Art of Appreciative Communication E-Book

Birgit Schulze

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 159

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The Art of Appreciative Communication - 101 Excercises to inspire your Workshops and Groups.

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Endorsement

Kathleen Macferran

“Irmtraud and Birgit have given us many creative ideas when working with groups to explore the world of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). The exercises offer ways to open the conversation about what matters most to us, what key principles can be found in NVC, and how we want to live moving forward from this moment in time. This is a valuable resource.”

Kathleen Macferran

Author of together with Jared Finkelstein: Choice: A Field Guide for Navigating the Polarization of Our World and Living interdependently.

Frank Gaschler

I still remember very well: there was this NVC training some time ago in Berlin, or was it in Aachen? Well, it doesn’t matter. In any case, we were doing this one exercise. It was about empathy. Not just like that, no, it was somehow special. I think we were all seated in a circle and everyone was writing something down on a sheet of paper. What had the question been again? “When were you annoyed?” or: “When did you annoy your partner?” or: “What makes you feel annoyed at all?” Well, it was this kind of tone. Anyway, I remember I was very touched though and something in our relationship really changed. I think I will try it tonight with my practice group. They will be thrilled. Now I am just left to choose the colour of the sheets of paper...

If we come down to it, the structure of exercises based on Nonviolent Communication is quite simple. In the end, it`s all about feelings and needs - mine or yours - met or unmet - celebrated or mourned. Additionally, according to the setting of a task, we add observations and requests, a “no” and how to deal with it. Out of these ingredients however, countless exercises come into existence, which are pointing at so many realms of humans being together such as communication in conflict situations, core belief work, self-empathy, working on trauma, expressing appreciation, joy and so on.

As a trainer or leader of a practice group, the art is to offer the exercise that seems supportive for the group and being clear while instructing. Otherwise everyone is talking “about” the exercise, instead of practicing. I am thrilled about this book filled with a collection of treasures by different trainers. I celebrate the creativity, the joy of sharing and the ease that can arise, if we focus less on the “how”, than on the empathic encounter and learning during training.

Frank Gaschler

Author of: I want to understand what you really need - Nonviolent Communication with children. Project Giraffe dream.

Introduction

Acknowledgements

We thank Frank Eberhard, who had the idea to write a book with NVC exercises. Without his idea, we would have never written this book.

And without the following people, this book would not have become what it is today. We give thanks to Suse Schmitt for the graphic design, Yo Rühmer for illustrations, Frank Gaschler and Kathleen Macferran for the preface, Nicole Leipert-Knaup for the cooperation on the key differentiations and for contributing her exercises, Joachim Born, Margit Engel-Lippert, Petra Reuter and Christiane Welk for proofreading of the German text.

We specially appreciate Aline Müller and Joachim Born for the translation into English and for Patricia Romain for the English proofreading.

We received several as a gift from colleagues and borrowed others. Therefore, we want to express our appreciation to: Bridget Belgrave and Gina Lawrie, Stefan Fuchs, Frank and Gundi Gaschler, Nada Ignjatovic (+), Kathleen Macferran, Monika Oboth, Milli O’Naire (+), Katharina Ossko...

I express my gratitude towards Christa Morf and Laurence Reichler, who accompanied my first steps with NVC throughout several years and towards many of the participants of the courses, who readily practiced with me. (Irmtraud Kauschat)

We especially thank Marshall Rosenberg who gave us the present of NVC.

The Authors

Birgit Schulze has been enthusiastic about Nonviolent Communication (NVC) for years now, particularly on how to apply it at work. Yet she encountered NVC through her children. It was very important for her also, to have a connecting exchange in difficult situations, where she would like everyone involved to be treated as equals. She wanted to find solutions other than demands of the kind “If you do,… then ...”, such as “If you don‘t help clear the table, then I will get angry!” NVC supported her quickly to communicate with her children on a different level.

Birgit Schulze discovered NVC also as a helpful tool in professional life. In the position of a reclamation and complaints manager she could apply NVC effectively with her clients and colleagues. For the first time NVC gave her the safety she needed to react calmly to an upset client. She lost fear of emotionally charged situations and could contribute a positive solution to the reclamation or complaint, thanks to NVC.

She has taken part in several intensive NVC courses and has trained as a business mediator in the meantime. Today Birgit Schulze is working as a self-employed trainer for Nonviolent Communication and business mediator. Birgit Schulze is an active member of the Netzwerk Gewaltfreie Kommunikation Darmstadt - Südhessen e.V. (Network for Nonviolent Communication Darmstadt - South Hesse, a registered association).

The idea for this book developed in a more in depth NVC course in which Birgit Schulze took part and got to know Irmtraud Kauschat as a trainer.

Irmtraud Kauschat first came into contact with NVC in 1994. She attended an “Intercultural Peace Camp” in Hungary. The organizers wanted to provide a platform to meet for youth groups from different western and eastern European countries, among them Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. This took place directly after the war between Serbia and Croatia. The peaceful atmosphere between the youths from Serbia and Croatia impressed her. She found that NVC trainers from Belgrade, who were also offering NVC workshops, accompanied the Serbian youths. Experiencing the two trainers (Milica Krstanovic (+) and Zorica Trikic) in this potentially very tense atmosphere of the post-war situation awakened her curiosity about Nonviolent Communication. It seemed to be a powerful tool to bring people together.

Ever since, she stayed connected to NVC and integrated it into her personal and professional life as a medical doctor and NVC trainer. People coming into her practice benefit from experiencing empathy and learn more about their needs and how to meet them during consultations.

In 1996 and 1997 she offered NVC courses in Croatia and Bosnia. Since 2006 she has become a certified trainer (CNVC) and since 2007 she offers year-long courses in Germany and regularly runs courses in Kenya and recently also in France, Iceland, Israel, Ukraine and Somalia.

She is a co-founder and member of the board of Netzwerk Gewaltfreie Kommunikation in Darmstadt -Südhessen e.V. (Network for Nonviolent Communication in Darmstadt - South Hesse, a registered association) and the Netzwerk D-A-CH deutschsprachiger Gruppen für Gewaltfreie Kommunikation e.V. (Network for German-speaking groups of Nonviolent Communication). From 2012 to 2013, she also served as CNVC board member.

Our Intention

Through this book we want to give a supportive collection of exercises to those who are spreading Nonviolent Communication and those who have already gained some experience in NVC. Here you can find many exercises to NVC relevant topics. It contains exercises that have enriched us and have often opened the space for joy, connection and growth and probably met even more needs. Through these exercises we could grow personally and contribute to the growth of others. And in this way, step by step, we created a collection of exercises referring to the different realms of NVC. We invented new exercises and adapted others. Some exercises which we received from colleagues and others we found in books, for example, are so important to us, that we adopted them (we marked those specifically). We are hoping to contribute with this collection to the development of a consciousness of NVC for those interested and providing a wider range of exercises for trainers. Beginners and advanced learners can use the exercises alike. Some exercises are suitable for individual learning, others for working in pairs, others in small groups, and then again others are suitable to work in a plenum. We mark each of the exercises accordingly. We mean this to facilitate the planning of your course or practicing unit.

The Structure of the Book

At the beginning you will find a short Introduction to Nonviolent Communication. Here we describe the history of NVC – as we know it –, the basic assumptions and the method. The next 13 chapters describe the different realms of practice for the courses you are planning. At the end of each of the exercise chapters we inserted empty pages with our exercise structure. You can use those to add “my exercise” to this book. Working like this and planning your own exercises, you can have a ready supply of your own exercises.

In the chapter Key Differentiations, we want to encourage you to discover either situations in which you would like to communicate from your NVC consciousness or situations in which you would like to develop further in this direction.

On our free downloading page of this book you will find prepared sheets we developed for our courses, which we would like to share with you in this way. We would be happy when you use them to name us as the authors.

www.gewaltfrei-uebungen.de

Your Feedback is important to us

We would like to receive feedback on our book. Maybe you will grow to like particular exercises or to develop variations? Maybe this book doesn‘t contain your favourite exercise at all? If you would like to send us your exercises. In a further edition we will be happy to add them, naming you as the author. As a thank you, you will receive an autographed free issue of the new edition from the authors.

We would be happy to receive your feedback, as it shows us that our book is being read and used. We wish you a pleasant time of growth! Talk to us personally or write to us (our e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]).

Yours, Irmtraud Kauschat and Birgit Schulze

The Exercises and Methods

Writing and Addressing

We use different genders for an easy flow of reading, though we don‘t use non-binary pronouns. However, we are always refering to all genders.

Structure of Exercises

We describe all the exercises and structure them in the same way: At first glance you can see which growing opportunities the respective exercise is envisioning. If you can conduct an exercise through a certain method, we describe it respectively. This way you can complement your practice units with diverse methods.