Empathetic & Honest Communication

Ursula is passionate about helping people achieve their goals and have more wonderful lives.

She is a personal and professional coach, counselor, mediator, and workshop facilitator, who works with everyone from teens, couples, individuals and doctors, to job-seekers, date-seekers, engineers, marketeers, CEOs and felons. She gives empathy by phone, does telephone coaching, private sessions, mediations, facilitates cooperative divorces, organizational interventions, and conducts workshops.  

Her organizational client list ranges from non-profits and schools to small start-ups and Fortune 100s.  Stanford University, the YMCA, Apple, AT&T, IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems are some of the most recognizable.

Ursula most enjoys working with individuals, couples, and families outside of their work context.  She has found that, even when she and a client start their coaching relationship talking about business models and strategic plans, before they know it they have rapport and personal issues take over their discussions.  When someone has issues at work, more often that not, they have parallel issues at home.  Ursula loves helping people improve their communication and life-skills since they can transform everyone's lives; from the individual's to the organization's, the system's and more and more the world.  Living and teaching NVC is a large part of Ursula's practice.

In the last 49 years many millions of people have improved their lives by learning Empathetic & Honest Communication/Nonviolent Communication (NVC).  Every year 250,000 more take on integrating NVC in their way of being.  Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's* primer, Nonviolent Communication: the Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships has sold five million copies and counting.    * (The originator)
 

To date Ursula studied with Dr. Marshall Rosenberg eighteen years and has applied NVC professionally for twenty-four with astonishing results (see her professional roles above).

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Ursula began her "non-academic" study of communication mediating between family members and people of diverse races and cultures.  She grew up in a blended family with four nationalities and lived in four countries by the time she was fourteen.  She got a lot of practice understanding diverse values, cultures, and communication styles.

Ursula continued her education at University of California Santa Barbara where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and earned a BA with High Honors in Communication Studies and with Distinction in German Literature and Language (1984).  

After working in marketing at two small book and audio book publishing companies, she returned to school to get an MBA from Stanford, with emphasis on Organizational Psychology/Behavior and Entrepreneurship (1993/1994).  

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Right after graduate school (for three years) Ursula worked as an executive coach and an organizational consultant in author and Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Jerry Porras' consulting company.  His co-authored book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, had just hit the shelves (1994) and then became an international best-seller during the time Ursula worked with him (now over one million sold, five years on the Business Week best-seller list, translated into twenty-five languages).  It is one of most influential management books ever published).  The book (BTL) is in Harvard Business School's Core Collection.

Ursula is grateful for the lucky timing to work in Jerry's team right when BTL was hot off the press.  She feels honored to have learned the book's powerful concepts directly from one of the men who brought them to the world, right when the ideas were first introduced.  As an executive coach and an organizational consultant, Ursula got to see what impact the pointers made in execs' personal and business success. 

While most would get inspired after reading the book, as is usually the case, it was those who actively put BTL concepts into practice who got durable results.  And, as is always the case, those who achieved the most where those who were coached regularly to celebrate when they were on track, and get constructive feedback when they were off, and their approach needed adjustment.  Most successful people (in any context, sports, performing arts, business, community service, etc.) have mentors, speech writers, counselors and coaches, et al to stay at the top of their game.

BTL continues to inform Ursula's coaching and consulting.  She still calls upon some of the concepts; they help her clients improve their lives by, among many things, being more flexible and open, while also staying grounded in core values.

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In 1994 - it was a busy year - Ursula was introduced to the Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and international mediator, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, and she then, on the side, started to intensively study his model of communication and way of being called Compassionate/Nonviolent Communication.  The primer Nonviolent Communication: The Language of Life is an international best-seller, has sold more than five million copies and has been translated into 35 languages, with 250,000 people starting to learn it each year.

Two years later Ursula began using NVC as a volunteer life skills facilitator in a halfway house in the San Francisco Tenderloin (two years).  She is proud to have worked with a criminal reentry services program that has a 23% better than average recidivism and individual criminal risk rate.  It means a lot to Ursula that when she and an ex-con crossed paths years later, he said that her Empathetic & Honest Communication (NVC + more) Skills Training helped him better understand people, manage his emotions, and keep out of trouble.  Such life skills programs can lead to a number of turn-around success stories.

During this time Ursula mediated for the community as a volunteer and also gave pro bono Empathetic and Honest Communications (NVC + more) workshops and presentations to churches, spiritual and personal growth centers, and community centers in the Greater Bay Area, from Marin to San Jose.

After she had applied NVC professionally for two years, she was selected to be Dr. Rosenberg's personal assistant.  She was disappointed to soon have to decline for health reasons.  When she got cancer* she couldn't travel the world.  Having said that, as for many, The Big C was a useful wakeup call to take more calculated risks so as to make more of a difference, to focus more on what makes her heart sing and, in Ursula's case, to dive into integrating, using and "being" NVC even more than before. 

Needless to say, "being" NVC in the personal arena as consistently as possible is a tall order; Ursula thinks "Teacher teach thyself'" fits well.  She is quick to admit that teaching and using NVC professionally is personally also a strategy for her to learn faster and deeper; to keep the concepts top of mind and to better model NVC in conference rooms, her cosy office, and her own life.  

Some say NVC is "Compassion in Action" and "Living Love."  Sometimes Ursula's laughs and says that that's enough homework for a lifetime, at least hers.  When is tough-love the most loving answer?  When is it more loving for yourself and someone else to tip your hat, wish them well and withdraw from the relationship with tears in your eyes?  And when is it more loving to change the nature of a relationship, while hoping to still stay connected? 

Switching to a lighter side: for those who like playful learning, one way of teaching NVC is with two puppet animals as symbolic metaphors. The giraffe (the land animal with the largest heart) represents nonviolent communication.  In contrast, the jackal represents violent communication (with dangerous teeth and "attitude").  Many trainers find the puppets such effective teaching tools, that they aren't shy to use them even with C-Suite folks at Fortune 100s and technical engineers at dot coms.  Ursula is one of them.  

One of Ursula's favorite Marshall-Moments is when she washed both his giraffe and jackal puppets with hers (they were in a hot tub together, so to speak).  They then all tumbled together in a dryer and came out looking happy, fluffy and fresh.  In fact, Marshall's baby jackal - thought to be grey for decades - emerged surprisingly white.

It may very well be that in the 40 years Marshall bounded around the globe mediating and giving workshops and presentations, his puppets only got washed once before (rumored to have been in Sweden).  Naturally, Marshall had no interest in keeping up with such details; much rather that he have time to get more insights into how to resolve conflicts between people, organizations, governments, and our inner voices.  That said, Marshall was always mindful of keeping his jackal and giraffe puppets in a cloth bag and his guitar close by his side (not just at airports).  

Ursula felt honored that the trust between her and Marshall was such that he let them out of his sight and gave them to her to wash when she offered.  It was all the more meaningful since it was the the night before a morning workshop and Marshall relied on his giraffe and jackal puppets as powerful props.  Perhaps more importantly, he was naturally sentimentally attached to that particular, well-traveled pair. 

At one of his last presentations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dr. Rosenberg joked with the crowd, "Ursula has gone to more of my workshops than I have!"  

Ursula is grateful to have studied eighteen years with this world-renowned peacemaker, while he refined NVC to become more and more effective.  She is delighted to have found that part of her life purpose to help people have more wonderful lives is based on her bringing more empathetic consciousness and skillfulness to the world.  With so much dividing us (on so many levels and in so many places), we global citizens sure have a lot issues that could use the power of empathy (and thoughtful honesty) at home, locally outside our homes, nationally, and internationally.  There certainly isn't a lack of subject material.

As one way to inspire empathy, Ursula has mediated hundreds of cases (from two-party to multi-party cases), with 97% ending in resolution.  She thinks that NVC makes the difference between mediations, where parties feel heard and come to a durable, mutually beneficial agreement, and those where there is an impasse or only short-term results.  She has a number of mediation stories of unbelievably inspiring outcomes. 

Ursula finds NVC brings similar benefits to communication facilitation and system interventions (whether these are for couples and families or organizations).  She loves conducting Empathetic & Honest Communication (NVC + more) workshops for the general public, facilitates follow-on weekly practice groups and coaches individuals, families and groups (both over the phone and in person).

Some client comments:

• "Ursula is the most amazing Empathy Teacher I have ever seen.  I have experienced some of the best in America."

• Ursula hovers on a level near Marshall (Rosenberg)." 

• "Ursula's workshop gave me hope that there are high quality trainers who can spread NVC long after Marshall (Rosenberg) is gone."  

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Ursula had the privilege of being mentored by another world-famous Marshall, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.  Among other accolades, he has been ranked as the #1 Executive Coach in America, #1 in the World, and Top Ten Business Thinker several times over the past eight years.  Harvard Business Review named him #1 Leadership Thinker.  Harvard Coaching Institute chose Dr. Goldberg to be the first winner of their Lifetime Award for Leadership.  He has over 1.3 million followers on LinkedIn and his YouTube videos have over 3 million views.  

He is the author or editor of 41 books, including three New York Times bestsellers; together they have sold over 2.5 million copies, been translated into 32 languages and been named international best-sellers in 12 countries.  He typically charges $250,000 per coaching client.  Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has a wealth of experience in working with some of the most successful people in the world.

At the time that Dr. Marshall Goldsmith was working with Ursula, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There: how successful people become even more successful was just hot off the press; during the time that he mentored Ursula, it became one of two of his books recognized as being in the top 100 of books ever written in his field.  Marshall G. is one of only two authors with two books* on the list.  How he then mentored Ursula was freshly informed by that book's insightful success tips.   *(His second Amazon Top 100 Leadership and Success Books Ever Written is Triggers; some ideas from the book).

For two years, every 1.5 months, Marshall G. was on three-way coaching calls with Ursula and the Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs at Stanford.  While Ursula was the lead, he sometimes stepped in to better model his approach and then privately gave Ursula feedback after each call.  Ursula is honored to have been coached by the #1 Coach in the World (and is very grateful about the luck of having that happen on a pro bono basis).

Once Ursula mastered Dr. Marshall Goldsmith's signature coaching style (enough), she integrated it into her own.  She often uses his pointers and his version of the 360-Feedback coaching tool in a novel way with individuals, couples and families (outside of the usual business/organizational context).       

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For twelve years Ursula served as a Senior Mediator at Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center and and also at City of Mountain View Mediation Services where she worked pro bono.

During this time she was also a Senior Coach in a forty-hour Mediation and Dispute Resolution certificate program at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills (twice a year for twelve years).  The training was lead by Marvin Schwartz, JD, who is known as one of the best mediation trainers in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.

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Ursula has been a member of the YMCA for thirty-six years and served one year as the Chair of one of the Palo Alto branches' annual gift giving campaigns.  She and others on the volunteer team broke branch records in how much they raised; the bulk of the donations went to the youth of East Palo Alto (EPA).  At the time, this sister-city was decimated by a crack cocaine epidemic and was named the Murder Capital of the United States.  Volunteers from that (now closed) YMCA branch like to think that their consistent efforts over many years helped contribute to EPA's reduction in crime and rise in reading rates.

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She is certified to administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and uses it as a tool for clients to increase their self-awareness and personal growth.  The originator's* guiding principle was that understanding personality and difference can change the world for the better.   *(Isabel Briggs Myers).  The MBTI assessment is the most widely used and recognized personality tool in the world and is based on more than 70 years of research.  It was originally inspired by Carl Jung's study of different psychological types (see Psychological Types: The Psychology of Individuation, Carl Jung, 1921). 

Three-and-a-half  million people take it each year in 115 countries.  More than 88% of Fortune 500 companies use it, as do smaller companies, governments, colleges, nonprofits, clergy, counselors and executive coaches, among many others; it has been translated into twenty-nine languages.  It is considered to be the gold standard of tools to capture someone's preferred way of thinking and operating; as such the MBTI makes it easy for people all around the world to get more quickly get some insight into each other (without needing to be assessed by some new questionnaire, with some new incomparable measurements in each new environment).

Ursula has been working with the MBTI for thirty-six years and got certified to be an administrator twenty-six years ago.  She finds the MBTI extremely helpful in having clients learn how to get to know parts of themselves and others better, so that they have more fulfilling lives, both personally and professionally.  When people share their results, there is often great relief in better understanding differences and celebrating commonality.  What then follows is, with practice, more skillfulness in relating to each other (whether they be in families, teams, larger groups, or one-on-one).

The MBTI is yet another powerful precision tool which Ursula uses to help people have more wonderful lives.

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URSULA IS AVAILABLE FOR:

• Telephone empathy sessions
• Communication/relationship coaching
• Life skills coaching
• Family conferences
• Cooperative divorces
• In-person counseling (individual, couple's, or family)
• Mediations (couple's, parent/teen, family, employer/employee, business partners)
• Executive coaching
• Leadership development
• Organizational trainings (cross-functional team-building, conflict resolution, effective communication, emotional intelligence, anger management, diversity appreciation)
• Organizational interventions

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Ursula can be reached at:   

        1-888-STANFORD
          (650) 966-1000

 ursuladuncan@gmail.com