

SUZANNE KRYDER: So, Marshall, you suggest that the process you have outlined removes a lot of this propensity towards violence. Why don't you just start by going over the four steps in the NVC process? ROSENBERG: The four steps are, basically, two steps. The process is designed to help us answer two questions. What is alive in us? Now, that is not new. Every culture I work in - and I work with many, throughout the world - when they get together, the first thing they ask is, "what's alive in you?" They do not say those words. In English-speaking countries, they say it this way, "how are you?" French-speaking countries, "Comment allez-vous" Spanish, "¿Cómo está usted?" Rwanda, "Mumeze mute?" It is a natural question: to care about how people are. So, nonviolent communication says, "let's learn how to be honest about how we are, not tell each other what we think the other person is, but how we are." That is one of the central questions of nonviolent communication. The other, central question is, "what would make life more wonderful?" Nonviolent communication tries to connect us with other people, so they see what is alive in us and what would make life more wonderful. We can see what is alive in them and what would make life more wonderful for them. My experience has been that, when people can connect at that level, whatever the conflict, they can find ways of resolving it in which everybody's needs get met peacefully. People give to one another from the heart, willingly. There are four pieces of information that we need to know how to exchange, in order to make it clear to people what's alive in us and what would make life more wonderful. KRYDER: Break it down. What are the steps that make it alive, and what are the steps that refer to wonderful? ROSENBERG: First, tell people, specifically, what they are doing that is, or is not, contributing to our well-being. Be very specific about that; do not mix in any diagnosis or analysis. We call that a clear observation. INGLES: The Observation Step. ROSENBERG: Once we have done that, we are honest with people, but honest from the heart, telling them what is alive in us. That, more specifically, is how we feel. We connect our feelings to our needs. Then, we follow that up with the other question: what would make life more wonderful? We answer that with a very clear request, not using any fuzzy language. Exactly what would we like back from that person, at this moment, in response to what we have said, in response to the fact that some of our needs are not being met by their behavior? INGLES: Having established how you are feeling about a given communication and linking that feeling with a need that is not being met? ROSENBERG: Yes. INGLES: This is really a critical step. Why is it so hard, do you think? ROSENBERG: Because we have been educated, for a long time, to fit within domination structures: to do what authority says. When you want people to be nice, dead people and do what authority says, the last thing you want them to be conscious of is the life within them. You cannot make a good slave out of somebody who is fully alive. The last thing you want to teach people, if you want a domination structure, is for them to be in touch with their needs. You ought to teach them that the highest value is not a need to express their needs. "Needs" means you are needy, selfish, dependent, egotistical. Loving women have no needs; they suppress their needs, for their family. Brave men have no needs; they are willing to lose their lives for the king. That is why we do not know what our needs are. I went to schools for twenty-one years. Not only was I never asked what I was feeling; I certainly was never asked what my needs were! KRYDER: Give us a list of maybe the top five or seven generic, human needs. ROSENBERG: Let me give you all nine of them, because, according to the Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Neef, we only have about nine needs. Needs are very important to Max-Neef, because his whole, economic system is based on human needs. How do we measure them, so we really gauge our economy, its success, on the meeting of human needs - and not the tragic way we have been measuring it? The first one he calls, "sustenance:" food, shelter, and water - the basic, physical needs. Next, "safety:" protection. Next, "love." Next, "understanding." Next, "community." Next, "recreation:" play, rest; he lumps those as one. Then, one of the most important needs of all, "autonomy." Look in the newspaper on any, given day and see how many wars are going on over that need. Human beings have a strong need to be in charge of their own lives, to not have somebody claiming to know what they have to do or should do. Anybody who says that to them, it threatens his or her autonomy. You see all the wars going on between nations. Listen in on any family with children. You will hear autonomy wars. "It's time to go wash up for bed." "No, I don't wanna." "Did you hear me?" "No!" See? An autonomy war. Another need, "creativity." Then, according to Victor Frankl, probably the most important need of all, a need for "meaning:" purpose in life. How sad, how few people on the planet are getting that need met. They are educated to misrepresent needs, according to Michael Lerner. We have been educated to misrepresent our needs. We have been educated to think we have a need to consume, a need for money, a need for status - not realizing those are not needs.