Ultra-Violent Communication
From the Drunken PM Blog
by Dave Prior
Drunken Boxing for Project Managers
“The main feature of the drunkard boxing is to hide combative hits in drunkard-like, unsteady movements and actions so as to confuse the opponent. The secret of this style of boxing is maintaining a clear mind while giving a drunken appearance.”
Yeah... just like that… but with network diagrams and burndown charts… and a wee bit less vodka.
Recent Posts
Certified Agile Leadership Training with Olaf
Don Kim - I Think, Therefore I Plan
Agile Coach to Agile Gamer - Peter Saddington
Scrum in School - A Case Study of Grandview Prep's Transformation
Forecasting Tools Based on Team Performance with Troy Magennis
Categories
20 Hour,
211,
4-Hour Body,
4-Hour Chef,
4-Hour Work Week,
Aakash Srinivasan,
Aaron Smith,
Adam Weisbart,
Adrian Howard,
Agile,
agile digitalpm,
Agile 2010,
agile 2015,
Agile Alliance,
Agile Classroom,
Agile Enterprise,
Agile Mindset,
agile reporting,
agile transformation,
Agile Tribes,
agile2015,
AgileClassroom,
AgileCraft,
AgileScout,
AgileThinking,
Ainsley Nies,
Al Goernor,
Al Shalloway,
Alistair Cockburn,
Angela Harms,
Anna Beatrice Scott,
Ansley Nies,
AOW4PM,
apocalypse now,
apple,
art of war,
Bas De Baar,
Bas Vodde,
Beyond Legacy Code,
Big Visible,
BigVIsible,
bimodal,
Blackie,
Bob Sarni,
body language,
book review,
braintrust,
branding,
breaking gantt,
Brent Beer,
Brett Pohlman,
Brian Bozzuto,
brian flatow,
brian rabon,
business agility,
Business Model Canvas,
CAL,
Canvas,
capacity,
carson pierce,
Catherine Louis,
Center for Non-Violent Communication,
Certification,
Certified Agile Leadership,
certified scrum trainer,
Charter,
Chet Hendrickson,
Chris Li,
Chris Spagnuolo,
Christine Neidhardt,
cloud,
cloud worker,
co-working,
Coach's Clinic,
Coaching,
cochlear,
commitment,
conteneo,
Corkulous,
coworking,
Craig Larman,
Crystal,
CSM for PMP,
cst,
DAD,
Dan Brown,
Dan Greening,
dan markovitz,
data,
Dave Prior,
David Anderson,
David Bernstein,
David Bland,
David J Anderson,
Dean Leffingwell,
Dean Stevens,
Declan Whelan,
Denise Jacobs,
Dennis Stevens,
Designing Together Design,
Dhaval Panchal,
diana larsen,
Digital Pm Summit,
Digital Project Management,
digitalpm,
Disciplined Agile Delivery,
Distributed Teams,
Docs to Go,
Don Kim,
dpm,
dpm2013,
drunkenpm,
drunkenpm radio,
eduscrum,
Eight Shapes,
Elizabeth Harrin,
Elizabeth Hendrickson,
Elizabeth McClellan,
EMEA,
emotional intelligence,
Enterprise Scrum,
Essential Scrum,
esther derby,
EVEF,
Evernote,
Every Voice Engaged,
Experience,
Explore It!,
facebook,
field guide,
FIRM REPORT,
First 20 Hours,
Flight Levels,
Flipboard,
FocusedObjective,
forecast,
Forecasting,
Frank Illenberger,
Fred George,
fred kluth,
funny garbage,
Gil Broza,
Github,
Global Economics,
Grandview Prep,
Greg Balestrero,
GTD,
Happy Cog,
Heartline,
Howard Sublett,
hybrid,
I Think Therefore I Plan,
Iain Frasier,
ICAgile,
Idea Wallets,
improvisation,
InfoQ,
InspireMe!,
International Consortium for Agi,
IOS4,
iPad,
iPad 2,
iPad2,
iPhone,
IT&T SIG,
J.B. Rainsberger,
James Tamm,
Jason LIttle,
Jean Tabaka,
Jeff Patton,
Jesse Fewell,
Jessica Kerr,
Jessie Shternshus,
jim benson,
Jim Tamm,
johanna rothman,
John D Cook,
john miller,
Judith Lasater,
Jutta Eckstein,
kamal manglani,
kanban,
kanbanfor1,
kanbanpad,
Kate Sullivan,
Kathy Compton,
Ken Rubin,
Ken Schwaber,
Kenny Rubin,
Keynote,
Kuala Lumpur,
lacey,
Large Scale Scrum,
Larman,
Larry Maccherone,
Larsen,
Lasater,
Leadership Meeting,
LeadingAgile,
lean,
Lean Kanban University,
Lean Systems Engineering,
LeanKit,
Leffingwell,
LESS,
Liftoff,
Linda Rising,
Lithespeed,
Livescribe,
Livescribe Pulse,
LSE,
Luis Garcia,
luke hohmann,
lyssa adkins,
Mac,
MacWorld,
Macworld 2011,
Magennis,
Malaysia,
Malaysia Scrum User Group,
Management,
Managing the Unmanagable,
Manny Gonzalez,
Marc Johnson,
Marshall Rosenberg,
Martin Rosenqvist,
mashup,
matt barcomb,
MDEC,
Merlin,
metrics,
Michael Sahota,
Michele Sliger,
Mickey W. Mantle,
Mike Cohn,
Mike Cottmeyer,
Mike Sutton,
Mike Vizdos,
mitch lacey,
MITPM,
Mode 1,
Mode 2,
modus cooperandi,
Modus Institute,
Nanette Brown,
Natalie Warnert,
Nic Sementa,
NLP,
Non Violent Communication,
Non-violent communication,
Notes Plus,
NVC,
off shore,
Offshore,
Olaf Lewitz,
Open Space,
Oredev,
Øredev,
oredev 2013,
organizational agility,
Organizational Change,
overcommitment,
pag,
Panda Transport,
Panel Picker,
Papershow,
Paul Hammond,
personal agility canvas,
personal branding,
personal kanban,
personal productivity,
personal project management,
personal projectmanagement,
Peter Saddington First15,
Petra Goltz,
Philamade,
pk,
Planning,
PM4Girls,
PMI,
PMI Portugal,
PMP,
podcast,
Product Owner,
Product Ownership,
productivity,
Project,
project management,
project manaqement,
project planning,
Project Potion,
Projects At Work,
projectshrink,
ProjectWizards,
Projet Chartering,
pulse,
rachel howard,
Radical Collaboration,
reach the peak,
Rebecca Wirfs-Brock,
review,
riaan rottier,
Ricardo Vargas,
Robyn Meredith,
Ron Jeffries,
Ron Lichty,
Rosenberg,
SAFE,
Safety,
Sam Barnes,
Sanjiv Augustine,
Scaled Agile Framework,
Schneider and Associates,
School of Rock,
Scott Ambler,
Scrum,
Scrum Alliance,
scrum but,
scrum field guide,
Scrum Gathering,
Scrum in Education,
Scrum in Schools,
scrum in waterfall,
ScrumFest,
Shane Hastie,
Showing Up,
SK Khor,
social media,
SolutionsIQ,
sprint planning,
Steffan Surdek,
stephen denning,
Steve Elliott,
Stewart Copeland,
Story Mapping,
Sun Tzu,
Swarming,
SXSW,
SXSW2012,
Tabaka,
Team Performance,
Teams,
Telecommunications,
Telepresence,
Temenos,
Test Obsessed,
the adstore,
The Ron,
theStrayMuse Louder than Ten,
Thierry Holoweck,
Things,
Thushara,
Tim Ferriss,
Tim Ferriss Experiment,
To Be Agile,
Tobias Mayer,
Tom Kealey,
Tom Mellor,
Tom Perry,
Tom Smallwood,
Tribes,
Tricia Broderick,
troy magennis,
TrustTemenos,
twitter,
Unicat,
User Stories,
value,
VCP,
video conferencing,
Virgin Digital,
Vivek Angiras,
VLC,
vocal technique,
waste,
Weisbart,
What We Say Matters,
Wijewardena,
WIzewerks,
Woody Zuill,
WWDC,
yellowpencil,
Zeldman
Date
In December I wrote about how I was going to start experimenting with adopting Non-Violent Communication. And I am, sort of. I’m finding that this is probably going to be an ongoing effort and one I will need to keeping coming back to. What I have been doing so far has helped me check in with myself and come to this:
When I see that__I am not making good on my commitment to practicing NVC_
I feel _bad/frustrated/anxious_
because my need for _trying to figure out if I can actually do it_ is/is not met.
Would you (I) be willing to _man the hell up and give it a frigging chance__?
To be fair, I do spend an inordinate amount of time pondering it each day – especially when I’m driving… and get cut off by someone who very clearly has a more urgent need to get someplace than I do.
When I see that__ some &*%^%!! has cut me off_
I feel _like I wish my car came with a rocket launcher_
because my need for _deleting him/her from the road/universe_ is/is not met.
Would you be willing to _oh nevermind__
My intent in writing about this is, in part, to express that while I am working on it, I am honestly struggling with adopting NVC. A lot of how I have learned to communicate seems to be at odds with NVC practices. It is important to me, in writing about this, that I be as transparent and honest about how it is going as I can because if there are other people like me who are struggling with this (read: grew up in Philadelphia), I would like to make sure they know that they’re not alone. And to consider that maybe having trouble with this is not necessarily a bad thing, but is perhaps more about letting the dissonance from the conflict reach a level where change happens. My experiment is to see if I can adopt NVC as a practice of (initially) communicating and (ideally) of approaching other aspects of my life.
My practice (or not) so far has basically involved me noticing how I react to things, like being cut off while I’m driving or some other social injustice, which has been done to me by someone. Typically, the social injustice has very little to do with the other person and is really just me spazzing out in my reaction to something I have decided is a great crime against all things good in the universe. But, if I did have a rocket launcher, I’m pretty sure that by this time, very few people would be willing to cut in front of me in line at Walmart.
Because I have decided to don my cloak of self imposed guilt for not automatically laying down the communication habits I’ve developed over the past 40+ years in favor of a non-violent approach to life, the universe and everything, I have become hyper-aware of how non non-violent my speech actually is. This has led me to wonder if perhaps I am not more suited for a new approach called UVC – Ultra Violent Communication.

I do believe that this awareness, is very important. I do not know yet if I will be able to adopt NVC. I do know that while I am able to understand that it is more than just a communication pattern, I have trouble internalizing that. (Much the same way some people respond to the idea of a team being self organizing by winking at me in class and whispering “Yeah, but really… who’s really in charge?”). I also have observed that letting myself freak out about someone cutting me off on I-35, or having the insane gall to try and get past TSA with a bottle of water in their backpack (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) gives me a bit of an adrenaline rush. Yelling a string of obscenities from within the safety of my car at some motorist I do not know, helps no one, but the release of anger is a boost, and I have become aware that a) the outburst does nothing to change the situation in any way and b) the pull of the boost can be a wee bit habit forming. The more aware of this I become, the more I am finding that when I recognize an of an event and become aware of my emotional response, there is an increasing delay now before my reaction triggers. More and more, that delay is becoming large enough that I have the time to make a deliberate decision about what is going to come out of my mouth.
So, in on the whole transparency front, I’m not really delivering on my intent with non-violent communication yet, but in my continuing efforts to get there, the awareness is helping me cultivate a slightly less-violent communication… at least most of the time.
Posted on: February 26, 2014 11:08 AM |
Permalink
Comments (0)
Please login or join to subscribe to this item
Please Login/Register to leave a comment.
|
"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."
- Charlie Chaplin
|