Communication Skills That Actually Work in Tech

Practical Nonviolent Communication for developers, product teams, and technical leaders. No fluff, just scripts you can use tomorrow.

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Conflict Resolution

Navigating technical disagreements without damage. Handling tense code reviews with grace. Turning architecture debates into collaborative problem-solving.

Feedback Without Fear

Giving constructive feedback that actually lands. Receiving criticism without defensiveness. Creating a culture where feedback strengthens relationships instead of damaging them.

Emotional Safety

Building teams where people can be human. Technical excellence AND empathy. Safe space to admit confusion, ask for help, and make mistakes.

Real-World Application

Compassionate Incident Post-Mortems

Challenge: Production incidents create fear and blame. Person who caused outage becomes target. Learning opportunity lost to defensive reactions and documentation theater.

Approach: Blameless post-mortems with NVC framework. Acknowledge everyone’s feelings (stress, fear, frustration) before analyzing. Focus on system improvements, not individual fault. Celebrate the learning and the fix.

Outcome: Teams learn from mistakes instead of hiding them. People admit errors early instead of covering up. Stronger systems emerge. Trust builds through vulnerability.

Practical Scripts & Resources

NVC Script for Code Review Feedback:

Observation (not judgment): “I see this function handles three different responsibilities”

Feeling: “I feel concerned”

Need: “because I need our codebase to be maintainable when we’re under pressure”

Request: “Would you be willing to consider extracting these into separate functions?”

Compare to: “This code is bad. Refactor it.” Same outcome, builds relationship instead of damaging it.

NVC Script for Receiving Difficult Feedback:

Listen for the need: “It sounds like you need reliability in our deployment process?”

Check understanding: “Are you saying the manual steps create anxiety about Friday deployments?”

Empathize with feeling: “I can see how that would feel stressful”

Find common ground: “I also want our deployments to be predictable. Let’s look at automation options.”

Defensiveness drops when you understand the person, not just debate the technical points.

Four Components of NVC Communication:

1. Observation: What actually happened (no interpretation)
2. Feeling: How you feel about it (not thoughts disguised as feelings)
3. Need: What universal human need is behind that feeling
4. Request: Specific, actionable request (not demand)

Most tech communication skips feelings and needs, going straight from observation to request. The middle parts build understanding and connection.

Common Tech Communication Pitfalls:

• “You should have...” - Implies fault, creates defensiveness
• “Obviously...” - Implies incompetence, damages psychological safety
• “Just...” - Minimizes difficulty, invalidates experience
• “Everyone knows...” - Creates shame about not knowing
• “This is wrong” - Evaluation instead of observation

Notice these patterns in your own speech. Small word changes create big relationship shifts.

NVC for Tech Teams Course

Education & Training

NVC for Tech Teams

Developing a practical Nonviolent Communication course specifically for tech professionals. Focus on conflict resolution, feedback, and building psychological safety.

What You’ll Learn

•Practical NVC techniques for developers
•Real-world scenarios from tech environments
•Scripts and templates for difficult conversations
•Building emotionally safe teams

Course in development. Want to be notified when it launches?

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I share practical NVC techniques adapted for tech teams, real-world scripts you can use in code reviews and retrospectives, and lessons from using communication tools in software development. Join developers and product leaders learning to communicate better.

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