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How we hold "responsibility" and "accountability" in NVC?


This weekend I am attending a training sponsored by the Mankind Project, an international men's organization that I belong to.

One of the concepts we have worked with is that of responsibility / accountability, which are things that I have held confusion about, in particular how to define them in the context of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

One of the things that, in the past, has snagged me, is the idea that responsibility is about me blaming and criticizing someone when things don't go the way I would like -- whether that someone is another person or myself!

In other words, you are "held accountable" by having me point out to you the wrongness of your actions. Ouch!

Instead, I would like to offer definitions of responsibility and accountability in the framework of NVC, as I understand it:

1. I am 100% responsible for my actions, feelings and thoughts. Not 95%, not 99%, but one hundred percent!;

2. You are 100% responsible for your actions, feelings and thoughts.

There are no 2 ways about it -- if we fail to be clear about these first 2 points, we are doomed to recreating unhealthy patterns of relating to each other.

3. By understanding points #1 and #2, this supports me in having compassion for you. In other words, by not taking "responsibility," it frees me up to be more "responsIVE" and empathetic -- and genuinely display compassion for whatever comes alive in you in response to what I did or said; and

4. In order to meet my own need for learning and growing, I become accountable for my actions by actively seeking feedback -- by having a sincere curiosity about how you received my words or actions. And of course, it's a lot easier to open myself to feedback when I have let myself, and you, "off the hook" by not implying anyone is to blame or is wrong for what occurred.

By these definitions, the ideas of responsibility and accountability are things I want to move closer to, rather than run away from based on the old definitions based on wrong, bad, inappropriate, shame or punishment.

How about for you?
Posted Sun, 2008-11-30 19:40 by Jeff Brown

Comments

what is responsability exactly?

by Anonymous - 2010-10-05 05:04

I have a problem with clearly defining responsability.

a video to demonstrate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0

Are the chess-players in this video responsible for their feeling? Even if Derren would not explain how the trick works?
What does it mean then, really to be responsible?

from wiktionary:

1. Answerable for an act performed or for its consequences; accountable; amenable, especially legally or politically.

Parents are responsible for their child's behaviour.

2. Capable of responding to any reasonable claim; able to answer reasonably for one's conduct and obligations; capable of rational conduct.

3. Involving responsibility; involving a degree of personal accountability on the part of the person concerned.

She has a responsible position in the firm.

4. Being a primary cause or agent of some event or action; capable of being credited for something, or of being held liable for something.

Who is responsible for this mess?

5. Able to be trusted; reliable; trustworthy.

He looks like a responsible guy.

Already this clarifies that being responsible means a lot of different things.

Part 1 of the definition gives as an example:

Parents are responsible for their child's behaviour.

If they are, then they cannot apply for the NVC framework. But of course we know they can. So here allready the NVC definition is not in accordance with the wiktionary definition. Strange, no?

Part 4 talks about being a primary cause or agent of some event or action.

That is not what NVC means by being responsible. I thought. It is about your feelings you are responsible, not the action that happens.

So I lack a clear definition of what "being responsible" means in NVC terms. I can understand it helps conversation if you try to be responsible for your own feelings, but are you?

What makes you responsible?
What makes it possible to act responsibly?

Another example:
What makes one person being able to deal with rape without all to big problems and another to want to destroy the other and themselves?

I think one part of it is confusion. Feelings are mixed, needs are mixed, so the picture doesn't get clear and the pain stays in the foreground.

What if you have a "blackout" because you have had a traumatic experience. In which way are you responsible then?

I will mail this to NVC directly as I see it is an old post, so probably no one will react to it.

But if someone does read it, i'd be happy for your thoughts on this.

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