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by Laurie Breitner
 Many opportunities to practice NVC Mediation “in the wild” come from integrating the skills into my business consulting practice. For example, my clients frequently ask for tips on how to handle employees’ performance reviews. During the training at Essex, I had ample opportunity to practice giving and taking feedback; this has added to my recommendations on employee evaluations.
Ideally, performance reviews are a time to take a step back and see whether you and an employee agree on how things are going and whether expectations on both sides are being met. Because so much is at stake, these reviews can be emotionally charged—even to the point of conflict. Things get even more complicated in companies that tie employees’ performance reviews to raises and promotions. Conflict can arise when there isn’t a shared understanding of what was expected and/or how well it was done. While this kind of disconnect can occur for lots of reasons, the most common are a lack of clear measurable, documented objectives or incomplete, inaccurate or delayed communication around whether objectives were met.
So, what can you do if you find yourself disagreeing with an employee about past performance? How can you turn a potential confrontation into a valuable learning experience? A first step to getting on the same page is ensuring that the employee is heard. Yes, just simply heard. Continue reading Five Ways to Build Connection at Performance Review Time
Blogging is so 2004, right?
We don’t think so. We value the depth of content and authentic voice that a blog can provide. But more and more bloggers rely on Facebook as a useful tool to get their messages out. Many of you report that you are now using Facebook much more often than email, and you wish NVC Mediation would do the same.
Which brings us to this announcement. In the weeks ahead, NVC Mediation will be upping its game on Facebook. Call it an experiment in social media. Or call it what we in the “home office” are hoping this new attention to Facebook will be—a chance to build more connections and more community with you. Continue reading Embracing Facebook + Important Dates
 Before she became a facilitator and NVC mediator, Shoshi Morginn spent 18 years as a cardiac intensive care nurse. Then, as now, her focus was on “healing broken hearts that have been injured by anger and bitterness.” She sees NVC Mediation as a natural extension of her earlier career as a “heart nurse.” This year, Shoshi assisted in both the East Coast and the West Coast immersion programs. She currently provides another type of intensive care in her triple roles as organizer, co-facilitator, and participant care coordinator for NVC Mediation’s new weekend retreats. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Shoshi just before and during the January intensive at Essex. She kindly opened herself to this interview so an even wider audience could get to know and appreciate her.
Mary Sitze: What has it meant for you to go through the yearlong immersion program again, this time in a leadership role?
Shoshi Morginn: My experience of this work is that it is different from year to year. We never step into the same river twice. The work is alive in the same way that our culture is alive and changing. I could see, when I started with John and Ike in 2008, that their work was significant, but even more significant is their integrity as human beings. What I’ve observed over the years is that they treat everyone with profound love and respect. Their passion for contributing in this way, plus their trust in me and my value, add to the reasons they have my attention. I have seen from the start that their program is absolutely healing for everyone who engages it. I’m not a guru kind of person or a follower. I am a partner kind of person, and that is why I am investing the rest of my life in helping them reproduce this work. Continue reading A Passion for the Work: Shoshi Morginn and the Mount Shasta Retreat
by Maria Alisa Santiago
 I’m the mother of a kindergartener, so I know that sharing can be hard. To my son, sharing means giving something up. Whether he’s giving another kid a turn on his scooter or a part of his cookie, the thing that is shared is somehow carved up, diminished.
That’s why the gift of NVC Mediation’s first intensive is so thrilling to me. Because the more people I share it with, the bigger it gets.
Today there is another way to grow the gift—a new way for people to train with NVC Mediation. We’re calling it “the flexible training program” (for now) because it’s designed to give all the content of the 5-day intensive retreat in a more flexible, extended format. It’s exactly the same learning, but in smaller pieces. Continue reading Sharing and Flexibility (New Weekend Retreats!)
Those of us who work for NVC Mediation’s “Massachusetts team” have been feeling a little giddy in the wake of the East Coast’s introductory intensive. We’re still buzzing on the training and on the wisdom and warmth of the fascinating people we met in Essex. Below are reflections from each member of our team on what it has meant to begin the yearlong immersion program.
“Soon after the intensive, I was able to engage someone in a new conversation about an old and ongoing conflict. I experienced a stunning reversal: a sense of ease and understanding that had been impossible before. I was amazed to watch myself use my new skills and glide though what had seemed an impenetrable wall.” —Jandro Levins, CEO Continue reading Gratitude for the East Coast Intensive
[Producers: Chris Landry, J Kendel Johnson. Editor: Mark Hovland.]
Last fall, John and Ike invited soon-to-be graduates of the 2011 East Coast Immersion Program to talk on camera about what the yearlong training had meant to them. Their responses were heartfelt and inspiring:
“Since I’ve started [with NVC Mediation], my life has changed dramatically…”
“It’s deepened [my wife’s and my] relationship, and our ability to talk to each other. I’m much better at hearing what it is that she has to say.”
“I’m able to use these skills in talking with employees… and in assisting the leadership of our company in having difficult conversations.”
“I really recommend this for anybody, whether you’re going to be a mediator or not.” Continue reading Behind the Scenes (and in Front of the Camera) at the 2011 East Coast Intensive
Ike and John describe the “self-directed, self-appropriated” learning approach that helps Immersion Program participants to put their new skills into practice.
[Producers: Chris Landry, J Kendel Johnson. Editors: Dale McCoy, Mark Hovland.]
by Tracy Blanchard
I recently finished the yearlong East Coast NVC Mediation Immersion Program. For months I’ve been practicing John and Ike’s techniques with my empathy buddy and my “quad” (four-person practice group). I knew I was getting better at supporting friends and mediating with more confidence in small claims court. I could even see how listening with less judgment allowed me to shift the dynamics of a particularly feisty committee that I was chairing, while taking less responsibility for everything being perfect and “nice.”
But it wasn’t until a few weeks after the final retreat of the program that I experienced my first real-life Healing & Reconciliation. A colleague of mine had been looking tired and upset. I knew she had an enormous project on her desk, so I had encouraged her to let me help in some way. About fifteen minutes later, she came to me on the verge of tears. When we stepped into the Ladies’ Room to talk, she told me how hurt she was that I thought she was not capable of doing her job. I was stunned that she’d heard me so differently than I had intended.
Although I’d made discernible strides in more public venues, I had several times reverted to old habits of “freeze” or self-defense when conflict arose in a personal relationship. Intellectually, I understood that, the closer I was to the people with whom I was in conflict, the more likely I would be to fall into old patterns. As much as I understood this in my head, whenever that happened, it broke my heart. Continue reading Reconciling in the Wild
By Ike Lasater, with Julie Stiles
I’ve recently returned from the final intensive retreat in the NVC Mediation Immersion Program on the East Coast of the United States. A few weeks earlier, I completed the third intensive in the Poland program. Reflecting on the progress we’ve made across these intensives is inspiring. I’ve enjoyed observing the dramatic arc of participants’ progress across the course of the immersion year, from the start of the first intensive to the end of the third.
Here is the arc as I’ve witnessed it:
In the first intensive, the group is just beginning to form, so the group dynamics are malleable and shifting. Individual participants are busy feeling out explicit and implicit norms and also whether they are willing to be part of those norms. Consciously or unconsciously, they are asking whether they are safe. They are asking whether their needs for care and consideration will all be met, as well as their need for learning. Continue reading The Immersion Program Arc
By John Kinyon
Earlier this month, I led a “Mediate Your Life and Thrive” training in rural Rowe, Massachusetts, where I reveled in the beauty and majesty of the New England fall. This is my favorite season of the year, autumn and the holidays. I love the coolness of winter’s coming in the air, the growing darkness outside, and warmth, firelight and reflective moods within. It’s a time for connecting more deeply to our human needs for gratitude and for family and community.
In the Rowe workshop, we worked with the practice of returning to self-connection in the midst of conflict and intensity. This practice has perhaps become the most foundational aspect of our NVC mediation training. When “triggered” into a negative emotional state, a person can return to a state of self-connection through an exercise that I call “breath, body and needs.” “Breath” refers to an intentional, meditative focus on our breathing. “Body” means feeling fully present in our bodies. “Needs” are the human needs that we consciously connect with after centering ourselves through breath and body.
I have found that these three components—breath, body, needs—are the most basic and integral ingredients for avoiding a biological “fight-flight-freeze” impulse. Having restored ourselves to a calmer, less reactive state, we can use different “maps” for navigating difficult conversations. By choosing to “mediate” our inner and interpersonal conflicts, we can respond in ways that better meet our needs and those of the people around us. Continue reading Turn Conflict into Connection During the Holidays
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