Rob, Hello, I'm Rob Hirschfeld, CEO and co founder of RackN and your host for the cloud 2030 podcast. In this episode, we go back to our book club. In this case, we are talking about non violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg. It's a really foundational work that has elements that got pulled into a lot of other books that we've already discussed, and I think essential for people who are looking to be better leaders, to learn how to communicate with more empathy, to frame and phrase questions and engagement that explains your feelings needs and intents, and hears other people's feelings needs and intents. And we will break down what that means. If that sounds a little bit too foo, foo for you, you got to bear with me. This is really, really, really powerful communication techniques, and we have a very good discussion about the book and its impact. I know you'll enjoy it.
This this discussion was, was introduced by John Walpert the top the book was as part of the two button rule discussion you would suggested in our conversation to that we should read and read the non violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg book, which is the as I'm as I'm reading it the foundation of a lot of the coaching and negotiation books that I have since Read and we've discussed here, and so I'm super excited to go back to talk about this book and see what y'all thought about it, because I can see its fingerprints in so much of the other work that we've been reading. Don you had you had a reason for I'd love to hear sort of your take on it, because I know that it was influential to you and the two, but rule,
yeah, I mean, the the, what? What makes the two but rule, not just a sterile technique, which is a line that, actually, I think I stole from, from Rosenberg's book sterile technique, right? Is, is, is the focus on intent, right? Intentions matter, right? And if you aren't listening for what a person's intentions are, and that is, what are the needs behind what they intend to do, then you wind up with sort of a, the joke I usually make as well. You know, in this sort of aligns with the notion of invention, intention, idea. There's all these I words that we mix up in innovation circle, right? And the one I word that I don't think is getting enough attention these days is improvement, right? We should be improving things, not necessarily. I think we've gotten a little bit too besotted with disruptive innovation, like everybody has a disrupter. I'm like, hey, you know, that's a tool. You know, sometimes you have to do that, but maybe we should try to improve things more often, you know, maybe radically improving things that I'm thinking about writing a book called radical improvement, right? Everybody's like, radical candor and radical this. I'm like, How about radical improvement? Right? Which is the radical idea being, let's try to be a little less radical. I think that's a that's a book written by an old man. So I guess I qualify now, because maybe we were improving things. So, yeah, the idea here is, I think you have to. So if I say, you know, I want to go left, and you say, but I don't want to go left, but we could go right, that's not really a good use of the two. But rule, or, here's my invention here, pencil I'm going to tell you about it. I can patent it. I can write something with it, or I can stick it in your eye, and now it's a disruptive innovation. I can't tell you about that intention before I do it. So funny thing about intentions is they're very they're very tricky to share, unlike, you know, inventions, you can share, but intentions, what do I intend to do with a thing harder to share, but it would be a bad use to the two. Butt roll to say, but I don't want you to, you know, it would be hard to stick that pencil in my eye, because I would stop you, but you could sneak up from behind me. That'd be a bad use of the two. But if you said, but I understand why you want to stick that pencil in my eye. And a, I'm sorry. And B, you can punch me in the arm. That's a, you know, now you're listening, you're, you're, you're, you're watching for what the needs of the other person are and what your needs right pencil in your eye. So you you have needs. They have needs. And can you square those? And that, I think, is all Rosenberg. I mean, I must. That's, that's, that's. Definitely Rosenberg. Yeah, that's, I think I've listened to him 40 times that, you know, whenever I'm having a hard time in life, in any way, I go back to that book.
It feels so gentle when you read his his examples. And I, you know, it also seems sort of easy, but, and I know it's not in practice to listen and empathize, and, you know, try and discover somebody else's needs from that perspective. But you're right. That's, you know, my wife and I, my wife stole this book for me and started and started reading it right away. And she's, she's reading a different book I might put on the list about empathy, and like harmful empathy, or the danger of empathy, which is, she's, she's really enjoying that book, but this idea of getting to people's needs as as part of that discussion, we're really trained. It's been fascinating to me. You know, we're really trained to not want to share our needs for this and not want to ask people about their needs. Is the way I the way I usually think about it's like we're, we're always terrified that we're going to ask a question and it's going to reveal somebody's needs, and now it's going to, you know, we're going to have to deal with the fact that they shared something that they need us to do
well and rightly so, right? I mean, like think I bring this up somewhere that, if you are, you know, in high school, and you're in, you know, beside it by some person of interest, right? You want to ask them out or something, and you've got a friend who's dating their friend, that's a really tricky maneuver to get your friend, because he's he's a big mouth, and he's going to blab it all, and you're going to be screwed, right or or maybe knowing that you like that person, he'll decide to like that person. So knowing what a person's intentions are and you can trust them as a good person, but you may not trust them to do exactly what you want them to do in your interest. Yeah, right. So intention, sharing, intent, Joe, I think that flows through to business, right? How do I know that I can confide in you before I know what your intentions are, or how your intentions would change if you knew what my intentions were, my
intentions were. Oh, my
goodness, yeah, no, it's we're trained not to do that. Because all you know, we're like, oh, now I'm giving up the power somebody's gonna force for sale on the or, you know that this is, you know. You know the sales training that we have is all you know, people prospects lie because they're afraid of revealing that they need, they need your product because they don't want to be taken advantage of
well, and they're not wrong.
Yes. Well, yeah.
Well, one thing I have, and this is a question, actually, to to you, John, and to you, Rob, because I'm new to Rosenberg, and I will admittedly, I'll admit that I did not do the deep read that I would usually do, just from a time point of view. But one of the issues not just in Rosenberg, but in a number. I mean, going all the way back to the the, you know, the classic pyramid of needs and so forth. One of the things that I keep wondering is that there are a few needs that may not be all together, positive or, you know, have a, have a positive aspect. And one that I always wonder about, because it never seems to be listed, is the need for status. It is part of the, you know, it's part of human beings in social situations where status is so is kind of imbued with so much power, and it's something that is Very jealously protected. So in the case of Rosenberg. Does that get or does that get incorporated into the the possibility that without without blaming, without shaming, the the other person for wanting the status, you can kind of understand why that, why that individual might not be revealing an intent. Might be covering, covering things up.
A lot of times the premise of the conversations that he talks about to me are based on. Fact that people aren't good at revealing their intent and need, and that the path that the book usually takes is through emotion, and that if you acknowledge somebody's emotion, then you can talk about what their need is,
or your own right or your own you did this bad, something bad. I'm angry about it. As you made me mad, as opposed to saying, when you do this, I feel angry because my need for respect from others is not being met. You tell somebody that way, and it's really hard for them to get their back up, depending on how you said it, because you're
not, you're not accusing at that point, you've, you've taken, you've you've taken ownership of the feeling this is right, there's like, the the sales training that we've done in, like, the never split the difference book is really about you facilitating it for somebody else. And then the Rosenberg book, to me, is, is interesting because it has your side of the same conversation, so that you're saying, you know exactly what John was saying. It's like you were you're able to say, I, you know, I am feeling upset because these things happened, which, yes, it can be very disarming and very, very difficult to admit, you know your feeling or a vulnerability or a need to somebody else, but But Rich My experience has been, and I think a lot of these examples in the in the book are that if people articulating a need, typically is they feel like they're asking too much or that that it can't be met. And a lot of times those those needs, once they're decoupled from the emotion can be met, or if or if they can't be met, then the other person can say, you know, that interferes with my need to do whatever. And then actually, in saying it that way, John, I can entirely see how the two bot rule plays into that, that sort of bounce back and forth. But that that's the idea, is that if you can be like, well, I need you to recognize my authority for this. And somebody can say, you know, I recognize you need that you want that. That's you want that authority. But if I did that, it would conflict with my need for, you know,
right, right? Organizations,
yes, but I can acknowledge you, my respect for you, while also not giving you control. That would be, yeah, that'd be a perfectly good thing. And I like the way he puts this. He says, you know, we need a Santa Claus mentality for for our needs, right? So you say, Aren't you lucky? I'm going to tell you what my need is, as opposed to, right? I don't want to throw my wife on the bus here, but, I mean, she does not like to put her needs on other people, or, you know, say, you know, she doesn't like saying no to people social, you know, I can you do this for me? And here's a litany of reasons why. And I'm often like, you had me at, can you do this for me? Right? I'm like, you don't need to go there, right? Or, you know that reading kind of thing, like, Could you please do this for me? I'm like, Just tell me do it. I'm good, I'm good, I'm there for you. I got your back and but it's just something a lot of people have a deep discomfort with. And she does, I think, and she's working through that.
That was one of the sections I was just reading. Is this idea that? But he I didn't bring the book upstairs, so I don't have it in front of me, but he talks about this obnoxious layer, where people get better about defending their needs, and then they get obnoxious about defending their needs, and then they get more more informed about it, and and there's a point at which you will will actually come back and say, you know, I'm defending, you know, I'm you know, these are my needs. I don't care about your needs anymore. And that's that obnoxious phase, but it's a breakthrough, because you're now able to say that I have, these are my needs in the conversation. Yeah,
if you could do that early, then you the problem is, we don't, often don't do it early, and then we've got a motive going on, and then, and then all, all the rose Rosenberg in the world isn't going to help you, because you're, you know, the your, your your more primitive brain is now in control at that point. So it's so important to train society. I mean, you know, I wish that Rosenberg was more, you know, out there more, because it's a cultural thing. If you don't have a culture for this, then you're constantly playing. You read the book. I've read it 40 times. Not culturally trained this way, so I get it wrong all the time. It's super hard. I even said, you know, to relationships. I'm like, Yeah, I remember reading the book again. Like. The 30th time going into a conversation, and then I had this moment of realization that I wasn't doing it, and realizing then I articulated, I said, want for not to have conflict right now, so I'm not going to apply Rosenberg, because I want to get in an argument. I'm like, I want to be mad, and I want to be mad at you, and I want, I want us to have, I want us to get in a fight, right? I mean,
we're animal breaking, breaking rapport is legitimate, right? It's, it's a legitimate need, right? Sometimes, you know, you have to walk through the emotional piece, or you have to mirror back somebody else's emotional state.
I don't know if it's another major thing, but I definitely think that, you know, cultural training though, I can imagine an alternative universe where the Rosenberg approach is fundamental to my culture, and I wouldn't have as much of that need, or at least, I'd be more habituated to not going there, you know. So I
think if people modeled it, it would be easier to pick up is, I guess I'm hoping that, right? Because we're training on, you know, Sandler, and which is sales technique, but it's, it's the it's, it's the other side, it's the you side of the of the coin, where it's like, you know, and I'm literally teaching our people to be like if you're in a situation, it's okay, and it's actually beneficial to identify the other person's emotional state as part of the conversation. To say, you know, you seem frustrated, right? You seem angry about this. You know what? What happened? You know, just, just, but that does this. But it takes a lot of training culturally for, you know, my team was like, you're asking us to name emotions for them. That seems really awkward. Actually, I'll give a little one of the people was, was rehearsing it, and he said, and he de personalized it, instead of saying, You You seem upset. He was like it, you know, it appears, you know, there I totally, he totally made it not a you statement, but, you know, I'm sensing that there's challenge, or I'm sensing there's upset in this I'm like, you just depersonalized it. It's the person's emotion. Say you have this emotion. Let them correct you or accept it.
Thank us. New language for this. It's she's constantly, often saying the phrase, are you okay? But she does it interesting. She doesn't say, are you okay, which is sort of a demand for information, as opposed to just saying, are you okay? And it's, it's actually a down, a down of tonal tonality at the end saying, I'm, I am in a mode to listen to your okayness, or you're not okayness. Interesting, it I've been observed. Basically,
can, can we, or should we proceed? Or do we need to, do we need to take a detour,
or, Hey, it's a, it's not a. Often when you say, are you okay? If you do it with the up, you're saying, I see you are out of line with what my expectations of your behavior are, and have to stop. And now I'm singling you out, as opposed to saying, yeah, it's more nuanced than the other way, right? It's, it's,
yeah, there's a, there's a green light aspect to it that says we can proceed and kind of go forward from here. And I just want to check with you that that's all right, but
then being willing to, then be willing to stop and, and, and you do the deep listening, which where he didn't, it doesn't, he doesn't talk about listening as much in this book, or the like, how to, how to be a good listener. Or maybe I'm just there. I didn't get all the way through it either. So no, he
for a reason, right? He's not. The title is language of life, right? You know the tragic absence of the light of having a language for this, right? And so it's more, it's an expression. He's advising on expression. He's not, he's not saying, Hey, be a better listener. He's saying you need to be in touch with your needs and express them correctly. And if the other guy's doing the same thing because they because they hear you expressing your needs correctly, then they get into the habit of doing it. So it is an actual it's he's trying to teach a way of communicating outbound, which will help person Listen, but he's not saying, which I think I find frustrating. Is everybody going to be a better listener? I'm like, I don't know. I've got ADHD. I think I'm listening pretty well. I'm just doing it really fast, and I do have an error rate, but I don't I'm not making you feel like I'm being unlistening to you. You. So now I'm going to not listen to you while I spend a lot of cycles trying to make you think I'm listening to you.
I actually there's, I have a oh my goodness, the ADH, he said something in the book that I found really interesting, and I would through a lot of self coaching, right, gotten better about not interrupting people the same way. And so a big part of right being a better listener is listening to what they're saying and not thinking about what you're saying next, right, which is the classic track
possible for an ADHD person.
It's impossible for but you can, but you also have the option then to say, that's a really interesting thing. And then what was hard to me was be like, I just dropped those things on the floor. That was right. I had to sit back and say, I have a ton of interesting things to say that will not help the conversation. And so I still have the thought, and I'm just like, well, if it's important, I'll it'll come back later. And that was my ADHD training. Self training was, oh, this is a cool thought. I'm going to share it, and the other person's talking away, and you're like, whatever your squirrel thought was. And I've just trained myself to be like, I'll have more cool thoughts. I can just I can just wait. But he actually acknowledges this point about in a conversation, that if you're really listening to somebody and empathizing them, you're going to have to have thoughts all along, but you might find that it doesn't fit with what there's no doesn't fit. So you just
conversation. You're more in line. I think that the point is that you can even no matter what your personal cadence style is, and I think of it as timing, right? We did an experiment on this years ago at IBM, where we had one day. We did a brainstorming session, everybody's in the same room, ideal. Ran that session, I think we got maybe one patentable idea out of it. Next time we did it, all on a phone call, everybody in the room, 40 people on a phone call in a conference call as we come, and they were all in the same room, but they were all on the call deliberately, because we wanted to see what happened. And not only did we get no ideas, but we also, I had personnel issues at that point with people that were mad at each other. Third time we did it on same time, which was, you know, IBM's earlier version of slack, or, you know, chat, everybody's in the same room, but they're all chatting. There's no There's no voice, seven patentable ideas. Everybody's happy. And people who had no ideas before were, you know, coming up with amazing things because they didn't feel like they were blocking. Also, the big talkers felt better because they didn't have the emotional baggage of feeling in the back of their minds like they were taking up too much space, which is always the kind of the self loathing that a person who is accustomed to that has the Holderness family, you know those guys right on YouTube. So Penn Holderness just wrote, and they both wrote a book called ADHD is awesome. I was at the signing neighborhood on it, and he was talking about, he hit a great line in the beginning, because he knew everybody there was ADHD, and he said, he said, All right, here's the thing, you are allowed to raise your hand if your idea has to pee. It's just like my idea just has to pee and I can't hold it anymore. And so giving everybody the permission to do that in that crowd was pretty great. And sure enough, but he had lots of ideas that needed to pee, and it was a lot of back and forth. But, yeah, I think that if you're if you're like that, and you're using Rosenberg's ideas, then you can say, well, even though my idea has to pee, at least there's a good chance that it has something to do with what you were talking about, too. Yeah.
A quick question about the comparison Joan, because I was involved with probably the the earliest, if certainly, some of the earliest, experimental work looking at comparisons of small group communication, with video, with audio only, and then with text in a in A slack light. This is stuff that we did for ARPA and and NSF in the mid 70s at the at the Institute for the Future. And one of the things that made an enormous difference in the outcomes was whether the participants, even though they were. Distance actually had met one another previously, had had a kind of a mental or an emotional model of those people from from having interacted with them in face to face situation prior to the use of these, these media, we we tried it in both sides. The impact of having met even briefly, all the participants in one of these small groups can and then and the outcomes in all of them was quite different. And to your point, the whole notion of having multiple conversations, side conversations that weren't interrupting others, the fact that somebody was was not feeling guilty for hogging the hogging the podium, yeah,
because you can't block or be blocked, right? I mean, it doesn't work for if a leader has to get up and get everybody on the same page. It doesn't work, right? But if you, if you ice storming, do it, and you get people right, I'm, I'm interested in the fact that you found that meeting people in was that having had physical contact mattered. My hypothesis has been that there's an advantage in not having physical contact, because we're animals and we have sense of smell and stuff, and I might not like it, as the pheromones are giving off or something. And the nice that the one of the small upsides for the many downsides of this kind of interaction is that it's all about your brain and your ideas, and nothing about what my what else
is subconscious, yeah, the the non verbal parts of the non verbal Communication, you're, you know, I, I, I understand that point, and in this case, well, actually, to go back one of the previous one, the worst thing that you could ever do in one of these slack like computer conferences was try to impose Robert's Rules of Order. I mean, just don't, don't even go there. Does work the it's interesting that you bring that up. And there were a couple of other things. One, it turns out, this was so long ago, one of the participants had, I think it was a silent 700 that did not have a Caps Lock key, so everything that was typed was in upper case, and so everybody viewed whatever this person said as shouting. It was just because it was all uppercase, and other people were using capitals and being, you know, trying to make their messages look look good. There are so many one better on odd, odd oddities to
it, but yeah, yeah, and I have to say, I got into trouble with what I just said. I stand by what I said earlier, but I got into trouble by applying that lesson in a in a room of younger folks like Gen X or Gen Zers, younger millennials, where they have become they grew up in texting, and so I'm like, Okay, I have permission to check, you know, to text, to type away, right? I'm not blocking anybody, right by the argument that I made earlier, but now doing that a lot is also, again, considered hogging the room, right even when I said, and I remember saying, I remember saying, Hey, isn't it great about chat that we can all talk at the same time and Not block each other. And then I started doing that, and I was getting back channel feedback, saying, You gotta, you know, you gotta text wrote down. Interesting. The
other, the other thing is that these media take on their own, their own kind of special, special aspects and signals. For example, you were talking about Gen Z and texting, the use of the ellipsis, you know, I know what an ellipsis is. I you know, I use it pretty I've used it in the past pretty often. Comes across like there's something here that I'm not telling you. Fill it in, buddy, and it's, it is it has, if you, if you, if you talk to the Gen Zs, who are, you know, using text a lot. You know, you use the ellipsis basically to dis some. Buddy,
I use the lips all the time. I had no idea about
you. Might there might be same with periods on text messages, by the way,
oh yeah, send a put a period on the text at the end of a text message, and it's kind of like, oh, an oldie, you know, or, or you're, you're pulling, you're trying to pull rank. There are rules that come out of these, these media that are very important to kind of suss out. Death is
a gift to those of us who don't want us to live through a world that our children are making
you. I Tim, Tim, I know, has a question. I was, I was going to yield the floor to Tim to ask the question,
yeah, and I'll, I'll just preface it by saying, unfortunately, I don't have the background John of of reading your book or Rosenberg's book yet, so I'm coming at this a little naive, but my question is, does this does this really apply to smaller orgs and personal dynamics or larger orgs? Because when i My background is mostly in larger enterprises, and while I hear what you're saying and hear where the discussion is going, I think about how this plays out, or doesn't, or the challenges in a larger organization. And I'm just wondering, like, how there was, there was a time, I mean, going back, I have to go back more than 20 years now. There was a time when we used to do management courses. We used to send people to management courses. We did efforts, organizational efforts, to help people kind of evolve culture, right? This was back in the COVID days and whatnot in the 90s, but today, it just seems like there, and I may be off here, but it seems like there. There just isn't the space to think about and influence culture and organizational dynamics in larger organizations, as opposed to smaller ones, like much of what we're talking about here. I don't understand how I would play that out in a larger org without having some overt like management session, you know, let's, let's all do a, you know, like a team building kind of session, you know what I mean. So half
my career was in startups, usually of my own making, or in massive companies like IBM, Best Buy in that sort of life and or or government, like working with the Australian Government, and I can say that I was just on a I do team robbery. I don't know if you've seen that, but
through your your website, as you've been talking, yeah, I saw that.
Anyway. So the the Yeah, so I was on one of these, and it's 45 minutes. And, yeah, what can you do? What kind of experience can you give somebody in 45 minutes? 45 minutes? I gotta say, it's amazing, and it took some time to develop it. But now, this is a big room. This is 120 people, and I didn't even think you could do this, but I took them on this, this experience where I said, we're gonna save the world in 45 minutes, and we're gonna start, we're gonna pick, I think I picked ocean plastic, and it was like, these are the problems with ocean plastic. And I kind of teed them up, and I said, All right, now we're going to, we're going to solve that, and we're going to start by, somebody's going to get up out of their chair and tell me why it can't be solved. And then you got to say, but it would, it could be solved if by blah, blah, blah. And one of the rules is, and your second but doesn't have to be a particularly good one, right? Be completely stupid. In fact, the stupider the better, because that's how we start and then, and then somebody else is going to get up and we're going to joyously, happily, lovingly trash that idea and attack it, and because it's going to be terrible, right? We need to love our terrible ideas. And by the end of 45 minutes of doing that, and then, you know, kind of amping it up and making it harder, people, it's amazing. People come away with that from that, even in a big room like this. And this was a huge major enterprise, one of the biggest companies in the world, 100 150 people, not not or 120 people, probably in a so it's not a small group in a very large company. And now that, you know, they're telling other cohorts to do the same thing, because they like the more teams get into the habit of not having a one butt culture, which is, but I don't like that. And mic drop or a no buts culture, which is, well, that's a good idea, right? You know, both of those are momentum killers instead, always, always, always, if you know, express your butt and then you have to have another one, but I don't like but you're a big, dumb. Loopy head, but you wouldn't be if, I mean, you know, you've got to, and in getting teams into the habit of that, whether it's a two, five person team, my my family does it, we actually, we're trying to plan a trip, and I didn't want to do thing, and my wife didn't want to do another thing, and we was like, but I don't like that idea. But I wouldn't I like, I don't like going on, look at the monkey, kind of trips like, Oh, look at the monkey. Look at the statue, look at the building. I'm not that that kind of traveler. She loves that sort of thing, I said, but I would like it if there was a story to it, like, if there was anything, like an amazing race, kind of an activity, or anything like that, where we had a some kind of goal, or like, we're gonna really know about Joan of Arc on this trip to Paris, right? Or whatever it is. Then, then I'd be cool with it, right? So it, but I had to come up with a second, but I don't want to go to Paris and look at statues, but I would if, right. So it works for couples, for teams, for families, and I would,
I would add that in companies, the lack of listening and empathy in between orgs is critical. You do have to train this stuff. It is not free. It takes work and coaching and modeling and
simplicity. You got to give them something that they can habitually do. They don't have
to think about it, but if you're but if the leaders in an organization are showing that they're listening and, you know, helping land emotions and identify needs, I think that that that's going to float through the org a lot. I think it's even more important, just hard, just,
I think this is fascinating. I wish I had more time. Unfortunately, I have to drop for for a nine o'clock call, I
need to drop. Thank you, John. I
appreciate the the insights and guys, great to see you too.
Good suggestion on a book, John. Appreciate it. Thank
you, John. See it. I'm now encouraged to dig in. Thanks, Rob,
thanks for inviting
me. My pleasure. I'm glad you were able to come in on the last minute next week, by the way, we're off, and then we'll pick back up the week after.
Have a good trip, Rob, thanks. I'll
give you the report.
Wow. I really love how this group has brought in these book discussions. It really challenges me to read things that I wouldn't otherwise read, and then have been stunned at how helpful and powerful they are, especially fun when we can bring a previous guest, John from the two with the two butt rule, and back into the discussion, since this was his recommendation, really fun, interactive conversations. Hopefully you'll choose to be part of if you've listened to this far, you definitely are finding the conversations interesting or just don't know how to fit pause and next in your podcast subscription, either way, you're always welcome to join us. You can find our full schedule and be part of the conversations at the 2030 dot cloud. I'm looking forward to seeing you. Thanks. Thank you for listening to the cloud 2030 podcast. It is sponsored by RackN, where we are really working to build a community of people who are using and thinking about infrastructure differently, because that's what RackN does. We write software that helps put operators back in control of distributed infrastructure, really thinking about how things should be run and building software that makes that possible. If this is interesting to you, please try out the software. We would love to get your opinion and hear how you think this could transform infrastructure more broadly, or just keep enjoying the podcast and coming to the discussions and laying out your thoughts and how you see the future unfolding, it's all part of building a better infrastructure, operations community. Thank you.
