In Nonviolent Communication, Dr Rosenberg recommends that “We take responsibility for our feelings, rather than blame other people, by acknowledging our own needs, desires, expectations, values, or thoughts”.
In the following sentences, select the sentences where the speaker is acknowledging responsibility for his or her feelings: (Yes or No)
- “You irritate me because you keep biting your nails in meetings”
- “I feel discouraged when you reject my ideas”
- “I am grateful that you brought some water for me because I needed to take my tablets now”
- “I feel happy that you got promoted”
- “I am disappointed that I couldn’t finish my task on time”
- “I am afraid of speaking up because the customer is often critical”
- “I got angry because your slides had spelling mistakes”
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Suggested Solution:
- No. Speaker is blaming his/her irritated feeling on the observed behaviour of colleague.
- No. Speaker believes his/her discouragement is because of other person’s behaviour. Would be better articulated: “I felt discouraged when you rejected my idea because I needed a boost to my self-image”. This way you are articulating the underlying need for your feeling.
- Yes. Speaker is associated feeling of gratefulness with his/her met need.
- No. To express his/her needs underlying the feeling, it would have been better to say, “I When your promotion was announced, I felt happy because I was hoping that you would be recognized for all your commitment and excellence over the years”.
- Yes. Speaker is taking responsibility for his/her feeling.
- No. Speaker is implying his/her fear is because of the customer’s behavioural tendencies. Better to express by calling out his/her need – “I need my ideas to be accepted to raise my confidence level in this role and hence I am afraid of speaking freely in front of the customer who tends to analyse ideas critically.”
- No. Speaker’s underlying need is not expressed. This sentence comes across as though the other person is responsible for the speaker’s anger.
2 Responses
Velocity of each individual iteration will be a different figure. There are many ways velocity gets impacted. Apart from planned absence (planned leave, training etc.) and holidays, there could be unplanned absences caused by illness, personal emergency etc. which impact velocity. User stories that do not get completed in an iteration get moved to next iteration. This brings down the velocity of the iteration where the story was started and bumps up the velocity of the iteration where it got completed. This being the situation, good practice is to take an average of last five or six iterations as the velocity of the team. Team stability is another factor that impacts velocity. Teams that have higher churn will see higher volatility in velocity. Other factors such as change in technology, adoption of new tools, increase in automation, will also impact velocity either positively or negatively! However, if team is stable and has reached “performing stage” steady rise in average velocity will be seen over a period of time till any of the factors mentioned above comes into play and impacts it.
Thanks Milind, fully agree with your comment.
Finally, irrespective of the increasing trend in velocity, there is improvement for sure. This cannot be missed, if observed. One of the intent of my blog is to encourage this observation, by taking a mildly provocative stand.