And a no still felt out of reach.
MAKING ROOM FOR NO, PART TWO OF FOUR (see the series)
Camille is a composite drawn from several situations I have encountered. I have combined and changed details to protect the people involved.
Last time, I introduced you to Camille. She is newer to a community organization doing racial equity work. One evening, a longtime member asked if she would talk with reporters about what it is like to grow up Black in Harlem. Camille knew her answer was no. She said, “Let me think about it,” and by the end of the meeting her name was on the interview schedule.
Today I want to look more closely at the request itself.
Here is roughly how he asked:
“When I think about the reporters coming, I feel excited and a little tender. I care so much about this work being seen beyond our own walls. Camille, would you be willing to be one of the people they interview, and talk about what it was like to grow up Black in Harlem?”
If you have studied Nonviolent Communication, this may sound familiar. He shares what is alive in him. He connects it to something he cares about. His request is clear and doable. There is no blame in it, and no word you could point to as pressure.
And Camille still did not feel free to say no.
People sometimes ask me whether NVC can be used to manipulate. Yes, the language of NVC can be used that way. Any skill with words can. I can learn to name feelings and needs, shape a lovely and specific request, and still care more about getting my yes than about the person who has to answer me.
That is NVC as a grammar. The consciousness NVC invites asks something deeper of me. I can care a great deal about my need. I can hold it firmly, even urgently, and keep working until it is met. For people whose needs have been ignored for a long time, being told to let go of a need can feel like being asked to give up power. NVC leaves room to hold our needs firmly. The openness it invites is about strategy: how the need gets met, and whether this particular person will be the one to meet it.
When I have quietly decided that you are the only acceptable way forward, my request carries demand energy, however gently I phrase it. You usually cannot tell which one you are hearing from the words alone. You find out when the other person hesitates. So let’s watch what happened when Camille hesitated.
She said, “Let me think about it.” He smiled and said, “Of course. It would mean so much to the group.”
His warmth may truly have been genuine. And yet, Camille now knows a little more about what her answer might mean. A no would decline an interview. It would also hold back something that “would mean so much” to people whose welcome she is still hoping for.
He also asked in front of everyone. My readiness to ask is not the same as your readiness to answer. When I ask in public, especially when I have more standing, history, or influence in a group, I make an honest no more challenging, whether I intend to or not.
One of my early teachers pointed out something I still think about. When we learn a practice like NVC, we may become skilled at asking long before the people around us become skilled at declining. Most people have had no training at all in saying no to a warm, well-crafted request from someone they respect. My skill lands on top of their conditioning to please, to belong, and to avoid being the difficult one.
He may have experienced the whole moment as warm and completely voluntary. Camille may have experienced it as a test with edges she could not see. Both can be true at the same time. This is often how power moves through a room when nobody intends harm.
A request is only as free as the no it can survive.
The practice that has changed my own requests the most is simple. Before I ask, especially when I care a lot about the answer, I look for at least three ways the need under my request could be met. It helps me notice when I have unconsciously put the sole responsibility for my needs on one person.
His need was for the group’s work to be seen. He could hold that need as firmly as he wanted. Camille was one way to meet it. He could speak with the reporters himself. He could invite anyone who felt a real yes to volunteer. The group could offer written stories that members chose to share. If Camille knows there are other paths, and that she is one option among several, she can answer freely instead of carrying his need alone.
When I hold more power in the room, I may also need to name my openness to other strategies explicitly: “I would love a yes, and a no is completely fine. We have other ways to do this.”
The harder part is to mean it. If I tell you your no is welcome and then turn a little cooler or more distant when you give it, you learn what my requests really mean. So does everyone watching.
Learning to ask well is a real skill. The practice becomes whole when I can also receive your no well.
In your experience
Think of a yes you received recently. What made no a real option for that person? If they had said no, what would have happened between you?
An invitation
In FACE Talks (Fostering Antiracist Conversations and Engagement), my six-week course on conversations about race, power, and equity, we practice both sides of this moment: asking in ways that leave room for no, and finding our own no when a room seems to have no space for it.
The fall cohort begins Friday, October 30 and meets six Fridays through December 11, with no session November 27, from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm Pacific on Zoom. If this is work you want more capacity for, I would love to have you with us. Learn more and register.
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