What People Have Said about Us and our Work.

At MLCT we value people's needs and hearing about the impact our work has had on their lives.

Here follows some feedback from the people we've worked with.

Reham, a director responsible for the organisational development of a large IT Corporation (LINKdotNET) from Egypt, said, after having been coached by Andy for 1.5 years;

"Understanding my needs was the starting point for understanding my feelings and behaviour. Before working with Andy, I was relating my feelings to reactions of other people - so I was often waiting for people to change to get things done at work. While waiting, my feelings were not positive at most times disallowing me to think clearer on my projects and in a way my mood was blocking my "ears from listening".

Today, I can relate the reactions of other people to my needs. For example, "this reaction did not meet my need for respect, or my need for trust, or my need for choice" etc.. Once I am AWARE of my needs, I am on the start line of DECIDING on what to do next with a much more peaceful and clearer mind. Today, it takes a couple of minutes or a couple of hours maximum a day to know my needs when a situation takes place. then I become extremely focused again on my work.

Now, I am even able to express my needs or at least try doing so as much as I can using "ofnr"* - requesting from myself or others something that will meet my unmet need. Sometimes thinking of what to request or asking for it is an easy process and sometimes it is NOT - but focusing on the "ofnr"* approach just makes life much easier for me and for people around me. "Ofnr"* is an easy language of getting understood by all people from different backgrounds and expectations. And this is what my work mandates - to work with people across all departments to resolve or improve organizational performance.

Moving further, I can imagine the needs of others, or at least I try. Trying to understand the other persons needs helps me to have more empathy for the person even if this person has done something that did not meet one of my core needs. Having emapthy helps me become more peaceful and hence once again I can keep my mind in a more clear and peaceful state. Not to mention the fact that I can probably not get my needs met without getting the needs of others met too. Getting everyone's needs met is not an easy process and is sometiems extremely hectic - yet it pays off, creating a more peaceful culture and in turn a more creative and productive one."

A charity in Brighton, UK

During a Mediation between two managers, the second session showed none of the anger and raised voices present in the first.  Both parties said that

"...their relationship was much better with more trust, respect and understanding."

They are now making joint plans for their overlapping work.

The Refugee Council in London, UK

Helping a whole team improve relationships among themselves and with other departments: the training manager says:

“I've had some great feedback from C. He went ahead with the session in the team meeting giving the team the opportunity to voice their concerns and issues using the model [you introduced].  He was able to have a productive session with them. He feels very much that the training has had a positive impact on the team and he noticed in particular that there was "less hiding" and they were more comfortable in saying "I said this", or "I did this". C is very pleased.”

During mediation at a mental health organisation in London the manager said:

“It’s how I talk to J rather than the content [that can cause conflict]”. 

J acknowledged that ‘we both contribute [to conflict between us]’. 

She said of her manager:

“[I will] try and understand where he’s coming from – listen to him and ask for further explanation, [and] ask politely”.

Introducing methods for conflict resolution as part of a child protection project in Lebanon, the staff of a local NGO report how they used the thinking and skills (translated from Arabic):

“This is how the training impacted on a case of sexual and physical abuse of a child from mother and father (where some thought there was no solution): If we build a positive relationship with people, then they also start to change their violent relationships into positive ones. In this case we built friendship with the mother and slowly began to ask her about how dirty the house is, and then we began to talk to her about how and why she hits her children. First she began taking care of the house. Slowly she then started to speak to her children not beat them, and then she began to take her daughter from her husband’s bed.”

A team member talks about working with a refugee in Beirut:

“One woman, describing her judgements and frustration about her washing machine not working, understood that it was her needs for support, connection and acceptance that were creating feelings of deep frustration (not being local, she didn’t know anybody who could help her fix her machine).  She saw that her initial judgements of herself, i.e. for being ‘stupid’ and ‘incompetent’ were not correct.  When these needs were highlighted she said ‘that’s exactly right’”

The NGO staff team incorporated the training into their own work:

“Within our team we had problems because we each have different roles and jobs so we wanted to do the work differently with different outcomes. So we really needed this process or we could not have worked together”

And the Project Coordinator says:

“Using NVC in my work gave me a better tool in communicating with people, so it helped me understand myself and the other better than before by looking for feelings and needs.  It helped decrease my frustration and anger at times where otherwise I would have been very upset"

Training psychologists and other staff from agencies including the UN, Save the Children and Terres des hommes in Syria and Jordan: one psychologist said;

“It's a new revolutionary idea and I'm glad that I can share it.”

 

*OFNR stands for 'observation', 'feelings', 'needs' and 'requests' which are some of the key steps in 'nonviolent communication'