NVC and Government

An Interview with Leah Bailey, Co-founder of BCNCC - November 2008

On NVC training for government employees, starting an NVC organization and integrating the consciousness into everyday life

Leah Bailey is a founding member of BCNCC. She was instrumental in introducing NVC to many departments of the provincial government from 2000 to 2004.  Leah spoke of her involvement with NVC - her accomplishments and challenge, as well as her personal process - in a phone call from Vancouver Island with Board members Mika Maniwa (MM) and Renee Lindstrom (RL).

Bringing Nonviolent Communication Training to the Residential Tenancy Office

MM: I've noticed your name in past records of BCNCC and Penny Wassman had also spoken to Renee and I about how much energy and effort you put in to starting this organization. So after meeting you at the July [Living Energy of Needs workshops with Robert Gonzales and Susan Skye in Sidney] retreat I got really excited and wanted to ask you how you first were introduced to NVC.

Leah: Sure, I was the director of the Residential Tenancy Office which had over 100 staff at 8 offices throughout the province and the office dealt with landlord-tenant disputes which were often very volatile. What I saw was my staff just being totally drained by the emotion and the volatility that they had to deal with day-in and day-out and all day long.  So I was looking for some way to support them in a way that they could handle it better and not feel so exhausted at the end of the day.

I had been sending them to Dispute Resolution training at the Justice Institute, which I took to be the most avant-garde training at the time in the province.  And I was noticing that they loved the training and were enthusiastic to go but they weren't getting skills that were transferable to the worksite so they weren't having the skills at the end of the training that they could bring to process some of the issues they were dealing with, and process for themselves what that meant to assist their clients.

I heard about Marshall's work and thought I would explore it, so myself and another staff member actually met with Towe Widstrand who told us that Marshall had been to Victoria once already sponsored by the Public Service and had done a weekend workshop at Dunsmuir.  She said there was an upcoming series of workshops in Seattle that she really recommended, given how we described what our needs were as an organization. She recommended that we go and see him and so I did and was very impressed with how broad-sweeping the skills were that he was describing and how people were connecting to those skills.

So I and some others - I met Penny there - from Victoria got together and we decided that we wanted to do something as a group so we wound up organizing BCNCC and establishing it as a society and using that as a vehicle to sponsor Marshall's workshops.  The first series of workshops, he came in August of 2000, he offered a series of workshops to the Ministry of Attorney General employees.  He did public workshops as well. It was a combination of government and public workshops.

MM: How did you get permission, authority to organize this? How did you interest people in attending the workshops through your workplace?

Leah: Well, people in my organization knew that these issues were present, it wasn't just my own recognition so I had people interested based on the fact that I was trying to deal with the issues my staff were facing, trying to support them. So I had people just interested because of that, "Ok, well let's go see what this is about."

And I've always been interested in conflict resolution myself having a law background and part of the services that the Residential Tenancy Office offered was arbitration which was an alternative way of resolving conflict, and mediation. I was already working in the alternative conflict resolution field and so I was plugged in to trainers who were already offering alternate dispute resolution skills and in fact I enticed a couple of them to come and work for me as mediators at the Branch.  So we were always trying to figure out how to support staff and how to help people deal with their issues.

MM: I'm really curious to know if you could you sense a change culturally in your organization after introducing NVC?

Leah: Ah... no.

MM: No?

Change Comes One Person At A Time

Leah: The change comes one person at a time because the value of the work depends on how you approach it, right?  If you regard it as a technique it's going to be a technique that you'd use in an exchange with others, but if you regard it as a way of being and an all-encompassing, organic approach to life, almost a spiritual approach to life, then you might be drawn to explore the beauty of needs the way we were in July, which is a more in-depth look at NVC.

MM: I'm really savouring the way you articulated that.  I'm so glad I'm taping this because I want to refer back to when you spoke about NVC being about a way of being.  Were there people who did take in NVC, almost as a spiritual path, who saw the personal value in it for them and its implications?

Leah: Yes, a number of people in the organization have pursued their own paths and part of our history as BCNCC was to organize an IIT (International Intensive Training) in September of 2002.  We were able to arrange practice groups after Marshall's sessions where people were able to participate and get support from their workplaces and try and learn the skills using Lucy Leu's workbook, which was still in draft at that stage.

Having Government-Sponsored Employees Take NVC Training

And from that, we demonstrated that people were experiencing tremendous shifts in their consciousness and in their ability to express their feelings and needs and from that we were able to get government funding to send 8 people to the IIT in September 2002.  So that was a peak accomplishment, if you will, to get government sponsorship for those eight people to attend. 

One of them, for example, is a negotiator with First Nations and has found the work to be of tremendous value in terms of respectful communication in the work that he's doing.

Others were working in front-line Children and Family Services and found that to be extremely helpful in their ability to do their work.  And there were others like myself.  I was just adopting children and I was really interested in the ability to utilize these skills personally as well as at work and in my relationships and there were a number of us that were there for that broad purpose.

MM: Wow, that's amazing, so it wasn't just the Residential Tenancy Branch that attended.  There were many individuals from different departments.

Leah: Oh yes, very much so.  There were mostly people from the Ministeries of Attorney General, Solicitor General, Finance, Forests and Children and Families. 

MM: I was wondering could you recall what was the most satisfying for you about your involvement in promoting NVC in the government?

Leah: Sure, it deeply met my need to encourage others to experience the beauty of Nonviolent Communication.  I consider myself kind of a den mother for baby giraffes, in a way.. (laughter)

MM: So people would come to you during their work day and get some coaching from you or some first-aid empathy?

Leah: No, I wouldn't say that, I was more the "go-to person" if you wanted to pursue your own path in NVC. 

MM: And what were some of the challenges that you faced in trying to tell people about NVC?

Challenges Faced Working with NVC and the Corporate Vision

Leah: The biggest challenge was budget.  I tried to have the work that we had done evaluated on a broad basis as a method of trying to convince the government to adopt it as a core training.  And I didn't succeed at that. It was evaluated and we tried to respond to that evaluation.  But we were never able to get to the point of having other people experience the beauty of NVC, especially the people that we needed to understand it the most.

So it wasn't adopted as a core training for government.  Government had already made its decision about what that would look like.   There were 2 ways we tried to get it adopted on a broad basis in government:

One was getting it evaluated so the work that we did with practice groups, and so on.  And then the other one was to try have it qualified through the BC Bid process, so that the trainers that were certified in BC could offer training and government would pay for it - like an open kind of session where it would be listed as a core training for certain competencies in government and anybody could sign up for it. You'd schedule a series of trainings throughout the year and it would be open to everybody.   And we weren't able to succeed at that either. 

At that point we kind of withdrew. We went to lick our wounds.  However we had succeeded in igniting a passion for NVC in individuals across government. We celebrated that.

It was a great experience and taught me a number of things and one was that your approach to NVC is inextricably linked to your ability to be conscious of how much you have adopted "power over" as opposed to "power with".  If you're ready to give up the domination paradigm then you will accept responsibility for your own feelings and needs and through that experience true freedom. That truth is so radical from the perspective of the domination paradigm that we couldn't "sell it" to government with  what we knew at the time.  I know that in time NVC will succeed in organizations as people adopt it one-by-one.  That will take a long time.  In the meantime, there are trainers who are developing NVC organizational change methodologies that I recommend, please see:  http://www.nvcti.com/creatingsystemicchange

MM: So the individual felt experience, the lived experience of getting in touch, connecting to needs is so vital to supporting NVC?

Leah: Yes, and do whatever you can to sponsor or support others. So part of the reason why I was able to do what I did in government was because I had control of a training budget. So I had, for example, NVC certified trainer, Susan Skye come in and offer introductory NVC to all my 100 staff in 2-day workshops.  And we presented 5-6 workshops to everyone but we couldn't keep it going, you see. 

In order to make it to work for the whole organization I needed a lot more money and I needed a lot more time than I could pull people off the front lines.  So it was very, very difficult and that's why I would certainly be willing to offer my experience to others who want to tackle it from a corporate vision, but I would emphasize that the best way to proceed is to model it and really integrate it and really be able to be your authentic self in every moment, or in as many moments you can in the direct consciousness. And that is the the way to demonstrate to others that there is a way of being that permits you to be authentic in the world.

And I would recommend that people look at the work of Gregg Kendrick and Susan Skye at

http://www.nvcti.com/creatingsystemicchange

MM: That's beautiful.  Thank you, Leah.  Renee I'm wondering if you have any questions you'd like to ask?

RL: Yes, you're not with the government anymore?

Leah: I am, but I'm in a different position now and I don't have 100 staff, I have 8. 

RL: What is it that you're doing now?

Leah: I'm the Director of Legislation and Litigation at the Ministry of Children and Family Development. 

RL: How long did you work with BCNCC?

Leah: From 1999 to 2004-2005.

RL: So that's quite a few years you put into it.  And are you offering NVC in the province through government or personally right now?

Insights – Taking the Core Learnings to Heart

Leah: No, I'm focusing on my home life because I'm a single parent with 2 teenagers who works full time, and I'm developing my own NVC authenticity and integrity. It may be that at some point that would naturally, organically open up into offering NVC to others, but at this moment in time the best way I know how to be authentic is to continue to make my own learning a focus of my present attention.

MM: With BCNCC, I guess because this is my second year on the Board and Renee's first, what I'm finding challenging myself is staying in the giraffe dance with people as we're trying to get tasks done and I was wondering if you had any insights or things you learned along the way working with people that you could share with us.

Leah:    Self-empathy!

(shared giggles)

That's huge, huge, and in-the-moment self-empathy, so if you've got it coming in your face you can turn, look down, give yourself immediate self-empathy and come back into the engagement.  And I describe that because it's easier said than done. 

It's a transition and a transformation all in itself.   And so self-empathy and self-care.  If you're in an engagement that you're struggling with, explain that, that you're really struggling right at the moment and you'd like a moment to be able to slow down and be present with yourself so that you can really be connected with your own feelings and needs and thus express yourself in the way you would like

RL: So it really is about slowing down and taking one step at a time.     

Leah: Yes, I really believe that now, especially after our July session [Living Energy of Needs retreat]. I found that so powerful.

MM: And it's about having the courage to be transparent in the moment with your confusion or whatever is up.

Leah: Yes, I also think this when I say self-care. I know one of the mistakes I made earlier when I was doing all this work was that I wasn't taking enough time for myself to really meditate on NVC and try and take the core learnings into my heart.  So I was approaching it very much from a problem-solving and an intellectual place rather than being heart-centered.

I think that's the transformation that has come about for me is that now I'm recognizing that I want to go forward completely from my heart. And so knowing that, I'm able to say, "I want to focus my attention here for now and I will move forward as I'm ready."

Does that make sense?

MM: (Laughing) yes.

Leah: You can connect with that?

MM: Yes, and what I'm really getting a sense of is your presence, your conscious decision and commitment to take the time to connect with the core learnings, and really take it to heart and have it infuse your everyday life, and it was powerfully expressed, thank you so much. 

Leah: Yes, my pleasure, thank you for hearing that.

RL: I also really connect to what you're sharing and want to express how what you've expressed today will really support us on BNCC with the changes that we're trying to make. We want to represent the community here in BC and also honour the work that's been done and just let people know about you and the other founders and what your visions were and where you are now, to make it more about the education.  And you've taken the steps and I can see an evolution in just what your own personal process was. 

Everyone Comes to NVC in their Own Time in their Own Way

Leah: Yes, I appreciate what you're saying, Renee. And a learning for me is that everyone comes to NVC in their own time, in their own way. 

RL: And how to hold that    - that there isn't a right way or a wrong way and that I about everyone comes to it in their own time.

Leah: Yes, you got it.  That's very beautiful to hear back.

MM: I'm conscious of the time, Leah.  Do you need to get going?  Again thank you so much for your time.

Leah: Thank you, take care.  Good bye.