NVC and FONT
This week, for various reasons, I’ve been finding out more about Nonviolent Communication, or ‘NVC’ for short:
NVC theory supposes that all human behavior stems from attempts to meet universal human needs, and that these needs are never in conflict; rather, conflict arises when strategies for meeting needs clash. NVC proposes that people should identify shared needs, which are revealed by the thoughts and feelings surrounding these needs, and then they should collaborate to develop strategies and make requests of each other to meet each other’s needs. The goal is interpersonal harmony and learning for future cooperation.
Wikipedia
It’s a difficult thing to search for given, well, fonts, but yesterday Abi Handley gave me an overview of the FONT approach that Outlandish have taken from NVC, which stands for:
- Feelings
- Observations
- Needs
- Thoughts
Despite the order of this acronym, the aim is to acknowledge your own feelings, observations, and thoughts, and get to the needs you have in any given situation.
I don’t have much knowledge or experience with NVC, but found FONT very useful yesterday when it was important for me to push past what I was feeling to get to a solution/resolution. I simply opened my notes app, and wrote some bullet points under feelings, observations, and thoughts, before getting to needs.
I’m not sure how well it scales to really deep-seated issues we may face in life, but for nipping things in the bud that could escalate, I found FONT useful this week.
This post is Day 48 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com
