This week, CNVC’s new executive director will begin to hold meetings with certified trainers about CNVC’s future. In this context, I want to raise into collective awareness that, in my assessment, CNVC has been functioning illegally for the last two years.

To be clear, I am not saying CNVC has violated criminal law. However, I believe CNVC has been acting in a manner inconsistent with U.S. civil law. I realize this is a serious thing to assert. Yet, I experience these as serious circumstances.

My intention is not to make anyone “bad.” I don’t think a focus on finding fault would serve anybody. Rather, I hope to call attention to a way in which things have seemingly gone “off course,” and, thus, invite us all back towards a more life-serving path.

FAILURE TO HONOR CNVC’S CONTRACTS

The CNVC Board ratified the document “Process for a New Future” and publicly announced it in April 2014. I believe a strong case can be made that this document, and the Board’s subsequent assurances to the NVC community, satisfied the requirements for functioning as a legal contract:

1. In announcing the New Future Process, CNVC made an offer to people in the NVC network.
2. People from the network then accepted that offer, by doing the work that the CNVC Board invited them to do. They participated in the Synanim process, accepted Board-ratified roles in nine Working Groups, developed decisions for CNVC, and worked on the Integration Council to finalize and ratify the New Future Plan.
3. The agreement involved consideration, in which CNVC promised something of value in return for receiving something of value:
   1. CNVC received labor from people, which was otherwise unpaid.
   2. In return for people’s labor in the NF Process, CNVC promised:
      1. “the CNVC Board is handing over power to others to make decisions that are likely to profoundly impact CNVC”;
      2. “The current Board and staff of CNVC will not retain a veto”;
      3. “once the Integration Council ratifies an integrated plan for moving forward, the CNVC Board is committed to supporting that plan [i.e., the New Future Plan]”;
      4. “The existing CNVC Board will be replaced using the mechanism specified by the integrated plan [i.e., the New Future Plan]”;
      5. “The CNVC Board… will work with the Implementation Council to address implementing those aspects of the plan that involve the current CNVC legal entity.” [Specifically, the NF Plan called for the CNVC Board to amend CNVC’s bylaws.]

Members of the NVC community, who had been specifically invited and approved to do this work by the CVNC Board, invested over 6000 hours of labor and completed their part of the contract by ratifying the New Future Plan.

As I see it, the CNVC Board then defaulted on the contract. The CNVC Board failed to transition power to the new governance structure, as CNVC had promised.

* * *

To me, this is like someone offering to sell a business, accepting the payment that had been agreed to, then saying, “I’ve changed my mind” (without offering a refund), and then declining to participate in any further discussion of the agreement.

(Can you imagine how shocking it would be to be on the receiving end of such behavior?)

I understand that the Board had concerns about the performance of the Implementation Council. While those concerns were triggered by observations, as someone close to the events involved, I believe the beliefs around which those concerns were centered were tragically mistaken. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to dialog about those concerns and beliefs.

However, even if Board members had been accurate in the conclusions they had drawn, I believe that their personal concerns about the Implementation Council were largely irrelevant from a contractual standpoint.

As I interpret the terms laid out above, the contract was not between the CNVC Board and the Implementation Council. The contract was between CNVC and the people who worked in the Working Groups and ratified the New Future Plan.

Once the NF Plan had been ratified, the contract committed the Board to transition CNVC to “new management” — regardless of whether or not individual Board members approved of that new management. (To me, what the CNVC Board did was like a politician refusing to leave office because they don’t agree with the politics of the person elected to replace them. If such behavior is tolerated, it spells disaster for the rule of law, and for the possibility of a peaceful society.)

In summary, for the last two years, I see CNVC as operating in breach of contract.

FAILURE TO HONOR THE BOARD MEMBERS’ DUTY OF OBEDIENCE

As I understand it, legally, the members of a U.S. nonprofit Board of Directors have three “fiduciary responsibilities”: the Duty of Care (attending to their board responsibilities “as any prudent and ordinary person would”), the Duty of Loyalty (placing the interests of the organization above personal interests), and the Duty of Obedience (abiding by laws, regulations, and the governance agreements of the organization).

I interpret the current CNVC Board members as having failed to abide by the governance agreements of the organization, and thus, having failed to honor their legal Duty of Obedience.

The Process for a New Future and the New Future Plan were, functionally, governance agreements that were each established by following the prior governance agreements within CNVC. The NF Process and NF Plan were governance agreements in that they specified how certain key decisions were to be made within CNVC, and how CNVC’s governance was to be evolved going forward.

The CNVC Board had also made other governance agreements, including (1) a verbal agreement to bring onto the Board only Board members who were committed to honoring the agreements in the Process for a New Future, and (2) a written agreement (documented in Board minutes) to bring Dominic Barter back onto the Board for purposes of participating in any decisions the Board might make that would significantly impact the New Future Process.

I struggle to find evidence of the Board honoring any of these governance agreements.

Thus, I interpret the current CNVC Board as operating in a manner inconsistent with the legal Duty of Obedience of Board members.

FAILURE TO HONOR THE TERMS OF DONATIONS

Through a different lens, some people might argue that participants in the New Future Process were “donating” their labor to CNVC. However, if so, these were donations with terms attached. Failure to honor the terms of donations is a very serious matter for a nonprofit. It can result in loss of the organization’s tax-exempt legal status.

(I don’t know if this risk applies, in practice, to non-financial donations. However, I would hope that the principle would be honored, regardless.)

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

I feel quite certain that current Board members do not see things the way that I do. (Though, as a former CNVC Board member who was on the Board when the contract was enacted, and who appointed the first of the current Board members, I would hope that my perspective might carry some weight.)

I would guess that the current Board members did not think about their choices from the perspective of there being a potentially enforceable legal contract, and have not considered their choices in light of the Board members’ Duty of Obedience.

If Board members have not considered these issues, then that makes the Board members’ choices legally understandable.

However, if this is the case, it does not make the perspective I offer here wrong, nor does it make the Board’s actions legal. It’s a well-established principle that ignorance of the law (or not thinking about it) does not excuse one from the obligation to honor the law.

LEGAL VS. NVC PERSPECTIVES

I am not eager to engage this situation from a purely legalistic perspective. I see humanity as evolving through multiple stages, which I see as increasingly life-serving:

1. “Might makes right”
2. The Rule of Law
3. Care for everyone’s needs, and Restorative Justice

I see it as part of CNVC’s mission to advocate for and exemplify, #3, which I believe reflects the type of “use of power” implicit in NVC. Applying this NVC-based approach, in a context of genuine partnership, would be my preference. However, I see no indications that #3, “Care for everyone’s needs, and Restorative Justice” is on the menu of what the CNVC Board is currently willing and able to offer.

I don’t want us to revert to #1, “Might makes right.”

I believe that the legal principles I’m bringing attention to are designed to care for values that are important to our collective social well-being. Even if approach #3 were available, it would be important to me for the needs underlying my legal analysis to be taken into account.

While it’s possible to do even better, I see #2, “The Rule of Law,” as the least we should expect of our organizations and our leaders.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE

To those participating in the discussions between CNVC and Certified Trainers:

• I request that you take these legal considerations (and associated needs) into account, as you consider what it might make sense for CNVC to do.

To the leadership of CNVC:

• I request that you consider how CNVC could care for the legal concerns I have raised, and that you engage in a publicly observable dialog process, involving those on the “other side” of the contract, to collectively and collaboratively determine how best to move forward.

To other readers:

• I request that you consider how you might increase the likelihood of legal concerns (and other related concerns) being addressed in a way that serves life.

I also welcome hearing about any ways in which this message contributed to you.

Respectfully,

Bob Wentworth
Santa Cruz, CA (at present)

My intention in this message is to share my perceptions of the state of the New Future Process.

I understand why some people have concluded that the New Future Process and Plan are dead. Yet, I don’t see things that way.

In my view, the Board delivered an all-but-fatal blow to NFP. *

Yet, regarding the current state of NFP, I personally believe that more revealing metaphors for the situation would be to say that “NFP has been in a Board-induced coma,” or “NFP has been locked inside a Board-controlled dungeon.”

In the narrative the Board has offered, failure of NF Plan implementation had become inevitable, and the Board was simply acknowledging that sad reality. However, to me, that position (which I assess as poorly informed) reflects an extreme breakdown in shared reality.

At the point when the Board announced its disengagement from the NF Process, my assessment (as a close observer and participant) was that NF Plan implementation was on the brink of success. The Implementation Council, and legions of volunteers, had been very hard at work, quietly laying down a great deal of ground-work for subsequent implementation steps which would soon have become increasingly visible.

All the ground-work that WAS completed REMAINS completed.

I am convinced that, if the Board-induced barriers to NF Plan implementation were completely removed today, then the implementation process could resume tomorrow, and dramatic changes would become visible within a few months.

(There would be some delay in order to re-build the teams of people doing the work. Some of those who were doing the work before are unlikely to be willing to return, since the actions of the Board had a devastating impact on them. Yet, I feel certain that the work could be carried forward.)

* * *

Since the Board took action, as announced in its April 25, 2018 letter, Board members have seemingly maintained a position that “there is no possibility of changing what has happened, and all that is left is to mourn and move on.” (This is a summary of my understanding of the communications that took place between the Board and the Implementation Council.) I have been unable to interpret this position as anything other than an example of what Marshall called Amtssprache, life-alienating language used by those with structural power in order to deny responsibility.

The narrative of “it’s done and in the past” seems to me to have functioned as an excuse to block any possibility of dialog about how to address the needs that have been extraordinarily unmet by the Board’s choices in relation to NFP.

It is simply not true that there is no possibility of changing the situation.

Board members could choose to resurrect the New Future Process instantly, if they were willing to do so. The Board could today (1) allow itself to be replaced by a new Board selected in the manner agreed in the New Future Plan, and/or (2) vote to adopt the bylaw changes specified in the New Future Plan  —both actions that CNVC had guaranteed the community and those who invested in the NF Process that the Board would take — and the single most important and difficult piece of NF Plan implementation would have been completed. The New Future Process would again be fully alive.

The New Future Process is in its current state only because CNVC Board members continue to choose to enforce that state.

(And, because the NVC community continues to collectively tolerate the Board making the choices it does — or can’t imagine a way of acting collectively to create a change.)

* * *

I experience the New Future Process as being suspended, rather than dead.

I don’t endorse the narrative that NFP is dead, because such a narrative artificially closes off possible choices. Closing off options that are still possible in principle is a choice.

I have a dream that we as a community will come together to find a way to care for ALL the needs that are alive in this situation.

When and if that day comes, I want all potential strategies for caring for needs to still be “on the table.” I believe we owe ourselves no less.

* * *

If this message has contributed to you in some way, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Respectfully,

Bob Wentworth
Eugene, Oregon, USA

——————————
*I have seen indications which suggest to me that the Board did not actually intend to entirely kill NFP. Rather, I have the impression that the Board members’ understanding of NFP has been so extremely poor that they apparently did not “get” why the enforcement of their demand that NFP implementation be “separate from CNVC” would inevitably constitute an almost certainly fatal blow. I saw evidence of this in Board member Ronnie Hausheer’s January 14, 2019, message to the trainers list, in which she shocked many of us by asking “what is happenning with NFP?” If the Board did not intend to kill off NFP, the consequences of the Board taking the action it did (and then apparently being unwilling to dialog about the situation except from a stance of “no change is possible”) seems to me all the more tragic.

[There is also a one-page version of this message, at the bottom of this page.]

Given recent questions on the CNVC trainers list about what if any accountability the CNVC Board owes to others, I would like to offer a way of thinking about this that goes beyond superficial legalities. I think it is important to consider:

Who are the “owners” of CNVC?

I don’t mean “owners” in a legal sense, but more in a “moral” sense: on whose behalf does the organization exist? A roughly equivalent question is:

Whose needs and opinions matter in CNVC?

BEGINNING

According to its bylaws, CNVC has always technically been a membership organization, in which CNVC’s Members elect the Board of Directors.. However, in practice, no CNVC Board has ever designated any Members. Consequently, the CNVC Board of Directors has always selected its own directors..

These bylaws suggest that the possibility of CNVC someday being “owned” by a larger group has been there from CNVC’s first days.

MARSHALL’S ERA

During the decades when Marshall was alive and active in CNVC, I believe that CNVC effectively functioned as if Marshall was the “moral owner.” His needs and opinions mattered more than anyone else’s.

Sometimes words were said about serving a larger community. Yet, I have the impression that what CNVC did in practice tended to accommodate what Marshall wanted and only infrequently responded to what those in the larger NVC community would have liked.

POST-MARSHALL TRANSITION

I was on the first CNVC Board of Directors after Marshall’s departure. Given Marshall’s departure, CNVC could not continue as it had been, with Marshall at its center. It was natural for CNVC transition to serving the NVC network, in a way that it had never fully done before.

In enacting the Process for a New Future in 2014, the CNVC Board formalized this change, making the NVC network the “moral owners” of CNVC.

In particular, ultimate decision-making power concerning CNVC was given to those members of the NVC network willing to “do the work” of deliberating about the network’s needs and considering feedback from the wider network.

In 2017, the initial set of decision-makers ratified a new governance structure for CNVC, as specified in the New Future Plan. That plan continues the understanding that CNVC is “owned” by the NVC network, with decisions being made by Partners, i.e., those from the network who are willing to invest in understanding how the organization functions, aligning with its values, and actively working on its behalf. This design was consistent with advice from organizational development experts who advised that organizations are likely to be more effective if the people doing the work are the ones who make the decisions.

The Partners would be the Members of CNVC, and so would elect the CNVC Board of Directors. The Board is accountable to the Partners who are in turn accountable to the NVC network.

Accountability of the organization to the NVC network is offered by (1) the opportunity of anyone in the network to become a decision-maker (i.e., a Partner), if they have the basic skills (such as ability to “care for the whole” and participate in conflict transformation); and (2) a core organizational commitment to conflict transformation processes shaping what happens when there are significant disagreements.

RECENT ERA

The current CNVC Board appears to me to have functioned as if ultimately only the opinions of Board members matter. The Board has offered the NVC network few details of what it is doing or what is happening in CNVC, and has been almost entirely unresponsive to questions, concerns, and intense objections expressed by those in the network. More detailed observations to support this assessment are given in an appendix below.

To me, this behavior has not been consistent with honoring the NVC network as the moral owners of CNVC. It seems more consistent with the view that the CNVC Board is the “moral owner” of CNVC.

MODEL OF RESPONSIBILITY

I have heard Board members say things like “we are responsible for CNVC” as a way of explaining their actions. I think this points to different assumptions about what it means to be “responsible.”

Consider two different models of “leadership”:

• Autocrat-Leader – This type of leader makes decisions for an organization, from a perspective of “It’s ultimately my choice” and “I know best” what is right for the organization. The only responsibility is the responsibility to follow one’s personal judgment. There is no accountability to anyone else. This model tends towards “power-over” decision-making; people may be significantly impacted by a decision without having any say in those decisions.
• Servant-Leader – This type of leader makes decisions in service to others, the “moral owners” of the organization. It is ultimately the needs and wishes of the moral owners that matter. The Servant-Leader is accountable to the moral owners. The Servant-Leader is responsible both for doing their best to care for the organization and for being accountable to the moral owners. The moral owners have a right to information about the organization and the leader’s actions and have ultimate decision-making power. The moral owners can select new leaders and/or override their decisions. This model offers protections against “power-over” decision-making and can encourage “power-with” decision-making. People have a say in decisions that affect them.

It seems to me that the current Board is operating within an Autocrat-Leader model of what it means to be “responsible” for CNVC. The New Future Process had committed CNVC to a Servant-Leader model of what it means to be “responsible.”

A Board being “responsible” does not necessarily lead to the way of operating that the CNVC Board has adopted. It is a particular model of “responsibility” that has this result.

Following the Autocrat-Leader model might not have been a conscious choice by Board members. Perhaps they fell into that model by default, without imagining the possibility of following a different model? I fully trust that the Board has done its best to be “responsible” as they understood that term. I wish it had chosen the Servant-Leader model of what it means to be “responsible.”

Following the Servant-Leader model was an essential aspect of the New Future Process. That CNVC had committed itself to the Servant-Leader model was my understanding as one of the Board members who committed CNVC to the process. I regret that apparently this understanding was not successfully transmitted to those who subsequently took on the role of being Board members.

Given the Board’s apparent adherence to the Autocrat-Leader model, there are no mechanisms for the Board to be accountable to anyone else. In the absence of such accountability, I believe the Board has effectively privatized CNVC, as if CNVC were the Board’s property. I don’t think that was the Board’s intention, but I think has been the practical effect of the Board’s choices.

CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP

In April 2018, the CNVC Board published a letter that effectively rejected the Implementation Council’s role as decision-makers within CNVC, and rejected the New Future Process and Plan as governing documents of CNVC. In coming to this decision, they did not consult CNVC’s “moral owners” in the NVC network.

Although it is unlikely that the Board thought of it this way, the Board’s actions had the effect of a “coup.” By a “coup” I mean “a change in governance by means outside the agreed rules of governance.”

The Board did not follow the active agreements about how decisions were to be made within CNVC. Nor did they honor the implied agreement that those in the NVC network were now CNVC’s moral owners. (Whether or not what the Board did was technically illegal is a topic that could be debated. However, from my perspective, the agreements in question were not made into formal legal documents only because we never imagined that the Board would ignore them to a point where legal enforcement might be needed. At a “moral” level, I believe what happened was thoroughly inconsistent with our collective agreements.)

I believe that like any group that has ever enacted a “coup”, the Board did what they did because they believed it was “necessary”, and that the system that they were displacing posed a “grave threat.”

This interpretation stirs some tenderness in me for the difficult position the Board saw itself in. I certainly sympathize with the importance of attending to a “grave threat.”

At the same time:

• Nearly everything the Board has written about the New Future Plan shows evidence of profound misunderstandings about what was planned. I think the Board might have been right about “grave threat” if what had been planned had matched the Board’s beliefs — but it didn’t. How implementation was intended to happen had an extremely different risk profile (involving far less risk) than what the Board seemed to believe. However, I am guessing that the Board was so extraordinarily alarmed by what they believed was happening that perhaps this explains why they have not been open to any conversations that could shed light on their misunderstandings.
• The coup seemed to be a coup not only against the representatives of the NVC network (in the form of the Implementation Council members) and against the community-developed New Future Plan, but also a coup against the premise of the NVC network as CNVC’s moral owners.

I think the Board was tragically misinterpreting the dangers of what was happening. Yet, even if there had been danger, I so wish that the Board had found ways to continue to honor the NVC network as the moral owners of CNVC.

If they saw an “emergency”, I wish they had asked the moral owners what they wanted to do about it.

It is not too late for that to happen. Even now, we could allow a community-led process to decide what happens next. We might, for example, convene a randomly selected “Wisdom Council” and empower them to decide what to do about CNVC’s governance, based on their investigations and dialogs with stakeholders.

THE FUTURE

I feel grateful that the Board hired an Executive Director who is asking trainers for input about CNVC’s priorities. However, I worry that the premise will be that it is ultimately entirely up to the Board to decide how and if CNVC will respond to that input, in a continuation of the Autocrat-Leader model.

It seems to me to be critical to establish “Who is the moral owner of CNVC?”

Once this is established, it seems to me to be equally important to ask, “What model of leadership and responsibility are we going to follow?” and “How can we systematically ensure that the leadership of CNVC is accountable to the moral owners?”

Ultimately, for the moral ownership of the NVC network to be re-established, I believe either:

• the NVC network must be given the power to select CNVC Board members, or
• there must be another major change in the governance structure of CNVC (e.g., in accordance with the structure agreed to in the New Future Plan).

I trust that CNVC Board members are doing their best to serve the community. I hope they will support the Board as an institution becoming accountable to the community. I hope that the community will insist on this, and support Board members in being able to embrace such a change.

* * *

If this message has contributed to you in some way, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Respectfully,

Bob Wentworth

APPENDIX: BOARD NON-INTERACTION WITH THE NVC NETWORK

There are a variety of choices which the CNVC Board has made (from 2015 to the present) which suggest that the Board does not regard itself as accountable to the NVC network:

• The Board ceased publishing minutes of its meetings in 2015. Nor have any meetings been open to observers.
• The Board, as a body, has typically not responded to questions and concerns from the NVC network or trainer community. Occasionally an individual director will unofficially respond, but even this is rare.
• CNVC offered no financial transparency to the NVC network or those in the New Future Process in the years before 2019. (This was despite quarterly financial transparency being one of the agreements in the New Future Transition Plan which had been co-authored by representatives of the Board.)
• The Board has continued reserved to itself the power to select Board members. (This was despite agreements in both the Process for a New Future and the New Future Plan that Board members are to be selected by a new, different process, not controlled by the Board.)
• In April 2018, the Board wrote a letter directing that the New Future Implementation Council implement the New Future Plan “separate from CNVC.” (This was despite an agreement in the Process for a New Future that any concerns about the process would be addressed to those working within the process to address, and despite an agreement that Dominic Barter would be included as a voting Board member in making any decisions that impacted the New Future Process.)
• The Board has not responded to intense objections and concerns about the validity, wisdom, and impact of the Board’s actions concerning the New Future Process.

Here is a ONE-PAGE VERSION of my above message:

In thinking about the future of CNVC, I think it is important to ask: Who are the “moral owners” of CNVC? In other words, whose needs and opinions does CNVC exist to care for?

As I see it:

• Originally, Marshall was the “moral owner”
• Marshall’s departure and passing lead to the NVC network becoming the natural “moral owners” of CNVC. This ownership by the network was formalized when the CNVC Board ratified the New Future Process.
• Recent Board conduct has had the effect (if not the intention) of privatizing CNVC, treating CNVC as if it were the Board’s property.

I think this has happened because the idea that “the Board is responsible” was apparently interpreted in the context of a particular leadership model:

• Autocrat-Leader – This type of leader makes decisions for an organization, from a perspective of “It’s ultimately my choice” and “I know best” what is right for the organization. The only responsibility is the responsibility to follow one’s personal judgment. There is no accountability to anyone else.
• Servant-Leader – This type of leader makes decisions in service to others, the “moral owners” of the organization. It is ultimately the needs and wishes of the moral owners that matter. The Servant-Leader is accountable to the moral owners. The Servant-Leader is responsible both for doing their best to care for the organization and for being accountable to the moral owners. The moral owners have a right to information about the organization and the leader’s actions and have ultimate decision-making power. The moral owners can select new leaders and/or override their decisions.

The Autocrat-Leader model often leads to Power-Over decision-making, in which those affected by decisions have no say in what happens.

The current Board appears to have fallen (possibly unintentionally) into the Autocrat-Leader model. The Servant-Leader model was implicit in the Process for a New Future, and the commitments CNVC had previously made to the NVC network.

Being “responsible” does not require the Board to act as it has; its actions are likely a consequence of the leadership model that Board members have implicitly adopted.

I believe that what has happened to the New Future Process so far is the result of the Board perceiving a “grave threat” to CNVC’s wellbeing. I think this assessment was based on profound misunderstandings. I am also concerned that the Board’s response not only disenfranchised those working on New Future, but also rejected the principle that those in the NVC network are the “moral owners” of CNVC.

The Board’s choices have not allowed the network to decide what would happen in regard to what to do about the New Future Process. It is not too late for this to happen. We could allow a community-led process to decide what will happen to CNVC’s governance.

I would like to have the NVC network be restored as CNVC’s “moral owners”, with CNVC’s leadership being accountable to them. For true accountability, I believe it is essential that:

• the NVC network must be given the power to select CNVC Board members, or
  there must be another major change in the governance structure of CNVC (e.g., in accordance with the structure agreed to in the New Future Plan).
• I trust that CNVC Board members are doing their best to serve the community. I hope they will support the Board as an institution becoming accountable to the community. I hope that the community will insist on this, and support Board members in being able to embrace such a change.

Further nuances are addressed in the longer version of this message.

If this message has contributed to you in some way, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Bob Wentworth

I would like to offer some metaphors to illustrate how disturbing I have found the CNVC Board’s non-responsiveness to concerns expressed about their actions regarding the New Future Process. The metaphors may be shocking. They are not literally what happened. Yet, I believe they accurately reflect the intensity of the impact on me.

PINNED DOWN

Imagine that you are on a sidewalk when a truck veers up on the sidewalk and parks with your foot trapped under one wheel. At first, you are too stunned to speak. The truck driver gets out of the cab and goes to stand on the other side of the road. You yell to try to get their attention. It seems like you should be in their field of view, but they don’t react. You wave your arms. You loudly explain the urgency of moving the truck. You sob. You scream. You scream again and again, for hours. But the driver never acknowledges your existence. It slowly begins to dawn on you that you could scream for the rest of your life, and the driver is unlikely to ever respond and move the truck. If you want to escape and get to a hospital, the only alternative left to you is to find a way to amputate your own foot.

LOVE IMPRISONED

Imagine that there is a police force that you understood does not have jurisdiction in your town. Yet, they suddenly arrest a beloved member of your family, around whom you have centered your life. Your beloved is thrown in prison. The police offer a brief statement explaining what they have done. The statement is full of glaring errors — things you know from first-hand experience to be wrong. They did not even get your beloved’s name right. This is just a big misunderstanding. You write letters asking for dialog, explaining facts, asking for acknowledgment that the police have received your message. There is no acknowledgment or response. There are a few, limited communications between the police and people who worked with your beloved. But those communications from the police convey over and over that there is no possibility of the police changing their decision in any way. You start writing letters to the newspaper, publicly sharing about what has happened and talking about the lack of jurisdiction of the police and the facts supporting the innocence of your beloved. But the police as a group never acknowledge your existence, let alone the contents of what you have written.

Your beloved is in prison. There was no public trial, no jury of peers, and no opportunity to present any defense. The police have conveyed that there is no possibility of an appeal of the conviction or the sentence they decided on.

You will likely feel pain about these events every day for the rest of your life.

LOCKED OUT

You are a member of an intentional community that decides to renovate the beautiful-but-aging house you are living in. You appoint some community members to act as house-sitters to care for things while you and others go off to plan the renovation and do the initial off-site work. The house-sitters promise to watch over the house until you get back and then vacate to allow the renovation to occur. However, when you return to your collective home, the locks have been changed and you can’t get in. The house-sitters issue a written statement saying this was “necessary” and that they suggest you go renovate a different house. The explanation makes little sense to you.. You ask to talk about what is going on, but there is no response. You pound on the door and yell loudly, coming back day after day. But there is never any response. You have lost your home.

IMPACT

Again, the above metaphors don’t literally describe what has happened. But they convey aspects of what the experience has felt like for me.

I understood my support for the New Future Process to be the most sacred act of service I have ever been involved with. I saw an incongruity between the beautiful vision NVC offers of a “partnership paradigm” in which everyone’s needs matter, and the way the CNVC had been operating. The New Future Process was offered as a way of allowing the community to experience CNVC operating from within that paradigm, at least once. I was a part of the leadership of CNVC that committed CNVC to living in that paradigm for the duration of the process, and allowing the community to decide what would happen next. When new leaders came on board, they repeatedly affirmed that commitment.

I feel devastated beyond words that the process was interrupted in a way that seems to reflect the total opposite of the partnership and care for all that CNVC as an organization committed itself to.

The experience has been deeply traumatizing for me. I feel like a mere shadow the person I was two years ago. My health is noticeably poorer. And whereas I used to have endless energy to give to service, it often now feels like there is barely anything left in me.

Unfortunately, I perceive a dark shadow in the functioning of the NVC network, in which people are devastated or even traumatized far more often than I would like. Sometimes those with structural power to affect others’ well-being make choices that have a painful impact on others. The impacts can become particularly devastating because NVC has inspired those affected to trust that care for everyone’s needs is possible. The contrast between that possibility and what actually happens feels shocking. Usually, the people affected make valiant attempts to apply NVC to get heard and effect change. But, often, there is no effective recourse, no opening for changing the outcome to meet needs. It seems to those impacted that there is no chance of experiencing their needs as being held with care. So, disillusioned and bruised, they give up and slink away silently.

This understandable pattern of people giving up and silently leaving allows many in the NVC network to underestimate the frequency with which such experiences occur. Many people have told me they have had such experiences.

For me, launching the New Future Process was a strategy to try to change this tragic pattern. Instead, the outcome thus far exemplifies the pattern.

Because of my commitment to changing the pattern, I have been doing my best to not simply slink away silently. I want to speak out to represent the others who can’t. Yet, continuing to speak out, in the face of what I experience as a difficult-to-metabolize absence of responsiveness, care and partnership, is very hard on my system. I don’t know how much longer I can keep speaking, or doing anything at all.

I am sharing all this to let you know what the human impact has been on me. I believe that the impact of actions and inactions on human beings matters. Or must be allowed to matter, if our practice of NVC is to mean something.

INVITING COMPASSION FOR ALL

I imagine that Board members might be able to offer equally painful metaphors in relation to their experiences with the New Future Process. I have a story that only extreme experiences could lead to the sort of extreme behaviors that I interpret Board members as engaging in.

Author Steven Wineman, in his book Power Under, suggests that there is a cycle of trauma, in which, far too often, those who experience trauma end up inflicting trauma on others (especially if they feel powerless subjectively and objectively have power).

I long to break this cycle of trauma. I believe that disconnection and misunderstanding are at the root of the pain. NVC to me is about making the world better through connection. Let’s live that principle.

I believe that breaking the cycle requires tenderness and care for all.

It is also likely to require active involvement from the community, rather than simply standing by while tragedy unfolds. That involvement could involve speaking out to change the field in which things are happening, acting to support connection, offering support, and willingness to engage in protective use of force to rectify ongoing harm. The alternative is to leave individuals to bear the cost of collective limitations.

We have not been taught how to effectively engage such situations. Yet, I think we need to learn how, if we are to collectively thrive.

Let’s be strong and gentle with ourselves, and with each other.

WISHES

I don’t want you to think that what I am most wanting is personal healing for myself (though that would certainly be nice).

What I most want is:

• for the community needs that are being profoundly unmet in this situation to be addressed;
• to be consulted about what could address those needs, rather than having those who have demonstrated that they don’t understand those needs assume that they know what is best;
• for our collective handling of this situation to demonstrate that NVC has the power to create a world that works for all; and
• systemic change to make it less likely that anyone in the NVC network will ever have to experience this sort of devastation and absence of partnership again in the future.

* * *

Please consider if the wishes I have named resonate with you. If so, you might invite your unconscious mind to let you know if there might be one step you could take, however small, to increase the chances of any of these wishes being realized.

If the wishes I’ve named aren’t right for you, are there other wishes about this situation that you would like to serve?

If this message contributed to you in some way, I would enjoy hearing about it.

With heartbreak and occasional hope,
Bob

Dear colleagues,

I appreciate CNVC’s new Executive Director, Maria Arpa, asking what “issue you would like CNVC to support you in addressing.” I am not going to try to provide my answer to that question in this email. Instead, I want to consider a deeper question, whose answer might inform what it might be most helpful to have CNVC try to address.

The question I am considering is:

What are the core issues that ultimately most limit the ability of CNVC to powerfully contribute to making life wonderful?

My current thinking is that there are at least two core issues that limit CNVC’s potential. I see an absence of:

1. Capacity for making organizational decisions
2. Mechanisms to support the emergence of wisdom, justice and care

CAPACITY FOR DECISION MAKING

In the way that CNVC has historically been organized, the CNVC Board holds ultimate decision-making authority. It controls the allocation of resources, and has the authority to set policy. Limited decision-making authority has been distributed to others, such as an Executive Director (ED), the IIT Resources Team (IIT-RT), and the Certification Coordination Council (CCC). However, each of these typically understands its authority to be limited to a narrow set of decisions that they can make.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Some people may not have tracked agreements that were made in relation to CNVC’s evolution. To support clarity, this message summarises many of those agreements. It also notes what has happened in relation to those agreements.

COMMITMENTS MADE BY THE CNVC BOARD

In April 2014, the CNVC Board ratified and announced the Process for a New Future, which included the following commitments:

1. Hand over of decision-making power to others: “It is implicit in this process that the CNVC Board is handing over power to others to make decisions that are likely to profoundly impact CNVC… [O]nce the Integration Council ratifies an integrated plan for moving forward, the CNVC Board is committed to supporting that plan.” “The… Board and staff of CNVC will not retain a veto.“ [Footnote 1]
2. Process in event of a problem: “The CNVC Board is committed to the formal decisions needed to implement the developed strategy, where it does not imply CNVC or any of its board members breaching the law. If we [the Board] suspect this is the case we will return the decision to the relevant Working Group for resolution.”
3. Replacement of Board: “If the integrated plan has CNVC continuing as an organization requiring a board, the plan should specify how members of the CNVC Board are to be selected. The existing CNVC Board will be replaced using the mechanism specified by the integrated plan.”
4. Working with Implementation Council to support implementation: “Prior to the replacement (or dissolution) of the existing CNVC Board in accordance with the integrated plan, the existing CNVC Board will continue to govern the ongoing operations of CNVC… and.. will work with the Implementation Council to address implementing those aspects of the plan that involve the current CNVC legal entity.”

In ratifying the New Future Process, the CNVC Board deliberately limited the future powers of the Board, and established new procedures for decision-making, Board selection, and addressing of concerns. These changes were intended to prohibit a repetition of an historical pattern (in 2003, 2005 and 2009) in which prior CNVC Boards, without dialoguing about the issues with those affected, had unilaterally discarded prior change efforts.

5. In June 2014, Katherine Singer was invited to become a member of the CNVC Board. As a precondition of this appointment, Katherine agreed to fully support the commitments the Board had made regarding the New Future Process. It was also subsequently agreed that any Board members appointed later would also be asked to make a similar commitment.
6. In January 2015, the CNVC Board made an agreement: if the Board ever considered making a significant change to the New Future Process, then the Board would bring Dominic Barter back as a Board member for purposes of participating in the Board’s discussion and decision-making regarding those possible changes.

FURTHER CNVC AGREEMENTS

In January 2017, CNVC’s New Future Integration Council ratified an integrated plan, called the New Future Plan. This included a CNVC transition plan, developed collaboratively by members of the CNVC Board, Staff, and Integration Council, and agreed to by consensus. The New Future Plan, including the CNVC transition plan, is what the New Future Process design committed the Board to honoring and helping to implement.

The CNVC transition plan included the following agreements:

7. CNVC bylaws will be amended to end Board self-selection. [Footnote 2]
8. A new CNVC Board will be selected: The Board will consist of 5 members, with 3 members selected by the Implementation Council, 1 member selected by the existing CNVC Board, and 1 member selected by the CNVC Staff. [Footnote 3]
9. Meetings to support collaborative decision-making: “Starting when the Implementation Council begins its work (currently planned for February 1, 2017), there will be a bi-weekly meeting between Implementation Council and CNVC, made up of one Implementation Council member, one staff member, and one existing board member. a. Purpose: to collaborate on financial and other decisions that go beyond daily operations.”
10. Financial transparency: “During the transition, CNVC will make financial projections available on a website or equivalent for all to see on a quarterly basis.”
11. Shared budget: CNVC operations and New Future implementation will share a collectively owned budget. [Footnote 4]
12. Trainers will be allowed to dedicate their contributions to New Future Plan implementation. [Footnote 5]
13. CNVC will receive donations to support New Future Plan implementation. [Footnote 6]
14. Financial support of New Future Plan implementation will be prioritised within CNVC. [Footnote 7]

The CNVC New Future Implementation Council began its work to implement the New Future Plan in February 2017. [Footnote 8] The plan called for CNVC to take the steps described above.

CNVC BOARD ACTION AND INACTION

I believe that only one of the fourteen agreements listed above was honored by the current CNVC Board, and that agreement (#14) was honored only temporarily. [Footnote 9]

In what follows, I try to offer high-level observations to ground this assessment, without offering an unmanageable level of detail.

I feel worried that some may see offering this information as an “attack” on the Board. I do not intend it as an attack. I believe Board members were doing the best they could, given what information they had and what they believed. And, I believe it is valuable to try to reach a shared understanding of what has happened, if we are to decide how to move forward most constructively.

I am not aware of evidence that the Board took action to address any of the agreements #1-13.

In many cases I do not have first-hand knowledge. Yet, the second-hand reports I have heard suggest to me that Board members made active choices that I interpret as inconsistent with agreements. I have been told by Implementation Council members that:

Individual Board members:

• expressed disinterest in changing the bylaws (agreements #4 & 7),
• opposed meetings happening with Board, Staff and Implementation Council representatives (agreements #4 & 9) [Footnote 10], and
• discouraged the staff from sharing financial information with the Implementation Council (agreement #10).

And, the Board as a whole:

• declined to appoint Board members who had been selected by the Implementation Council (agreements #3 & 8),
• did not include Dominic Barter as a Board member in making decisions to change CNVC’s relationship to the New Future Process (agreement #6),
• insisted that the Implementation Council, on its own, produce a separate self-contained budget rather than collaboratively producing a shared budget (agreements #9 & 11), and
• said “no” to requests that CNVC receive donations to support New Future Plan implementation (agreement #13) [Footnote 11].

I imagine it was likely not a conscious choice that the Board:

• did not offer trainers an option of dedicating their trainer contributions to support New Future Plan implementation (agreement #12).

Other choices inconsistent with agreements are described in the next section.

The Board temporarily honored the agreement to prioritise funding of New Future Plan implementation (agreement #14). CNVC provided financial support for work to implement the New Future Plan from the Spring of 2017 until the Board cancelled that funding, as announced in an April 25, 2018 letter from the Board to the Implementation Council. [Footnote 12]

Although the Board’s April 25, 2018 letter did not say so explicitly, the letter apparently signaled an intention of the Board to disregard all agreements that had been made in relation to the New Future Process. The letter invited the Implementation Council to implement the New Future Plan “independently and financially separate from CNVC.”

Subsequently, in email exchanged between the Board and the Implementation Council, the Board has indicated that its decision is “final.” The Board has not expressed openness to engage in discussion or group-level conflict resolution. [Footnote 13]

NATURE OF THE AGREEMENTS

I understand the agreements listed above to function at two levels, an interpersonal contracts level and an organisational level.

At an interpersonal level, many of these agreements have functioned as aspects of a contract. In 2014, the CNVC Board essentially said to members of the NVC network: “Please help us to improve CNVC. We are creating a new decision-making structure in which you, not the Board, will make certain key decisions on behalf of CNVC. In return for your choice to invest in helping CNVC, we promise that CNVC will honor your decisions.” People asked the Board in 2015, 2016 and 2017 if they were still committed to that promise. Each time the question was asked, the Board said “yes.” On the basis of that promise, members of the NVC network, who had been specifically authorised to do so by the Board, invested well over 6000 hours of their labor, in hundreds of meetings, to work on designing and implementing improvements to CNVC.

At an organisational level, these agreements include agreements about governance (#1-9), and agreements about financial management (#10-14).

The first nine agreements relate to the governance of CNVC. They are part of a framework for saying how certain important decisions are to be made, who is to make them, and how the decision-making structure is to be evolved.

Authority within an organisation is the result of agreements. Decisions in an organisation have authority and legitimacy if and only if they are made in keeping with agreements about how decisions are to be made, by those agreed to have authority to make those decisions.

Because of this, I understand each of the 14 agreements listed above as having authority. This is because the agreements were each developed in a way that was consistent with prior agreements about decision-making.

Some recent major decisions of the Board have been made in ways that were not consistent with prior agreements about decision-making in CNVC. In particular:

1. The decisions to add Raj Gil and Ronnie Hausheer to the Board were, I believe, inconsistent with the agreements about how the next Board would be selected (agreements #3, 7 & 8). These decisions were also inconsistent with the agreement that new Board members would be appointed only if they were committed to honoring the commitments of the New Future Process (agreement #5).
2. The apparent decision to allow New Future Plan implementation to happen only “independently and financially separate from CNVC” was, I believe, not consistent with any of the agreements listed above. This choice was particularly inconsistent with the agreement that the Board would not have authority to override decisions of the process (agreement #1) — which was the central commitment that led people to invest years of their lives in contributing to CNVC’s evolution. The way the decision happened was also not consistent with the procedures the Board had agreed to follow if it had any concerns that they wanted to have be addressed (agreements #2 & 6).

These decisions were made in ways that I understand as inconsistent with CNVC’s organisational agreements about how decision-making in CNVC is to function.

I assess these decisions (and consequently the current Board membership and decision-making processes) as being not legitimate.

BOARD CONCERNS ABOUT IMPLEMENTATION COUNCIL AND AGREEMENTS

The April 25, 2018 letter from the Board seemed to indicate that disappointment in a perceived lack of progress by the Implementation Council was a primary reason for the Board’s actions. (“To date the CNVC Board experiences the emptiness that comes from the absence of shared tangible, realistic, practical and pragmatic results.”) Apparently the Board based their expectations on an informal (non-binding) announcement letter from the Integration Council, rather than on the Tentative Implementation Schedule contained in the New Future Plan itself.

There are things that the plan called for the Implementation Council to do, that it did not do in the time frame that the plan recommended. (For example, the Council did not initiate a “fundraising weave” in the first 11 months of work, which the transition plan asked it to do.) I agree with the Board, to a degree, that implementation started off more slowly than expected. However, I disagree with the Board’s diagnosis of how significant the “problem” was, or to what extent it was valid for the Board to interpret this as a predictor of failure. I believe that the situation would have benefitted from transparent dialog about any concerns among those with different information and perspectives. No such dialog occurred (from the perspective of any New Future Process supporters who I have spoken to).

As far as I know, the Board has not offered any public explanation as to why it has chosen not to honor the agreements I have listed. However, I can imagine that some people may have a story that “the Implementation Council didn’t honor some agreements, so it is okay for the Board to not honor agreements.” Even if it were that case that the Implementation Council failed to honor important agreements (which is not something that I agree has been established by any fair consideration of the facts), I would disagree with the logic of such an argument.

As I understand it, the 14 agreements listed above were not simply agreements between the Board and the Implementation Council. The agreements were both:

1. Contractual agreements between CNVC and the many people (not just Implementation Council members) who volunteered their labor to contribute to CNVC within the context of the New Future Process; and
2. Governance agreements, within CNVC, about how CNVC has agreed to make decisions, and evolve its leadership.

I would want everyone, Implementation Council, Board and Staff alike, to attend to these agreements, as a way of serving life.

CONCERNS

I am concerned about what is happening in CNVC because I value:

1. Integrity, in regard to organizational governance, and caring for contracts and agreements.
2. Integrity, in living NVC within our organisation: Using power-with rather than power-over. And transforming our own conflicts using the tools of conflict transformation that we teach and CNVC promotes.
3. Care for human beings who contribute their life energy to the organisation.
4. Making decisions in ways that are informed by collective intelligence of the people impacted, rather than relying on the sometimes-mistaken assumptions that arise when dialog is absent.
5. Having an organization that inspires me as much as the practice that it promotes.

REQUESTS

• As you think about this situation, please hold everyone involved, Board members and those affected, with tenderness and care.
• I invite you to join me in supporting a life-serving outcome in emerging in regard to this situation. Please consider filling out this volunteer survey.

I don’t want the survey to be the only strategy for something happening. I also don’t want it to lead to the impression that “I don’t need to do anything because someone else is doing something.”

• I invite you to consider the possibility that there is something that you could take the initiative to do to move this situation forward.

I have enjoyed receiving private communications about these topics, for the sense of support and companionship they have provided. At the same time, it feels lonely and vulnerable to be the only voice speaking publicly about these issues.

• I invite you to express publicly to this list what comes up for you in relation to “all this,” if you can imagine that it might contribute caringly to the aliveness of the public process — the process of engaging with the situation we are collectively in, and moving towards making life more wonderful.

Respectfully,
Bob Wentworth

FOOTNOTES

[1] The phrase about the Board and staff not retaining a veto is from the CNVC Board’s cover letter announcing the Process for a New Future.

[2] Text from CNVC transition plan: “The CNVC Board and the Implementation Council will amend the bylaws to reflect this new way of functioning… Board and Implementation Council or their delegates collaborate on all matters relevant to the transition including in particular on developing new CNVC bylaws for stage 2, which include the element that members = Transitional Partners.” “The… intention is for CNVC to operate as a membership organization, with all Partners automatically being members of CNVC, with the ultimate power in the legal entity being in the hands of Partners.” The existing CNVC bylaws specify that, if there are any “members of CNVC,” then it is they who elect the Board. So, these changes would end the practice of the Board selecting its own members without accountability to anyone outside the Board. (Principles for amended CNVC bylaws were agreed on between Board member Jan Carel van Dorp and Integration Council member Bob Wentworth in January 2017, and were reviewed by a lawyer.)

[3] Text from plan: “CNVC Governance Weave (to fulfill the legal requirement of a board): The CNVC Governance Weave (board) will have 5 members. The membership will include: (i) One representative selected by and from the current CNVC board; (ii) One representative selected by the CNVC Staff; (iii) Three representatives selected by… the Transitional Partners [i.e., Implementation Council members].” “The CNVC Governance Weave [i.e., new Board] will begin operating within 9 months or as soon as the Implementation Council is ready.”

[4] Text from plan: “Decisions about allocation of resources from the common pool are collectively owned by all the weaves that exist during the transition. For example, initially, the emerging transitional configuration of CNVC and the Implementation Council share a budget because they are both entities that relate to the common pool.”

[5] Text from plan: “When inviting trainer contributions, trainers may assign their contributions to one of the following categories: (i) [New Future Plan implementation]; (ii)…existing CNVC operations…; (iii) Open – For either of the above.”

[6] Text from plan: “Regarding donations… CNVC will act as a fiscal sponsor of [New Future Plan implementation]…”

[7] Text from plan: “Finances: Overall principle: To operate CNVC with as much excess revenue as possible available to [support New Future Plan implementation]… Once the Implementation Council is operating, there is an overarching priority given to the NEW (i.e., the initiatives whose implementation is being overseen by the Implementation Council).”

[8] There were initially five members on the Implementation Council — Elkie Deadman, Roxy Manning, Elin Searfoss, Aimee Manning, Jeyanthy Siva. (Their address impc@cnvc.org is likely still active. But, given changes at CNVC, I am not certain.) They were selected by the Integration Council using a Sociocratic election process. Integration Council members were elected by Working Group members, who were approved by the CNVC Board. Since the Implementation Council began, Elin Searfoss and Roxy Manning have each left the Council for personal reasons.

[9] My understanding is that the members of the CNVC Board (board@cnvc.org) currently (February 2019) include Katherine Singer, Jan Carel van Dorp, Raj Gil, and Ronnie Hausheer. Ronnie’s appointment to the Board was announced in September 2018, after most of the described events occurred. Cate Crombie was on the Board until the summer of 2018.

[10] One Board member (Cate Crombie) took steps consistent with agreement #9, that meetings of representatives of the Board, staff, and Implementation Council would occur to support collaborative decision making. For a few months in the fall of 2017, Cate participated in a series of meetings with Danielle Beenders (staff) and Elkie Deadman and Jeyanthy Siva (Implementation Council). However, this was apparently not an action that the Board as a group took or supported. I have been told (by those involved in these meetings) that other Board members expressed opposition to these meetings happening, and that this opposition eventually led to the meetings being discontinued.

[11] As I understand it, Board members at one point did not want CNVC to receive donations to support New Future Plan implementation, then grew receptive to the idea, then said “no” on the basis of warnings from a consultant that receiving such donations could endanger CNVC’s nonprofit legal status. The consultant’s reported advice was not consistent with my understanding of nonprofit law, nor that of others with whom I have spoken. I infer that the consultant must have been given information about the planned use of the donations that did not match my understanding of the planned use. So, I believe there was a misunderstanding involved. I understand that the Board declined to discuss the matter any further with the Implementation Council.

[12] The Board’s April 25, 2018 letter cancelled funding of New Future Plan implementation retroactively. The Board said they would not pay for work done after December 2017. The Implementation Council said that those being paid to work (2 Implementation Council members, and 2 support staff) had worked in good faith without having been informed that they would not be paid. The Board initially rejected a request that people be paid for this work. However, after concerns were expressed by trainers, in August 2018 the Board paid for work that had been done through June 2018.

[13] There were two in-person mediation sessions at an individual level, between Board member Jan Carel van Dorp and Implementation Council members Elkie Deadman and Jeyanthy Siva. I believe that when groups are experiencing high levels of disconnection, individual level processes are no substitute for group level processes. I understand from the Implementation Council members that their main hope was that the individual-level sessions could lead to an agreement for the two groups to engage in group-level dialog and conflict resolution. But, this did not happen. Progress that seemed to be made in the individual sessions apparently did not lead to improved connection at an inter-group level.
As I understand it, the Board has not chosen to participate in group-level dialog with the Implementation Council (or other NFP supporters) to openly discuss concerns, seek mutual understanding, or identify strategies that could work for everyone. This did not happen before or after the Board’s decision that was announced in its April 25, 2018 letter. I understand that, since then, the Board has said “no” to all requests for dialog from the Implementation Council. The Board proposed a meeting to “celebrate and mourn,” but apparently insisted that there be no dialog related to the Board possibly re-considering its decisions.

Dear friends and colleagues,

I posted a detailed message this week about my concerns with the CNVC Board. It was long. This is a shorter message on the same topic. I address just a few main points.

* * *

The main point I would like understood is that I experience there as being an extraordinarily painful disconnection being present between the current CNVC Board and myself, the Implementation Council, and likely most people who invested in CNVC’s New Future Process. I am asking for partnership in finding a way to transform this situation. If you would consider the possibility of being involved in some way, you could fill out the form at https://nvc-global.enlivenc.com/help-nfp/ or write to me.

If you are concerned about the situation but choose not to be involved, or are not concerned about the situation, I would also be curious about your reasons for those responses, if you would like to share them with me.

* * *

As to the content of the conflict…

I’d like to offer the context that I have been in a state of shock and intense emotional pain for 8 months, since the CNVC Board sent its April 25, 2018 letter to the CNVC New Future Implementation Council. I interpret that letter as announcing the Board’s rejection of the decisions of the New Future Process. That seemed to me to be implied by the Board’s suggestion to implement CNVC’s New Future Plan “independently and… separate from CNVC.” Although that letter also announced the Board cancelling funding for implementation of the Plan, to me that was only a detail. My pain arises from a sense that a large number of values precious to me have not been honored.

I ask people to read what I write with compassionate (“giraffe”) eyes, ears and hearts, with tenderness for me, the Board members, and all people affected.

I feel extremely disturbed by both the Board’s enormously impactful decision, and by the way the Board members made it. As I understand it, the Board’s choice:

1. Has not involved the Board having any open dialog about their decision. To date, I have not seen any indication of willingness to dialog with those affected, or with those with expertise on the subject matter involved — not before making their decision, and not since. I interpret their decision as having emerged entirely from disconnection, without openness to connection.
2. Has been explained with reasoning incompatible with a shared reality. I believe this reasoning would inevitably be transformed by open dialog. 
3. Showed no evidence, that I can perceive, of care for the needs of people who have served CNVC through the New Future Process. Those people contributed over six thousand hours of labor to the Board-initiated New Future Process.
4. Has involved breaking what I regard as a moral contract with people who made significant personal sacrifices in service to CNVC. They offered their work in return for the Board’s unconditional commitment to honoring the authority of the decisions that emerged from the New Future Process. This contract is one which the Board had affirmed time and time again, right up until the moment when they broke the contract without acknowledging its existence.
5. Has involved disregarding a large number of agreements that the Board had made. I understand many of those agreements to have had purposes of offering protection from abuses of power, and protection from the tragic consequences of the loss of institutional knowledge. A consequence of the Board disregarding multiple agreements about how CNVC is to be governed is that I understand the Board to no longer be operating as a legitimate Board.

For details and observations grounding these interpretations, please reference my longer January 12, 2019, letter (subject “About the conflict in CNVC”), and my September 19, 2018, letter (subject “Continuing concern about commitments not honored by the CNVC Board”).

I want to be clear that I see the Board members as dedicated people with innocent intentions who are doing a difficult job, and trying to care for the organization and meet needs to the best of their abilities. I believe that Board members and I have had access to different information, and this has lead to our very different perspectives.

I understand all of us associated with CNVC to be committed to practicing and sharing NVC. I invite us to collectively apply the conflict transformation principles that we teach. I long for an integration of the information available to each of us, and care for all the needs that we hold dear. I want support for healing and reconciliation, and the emergence of strategies to make life more wonderful.

From my broken heart,
Bob Wentworth

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am writing out of a desire for some companionship in relating to an experience of frustration and disillusionment-with-humanity so deep that I am sometimes not sure how I will survive it.

For the last eight months I have been in shock. I find it very hard to sleep at night. Although in the past I often found writing easy, most of what I would want my NVC community to know goes unsaid, month after month. I try to write letter after letter. But the emotional pain that gets stimulated makes it slow going. I have countless letter drafts that remain unsent. The problem of communicating what I would like to communicate in a way that I have confidence will be received and understood seems all but impossible to solve. It seems like there is a choice between using evocative language that is concise but “too provocative” or writing with careful precision in a way that would take far more words than I predict people are likely to choose to read. I don’t find either choice satisfying.

To make it possible to say what I’d like to say, I will try to express myself here with the best balance I can currently find — even though I know that many people might not get what I actually mean, or why I would choose to say it, or might not trust my deep intention of nonviolence. Would you please do your best to read with “giraffe eyes, ears and heart”?

I apologize to those for whom this letter will seem like “too much.” I simply can no longer tolerate leaving so much that is important to me unexpressed.

I see CNVC and Marshall’s institutional legacy as being in severe crisis. I understand focusing on, and caring about, human needs, to be central to NVC. And, I understand the idea of values to be closely tied to that of needs. CNVC is central to the movement to bring NVC into the world, as a means of making life more wonderful for more and more people. I cannot imagine how CNVC can be effective in its mission unless it pays attention to what values it is upholding and modeling through its actions.

On April 25, 2018, the CNVC Board sent a letter to CNVC’s New Future Implementation Council. The contents of that letter, and Board’s preceding and subsequent actions and inactions, have stimulated shock in me, as a result of how many of my core values, and how many values that are at the heart of why I love NVC, I interpret those choices as failing to honor.

What has further contributed to rendering me nearly speechless is a sense of a profound lack of shared reality. If I were considering doing something that was so profoundly out of alignment with even one of the perhaps dozen values I interpreted as being not cared for in the Board’s choices, for me, that would have been a “show-stopper” — meaning I would have found a different choice, unwilling to violate such a precious value. That this didn’t happen seemed to imply an extraordinary lack of overlap between my understanding of the world, and that of Board members. In my life, I’ve experienced that a lack of shared reality often seems to be associated with painful and destructive things happening. And, whenever a lack of shared reality is present, I have experienced it as a major barrier to things getting better. So, the degree of lack of shared reality in the situation has seemed to me to be reason for extreme concern.

I want to be clear that, while I am experiencing and expressing extreme concern in relation to the choices of the Board, what I want to call attention to is not about individuals. I think individual choices are being affected by the systems (and lack of systems) that we have in place. I want us collectively to give attention to these matters to ultimately support us in creating more life-serving systems. It’s regrettable to me that we see the impact of our systems through the actions of individuals, so it is easy to mistakenly think that what is going “wrong” is about those individuals. I don’t think it is, and I do want care for those individuals. Yet, I don’t want care for those individuals to prevent us from collectively seeing more fully and learning, and thereby caring for what is happening overall. Not speaking would mean accepting continuing to not care for the individuals that our current systems fail to care for.

An incomplete, high-level, list of my concerns includes:

1. I experience the CNVC Board as making choices that create experiences of a lack of care for human beings who have been in relationship with CNVC.
   
2. I interpret the Board’s choices as out of alignment with what is most precious to me about the practice of NVC.
   
3. I understand the current CNVC Board as illegitimate, in that it is no longer populated or acting in accordance with the agreements previously made by the Board about how CNVC is to be governed. And, it appears to me that the Board is denying the authority of other key portions of CNVC’s governance structure, and declining to have meaningful dialog with those other portions of CNVC’s governance.
   
4. I perceive the Board’s processes as not conductive to acting with justice, wisdom, compassion, or sound governance.

I am certain that Board members do not see things this way, or they would not be making the choices that they are. I imagine this “seeing things very differently” has happened because the conversations have not happened that would have allowed perspectives to come into greater alignment. Given the severity and importance of the disagreement, I long for responsible effort to reconcile our worldviews and care for all the needs that are present.

CONTENTS

Given the above, in the following sections, I will address:

What has happened • Acknowledging the Board’s concerns • Challenges in talking about this • Concern about care for relationships and human beings • Concern about Board’s process • Concern about responsible use of power • Barriers to collective intelligence • Absence of dialog • Nature of influence in the situation • What I’d like now

WHAT HAS HAPPENED

What is the situation, and what are the choices, that I am concerned about? From my perspective:

1. CNVC has had a history of relating to attempts to improve it (even when those attempts are initiated by its own leadership), in ways that result in (1) change not happening, and (2) pain, alienation and loss of trust for those who had poured their talents and passion into contributing to CNVC. This happened in 2003, 2005 and 2009, and likely at other times. Unless something changes, this will have happened again in 2018.
   
   
2. In 2014, the CNVC Board (which I was then a member of) initiated a new change process for CNVC, the New Future Process. In ratifying this change process, the Board also ratified a change in CNVC’s decision-making structure. This change in decision-making was designed to offer structural protections against the sort of blocks to change, and experiences of lack of care, that had been the outcome of prior change processes. The changes involved creating another decision-making body (or a sequence of bodies) which would not be secondary to the Board — the Board explicitly decided to give up some of its own powers concerning CNVC and grant those powers to the structures created in the New Future Process, deliberately giving up any right to veto or reject the results. 
           To me, this might be considered as analogous to when kings gave up the right to assert absolute power, and instead agreed that a legislature would have certain powers, and be able to serve as a check and balance on the power of the king. This structural change created a context in which more people could hope to have their needs be met, and have their well-being be protected.
   
   
3. In subsequent years, members of the NVC network, took on working on behalf of CNVC using the authority that had been transferred from the Board. In 2015, some volunteers, finding trust difficult after prior experiences with CNVC, asked for guarantees in writing that the Board would honor its commitment to respect the transferred authority, before they were willing to begin work. In 2016 and 2017, the Board was again asked for assurances of its commitment to honor the decisions of the NF Process. And, each time it was asked, the Board offered reassurances about its commitment. Volunteers invested thousands of hours of effort, in hundreds of meetings, to making specific decisions about what CNVC would become.
   
   
4. In 2016, two Board members, two staff members, and a handful of New Future Integration Council members spent 9 months collaborating to develop a transition plan for how CNVC would be evolved to achieve the outcome that had been decided on. All decisions were ultimately made by consensus. In January 2017, the decisions of the New Future Plan were ratified. According to the structural changes and processes that had been initiated in 2014, these decisions — including decisions about how CNVC was to be governed — became essentially the “law” for how CNVC would function (albeit changes could eventually be made via the new governance structures that the decisions established). The authority for implementing the new design was given to the elected members of CNVC’s New Future Implementation Council.
   
   
5. In 2017, as I stayed in touch with members of the Implementation Council, I became increasingly concerned. What I was personally most concerned about was that, as best I could tell, the CNVC Board was honoring almost none of the agreements (that it had spent the prior year making) about how it would support implementation of the NF Plan. (See list of 18 transition agreements not fulfilled by Board with the text of those agreements.) [Also, see Footnote 1 at end of the letter]
           This misalignment with the plan escalated when the Board started asking the Implementation Council to do things that were, as I understood it, in direct contradiction to what had been agreed. [Footnote 2] My impression is that, in response, Implementation Council members were troubled and confused by these demands and did not agree to them. Subsequently, I heard two Board members, with what I interpreted as intensity, refer to this interaction as evidence of the Implementation Council’s “incompetence.”
           I understand the Board had concerns about the Implementation Council. However, I also believe the Board was not taking the effects of their own behavior and filters into account. I have the impression that the Board made the job of the Implementation Council considerably harder, and the Board’s confusion about the process led to inappropriate expectations and judgments. 
           I feel stunned by the degree to which I perceive a double standard to have been in play. It appears to me that the Board’s subsequent choices had the effect of imposing an extraordinarily harsh outcome on the Implementation Council (and others), apparently based on judgments of that group’s performance, without showing awareness of, or accepting responsibility for, comparable deficits in the Board’s own performance. I am in favor of both “accountability” and holding care and acceptance for the humanity of people doing their best to do difficult jobs. I am not okay with vastly different standards being applied to different groups of people.
   
   
6. Most troubling of all, the NF Process had specifically committed the CNVC Board to supporting a peaceful transition of power to a new governance structure. This involved the Board passing new bylaws, and the formation of a new CNVC Board. However, as I understand it, Board members declined invitations to change the bylaws or accept new Board appointments in keeping with the new governance structure. They instead appointed new Board members (Raj Gil, and subsequently, Ronnie Hausheer), and perhaps reappointed existing Board members, in a manner inconsistent with what I understand as CNVC’s current governance structure. 
           To me, this is comparable to an elected official deciding that they don’t like the administration elected to succeed them, and so simply refusing to leave office or even acknowledge that an election has happened. I see such noncompliance with a peaceful transition of power as behavior that threatens the foundations of the social contracts that allow the world to experience even a semblance of peace. I understand it as profoundly destructive to the possibility of peace in the world — or in this case, peace in the NVC network.
   
   
7. On April 25, 2018, after months of being begged by the Implementation Council to offer clarity about what was going on without any response from the Board, the CNVC Board announced that they had suspended funding to the Implementation Council 4 months previously, and suggested that they implement the NF Plan “separate from CNVC.” Though the Board has not responded to any requests for clarification, it seems as if this latter “suggestion” implies an intention to not comply with any of the decisions of the New Future Process, nor to recognize the authority of the Implementation Council and support its actions. To me, this was much bigger than the decision to unilaterally cut off funding.
           I found the rationale the Board offered in their letter perplexing. I could make sense of much of what was said only by supposing that the Board was believing things about the New Future Plan and its implementation contrary to the facts as I and many others associated with the New Future Process understand them. The letter, and subsequent actions, also seemed to imply commitment to a strategy (essentially dissociating CNVC from its own change process) I interpreted as inexplicably drastic  — I have clarity about how each of the issues the Board has alluded to in its letters could have been addressed in ways that I feel certain would have had far less negative impact.
           The decisions the Board announced in their letter were decisions that I believe were not within the Board’s authority to make, given the changes to CNVC decision-making process that had been established in 2014. Given the governance structure that I understood to be in effect, addressing the Board’s concerns was something that would have been done properly through the Board clearly expressing those concerns to those involved in the New Future Process, and inviting a dialog to figure out how to address those concerns.
   
   
8. Since last April, I understand that the Board’s limited communications with the Implementation Council have repeatedly conveyed a message that the Board’s decision is final and not open for discussion. To my way of understanding, the issues had not been discussed openly and clearly even once with the Implementation Council, before this “final” decision was made.
           There has been only rather limited conversation between Board members and the CNVC trainers list, concerning any of this. As far as I have seen, most of the substantive questions and concerns about the Board’s actions which have been expressed publicly have not been acknowledged or responded to by the Board or its members in any way.
           I wrote several letters to the Board, expressing my own questions and substantive concerns. Typically, these contained a request that, at the very least, the Board acknowledge having received my message. I have received no acknowledgments, nor any other responses to these letters.
   
   
9. One aspect of the Board’s choices is that they initially involved not paying those working on behalf of the Implementation Council for work done after the Board’s December 2017 decision to suspend funding, even though that decision had not been shared and work continued in good faith. This choice, in my view, did not consider or care for the adverse impact on those who had offered their labor, and also, I believe, was illegal under U.S. law.  After Katherine Singer engaged in dialog about this issue with members of the trainers list, the Board’s position on this shifted and workers were paid.
           However, there has been no indication of any openness to reconsider, discuss, or participate in conflict transformation, regarding the Board’s other choices — which I personally see having even larger negative impacts on people who worked in good faith in service to CNVC, to possibly be illegal as well, and to pose a threat to CNVC’s vitality and its credibility as a life-serving organization.
   
   
10. The CNVC Trainers Agreement invites certified trainers to “live the process”, to demonstrate willingness to search for connection, and to be willing to work to resolve conflicts. CNVC’s vision mission and aim says that CNVC “helps people peacefully and effectively resolve conflicts in personal, organizational, and political settings.” So, I would hope that there might be willingness, by all involved, to support “peaceful and effective” resolution of the current — to my mind severe — conflict within CNVC. 
            I understand that one Board member has responded privately to a question about why the Board wouldn’t engage in conflict resolution regarding the current situation in CNVC by stating that, in their view, there is no conflict.
            (This stimulates a worry in me that it might come with a subtext of “Those who are complaining are so unimportant that disagreement with them doesn’t count as a conflict.”)
            (Personally, I believe that if one party says there is a conflict and the other party says there isn’t, that in itself is evidence of a conflict. Unwillingness to engage in dialog also suggests to me the possibility of the conflict having reached a stage of extreme disconnection.)

ACKNOWLEDGING THE BOARD’S CONCERNS

Ultimately, much of the crisis seems to me to be an artifact of the sort of gaps in mutual understanding, and imagination about potential solutions, that are prone to happen when there is insufficient connection. I believe the Board’s choice not to engage in transparency and dialog, before or since their decision, has prevented misunderstandings from being unraveled, and prevented solutions (in some cases potentially quite simple) from emerging.

I wish that the Board had had the capacity to recognize and acknowledge how profoundly unmet other needs would be, as a result of the course it chose.

I have a story that if the Board had sought to honor even one of the agreements that I believe it did not honor, then that would have provided a gateway into having the sort of conversations that could have led to a very different outcome.

Even if the Board felt it was critical to the survival of CNVC to address the concerns the Board held, and could not imagine how to care for additional needs, I would have found it inspirational if they had been able to say that, and to open themselves up to support from the community in addressing that difficult dilemma of caring for so many needs.

I have a story that it may be a “tragic flaw” of many leaders that they think they have to know the right answers, and act on that assumption, even when in practice, being only human, they don’t.

I feel tenderness for the tough spot that I suspect the Board members thought they were in. And, I long for the leadership of CNVC to be able to ask for help, and to trust in what can happen when NVC is used to support addressing our hardest challenges.

CHALLENGES IN TALKING ABOUT THIS

How, in NVC, does one talk about it when people do things that others experience as horrific?  I am not sure we collectively know how to do this well. I recall talking to one person who was assaulted severely enough that the assaulter was sent to prison. They told me that the way the NVC community around them tried to “police” what they said about the experience, out of care for the person who was convicted of the assault, was for them almost worse than the assault itself.

I am in favor of speaking in a way that holds every person’s humanity with care.  Yet, I don’t think it serves life to erect unsurmountable barriers to the intensity of people’s experiences being expressed. Passionate expression will never offer a complete picture, but it can offer an essential piece of the picture, and thereby, I hope, support movement to wholeness and healing.

This situation is extremely intense for me. I left my former career and spent six years of my life doing my best to contribute to CNVC and the NVC community, out of a desire to support people in having an experience of CNVC acting in a way that I could understand as congruent with the practice of NVC. But, I wouldn’t be nearly as upset if this were just about me. I am upset because I see:

1. Many people being affected adversely;
   
2. What is happening as contrary to what is precious to me about NVC, and 
   
3. What is happening as precisely recreating exactly the sort of intensely alienating experience that I and the CNVC Board promised would not happen, no matter what, this time around. 

I set out to help CNVC care for people in a way that I perceived CNVC as repeatedly not doing. It shocks me to my core to experience the CNVC Board behaving in a way that, from the viewpoint of those impacted, seems to once again reflect that same “lack of care for human beings” that I had hoped to shift, at least within the context of this one organizational process.

I believe the Board’s choices have been poor choices, in the sense that those choices and the processes that led to them have unnecessarily harmful impacts and are out of alignment with values that I hope are dear to many in the NVC network. I don’t believe that makes the Board members “bad people.” I think that the information that I and Board members have had access to has been very different, and this has led to our different perspectives. I don’t think anyone will know what is “true,” or what would serve life, until it is possible to reconcile the information that we collectively have.

I don’t know how to write about my extreme concern about these choices without people thinking I am counterproductively or uncaringly “attacking” Board members.  I don’t want to attack anybody.  And, at the same time, I do want to call attention to the ways in which there are substantial reasons to be deeply concerned about what is happening, and to do everything in our power to change what is happening, to find a way to make life more wonderful.

There is, I am certain, a narrative in which the Board’s choices make sense. I have not had access to that narrative (though I have guesses, as named in the section above). Nor have they had access to my narrative. Though it is in some ways frightening to do, I want to share how I see things, as what I hope might be a step towards integration and healing.

CONCERN ABOUT CARE FOR RELATIONSHIPS AND HUMAN BEINGS

One of the things that most attracted me to NVC was that it offered what I experienced as do-able and effective ways to “love your neighbor” — to create experiences of care, and “everyone mattering.”  To me, NVC supports more joy and less suffering, especially in regard to the ways that people relate to one another.

Even before I found NVC, I had become convinced that one of the most serious problems the world faces is the tendency to divide the world into US and THEM, and making choices that care for US, while dismissing what THEY have to say as not worth listening to — with the effect that we get stuck in unending cycles of conflict, and never are able to partner together to find truly sustainable solutions to the worlds problems. I was so inspired that NVC offered concrete ways of living in a “partnership paradigm” — offering empathy as a means of transforming enemy images (i.e., demonizing stories about THEM), and offering the ideal of caring for ALL the needs that are present, with “connection” being a way to get there.

To me, NVC is, to a significant extent, about care, for ourselves, and for one another. NVC invites me towards a world in which we all see needs, ours and others, and treat them as mattering. To me, that is the heart of what it means to “care.”

I find it hard to imagine how the actual needs of those who have been investing in the NF Process could be much less cared for by the CNVC Board’s actions.

I believe that many people have been invested in the New Future Process coming to fruition. Some signs of this include 600 people participating in early phases of the NF Process, 50 or so people participating in subsequent phases, doing thousands of person-hours of work (mostly as volunteers), and, to date (with minimal publicity) 299 people from 49 countries becoming Members of the the new NVC Community forming in association with the NF Plan implementation.

Perhaps the Board intended to care for people’s needs, to some extent, via their suggestion that the NF Plan implementation be continued “separate from CNVC.” But, to me, this suggestion hints at a stunning lack of understanding of the needs involved.

Some of what has been most important to me, in regard to the NF Process, has been a yearning to contribute to trust that:

I have dreamed of contributing to making the global NVC movement feel safer for people who want to contribute, and more supportive of the possibility of collective thriving. I can’t imagine anything else that would be more likely to boost NVC’s chances of spreading in the world, and offer a more profound contribution to making life more wonderful globally.

Instead of building trust, my assessment is that the current round of attempted change in CNVC is offering the worst experience yet, in terms of undermining hope that the human beings managing CNVC can actually live the process that CNVC promotes. To me, this is utterly devastating to my hopes, not only for the NVC community, but for the human race being able to address any of the significant challenges that it faces.

Since the Board’s April 25, 2018 letter, I’ve noticed the following impacts:

I can’t believe that it would be a good omen for CNVC to take people who are burning with a desire to contribute to CNVC, and largely extinguish that fire — especially if such an outcome is allowed to stand, unchallenged.

Although I am not sure it is “mainstream NVC” (as in something explicitly taught by Marshall), one of the most profound things I learned, as I was learning NVC, is that “much of human suffering comes, not from needs being unmet, but from needs being treated as not mattering.” Even if we are unable to meet a need, we can acknowledge its existence and importance, and this can make a huge difference.

It has certainly compounded my suffering, about the needs profoundly unmet by the Board’s April 25 letter, that I have been unable to detect, in any communication from the Board or its members, acknowledgment of any adverse impact on anybody, in relation to its choices. Nor have I noticed acknowledgement of any questions or concerns by those who care about the NF Process.

It’s very hard for me to resist interpreting this as communicating “You (and others you care about) don’t matter.”

Maybe I could tolerate that, if transforming the pattern of CNVC treating certain people as if they don’t matter (even if they were in a significant relationship with CNVC) hadn’t been going on for years, and if changing that wasn’t one of the main points of the the NF Process. It’s a pattern that people have apparently tolerated for years. Our collective tolerating of such behavior on the part of CNVC’s leadership, has, in my view,  doomed the NVC network to, without end, repeating patterns of suffering, stimulated in relation to CNVC.

I do not want to tolerate that pattern continuing.

CONCERN ABOUT BOARD’S PROCESS

In addition to being concerned about the content of the Board’s decisions, I am deeply concerned about the process they have used to get there.

I long for justice. By “justice” I mean “rigor in using structural power to address profoundly unmet needs in ways that are likely to make matters better, rather than worse.” (I know “justice” has a danger of being used in jackal ways, but I think eliminating the word entirely poses a huge risk of ignoring something important — I don’t know how the American Civil Rights movement could have worked, if they weren’t allowed to use the word “justice.”)

To me, the emotional impact of the Board’s effective repudiation of the New Future Process has been no less than the effects of a criminal conviction of a loved one would have been. In the case of criminal convictions, we know that how the process occurs is profoundly important, if there is to be any hope that the outcome might be any way “fair.” Yet, if the Board’s decision process had been a legal proceeding, I tell myself it would have looked something like the following:

Four judges, one of whom had been appointed in violation of agreements about appointments, take on a case where the written agreements say these judges do not have jurisdiction. Three of them hold a trial in secret, without informing the accused or the public.  Only the prosecution is allowed to present a case. No lawyer for the defendants is allowed to be present, and no witnesses sympathetic to the defendants are called. A verdict is reached and a sentence is passed. The sentence affects not only those convicted, but also many others who were not even charged. The sentence increases the power of the judges. The sentence begins to be enacted 4 months before those convicted are told about it. The judges inform those convicted that there is no possibility of an appeal.

Does that sound to you like a process you would associate with justice? I acknowledge that what happened was not literally a trial, and that people are used to applying different standards to Board decisions than to criminal trials. Yet to me, the analogy is illustrative of how little confidence I have that the process used in the Board’s decision making would be likely to fairly take into account all relevant information for making an unbiased, well-informed decision about matters that profoundly impact people.

One detail that I think is not generally known is that one Board member (Cate Crombie, who has since resigned) had had much more dialog with the Implementation Council than others and apparently differed from other Board members in her perspective. Yet, that Board member, who I had understood was an active Board member in December 2017 when the Board reports having made its decision, was not fully part of the Board’s decision-making process — to the point that I understand she was as unpleasantly surprised as anyone else, in April 2018, to learn of the decision the Board was said to have made months before. In the legal analogy, it would be as if the judge most knowledgeable about and sympathetic to the defendants was not present at the time when the verdict and sentence were decided, nor was she even told about the court’s decisions. (I was reluctant to share information that might put a spotlight where it is unwanted. Yet it seems important to me to have a shared understanding that the Board wasn’t, in my assessment, acting from full connection, even within itself.)

Some messages to the trainers list in the last two years have included assertions about the NF Process and Plan which seem to me to amount to the sort of “alternate reality” of provably false “facts” that inform way too many political processes these days. Even if one isn’t certain whether to trust those accounts or those from NF supporters (who were, at least present for the disputed events), it seems like intellectual integrity would demand investigation before taking disputed claims at face value. Yet,  multiple sources have reported people who apparently adhere to such alternate accounts “advising” the Board in some way, and I have seen some Board members quoting some positions similar to what I have seen from these sources. I have an impression of an adversarial US vs. THEM dynamic being in play, and the Board having chosen a side. To me, this is the opposite of what I would want from leaders of a group committed to nonviolence, who I would wish to care for the whole, for everyone involved. I see the path of seeking connection and integration, as not only being more caring and inclusive, but also yielding wiser, more sustainable outcomes.

I don’t know for sure to what extent disputed information has influenced the Board’s positions. I only know that I am not aware of proponents of the NF Process having had a significant opportunity to have their perspectives be heard by the Board.

There has also not been (at any time since the ratification of the NF Plan, before or after the Board’s decision) Board-level dialog with NF supporters to understand one another’s needs and to explore how to find solutions that could work for everyone.

I see the process as also being profoundly unbalanced to the extent that an extreme double standard was in play, in my view, with regard to how Implementation Council performance was assessed vs. how Board performance was assessed (as I described above).

What I would have wanted instead would have been: for the Board to have been transparent about its deep concerns, and to bring those concerns to those involved in the New Future Process — in keeping with agreements about how decision-making in CNVC is currently intended to function (as documented in Process for a New Future and the CVNC transition plan).

Failing that, I would have at least wanted transparency that the Board was deeply concerned and was contemplating a decision with enormous impact, and either (a) allowing those impacted a fair chance to make their case (in keeping with mainstream notions of justice), or, better yet, (b) invitation for those likely to be impacted to be actively involved in dialog about what was going on, and what to do about it — in keeping with the principles of restorative justice (which Marshall strongly supported).

In the absence of these having happened, I now want acknowledgment of a flawed process, and willingness to re-consider the decision using a process that offers hope for justice.

CONCERN ABOUT RESPONSIBLE USE OF POWER

I believe that much human suffering results from patterns of how power (atypically large influence) gets used, and that, to the extent that “civilization” has created a “kinder, gentler world,” much of this  has been the result of agreements to temper the use of power, by introducing “rights,” “due process,” “checks and balances” and so forth.

In retrospect, I think CNVC’s problems with “always abruptly killing off change efforts” reflected a structural problem in CNVC’s governance. Prior to 2014, the CNVC Board has structurally had something approximating “absolute power” relative to CNVC. Yet, it has always been the case that Boards consisted of a handful of volunteers, usually with hardly enough time to attend to the most urgent facets of keeping CNVC running, and little time for doing deep learning and deliberation about big strategic issues. And, even if sometimes a Board bought into a change process, changing Board membership meant that institutional knowledge and commitment tended to erode before a change process could be completed. It’s no wonder that those who have to focus on urgent day-to-day issues, and those who have the time to focus in depth on strategic issues would tend to understand things differently. And its no wonder, given the power to do so, that those focused on day-to-day issues, and without continuity of institutional memory, would eventually fail to support projects that emerge from deep consideration of the organizational context, requiring sustained focus. It was a structural problem, a mismatch between the decision-makers and what was to be decided, which was contributing to CNVC being unable to make significant strategic changes.

The design of the New Future Process did its best to correct this structural problem. It essentially changed the governance of CNVC, creating two categories of decision-making, and arranging for different groups of people to make these different decisions. The Board would continue to make decisions related to near-term operations of CNVC and to maintaining CNVC’s legal status. However, the Board would restrict its use of power to respect the authority of the other decision-making mechanism, the New Future Process. Those involved in the NF Process would make a finite set of strategic decisions concerning changes to CNVC, taking into account feedback from the NVC network. These decisions would include decisions about how CNVC would be governed after the completion of the NF Process. The Board, in approving the New Future Process in 2014, transferred some of its authority to the NF Process, and committed itself to whatever new governance system the NF Process decided on. The NF Process ratified its decisions in January 2017.

This new governance structure offered new protections to the NVC community, in much the way that the adoption of government structures with multiple branches, balancing one another, offers a degree of protection to citizens of modern governments.

Given this perspective, that CNVC’s new decision-making structures are protective, I find the Board’s actions particularly disturbing.

Again, I will offer a metaphor to illustrate the nature of my concern:

Imagine a country which has historically been ruled by a small group with no accountability to anyone else, but where there has been an historic agreement to govern the country more democratically going forward. During the transition, the government has two branches, each with designated areas of authority. These are, roughly, an Executive/Military branch, and a Legislature.* The Legislation was created to do a job that the Executive/Military branch was not well-equipped to do, and to offer protection from patterns of unilateral behavior without dialog that had been associated with prior administrations of the Executive/Military branch. The Executive/Military branch is scheduled to be replaced, in accordance with lawfully made decisions that had been agreed to by all decision-makers. 

A difference of opinion between the branches of government arises. The full nature of the disagreement isn’t clear, since there is no transparent conversation about it. The Executive/Military branch simply declines to allow itself to be replaced. And, one day, the Executive/Military branch bars the doors of the Legislature building to members of the Legislature, and suggests that they go do their work, their overseeing of the installation of a new government, in some other country. The Executive/Military asserts that this is the new way that things will be, and declines to entertain any discussion. 

A “military coup” has occurred, in which a small group with power has gone beyond the agreed limits to its authority, over-stayed its agreed term, asserted exclusive control over the government, and disenfranchised other decision-makers and implementors of the agreed governance changes.

* (I compare the Board to an Executive/Military branch since the Board focuses in practice primarily on near-term operational issues, and because the Board’s legal standing allows it to potentially enforce its will on others, although agreements say that this will not be done. I compare the New Future Process and Implementation Council to a Legislature, because their function is to decide and steward a framework within which operations will occur, and to do work the other body was not well-equipped to do, and to serve as a check and balance on the authority of the other body.)

To the extent that this metaphor in any way corresponds to what has happened in CNVC, can you see why I would be extraordinarily concerned about the way that power is being used? Why I might be very concerned about the future of an organization where this is allowed to happen? And why I might long for accountability?

I want to be clear that, when I compare what happened to a “military coup,” I don’t believe that the CNVC Board thought of what they were doing in remotely such terms. However, I see a parallel, at the level of effect.

Governments which don’t even nominally follow the agreements about how they are to govern undermine trust, people’s sense of safety, and the possibility of people living together in relative peace and thriving. Those currently content with what the government is doing might not notice much. But, those who in any way see things differently, and believe that the government does not represent them, will be acutely aware that there is no peaceful avenue available for improving things, given that agreements cannot be trusted to mean anything. In such situations, nonviolent resistance at the best, or violent conflict at the worst, become the only available options for caring for needs.

Something similar is true for CNVC. Being able to trust agreements is a key ingredient for making peace and partnership possible.

I have little hope for having a functional world, or a functional NVC network, if agreements about how decisions are to be made, and how power is to be limited and balanced, are simply disregarded.

In prior postings (to mailing lists) I have detailed numerous agreements about decision-making that I understand the CNVC Board has neither honored nor acknowledged, in its actions and communications of the last year and a half. [Footnote 4]

I imagine systemic issues contributed to this: Some agreements (e.g., about finances) were made on behalf of the Board as a whole by Board representatives, but perhaps understanding of the agreements was not transmitted to the Board as a whole, and the representatives involved may have forgotten details with the passage of time. And, while other agreements were made by the whole Board, each time a new Board member was added, collective understanding likely eroded. Many of the agreements were designed specifically to offer protections against the effects of such loss of institutional knowledge. However, in the absence of any of those agreements being kept, there was no protection from other agreements also being not kept.

I imagine that Board members haven’t understood the purposes of some of these agreements, forgot some agreements, and associated agreements with something they had judged as suspect (the NF Process), and so felt free to disregard them. In a way, this is understandable. But, I don’t think that makes it into behavior that the NVC network is well-served by accepting.

In law, there is a doctrine that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” I think that principle reflects a reality that, when people do not understand critical agreements, if you allow that to be a justification for not following those agreements, then all hope is lost for collective social cohesion — and peace. It matters what we have agreed to, and how we attend to keeping or changing those agreements.

BARRIERS TO COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

One of the things I love about NVC is the way that solutions that emerge from NVC-based dialog are so often more wonderful than anything anyone could have come up with on their own. I have experienced the ability of NVC dialog to support the emergence of collective intelligence. So, I feel sad that this Board seems to have a pattern of doing their work in isolation, without engaging in external dialog — even with stakeholders such as those who were serving CNVC via the New Future Process, and even when agreements the Board had entered into specifically called for such collaboration.

ABSENCE OF DIALOG

The Board has declined to engage in discussion or dialog about its choices, either with the Implementation Council, or with the trainers list. Although in August 2018 the Board offered to have a conversation with the Implementation Council, I understand the Board to have made a condition of meeting that it only to be to mourn and celebrate the past, with no possibility of dialog about making new or different choices.

John Gottman, a scientist who studies divorce, considers “stonewalling” (or refusal to communicate about significant issues) to be highly destructive to a relationship and highly predictive of its total breakdown (i.e., divorce). It’s extraordinarily painful to be on the receiving end of. I suspect the behavior that draws this label often reflects intense pain on the part of the one choosing it. I long for such pain, and those suffering it, to be cared for.

I don’t know what is going on for the Board that leads them to decline connection. I’m sure busy-ness and overwhelm are factors. And yet, I interpret there to be an absolute barrier to connection that seems to call for a deeper explanation.

In the only exchange I was able to have with a Board member (about the non-payment-of-wages issue), I learned that that person viewed not communicating as an expression of kindness, because the extreme judgments that they had would be hard for the targets of that judgment to hear. To me, this points out the importance of distinguishing intention and impact. The intention of not communicating might, for some people, be kindness — but I experience the impact of someone acting decisively on a judgment, but not sharing the underlying judgment, as the opposite of kindness.

Rather than silence, I would far rather hear expression and discussion of the harshest imaginable judgments of me, if those judgments were informing important decisions. I believe that sharing the judgments underlying decisions would increase mutual understanding, and create the possibility of a situation shifting. I suspect that many judgments could not survive untransformed, once brought into the “light of day” and exposed for consideration. In contrast, silence functions like “shunning”, a practice used as a punishment because it is so painful to the social animals that we are.

Such blockage to connection is the opposite of what NVC leads me to long for, and to hope for from my fellow NVC practitioners.

What have we as an NVC network come to, if profound disconnection is allowed to develop, drive decisions, and persist in the heart of our institutions?

NATURE OF INFLUENCE IN THIS SITUATION

Without making the Board “wrong,” it is still the case that so many things that I care about in this situation seem inseparable from the Board and its choices. It is hard to see how aspects of this situation can be addressed without the Board’s involvement.

It’s easy to say “The Board has all the power in this situation; there is nothing we can do to shift what is happening, if the members of the Board aren’t inclined to engage.” I think that is only partially truth. I believe the collective voice and actions of the community potentially have enormous power, were there to be any substantial agreement about anything within the community.

There is potential to both shift what is happening with the Board and to do life-serving things that don’t involve the Board — though the situation with the Board creates an environment where I have concerns that even doing things not involving the Board may be far harder than would otherwise be the case.

That said, I don’t personally know how to alter or improve the situation much on my own.

WHAT I’D LIKE NOW

Even after 8 months of wrestling with my relationship to the situation, I continue to find the situation unbearable. The acuteness of disconnection and absence of entry points to support movement or hope seem so contrary to everything that drew me to NVC. I’ve thought through a lot. I see various possibilities, some flickers of beauty. And, I am still, in some ways, at a loss.

I long for partnership in figuring out how we can collectively relate to the conflict within CNVC in a life-serving way. 

Please let me know if you’d like to:

1. Be part of (or organize) a group that would work together (virtually) to consider and develop ways to transform the situation; or
2. Offer other support; or
3. Be informed, regarding anything that might happen in this regard.

(You can reply to me directly, or you could fill out this form.)

I’d also be curious to know if this letter touched, moved or contributed to you in any way.

Thanks,
Bob Wentworth

FOOTNOTES

[1] The main transition plan agreement that the Board honored for a time was the agreement to financially support the Implementation Council; but, the Board later disavowed there ever having been any clear agreement about this — which was puzzling to me since I had been present with Board members at the meetings where those agreements were made (and the transition plan explicitly called for CNVC to “use CNVC excess revenue to fund [NF Plan implementation] until the transition is complete” and for a “NVC-O Core Revenues” fund to be set up for this purpose). The Board did also honor an agreement to designate certain funds as a “reserve” fund, but I understand the Board has subsequently removed that designation.

[2] As I understand it, in relating to the Implementation Council, the Board provided no information on CNVC’s finances, contrary to the agreements the Board had made in the transition plan to provide full financial transparency. Then, the Board, without clear justification, demanded that the Implementation Council develop a self-contained balanced budget, separate from CNVC’s budget, contrary to what Council members and others understood had been agreed about developing a joint budget collaboratively. [Footnote 3] The Implementation Council said they couldn’t do a separate balanced budget (which had never been an intention of the NF Plan). That response was in a context of it being profoundly confusing why the Board would ask for such a thing, and why the Board was apparently disregarding the agreements that had been made about finances. The Board witnessed a reaction to confusing, unmotivated demands, not a reaction to transparent sharing of a financial dilemma (which I expect would have been quite different). It seems likely that the Board did not recognize this as what was happening, and so drew unfortunate conclusions from this interaction, which led to a sense that unilateral action to protect CNVC’s resources was necessary.

[3] Regarding the agreement to develop a joint budget collaboratively, (a) Integration Council members and, I believe, Board Member Cate Crombie, who were present at the January 2017 in-person Albuquerque meeting, recall that agreement being made as a memorably highlight of that meeting; and (b) this is reflected, albeit not in full detail, in the written transition plan via the agreements that “Decisions about allocation of resources from the common pool are collectively owned by all the weaves that exist during the transition. For example, initially, the emerging transitional configuration of CNVC and the Implementation Council share a budget because they are both entities that relate to the common pool” and the agreement to meet regularly “to collaborate on financial and other decisions that go beyond daily operations.”

[4] A brief summary of major commitments I understand as not honored by the Board includes: honoring the core decisions of the NF Process; bringing concerns to those involved in the NF Process to be addressed collaboratively; selecting only Board members committed to honoring these commitments; transitioning Board selection to be done in the manner decided in the NF Plan; amending CNVC’s bylaws in the manner decided in the NF Plan; including Dominic Barter as a full Board member in any deliberations impacting the NF Process; biweekly dialog with the Implementation Council and Staff, via representatives, throughout the implementation phase; being transparent about CNVC’s finances; collaborative budget development; acting as a fiscal sponsor to receive donations for NF implementation, and allowing trainer donations to be designated to go to this purpose; and more.

This conflict stimulated, and continues to stimulate, considerable distress and confusion in our community. It has also lead to an unplanned pause in implementation of the NF Plan.

We could use your help! Two different categories of help are relevant:

1. Help CNVC transform its conflict, in keeping with CNVC’s vision of a world in which people “resolve conflicts peacefully.” You may want to support the conflict being addressed, regardless of what you think about the NF Plan, to support CNVC in advancing its vision — in the face of the current reality of an unresolved conflict between the CNVC Board and those involved in CNVC’s New Future Process.

   If you’d like to help with this, please consider joining the NVC Reconciliation Community, a group formed to help address this issue.

2. Help implement non-controversial aspects of the NF Plan. If you support the NF Plan, with its vision of distributed leadership, support for NVC community, a community-based model for certification, and more, you may want to help us resume implementing the NF Plan. Trying to deal with the conflict has been profoundly demoralizing to date, and this had largely halted implementation. Yet, this seems like a good time to regroup, and get back to work on implementing the NF Plan, starting with aspects of NF plan that are independent and can be implemented without delay. New energy is needed, to support this happening.

   If you might consider the possibility of offering some help, you could let us know of your interest by filling out the form below.

   Note that some forms of help you might offer are relevant now, while others will only become relevant when and if the first round of helpers show up and do things that lead to those people being able to make use of additional help. So, you may or may not hear back from us anytime soon, in response to what you’ve expressed interest in contributing.

Thanks for your interest in caring for CNVC and its future!

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