NVC Resources with Miki Kashtan

Miki will take you step-by-step through four vital systems that support radical collaboration and foster meaning. You’ll learn how to design a decision making process, create clear statements of intent, and create a process for resolving conflict.

Miki responds to a 2014 NVC in Business Conference participant’s question concerning the focus on needs over other aspects of NVC in business communication.

Miki responds to a participant’s question concerning fear of consequences when speaking with a manager at work. In this excerpt, she delves into the topic of choosing to inhabit nonviolence in the workplace, affirming that fear and nonviolence are incompatible, and that nonviolence is a powerful alternative to our habitual Fight, Flight, Freeze responses.

Miki explains the distinction between the language and the underlying consciousness of NVC, and the pitfalls of failing to do so.

Miki explains how teachers and administrators can become more effective in relating to themselves, other faculty and staff, and they can contribute more to students' ability to feel connected and energized. Nonviolent Communication provides specific tools to empower ourselves and others to live more in line with our values and deeper needs.

Creating a trusting connection and keeping the line of communication open are the primary prerequsites for giving feedback as a supervisor. Listen to Miki work with a course participant to ready herself for an upcoming feedback session.

How can we live life fully connected to the core values of nonviolence, no matter the circumstances, internal or external? Join Miki Kashtan as she shares the 17 core commitments that have served as a compass for herself and hundreds of others around the world as well.

Listen to Miki make an important distinction between giving feedback, which is grounded in a desire to contribute to another, and our own need to be heard.

How can I deal with someone who is constantly interrupting and derailing our process?

It seems to me that people see ideas which are different from theirs as threatening. Instead of listening, the group polarizes around the different ideas and a lot of judgments develop, conflicts develop and people feel hurt. Forward progress becomes a battle ground. How can I support more collaboration?

Listen to Miki talk about the value of participating in groups, recognizing our inherent nature to do so, how industrialization has hindered our skills and the value of participating in a time when it's most needed.

Miki works with a course participant to transform begrudging attendance at a mandatory meeting into the possibility for collaboration, more connection where little is expected and focus on clarity of purpose for meeting in the first place.

In most business environments, purpose holds a higher priority than connection. Listen to Miki discuss the strategy of using minimum connection to remain true to the purpose at hand, and how the purpose of empathy may differ in the workplace.

Listen to Miki discuss two strategies for bringing NVC into the workplace in ways most likely to be well received. First Miki explains why it's best to focus more on needs than feelings in business environments. Second, she talks about unpacking needs into phrases as a way of enhancing workplace connection.

CNVC Certified Trainer Miki Kashtan helps a man whose ex-spouse reacted strongly to his attempt at empathizing with her. Miki shows us how it’s possible to hide behind our empathic expression, creating less rather than more connection. She suggests instead that we be vulnerably authentic.

NVC practice is based on several key assumptions and intentions. When we live based on these assumptions and intentions, self-connection and connection with others become increasingly possible and easy, helping us contribute to a world where everyone’s needs are attended to peacefully.

In this brief audio segment, Miki works with a woman whose teenage daughter rejects her use of NVC, guiding her in a process of self-awareness and acceptance.

If you dread family gatherings because of family tensions, you can find ways to excavate through piles of hardened judgments and hopelessness, build on your inner strength, and engage with family conflicts with open-hearted curiosity, greater presence, and connecting with what really matters to everyone.

I want to hear others through the lens of the meaning their actions have for them rather than through the effect their actions have on me. The very root of empathy resides in this fundamental shift. Whenever someone’s actions are at odds with our own needs, most of us, most of the time, do the latter. In that way, we keep our attention on ourselves rather than on the other person. We cannot be...

Miki demonstrates how to work with judgmental thinking, offering a two-step process to shift from right/wrong thinking about our disagreements to a more open-hearted state of being.