The course description for Compassionate Communication Skills 200 at Google:

Compassionate Communication Skills 200

Practice compassionate communication skills

Prerequisite

Prior completion of all sessions and exercises of Compassionate Communication Skills 101 is REQUIRED.

Details

Join this workshop to get support and keep developing your compassionate communication skills. Practice on your own actual challenges in small groups:

  • Maybe you just came out of a difficult conversation and don't know what you'll say next.
  • You might be concerned about an upcoming meeting and want a plan for how to handle it.
  • Or you might want to know how to give critical feedback to a coworker in a way they can more easily hear.

In this standalone one-hour session, you'll work with 1-2 others to sort through what's important to you and optionally plan next steps. It is a like a practice group for learning a new language, not a lecture, and requires that you are already familiarity with the concepts of NVC. You are welcome to return repeatedly, whenever you'd like to practice these skills.

Format

Attend in-person or by videoconferences

If VC, join with camera on and from a private room or using headphones. This supports connection and preserves confidentiality.

Arrive and get settled (first 5 minutes)

  • Share recent experiences with Compassionate Communication, or ask questions.
  • If it's your first session, your experience with compassionate communication/NVC.
  • Optional: What you hope to get out of the workshop.

Check-In (next 5 minutes, up to 1 minute per person)

Meet and warm-up our empathy skills.

  • Briefly name 1-2 Feelings and/or Needs you're currently noticing in yourself.
    • One sentence for each is OK, no need for the full story.
  • Agree to hold confidentiality, and to focus free from distractions.

Split and work in groups of 2-3 (40 minutes, up to 20 minutes per person)

Empathy and plan next steps.

  • Speaker goes through process, beginning with receiving empathy guesses.
  • One person supports the speaker with empathy guesses, helping them go through the process to plan next steps.
  • Optional third person observes.
  • Then switch to a second speaker.

Debrief and Q&A (5 minutes)

Discuss the work and Compassionate Communication theory and/or practice.

Check-Out (last 5 minutes, up to 1 minute per person)

Cool-down and wrap up.

  • If you're willing to, briefly name 1-2 feelings and/or needs you're currently noticing in yourself.
  • One sentence is OK, no need for the full story.

Testimonials

As much as the class was useful the workshop format is even better. Breaking out into groups of three gives time for in-depth explorations of compassionate communication themes. Practicing discussions that have proved challenging in a small group is very helpful.

In this session we were allowed to be open and vulnerable with any issue and the group provided helpful suggestions for resolutions. It was nice to just say the issue without judgement and everyone comes together to help you solve it.

Workshop is useful. Time well spent. Facilitators are great in creating a secure environment for sharing your thoughts and providing valuable feedback.

This is a skill and knowledge that you can take away with you at any job ladder. Highly recommend anyone at Google to join this workshop.

It's hard to improve NVC skills without practice and this workshop provides the perfect setting for it.

Being vulnerable is difficult for almost everyone, but the facilitators do a great job about creating the atmosphere of psychological safety.

If all Googlers had access to this knowledge / language, collaboration and goal-achieving would skyrocket.

Compassionate Communication is largely a new language for engineers, learning how to use it helps me to increase my empathy.

I came to the workshop not remembering much from the intro that I took a full year ago. This refreshed my recollection, gave me a chance to practice (making it more likely I can use it proactively in the future), helped me with a current problem, AND made me feel better being able to help a colleague.

This is an hour well-spent, and I believe will have lasting positive ripple-effects on both the personal and professional challenges I face.

The framework is very helpful, but it takes practice to learn to apply it in challenging situations. This practical workshop is just that, in a safe and supportive environment. Highly recommended.

This class was a helpful way to look at problems (in business and otherwise) through a different lens than we normally do. I left with more clarity about how to approach my problems as well as a more effective set of strategies for working through them with others.