NOEL:  Hello and welcome to Episode 22 of the Tech Done Right Podcast, Table XI's podcast about building better software, careers, companies and communities. I'm Noel Rappin. If you like the podcast and want to help other people to find it, we would love that and the best way to do that is to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. If you would like to be notified when new episodes are released or if you'd like to contact us, follow us on Twitter at @Tech_Done_Right. To learn about past episodes or leave comments, find us online at TechDoneRight.io. We really love hearing from you.

Today I talk to Nadia Odunayo. You may know Nadia from the Ruby Book Club Podcast. Recently, Nadia gave a talk about non-violent communication and here we discuss how to apply the principles of non-violent communication to your life, both professionally and personally. Nadia is going to coach me on how to give non-violent code reviews and we talk about how to be able to scream non-violently. I hope you like it. Here we go.

Nadia, would you like to introduce yourself to everybody?

NADIA:  Hi, I'm Nadia. I run a small software company, helping teams work on their cloud platforms and in my spare time, I do the Ruby Book Club Podcast.

NOEL:  Yeah, which I like, although I haven't been listening to the Ruby Under A Microscope ones but I really liked some of the other ones.

NADIA:  Get on the Ruby Under A Microscope once. I think we're doing really well and it's a completely different take.

NOEL:  I should definitely check that out. I shouldn't start this off by admitting that I don't listen to your podcast. I have listened to your podcast.

NADIA:  That's great. I think I could have listened to more of your episodes as well so now we're even. That's fine.

NOEL:  Cool. Our initial message to all of you is there are too many podcasts for you to listen to all of them and why are you listening to this.

NADIA:  Exactly.

NOEL:  Nadia is here because of a talk that she gave at Brighton Ruby a couple of months ago about non-violent communication and how it interacts with our lives as developers and our interactions with our coworkers and I would assume clients as well. Nadia, would you like to talk about that? Or just give a little introduction about what you talked about or what you want to talk about.

NADIA:  I did this talk called Non-violent Communication and it's all around how most of the time, when we interact with people, particularly when we have negative feelings and where upset or angry, we tend to focus on judging other people and then making accusations or blaming them and this leads us to communicate in a way that's called violent. Violent in the sense that we attack people or we apportion blame or we portray that judgment. The whole point of non-violent communication, which was developed by somebody called Marshall B Rosenberg is that how can we find a way to communicate that keeps us honest so we're not lying about how we feel and we're able to directly address issues but also doesn't cause harm to the other person but helps explain why you feel that way and helps get to the point where everybody is feeling better about the situation and has a clear path to move forward. That's the high overview of what non-violent communication is.

NOEL:  Let's give a concrete example. The example I want to give which is based on something in your talk is you talk about it in the context of a code review. One of the examples in your talk, your main character in your talk is reviewing some code that's not up to standards and then what happens? What would happen under violent communication and what would non-violent communication suggest would be a good way to approach the situation instead?

NADIA:  In the violent communication way, there's two stages. One is the original thought that the person reviewing the code has, which is often worse than what you say out loud. We've got this manager who's looking at a junior developer's code and she's thinking, "This code sucks," which is in fact the name of my talk. She's like, "What is this? This is really bad."

NOEL:  That's not an out loud thought.

NADIA:  No. That's just the internal thought. Then she says, "I can't say that. That would not be kind," and I think it'll be interesting to dig into later the difference between being non-violent and being kind because I think there's interesting implications there. She says, "That's going to be unkind if I was just directly to say, 'I don't like this code,' so how can I say in a way that's kind?" She ends up saying, "Good job but it's not quite there and I can't help you so why don't you go and speak to this other person who's amazing." You might look and think about that and go, "What's wrong with that? That seems pretty reasonable." You said it is okay. You've hinted that there's not being something wrong and you've given something useful to go and do which is, "Go and speak to this other amazing person."

But within that, you juxtapose the fact that it was good but it's not quite good enough and you haven't really given any concrete examples as to why. Now, this person's reading between the lines and thinking, "Oh, it wasn't really good. Was it? I think I'm being lied to." Then it's the passing off to someone else without really explaining what that person is doing better, "Oh, they're great. Go and speak to them," so then immediately, there's the, "Why are they great?" But also it's, "I'm obviously not great." The manager or this character, Alex, in my story thinks she's done a kind thing and has not offended the junior developer in question who is called Chris. But really, Chris is left frustrated because he tried hard on the code but he can sense that it's not quite there and Alex was disappointed but Alex hasn't said she's disappointed so that's actually a form of violent communication. Alex has caused harm to Chris.

NOEL:  Right, so the violence is not even so much in the words. When you initially start talking about violent communication, I think people are immediately starting to think about screaming and calling names but that's not actually what you're getting at in this particular story. The violence here is almost in things unsaid and implications allowed to linger and empathy not empathized.

NADIA:  Yes, it's specifically not the screaming part because in fact, the section in the book called 'Screaming Non-violently,' where we recognize that there will be times where you're going to scream and shout because you're angry. But the important thing is what you say while you're screaming and shouting as opposed to the fact that you're screaming and shouting.

NOEL:  Yeah, we're definitely coming back to screaming non-violently.

NADIA:  Yeah, okay.

NOEL:  The violent communication here is in the judgment that your manager makes here and then in the decision to kind of hide that judgment. Is that how you would phrase it? What makes that a violent communication?

NADIA:  It's violent because there is a judgment and that judgment is communicated, although not directly. It's communicated via, "The job wasn't quite good enough. Go and speak to this other person who is amazing." Then by default, "I'm not good enough."

NOEL:  It's backhanded a little bit.

NADIA:  Yes. It's not direct.

NOEL:  I review junior people's code all the time and I may have even said things like that. I can neither confirm or deny. How should the manager have approached that? What is the process that you should use to decide how to respond in a situation like that?

NADIA:  The whole premise behind communicating non-violently is to rather than immediately think about what the other person has done wrong, it's more of, "Why am I reacting negatively to this?" In terms of answering that question, you have to think about what your means are or what would your expectations were that haven't been met here. When you're looking at code and you don't like it and you're thinking, "Oh, this is rubbish. This sucks," you have to go back and go, "Why am I having negative feelings to this code? Is it because I write my code in a certain way and this is written in a very different way so I just didn't like it? Is it that there are no tests and that makes me really anxious?" Is it that you're struggling to follow it? There must be something there that you don't like, one thing or many things?

If you can first start by articulating what are each of those things and then when you get, okay "it's because this looks different to how I would normally write the code or because there are no tests", then the question is, "And why is this important to me?" It could be that, "I'm a bit concerned because I'm going to have to write a feature based off of this and I don't understand it and so I need some more clarity." Or for example in the talk, I talk about the fact that there's no tests upsets Alex because she as the engineering manager is really concerned about the maintainability of the software.

The whole point is, rather than having your reaction of "this just isn't good" and then thinking, "I can't say that? How can I sugar coat it?" It's more about, "How can I communicate to the person who's written this code that isn't good and I don't like it," but in a way that's constructive and in a way that provides clear next steps.

NOEL:  I actually end up critiquing a lot of code in the context of interviews and people want feedback with the code sample from an interview. One of the things I find myself doing is focusing very much on objective things that I can say about the code like saying, "This code has no tests," rather than, "This code sucks." Is that part of what you're trying to get to?

NADIA:  Yes, definitely because there's a whole part of non-violent communication that says, the problem stems from us making generalizations and it says that the problem starts when we make generalizations like, "This is rubbish. This sucks," or even, "This is great," because you're just expressing a preference without really getting to the nub of why you have that preference so it doesn't leave people with a lot to go with. It's helpful that the first step you make is, "There are no tests," but then the next step is, "Why is that an issue that there are no tests?"

If the person who receives your code review can sense that you are disappointed perhaps or there was something you expected that wasn't there, or you didn't warm to the code, at least they can say, "Oh, it's not just that Noel is being unreasonable," or it's nor just because, I didn't write the code the way he wanted it to be, he has an obvious concern here. Of course, I should add tests because if I don't, if we accidentally make a mistake and we don't spot that that's changed and that could lead to money being lost or the site going down or whatever it is. That's why it's really important to focus on your personal needs and feelings when you're communicating things, particularly negative things.

NOEL:  And also because you are like, "I'm much more on solid ground," talking about your own feelings than you are trying to infer somebody else's state of mind or state of skill when they did it.

NADIA:  Yes and that's a whole thing that I couldn't go into in my talk. The one at Brighton is only 20 minutes but a whole part of where our judgments come from is we do it all the time. We don't realize we do it, I think but we make a lot of assumptions about people's behavior or character based on observations and we don't communicate those observations. I think one of the typical examples is, "Gemma is so lazy." It's actually, you have to ask yourself, "Why do I think she is lazy? Is it because every day I see that she comes into work at midday and then it's another hour before she starts typing at the keyboard?" Or whatever it is.

The whole point about the non-violent communication piece is that when you take it away from the generalizations such as, "She's lazy," and you make it, "For the last three weeks, Gemma has come in at 12," then you realize that there could be any number of explanations for why Gemma has come in at 12 and you don't know. Is there something going on at home? Is it actually an arrangement that she's got with another coworker as to why she's coming in at 12? Is she actually working late because she's working with the States and you don't know? When we jump to the generalizations of laziness, we miss out on a whole potential of other reasons and we stop empathizing.

There's another example that I can't remember if I came up with it or if it was in the book but it was this thing of, "Sam is angry at me for no reason." People make statements like that and the problem with statements like that is there's no reason but really, you have to ask yourself, "First of all, why do I think Sam is angry? What did Sam do? Did Sam slam the door? Doid Sam not reply to a text message that I sent? And then it is why is it for no reason because you're already telling a part of the story that you see but is there something else that you're not realizing is going on. Or is it something that you actually didn't realize how it was received.

Essentially, when we start moving away from general things like, "This code is rubbish," or, "She is lazy," or, "They are angry at me," for no reason and we start focusing on specific observations, that's when we start to unlock a whole world of what other people may be thinking or feeling and how much we don't know. Also what is important to us because underlying all of our judgments are things that are important to us. If it bugs me that I think Gemma is lazy, there's something that's important to me about punctuality in this. Something that I think that I'm suffering but it's coming from me. It's nothing to do with Gemma but the reason why I pick up on that is because and I know to say it's because it's a need that's important to me.

NOEL:  There's a couple of things that suggests to me. One is that it becomes important to sort of understand your own feelings and your own reasons for why something upsets you before you start trying to deal with another person over what's upsetting you. There's also a concept I've been thinking about, it's a cognitive sciences, a cognitive bias, which I think is called the fundamental attribution error, which is the concept where I can always tell the excuses for my performance or my behavior so I discount those excuses. But when I think of my own performance, I can modulate my perception of my own performance based on other factors that might have affected it. When I think of somebody else's performance, I think of it as being primarily based on their value or skill level.

I think that... I'm probably misremembering this but I think there was an experiment where people were asked to evaluate basketball players who were shooting in a gym where the lighting was really dim and they came to the conclusion that these people just couldn't shoot basketballs, even though the real problem was that the lights weren't bright enough for them to see so you have that sense where, not only the other person's motivation but the other person's performance, could be based on all kinds of things that you don't see and that you don't take into account. Does that make sense? Is it something that's related to what you're talking about?

NADIA:  Definitely. You mentioned the first thing about putting your needs and feelings first. You have to. That is the fundamental tenet to this because all too often, we ignore those things and this is where violent communication comes from. We immediately focus on the other, the person who is the attacker almost or the person who has wronged you and that's why we come up with a way of communicating that is aggressive or violent, even if on the surface, it doesn't seem that way.

When you start from focusing on your own feelings and needs, then often it can mollify how you feel because you realize, "This is coming from me. I understand. This is something that's important to me. Now, in order to improve this relationship with this person, I'm going to communicate that to them and hopefully we can find a way that this thing that's important to me, can stay important to me and be resolved." But naturally, you're also thinking about, "Now what's important to them that made them behave that way or that's making them to say those things?" That's one part.

The second thing you mentioned was this idea of the attribution error. It's all too easy to forget. Our brains like making snap judgments and that's useful. If you think about survival, we're used to take shortcuts, we see a series of things happening, we like to draw conclusions very quickly and that is good in some instances. Like I said with survival, when it comes to observing other people around us, it becomes damaging because we're very quick to go, "Ah, they've missed this many shots so therefore, they must be bad at basketball," as opposed to obviously, when you're the one taking the shots, you're like, "Why am I making so many errors. I can't see," or, "I'm not wearing the right shoes." It's all too easy to forget to put yourself in the other person's shoes.

The great thing about this technique of communicating non-violently is that when you learn to always think in terms of your own feelings and needs, it's almost natural that you start doing that with other people's as well because when you're trying to work out, "Why did this happened? How did we get here?" you'll do your half of the puzzle but then you also do the other person's half. With cases where, even if you take this experiment like you said about the basketball players, you're thinking, "Do I have concrete evidence to believe that they're not very good?" Or, "Do I know anything about the environment?" You just start asking questions.

Sometimes, as I've read more about non-violent communication and tried to practice it regularly, sometimes I think, "Am I being annoying?" because I'm always trying -- that's in and of itself a generalization -- but I'm trying to avoid making generalizations and always question things and make sure that I'm not jumping to quick conclusions about why a person did something. You just realize when you start asking yourself these questions, you realized that there's so little we know and how much we assume and speculate and it's quite dangerous.

NOEL:  You said something that made me think of a question that I had wanted to ask. You said that you are trying to do this in your day-to-day practice. How is it changed your day-to-day interaction with coworkers, clients, family members, friends? Two things, what have you done in your daily life to implement non-violent communication and how do you think it's affected your interactions?

NADIA:  It's funny because the person who recommended this book to me said, "I think you already naturally do a lot of this but I think it'll be interesting for you to read." I think that there were a lot of things that I was trying to do. I didn't have the formula or the template quite down but I realized that the way I tried to talk about things was to be as upfront and honest and explain why I felt a certain way.

This has meant that as I started incorporating it more specifically with the template, most of my interactions are actually pretty similar, if not a bit better, but it's really helped when dealing with individuals who are already difficult, if that makes sense. I've got a few characters in my life, whether it's people that I interact: one of my dance teachers and even things to do with my mom. There are a few relationships where non-violent communication has really helped when something might typically descend into an argument on unproductive conversation. Whereas in the past, I might have just said, "This person is just difficult and that's just how they are." Now, I have a way to make sure a conversation doesn't really descend into a difficult place.

It's actually been most useful in family situations where I could have my mom calling me and I'm saying something about my sister and I'll say, "Why don't you ask her this question?" Or, "I see why you're upset but how about you phrase it like this," and see what she says and then I hear later, "We actually had a great conversation. That was great." I've almost become a bit of a non-violent communication consultant. When my friends in social situations here this is what I'm talking about on the tech side of things, I'll hear about, "I have this little argument with my friend or my partner and I want to say this." I'll often say, "How about..." and I'm getting great feedback. Maybe if the software side doesn't work out, I'll just become an NVC consultant.

NOEL:  Have you recommended that other people read the book directly or do you just like being the consultant role?

NADIA:  Here's the thing. I want everybody to read the book but I think it's almost violent in a way to just go, "Hey, read this book." When someone's telling you, "I thought this and I said this," and you're hearing all of the no-no's in terms of violent communication. I found the best way is to make a suggestion or two and say, "Why don't you ask this?" Or, "Is it because you're feeling this and needing this, well say that to the person." And they'll come back and say, "Well, Nadia. That was magic. That was amazing. You're so smart," and I say, "No. It's not me. It's actually Marshall B Rosenberg and this great book I was reading," and then if they've had a successful experience, are curious about the book, and go and read it. It's a very hard book to directly recommend to someone, particularly if they've just been telling you about how they're upset about something or the other in their life. It's like you're hinting passively, "Here you go."

NOEL:  It's not quite as violent as hitting them over the head with the book but it's in the neighborhood.

NADIA:  It was brilliant because I was talking to a friend some weekends ago and she was having some issues with these new guy that she started seeing. I mentioned, "Next week, I'm going to be at this conference. I'm going to be talking about this," and she said, "What's the book?" Then she said, "Yeah, I'm going to read it. I'm going to put it on my boyfriend's table and just leave it there," and I just thought, "No. That is exactly not what you need to do."

NOEL:  No, but I think you have a good parable here for just driving change in general. You get people to see the successful change. You give them that first successful interaction and then you pull the curtain back to show them the entire system.

NADIA:  To give you a more concrete example because you asked how it's changed. There's this guy and he's one of my closest dance teachers but he's very aggressive and snappy in how he talks. I remember he said that he was going to come and pop by one day. I saw that he had been in the area but he hadn't stopped by and pre-reading the book, I would have just said, "You didn't stop by to see me. You don't care about me," as a joke but it still would have descended into that, "What do you mean? I didn't say I was going to come see you," or just something that wasn't very productive.

I remember the day after I read the book when I texted him and I said, "I was hoping to see you today because I wanted to catch up about so and so and I felt sad that I didn't get to see you." I remember being so amazed because rather than one word or two word retort that I was used to getting from him, I got sentences that said, "Oh, it was because my timing for my meeting with so and so went on and then I had to..." and I was just stunned that I remember going, "Wow. This stuff really works."

Even though my old comment would have been semi in jest, there was still an element of truth in it -- I was saddened to see him -- but just changing the way I pitched it to focus on me and say, "I was needing your company and I was disappointed not to have it," he didn't feel he was being attacked, even in a jokey way so the natural response for him was to explain, "Ah, sorry about that. It's because this happened," and that was just fascinating to me and I see a lot of examples of that, whether at work or in social situations. The other person doesn't even need to know about non-violent communication and what it is what you're doing but the responses that you get back can be so different.

NOEL:  There are certain people in my life that if I could get them to respond to my texts with more than one word, reading this book would be completely worth it. You know, it's funny while you're talking about this and I think that a lot of communication advice focuses initially on being empathetic with the other person, which is a little bit different from what you're saying here, which is that you can sort of bring yourself to empathy with the other person by starting the focus on yourself. Does that makes sense?

NADIA:  A hundred percent and there is a chapter in the book or two, all about self empathy. In fact specifically, a lot of the time, there are a class of people who don't even blame other people for things, they blame themselves. There's a whole section on being non-violent with yourself. Taking yourself out of making a self-judgment and saying you did wrong or you shouldn't have done that. It's more about what are the things that are important to me, why do I feel that way and just making that distinction not beating yourself up.

Empathy is at the heart of this whole thing. Like you said, because you understand yourself first and you understand where you're coming from and why you feel this way so you don't just get upset with yourself because you're crying but you're like, "I'm crying because I was disappointed, because this thing was very important to me," and it's okay that this thing is important to me because there's an element of this need in everyone and it just so happens that for me, it's a very important part of me and that's okay.

But then the other side of it is because when you start thinking in this frame of mind for yourself, you realized that everyone is going through the identical same pattern, which is everyone has a set of needs that are important to them so when that person is angry or snaps at you, you realized, "It's not me." You just know. You have confidence in the fact that, "It's not me." There's something that they didn't get. That they wanted and they didn't get and that's why they're angry. It's not because, "I looked at them funny," or, "I didn't deliver the cake to their desk." That may have been the trigger of it but it's not the real reason so yes, it really gets empathy out.

NOEL:  Yeah. The word that we haven't said yet that I think applies here is trust. It sounds like you're trying to set up a situation where you are building trust. In general, the way you build trust in general is by saying you're going to do something and then doing it. That's just the sort of, generically I feel like how relationships work, any kind of relationship. It feels like here, what you're trying to do is to take these communication opportunities, to take these situations, not as an opportunity for judgment or an opportunity to win an argument but it's an opportunity to create trust by saying, "This is disappointing to me because I expected you to write tests for this code." That's not even right... I feel like... I don't know how to say it. "I feel that..."

NADIA:  So you could say, "When I didn't see any tests, I felt disappointed..."

NOEL:  "When I didn't feel any tests, I felt disappointed and I felt like it was going to make things more difficult for me in the future."

NADIA:  So you do want to be a bit more specific like that and also, there's a whole section on using the word 'feel' and how we use feel when we don't express our feelings. You said, "It felt like, it would make things more difficult for me in the future," but that latter clause is not a feeling so, "I'm worried about not being able to easily and quickly add new features to the codebase and this is why not having test makes that harder," for example.

It's funny because I've had a chat with Theo, my business partner, and he is not quite convinced about the word 'disappointed' as a feeling so that's an example that Marshall Rosenberg gives a lot in the book but he thinks disappointed is also a judgment so that's the whole of other --

NOEL:  A little bit, yeah.

NADIA:  But even we have to say, "I feel sad," or -- "I feel..."

NOEL:  "...Sharp-shooting pains"  I don't know. "...headachy"

NADIA:  It's really hard. I still struggle with it and it's really useful on the NVC website. There's a list of different feelings and needs to help prompt that.

NOEL:  I'll say like, just in the last five minutes, I started thinking like, "I kind of know what I'm doing here," and then you hear me just completely fall apart trying to do one simple thing.

NADIA:  We're so not used to speaking this way. I have some examples when I do it and I'm like, "Yes, that was great, Nadia," and then sometimes I'm like, "What is the feeling here? What is the need here?" and I still struggle and I just want to say, "Argh! You're just annoying," but I know it's not that but to go back to when you say about vulnerability, the two key words that I draw out at the end of the talk are transparency, which I think it gets what you're saying about openness and also, vulnerability.

With the transparency bit, you're being open. You're putting your cards on the table. You're saying, "This is how I really feel. I'm upset. I'm elated." We also focus on the negative because I think that's when NVC really has huge gains, can bring back huge rewards but there's a positive side to it too that we don't properly express why we're happy about things or we don't give good feedback in a way that is helpful and constructive.

Another part of the book is we tend to make these generalizations, "The things are great," and that in a way is violent as termed by Marshall Rosenberg but that's a whole other topic to get into but yes, you were opening up. But the other thing is because you talk about feelings and how you feel, you are being vulnerable because you're putting yourself out there. You also make it easy for the other person to also mirror you and like, "Oh, they've shared how they feel. I guess I can share how I feel too," so you do lead to this space, where you build trust because you say, "We've got a way of communicating with one another, where we trust that we can say how we feel and nobody's going to take it personally because we're attempting to talk about how we feel without casting blame or judgment."

We know we may not always succeed because it's really difficult to and there may be slip ups but at least, we have this understanding between one another that we're going to be open so you trust that the other person or your teammate is going to tell you how you feel. I think that helps teams to really thrive because they're not focusing on, "I really want to say this but I can't," or, "I don't want to do this because I might make a mistake and then no one's really going to tell me in a way that's helpful and I'm just scared of that." People aren't scared. They're just more free to do what they think is going to be productive for the team and if they make mistakes or things don't go so well, they know they've got a safe space to explore that with their team members.

Also, you get to a point where it's not a competition. It's not a zero-sum game. You understand that the whole team or this other person is invested in finding a way of working that gets at everyone's needs and that's the great thing about the whole non-violent communication. The point is that eventually, it leads you to a resolution that takes into account everyone's needs because you realize, "So and so cares about stability. This person cares about fun. This person cares about respect so let's get these all out on the table and work out how we can come up with a solution that doesn't compromise anyone's needs." More often than not, you find that that is possible.

NOEL:  My experience with teams is that it really is possible to build up a team culture where people communicate respectfully and non-violently. On a small team, it's pretty much just by having people start to do it and it very quickly becomes the thing that we do, like this is how we talk to each other, this is not how we talk to each other. 

You talked earlier about non-violent communication doesn't necessarily mean nice. In the case of the code review, the initial impulse to be nice in a sort of bland way is actually causing harm. Can you talk a little bit more about the distinction between non-violent communication and being nice?

NADIA:  Yes. I mentioned being nice or being kind and I think what I mean there is that what people think is often nice or kind is often the opposite. By being non-violent, you can in fact be kind even if what you're saying is negative or difficult to hear. I can use the example again of the code review, the person in question, the person who's reviewing code thinks, "I don't want to upset the other person. I don't want to say anything mean. I'm going to be nice. I'm just going to say, "Great job. Great job," but there's no substance behind that because tell me how my code is really great then, if it is indeed great.

The kind thing is to say, "This wasn't a great job and I was disappointed because I was expecting something different. This is what I was expecting and this is why and here's how we're going to get you there," and that is the most kind thing that you can do because you've been upfront and honest so the person knows now that when this person communicates with me, it's likely that they're going to tell me the truth because this first occasion they've done so, they've explained they thought about it as well. They haven't just come out and told me, "This isn't good." They've really thought about why it isn't good so that they've respected my time and my efforts and they've respected that I'm a member of this team and I want to be a valuable contributor. Then the final thing is that they've given me a way to move forward so now, they have faith in me. They're disappointed now but they don't expect to be disappointed going forward. They've given me a clear path. They're supporting me.

The person who's written the code might be disappointed in that moment and at themselves. They might think, "I wish I'd done a better job then," but that the focus is not on, "I did a bad job." It's now, "Right. Let me ensure I don't do a bad job next time. Let me go and take on these recommendations," and they might think, "What a great manager? What a great tech lead that they have invested this time to really think about why they weren't happy and to communicate that to me. That is so kind." That's what I meant in terms of be kind but often we say that and I think people have misjudged what being kind is.

I think from my experience that often, people think a kind thing to do is to save others from their disappointment or the fact that they're upset or annoyed so they say, "I'm going to be kind by not bothering that person," but it's not kind to yourself to hold that in and it's definitely not kind to that person, especially if they thinks nothing is wrong because they won't change their behavior, they don't learn what's important to you. You're being unkind because you're putting them in a situation where they don't have a chance to explain themselves, if indeed you think there's something that they did that didn't meet one of your needs, they don't have a chance to change their behavior. Your also putting them at risk of you like attention building up or you snapping at them later on or of you having a misjudgment about them. It's really unkind on a lot of people. Like I said on the talk, you put a burden on yourself as well because you don't get out, "No, I'm actually upset about this but I'm being kind because I'm going to hold it in and not bother the other person," but it doesn't help anybody.

NOEL:  Right. It puts the focus in the wrong place. The worst place you can put the focus is, "You're a bad programmer."

NADIA:  Yes.

NOEL:  The next worst place to put the focus is, "You did a bad job here," and the best place to put the focus is, "Here's what we can do to make this better." 

NADIA:  Yes.

NOEL: We also talked before about screaming non-violently and what to do when you're angry. Sometimes, I do get angry. What should I do then? How should I handle it non-violently?

NADIA:  Here's the bit of non-violent communication that comes with practice. It all comes with practice but there's always going to be times when you are angry and you want to snap and it's because in the book, it talks about as soon as you feel yourself getting angry, stop breathing and stop and you ask yourself the same questions, "Why am I angry?" But let's assume you have to start shouting at someone, there's a set of things that you can say that say, "I'm shouting and I'm very angry." I think, even if you haven't quite figured out why you're angry, you can communicate that to the person which is, "I'm really angry right now and I'm not quite sure why but I need some space to figure that out," and then you go away and thinking about that non-violently.

If you're more experienced at it, or a bit more obvious to you what the feeling is, then it's talking about and saying, "I'm angry that's why I'm shouting," and this is why but being very careful about saying, "I'm really angry because when this happened...this is why it upset me" It's the same template but there's a key thing, which is what you don't say so you don't shout attacks and you don't shout the judgments. 

I'm doing this from memory so I haven't read that chapter in a while so that might have been a bit incorrect but I recently read this article about the secret to long term relationships. It was written a few years ago in The Atlantic by a woman named Emily Esfahani Smith and I can send you the link but there is a bit where she talks about the success of long term relationships as even when they are angry and they're shouting at one another, there are certain things they do not say. They don't try and directly wound the other person by bringing up historical things, by saying comments on the person's character. They stay focused on what has happened and why that particular thing is upsetting them. Again talking about why it's made them feel that way but there's certain boundaries they just don't cross.

I think with the whole screaming non-violently, it's about knowing that you can shout and it's okay to shout now and again. It's inevitable but have you train yourself to stay within certain boundaries and not try, and particularly wound people because it says in the article and probably says in the book too, that when you say certain things to wound people, people find it hard to forget and you perform some irreparable damage when you do things like that. That's the whole thing. It's not don't ever shout and don't show that you're visibly annoyed but it depends on can you just put a little gap between the anger and starting to talk. If you can, that will make all the difference.

NOEL:  Yeah. Sometimes, you say things and people just can't unhear what were said. That's bad. That's a problem.

NADIA:  Yes.

NOEL:  Well, Nadia, thank you so much. I've learned that this is much, much harder than I thought it was and I already thought it was hard but then I can stand to improve some. Thank you very much. I really appreciated the conversation. Where can people reach you online if they want to talk to you more about that?

NADIA:  I'm on Twitter. My handle is @NOdunayo. That's the main place. If you want to see another side of me -- my dancing side -- then it's the same handle on Instagram.

NOEL:  Great. That's fantastic. Thank you very much, Nadia and thanks for being with us and you guys can reach Nadia online and you can go off and non-violently communicate with somebody on your team or in your life. Thank you.

NADIA:  Yes. Thanks. Bye.

NOEL:  Tech Done Right is a production of Table XI and it's hosted by me, Noel Rappin. I'm at @NoelRap on Twitter and Table XI is at @TableXI. The podcast is edited by Mandy Moore. You can reach her on Twitter at @TheRubyRep. Tech Done Right can be found at TechDoneRight.io or downloaded wherever you get your podcasts. You can send us feedback or ideas on Twitter at @Tech_Done_Right.

Table XI is a UX design and software development company in Chicago with a 15-year history of building websites, mobile applications and custom digital experiences for everyone from startups to story brands. Find us at TableXI.com where you can learn more about working with us or working for us. We still have a couple of job listings open as I record this and we'll be back in a couple of weeks with the next episode of Tech Done Right.