Satya Nadella had Microsoft execs read 15-year-old psychology book

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asked members of his executive
  team to read the book “Nonviolent Communication” after he took
  over in 2014, in an effort to change the company’s culture.
• At the time, Microsoft was known for having a culture of
  hostility, infighting, and backstabbing.
• The book describes how people often fail at describing
  how they feel, and it’s one of the biggest barriers to
  effective communication.

One of the biggest barriers to effective communication is being
unable to describe how you really feel.

That’s one of the big takeaways from the book Microsoft CEO Satya
Nadella made the members of his senior leadership team read when
he took over for Steve Ballmer in 2014.

At the time,
Microsoft was reeling from bitter infighting, hostility, and
internal politics among its highest executives. Nadella’s goal
was to transform the company’s culture, and so at his first
executive meeting, he passed out copies of the 2003 book
“Nonviolent
Communication” by psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg.

I read “Nonviolent Communication” and realized exactly why
Nadella thought it could turn Microsoft around. Although the book
has nothing to do with business, it provides a critical lesson in
leadership and teamwork.

Read more: 
How
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did what Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates
couldn’t

According to the book, communication between people often breaks
down when we fail to accurately convey how we feel.

Often, when we try to express a feeling, it comes out as a
judgment or criticism of someone else. For example, if you say,
“I feel like I’m being misunderstood,” you’re not actually
expressing a feeling — you’re just assessing someone else’s
ability to understand you. Perhaps the underlying feeling is
anxiety, annoyance, or something else.

Likewise, a thought like “I feel unimportant to the people with
whom I work” also doesn’t express an actual feeling; it simply
describes how you think other people are evaluating you. The
underlying feeling might be sadness, discouragement, or
frustration.

Rosenberg goes on to list several words we often use to describe
how we feel that are actually just interpretations of other
people’s actions. If you catch yourself using any of these words
to describe your feelings, he suggests taking a moment to
reevaluate the underlying feeling prompting those thoughts.

Words we use to express what other people are doing to
us, rather than how we actually feel:

• abandoned
• abused
• attacked
• betrayed
• bullied
• cheated
• diminished
• intimidated
• let down
• manipulated
• misunderstood
• neglected
• overworked
• patronized
• pressured
• rejected
• taken for granted
• threatened
• unappreciated
• unheard
• unsupported
• unwanted
• used

On the other hand, here are some of the words that could
describe how we actually feel when we we evaluate people with
those words:

• alarmed
• angry
• anxious
• ashamed
• confused
• disgusted
• displeased
• embarrassed
• exhausted
• furious
• guilty
• jealous
• miserable
• nervous
• resentful
• sad
• shocked
• surprised
• suspicious
• terrified
• uncomfortable
• uneasy
• worried

Arming yourself with a better vocabulary for expressing your
feelings is key to getting your needs met in any situation,
Rosenberg writes.

“When we express our needs indirectly through the use of
evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to
hear criticism,” he writes. “And when people hear anything that
sounds like criticism, they tend to invest their energy in
self-defense or counterattack.”

For example, imagine the response you might get if you accuse a
coworker of insulting you, or say something like, “I feel so
insulted.” Now, Rosenberg writes, imagine the response if you
clearly articulated your feelings, like in the sentence, “I feel
angry when you say that, because I am wanting respect and I hear
your words as an insult.”

“If we wish for a compassionate response from others, it is
self-defeating to express our needs by interpreting or diagnosing
their behavior,” he writes. “Instead, the more directly we can
connect our feelings to our own needs, the easier it is for
others to respond to us compassionately.”

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