Rehumanizing workplaces, one conversation at a time

A few months ago, Mithra Trust, a mental health non-profit invited me to curate and design a series of collaborative communication sessions for their team.

This October, I facilitated a series of sessions with them.

Our first session together was a facilitated conversation that allowed space for the team members to share their own experiences and challenges, see each other beyond their roles, understand each others’ strengths, and areas where they needed support.

At the end of the engagement, I heard that this conversation made a significant impact and helped them come closer together as a team. That the understanding they gained from listening to each other helped them start identifying and addressing their individual and collective challenges.

In a way, this is the story of many teams: when we work together, it can be so easy to be focused on agenda and driven by goals, KPIs and to-do lists, that we don’t often take the time to speak to each other, human to human.

When we’re focused only on our tasks, we miss out on opportunities to understand each other: an ingredient that’s so vital to working together more effectively!

If you’re a leader or manager, consider what you can do to create connecting conversations to help your team get to know each other and collaborate more effectively.

If you’d like some support, reach out to me by responding to this email and I’ll get back to you to schedule a conversation.

With warm regards,

Ranjitha

PS. If you, like me, have been wondering how to respond to what’s happening in Israel & Palestine, you may find this piece by Oren Jay Sofer helpful: Allowing the heart to open and close during difficult times.

Coming up soon!

1. Calling NVC practitioners in Bangalore: I’ll be hosting an offline meeting for NVC practitioners in Bangalore. This will be an informal meet for us to get to know each other; the timing will be early December. If you live in Bangalore and would like to join this meeting, reply to let me know and I’ll share the details once they’re finalized.

2. New long form Youtube video: I spoke to Christine Dixon of The Ordinary Sacred about Internal Family Systems (IFS) and its connection to NVC. Video coming soon on my Youtube channel in a few days’ time!

PS. Did you know I’ve been publishing one NVC video a day (In 60 sec or less) for over 150 days now? You can watch them here in my series NVC365.

📹 Video of the fortnight

📘 Some more resources for this fortnight:

Article: What does self-awareness really mean?

Social media post: A visual journey through emotional states

🗓️ Upcoming events

On request, the Introduction to Spiral Dynamics workshop is being offered again this November. Read more about it here.

Having attended the last edition of this workshop, I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in understanding how their own perspective and NVC practice evolves over time; while also understanding:

∞ The evolution of our own consciousness
∞ The evolution of our communities
∞ Why conflict can occur in NVC teams and communities—even when we share the same needs and purpose
∞ The polarization that's happening across the world today

And most of all, it's helped me get insight into how we can see the practice of NVC with different lenses, and how I can move towards a perspective that is truly both/and.

Click here to sign up.

Other events:

1. Meet the first generation NVC-ers, the first-ever generation of trainers certified by Marshall Rosenbergs on Wednesday, November 8 at 10AM PDT/ 10.30PM IST. Zoom link here.

2. Fundraiser & NVC learning event: Learn NVC and contribute to the building of an NVC school in Kenya with this fundraiser, Nov 17-19. Sliding scale and scholarship options are available Click here to know more about this initiative. Sign up here.