This is the third post in a series about building and protecting company culture.

This is my vision for a work environment: A calm environment where people can get what they need to solve the problems they enjoy solving.

Honestly, this felt like a pretty low bar when I first wrote it. There’s nothing about changing the world or making people happy. Nothing is revolutionized. No one is being saved. Except, a place where people’s needs are met is actually pretty revolutionary. It requires people knowing and acknowledging their own needs. It requires people’s needs being heard. And it requires people who are willing to negotiate to find solutions that meet others needs as well as their own. To me, that sounds pretty freaking awesome.

How do we cultivate that? It starts with Not Ignoring the Twinge. From there, we must learn to Respond to the Twinge (instead of reacting). This begins by answering the question: What (the hell) just happened? Simple enough, let’s dive in.

What the hell just happened?
At this stage of the process, we are trying to find the facts. We want the specific details of exactly what happened that led to the conflict. This seems like it would be straightforward. It is. But we make it more difficult because when we answer it, we bring in a lot of outside, supporting material to justify the way we feel. 

A conversation with someone coming out of a conflict might look something like this:

So far in this story, we have zero facts as to what happened in the interaction. Let's pretend Jill is interested in learning more.

Now, we know a little bit more: there was a meeting with a client and Jack was not mentioned for his work. That's a pretty good amount of information. The conversation can go a few ways at this point. The co-worker might join in on the Richard bashing, or might choose to abstain. Either way, Jack is stuck. He isn't happy and he doesn't know what to do about it. This is where the process of nonviolent communication can help him.

Stick to the facts
What in the conversation so far is fact about what happened? Let's take it sentence by sentence.

"I'm so frustrated" - This is a fact, but it doesn't tell us any details about what occurred. It's important, but how we feel about what happened comes in the next step. This must be set aside for now.

"Richard is a real ass!" - No facts here, just opinions and labelling.

"How did he even get promoted?" - Again, no facts. An attack on Richard in the form of a question.

"He completely stole all the credit for that project!" - Getting closer to facts, but this is very vague. What exactly did Richard do? How did he steal the credit?

"We had a meeting with the client and he didn't even mention me!" - Here we go. Very close to facts here.

"I was the one who did all the work!" - There is probably some truth here, but also some exaggeration.


What are the facts?
Let's say Jack has some time to cool down, talks with his therapist and then gives it another go. What happened? The facts, devoid of emotion and reaction, will look something like this:

There they are. Step one is complete. Now that we have those, we are ready to start talking about how Jack feels in response to those facts.