The power of idea's

As I have mentioned in previous posts, some of us have been introducing NVC principles to North Hennepin Community College. We have created a set of meeting guidelines for committee meetings around the concept of needs. Essentially, we invite participants to identify met or unmet needs that they are currently experiencing in the beginning and end of meetings. We have hoped that this will increase connection, and that trust and respect will follow.
I have recently spoken to some colleagues who have received this very brief and informal training. Their interpretation was that it was “top-down” and that they did not trust the process. My guess is that they were in need understanding, safety, freedom and choice. At any rate, it reminded me how important it is to invite people to participate without judgment or demand.
I think that “good ideas” (i.e. ways of making the campus a better place, ways of getting people to get a long, ways of promoting peace) are met with resistance at an institutional level because of a need for choice and freedom, the freedom and choice to say no, not participate and express doubt. Often when “new initiatives” are taken on, the energy and thrust behind them leaves little room for the individual to disagree, lest they become a “downer”, “skeptic” or “negative”. Most education, training, good idea or movement has air of righteousness to it, that preferences the idea over the person. The thrust behind the movements’ argument is often: “if I can get you to do something the way I want you to, you will soon be enlightened enough to understand and accept.” All of history seems to be one convincing and profound idea after the next. Inevitably, this is always met with resistance. This is because there is a kind of tyranny of solutions and good ideas, no matter how “good”, peaceful, or democratic they are. Our enlightened knowledge, our supreme vision for the world, whatever it may be, can only be heard if those we are educating can trust that they will not be punished or judged for an unpopular opinion. Actually this means that we have to change our objective from educating (no matter how enlightened, or knowledgeable we are), to connecting.
In my opinion the beauty and power of a process like NVC is that it is premised on the principle that acknowledges all perspectives and needs, regardless of their popularity. With NVC the goal is only to connect rather than to get people to do things your way. I believe that we will find that if our goal is to do anything other than connect, (i.e. To convince, to remind, to tell, to educate etc.) we will always be met with resistance, doubt and mistrust.