Listening to your colleagues shows them that, even if you don't agree with them, you value their point of view. This ability to listen transforms professional relationships: it restores trust within teams, builds loyalty among employees in professions under pressure, promotes creativity and motivation... NonViolent Communication (NVC) helps you develop empathetic listening to win in work efficiency. Update with Anne-Gaël Érard, certified NVC trainer.
“We are not going to take into account all the susceptibilities, otherwise we will not get through it! », curses a manager. “At the last meeting, I lost my temper. I'm not proud of it but enough is enough. I would like everyone to take responsibility”, laments a leader. These are only two examples but they are representative of the complaints and reproaches that pollute daily professional life.
When I see the time and energy devoted to anticipating or resolving relational difficulties in companies but also the cost – individual and collective – of degraded human relationships, I tell myself that moving forward on this subject would be beneficial in many ways. : for the people themselves, their involvement in the company, its overall performance, etc.
Moreover, some professionals are becoming aware of this, as demonstrated by this director of a medico-social structure: “When I heard myself speaking, I decided to take matters into my own hands. We agreed to set up NVC training for management and professionals who wish it”. She was coming out of a meeting of her Social and Economic Committee. Everything was said… or almost!
Develop team cohesion with NVC
The health crisis and teleworking are questioning the connection at work and team cohesion in new ways. How to “team up” when collective time is reduced to its simplest expression? Whether in person, in 100 % remotely or in hybrid mode, how can we maintain or develop employee motivation? How to maintain or create a dynamic around common work, and therefore a shared goal?
CNV at the service of the quality of relations at work
“We all want to think about how we want to be in relationships”, a nurse and an educator told me during a QVT intervention. For my part, I am convinced that quality relationships at work are essential to the proper functioning of the company.
Work in fact includes the energy that is mobilized to function together, on the one hand, and the activity of producing goods or services, on the other hand. The more relationships at work are fluid and regulated in a climate of trust, the more employees' energy is devoted to the company's production activity. Otherwise, power games, loss of information, work accidents, sick leave, reduced involvement and attention, various errors, latent conflicts, turnover uncontrolled… penalize research, manufacturing, quality, sales and, in general, any production activity.
CNV contributes to the company's activity
Boost motivation with NVC
Work can truly be a place of expression and fulfillment, and therefore motivation. A quality relationship facilitates “working together” towards a common goal. It is a source of conviviality, mutual aid, inspiration, motivation…
When work and relationships go hand in hand, it's not a question of whether you're a friend or a colleague. What is important is to move in the same direction while respecting who we are. Moving forward together requires sufficient motivation to overcome the pitfalls of daily work reality.
Through dialogue and deliberation, CNV also contributes to a better match between what we call prescribed work, that is to say the tasks requested of the employee, and real work, which are the activities put implemented by the latter to meet the requirement.
La Non-Violent Communication in the service of leadership
Listening and empathy in the context of NonViolent Communication also enrich managerial practices. “As a manager, developing my empathy increased my credibility with my team. Listening to my colleagues does not mean that I agree with them but that I consider them and that their point of view has value in my eyes”, indicates a pharmaceutical company executive.
The members of the same structure are interdependent. Communication is required at all levels of business life: QVT, R&D, HR, team cohesion. Effective communication facilitates project development. It’s a delicate alchemy to implement. It is not a question of “playing with words” or knowing the “right formulas” but of understanding and taking into account each person as they are. In short: only the one who listens can understand.
Listen better with NVC: why? How ?
Empathetic listening means hearing what is important for each person and which sometimes forms a “knot” in cooperation, to find satisfactory solutions. In other words, it is about allowing everyone to bring their point of view to bring about adjusted proposals, robust decisions and peaceful operations.
Empathic listening takes into account both the verbal, the paraverbal and the non-verbal. “When I am up on the gondola, with my colleague, we communicate visibly on the actions. If something unusual happens, he notices it right away.", indicates a high voltage line technician. “When the buckets of molten metal arrive, we know at a glance what everyone is going to do”, shares a foundry operator.
Listen, yes… but how? Really listening is like tuning two different instruments: it requires listen to each other. What emerges through these different testimonies is that NonViolent Communication offers a possibility ofreciprocal listening conducive to calm and quality work.
Although it helps to calm and streamline professional relationships, NVC does not work like a magic wand. In acquire the basics and give yourself the means to put them into practice go through training.
Train in Nonviolent Communication with ORSYS
The NVC training course offered by ORSYS is experiential. It allows participants to move forward step by step towards integrating the principles of NVC into their daily professional life:
NVC: level 1
In level 1 Reinforce your benevolence with Non-Violent Communication, the participant learns to rely on their own indicators, in particular their emotions, to identify their drivers of motivation and action. This is a first step that allows him to take responsibility for his actions. He also learns to take care of himself. For example: how to “receive” an “aggressive” message without taking it personally. He develops his kindness, first of all towards himself, but also towards his colleagues.
NVC: level 2
With the health crisis, informal times have melted and, with them, trust between colleagues. Some employees are now hesitant to express themselves in meetings, whether in person or remotely. They are afraid :
- to expose oneself to criticism, humiliating comments, accusatory responses – and this, in public –;
- or even suffer the fallout during the individual interview.
Faced with the lack of empathy of some, employees therefore keep a low profile. “When we met each other every day, we would say things to each other face to face, as we went along. Now, it's either by video in front of everyone, or during the assessment interview, as I discovered this year. I'm stuck so I prefer to keep quiet", explains a department manager during a training session.
Level 2 training Developing empathy with Non-Violent Communication responds to this new problem. The participant discovers and appropriates empathetic listening which promotes assertive expression serving quality relationships for quality work.
Creativity, strengthening customer relations, improving health at work, building employee loyalty in professions under pressure, etc.: the beneficial effects are felt at all levels of the company.
