approach is:

> You were ten minutes late this morning. I was annoyed at having to wait for you and lose productivity. Could you explain why you were late?

And no, I should never assume you know you were late, or how late you were. Because I may well be wrong to begin with (my clock is wrong, got you confused with someone else, etc). Without stating this fact, you would be confused.

Or in this conversation we may discover that your watch was off, and the simple correction is to fix your watch. Or you may know you were 10 minutes late, but you also know that others tend to be 15 minutes late and you may want to bring up with me that I hold them to the same standard as I'm holding you. If any of these is true, the conversation is tougher if I don't mention that you were late by 10 minutes.

> Most of the examples read as passive aggressive to me, because you’re renouncing to a very direct evaluation that doesn’t require a specific knowledge framework and present instead your interlocutor with an emotionless remark about their actions.

Definitely true if you merely make the observation.

Edit: Another commenter raised a very good point. One of the benefits is to make the observation (without judgment) clear in your own head. It's quite easy to have your brain quickly jump to "lazy" or "tardy" - particularly for repeat offenders. And if you do that, it becomes equally easy to vocalize it, which would be a very big mistake.

In most cases, there is no good reason to make that judgment. If someone is always late, it's quite fine to fire him because he cannot be on time, without having to portray him as a "tardy" person. You and your business have your needs and he couldn't meet them. What he is need not enter into the discussion or narrative.

[1] In this case there is also a fourth: Request

[spawarotti]

> You were ten minutes late this morning. I was annoyed at having to wait for you and lose productivity. Could you explain why you were late?

Honestly, this sounds even worse to me than just the observation. IMO a good test is "Would I say this to my boss? If not, then probably I shouldn't say it at all.". I would not say this to my boss. Not even close.

How about instead:

"Hey, I noticed you were a little bit late, which is unusual for you. Is everything OK?"

And if the pattern continues:

"Hey, I noticed you were a bit late in the last couple of meetings. I think it is somewhat important to be on time. Is there anything I can do to help you avoid being late next time?"

[BeetleB]

> "Hey, I noticed you were a little bit late, which is unusual for you. Is everything OK?"

"Yup."

> "Hey, I noticed you were a bit late in the last couple of meetings. I think it is somewhat important to be on time. Is there anything I can do to help you avoid being late next time?"

Below are very real (and somewhat common) responses I've seen to this type of question.

"Nope." (single word answer)

Also:

"I wasn't late" (person believes being up to 5 minutes late doesn't count as "late").

"We don't discuss anything important in this meeting."

"I have real work to do."

"I'm not needed in the meeting."

"You have plenty of topics you can discuss where I'm not needed. Just save the stuff you need me for till I arrive."

"No one's going to die if I'm a few minutes late."

Granted: Many of these responses would come with my phrasing as well :-)

I'm not opposed to your phrasing other than you never explained what the problem is with my being late. While it may be clear to many that you have a problem with being late, I assure you from experience that many (ordinary) people will not pick up on that. Why is being late a problem? Not in general, but for you and for this meeting.

You instead try to appeal to some kind of norm: "I think it's somewhat important to be on time." I can assure you many don't share that norm. Academic/tech/science people tend to avoid personalizing and prefer making statements that feel objective, like this one. I did this all the time, and it often led to arguments. This is one key thing I learned from all the books/courses I read/took on communications: Do personalize and do be specific. Don't invoke norms unless it's a company value without exceptions or your 100% sure the other party shares the norm. And don't make general statements.

I would take your statement and say it as:

"I noticed you were more than 5 minutes late in the last couple of meetings, and the meeting cannot proceed without you. It can be annoying for us to interrupt our work to attend the meeting and lose productivity while sitting and waiting. Would you be able to find a way to arrive on time? Is there anything I can do to help (e.g. change the meeting time to a more convenient one)?"

As for saying it to your boss: I have no problem saying it to mine. If my boss is consistently late and it affects my work, I do make sure to let him know. I've had to set up private meetings with my boss to let him know that his behavior in a working group meeting was causing problems. If you're not comfortable with these discussions with your boss, then I suggest you change your communication style or change your boss.

[spawarotti]

I think you touch on an important point: you have some expectation and the person doesn't share it. But here is the rub - maybe they are right, not you? Why do you assume you are right? Maybe that person indeed is not needed on that meeting. Maybe by being late they are trying to communicate to you this meeting is in fact a waste of everyone's time. Did you consider this?

For me that's one of the main failing points of NVC as I see it represented here - it starts with "I am right, and you need to adjust" instead of "let's find the underlying root cause of the problem together".

[BeetleB]

Your points are valid, and are well within the framework of NVC, so I disagree that this is a failing point of NVC.

> But here is the rub - maybe they are right, not you?

That is actually to be expected, and the book is full of such examples. The point is to get the conversation going. If their response is "You complain about productivity? The meeting is a whole hour long and I'm usually needed for only about 10 minutes of it. I do not see the importance of me being on time when I'm losing most of the hour for your meeting" then we're now in negotiation territory. Maybe I should change the format of my meeting. Or always have his item first on the agenda so he can come on time and just leave. The fact that he gave me this answer is helpful.

> it starts with "I am right, and you need to adjust"

I'm too lazy to reread the article, but a key aspect of NVC is that a request is just a request. If you make a request that is denied and get upset about it, then you never made a request to begin with - it was a demand. There's no "You need to change" in it. One thing that I find articles like these don't stress enough is that body language, tone, etc needs to match. You could take my original NVC formulation and speak it in a hostile way, or in a very non-confrontational manner. Of course, since we are communicating using written communication, this aspect is lost and different readers will imagine it with different tones/body language - which may explain some of the polarization I've seen when NVC is discussed in the written form.

And again, I have no disagreement with starting with "let's find the underlying root cause of the problem together" - it's not as if that violates NVC. I could state that in a horrible way as well:

"You and I are going to sit down right now and come up with a solution to this!"

If I wanted to say what you said in a more NVC way, it would be:

"This morning you arrived ten minutes after the meeting start time. I was disappointed that we couldn't go through the whole agenda and thus lost productivity. Would you be willing to discuss ways we can make these meetings more effective?" (this could include alternative times, alternative formats, etc).

(This time I dropped the word "late" because although I view it as a "fact", others tend to attach judgement to it).

[civilized]

People are forgetting that this is a guide to difficult conversations, not a guide to all conversations pointing out a problem. Difficult conversations are occasionally necessary when all else fails.

[BeetleB]

That's fair. The article invokes NVC, though, which is a guide to general conversation - not just difficult ones.

[pcurve]

Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. While the article had good nuggets of information, I didn't find it credible enough for me to take a chance on applying in real life. Maybe it's the general negative tone.