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John Kinyon is one of our trainers of Nonviolent Communication and someone in whom I have a great deal of trust and confidence. John in my experience has a special gift for facilitating empathic understanding and communication between people. I highly endorse John's skills and abilities with Nonviolent Communication, and I strongly recommend him to anyone needing help resolving a conflict situation.
- Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D., founder of Nonviolent Communication

"John, I'm so grateful for the work you have done with my staff and me over the past 4 years. I want to thank you for how you helped me turn around the difficulties I was experiencing with my employees and create a new level of success in my business. You have contributed to these things by how you coached me to communicate differently and model the qualities and ways of relating I wanted to see with my staff. You have a great ability to support people being honest and authentic with each other in ways that bring them together. You have helped us communicate and resolve conflicts in a way that everyone felt heard and understood that then led to finding mutually satisfying solutions. Particularly helpful was when you mediated between two employees with long standing and complex problems - it was truly amazing to watch as they found the common ground of understanding and found the basis for being able to work together again with a growing sense of respect and mutuality."
- Suzan Steinberg, business owner

At a time of escalated tensions and unexpressed concerns, John's experience and inspirational style with NVC helped to facilitate a reconnection between the principles of the business. After the breakdown in communication, his skills helped create a stronger foundation of trust and empathy, where each person could be heard. This enabled us to move ahead into a creative dynamic process of strategies and goal setting for the company.
- Selma Aslin & Tehra Braren, business owner and director


"I continue to bask in the afterglow of the training, and I am realizing how much I 'grokked' from that 5-day immersion. I realized some years ago that the way I learn is through a process of digesting my experience as opposed to remembering facts, and I later see how the learning expresses itself in ways unique to me. That expression is exactly what I am experiencing in the training's aftermath; I'm finding myself thinking and speaking more often from an NVC perspective. I'm wanting you to know that yours and Ike's teaching styles, methods and examples of embodying and living NVC, along with the additional reinforcement by the assistants, resulted in the richest learning experience of any training, workshop, seminar, etc. in my life."
- Rick Robbins

I have experienced John's facilitation in many different contexts, from three days with Afghan elders in a refugee camp, numerous workshops, business and board meetings and social gatherings.  And in each of these instances I am struck by constancy of his commitment to the quality of connection as the door to creating the kind of world in which people are meeting their needs peacefully.  I like him and trust him.  As my Daddy used to say, "He is top drawer."  I predict you will like him too.  
- Ike Lasater, mediator, facilitator, trainer of Nonviolent Communication, and former trail lawyer

"Working with John Kinyon in his 'NVC as Spiritual Practice' workshops and groups has profoundly affected my ability to live the spiritual values I hold dear, even in the midst of difficult or painful conversations and interactions. He has helped me to see that the "needs consciousness" of NVC provides me with much more than a nonviolent response to the egoic or 'Jackal' language of myself and others in my life. It also provides me with a tool for profound inquiry into my experience of the present moment. John provided me with NVC-informed spiritual practices which I now use every day, and share with my own students and clients."
- Newt Bailey, NVC trainer and mediator

Nonviolent communication sounds like a political thing, but to me NVC is a communications approach that I value in personal and business relationships. John Kinyon is an expert and highly trained NVC facilitator, and is superlative at resolving hard, entrenched conflicts. He has the courage and competence to tackle even situations where people hate one another, and can lead them to find a common ground. John gets to the heart of an issue, and, in the kindest possible way, airs every stake-holder's point of view. His practical judgment, life experience and quiet style earn the respect of the participants, as he calmly draws them to lasting clarity and closure. Any organization--any relationship--could benefit from John Kinyon's teaching and facilitation.
- Ed Niehaus, organizational consultant

" I have been the owner or partner of over 14 different business ventures, including a business consulting company. If there is one thing I have learned from these experiences it is that internal conflict that does not get addressed destroys more organizations than the competition ever did. John Kinyon is a master of resolving conflicts in a way that leaves the parties feeling resolved and being productive. I could not think of a better, more effective way of dealing with difficult situations, both internally between staff or departments, and externally between the organization and their suppliers or customers."
- Paul Sterling , President, Colorado Institute for Business Excellence

Through the model of Nonviolent Communication - a model based on the psychology of human interactions - I have been able to avoid creating conflict as well as resolving it in my role as a Senior Manager in a multinational hi-tech corporation. Unlike many other approaches, NVC's power lies in its simplicity and practical approach and takes Steven Covey's "Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood" to the next level. John Kinyon brings his experience and training in psychology to the world of organizational behavior and is an inspirational facilitator and consultant.
- Kenn Mackenzie, Altera Corporation

John led a group of 30+ faculty and students of Peralta Community College District in a workshop on Nonviolent Communication with an outstanding knowledge base and leadership to allow the group to work with the concepts. John also utilized humor effectively to assist the participants in enjoying the learning process and helping them to practice the skills. We would love for John to return and do more workshops.
- Indra Thadani, Health training Coordinator, Laney College

John's warmth, knowledge, and patience make his presence a gift. His presentation of this challenging and groundbreaking solution to conflict is a doorway to discovery and growth. The benefits of this work are enormous.
- Frances Blau, Intake Coordinator/Assistant Program Director, Maitri Hospice Care

John possesses remarkable insight into the inner workings of the mind caught in conflict.  He has helped me understand my own blocks - needs and issues that have clouded my ability to connect with myself and others.  I am deeply grateful that our paths have crossed.
- Larry R., attorney and mediator, former CEO of venture-funded company

As a principal of a public middle school in San Francisco, I am bringing Compassionate Communication (NVC) into my classrooms after having introduced it to my staff four years ago. John Kinyon was a member of the training group that year. He continued to work with members of my staff in conflict resolution, mediation, and empathy practice to teachers and administration. That work was invaluable to enabling me to shift from a domination institutional system of education to one of power with and empathy giving.
-Leslie Trook, principal of Giannini Middle School Testimonials

"I really enjoyed John's presence as he shared NVC with our community. He held both the integrity of this work, and that of our own practice, while celebrating the many connections and parallels between them. It was very satisfying to feel the appreciation of those present for his consciousness of other's needs for inclusiveness, respect, and learning."
- Peter Overton, Berkeley Zen Center

“Yourself is actually the whole of humankind. That’s the idea of implicate order – that everything is enfolded in everything… The individual’s ability to be sensitive to that becomes the key to change of humankind. We are all connected.” David Bohm, physicist

“If you want quality communication, understanding where others are coming from must come first”
Richard Carlson, author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff books

"When most oarsmen talked about their perfect moments in a boat, they referred not so much to winning a race, as to the feel of the boat, all eight oars in the water together, the synchronization almost perfect. In moments like these, the boat seemed to lift right out of the water. Oarsmen called that the moment of swing.”
David Halberstam, The Amateurs

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one … the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”
W.N. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
Goethe

"The Way to do is to be."
Lao-Tzu

"[Becoming a fully functioning person] seems to mean that the individual moves toward being, knowingly and acceptingly, the process which he inwardly and actually is.
Carl Rogers, On Becoming A Person