Actionable Requests

In NVC, the most common phrasing for actionable requests begins with the clause "Would you be willing....?" I have been adapting and using this phraseology in my conversations, trying to replace the old clause "Would you mind....?"

This seems like a small, simple step, and it is, which is probably why I'm having at least some success in actually *doing* it. When I examine it, however, the implications are pretty profound, at least to me.

"Would you be willing....?" This is asking someone if they would or would not do X action, not if they would "mind" doing it. Asking if they mind doing it, regardless of their answer, doesn't indicate if they WILL do it -- it just ascertains their level of inconvenience at the possibility. It is not a direct request; it is more like a hint that one would like someone to do something: "If I asked X would you be annoyed at me while / if you did X?"

I find it interesting that in our culture we use the sentence stem "Would you mind....?" a whole lot more often than "Would you be willing....?" To me, this indicates that what we are culturally concerned about is not how willing someone is to do something, but how annoyed they might be at us for asking them to do it. We are not conditioned to directly request things from people -- rather, we are taught to make demands, hint or some combination thereof.

I have certainly caught myself doing all of the culturally accepted and conditioned methods of making requests. Luckily, my family is aware that I am practicing NVC and trying to change my communication patterns. Now a "request" often sounds something like this:

"My back hurts; I wish my red ergonomic rocking chair wasn't stacked on the table so that I could sit on it." [Wait for husband to take hint. He doesn't.] "If my back didn't already hurt, I'd get it down myself." [Wait. Nothing.] "I guess I'll just sit on the floor." [Realize I haven't asked for the chair.] "Hey -- get my chair for me." [Realize I've gone from hinting to demanding.] "I mean, that is, if you don't mind." [Hear myself and try again.] "Would you be willing to get my red chair down off of that table? [Chair appears, I sit down.]

It is amazing how difficult it is to make direct actionable requests -- most of us have little modeling for that behavior. That's the other thing -- it has to be actionable, i.e. a concrete action that the other person can actually DO. Vague things like "doing more work around the house" or "paying more attention to me" are not actionable. Rather, those things might be expressed as "picking up your towel after you shower" or "going out to dinner with me every Friday night."

So, for now I'll focus on changing the phrase "Would you mind....?" to "Would you be willing....?" It is short and simple... but not always easy.