I think the key word there is "require". It's always great to try to help people, but in the end which road they walk down is up to them. My take on it is "Never expect other people to change, but also don't expect them not to change either".
How is NVC way any different? "I feel sad because you did X" is just sugarcoated "You are the one who made me feel sad by doing X".
I find the "uncover your feelings" the most questionable point of the whole framework. Instantly reminds me of Stephen Fry's
— I am rather offended by that
– So fucking what?
Long ago I made an observation that anger and other feelings are more of our perception of someone's actions than the actions themselves. From that time on "90% of everything is attitude" became one of the my favourite sayings.
Also, I am not sure if NVC sits well with the fundamental attribution error.
Words are just a way of conveying meaning, and it's always possible to interpret someone's words as implying blame. A motivated listener can take the most impartial, detached observation and hear it as a blistering indictment.
If someone is told the words "I feel a lot of anxiety about our financial stability" it's completely possible for them to understand the "true meaning" as "You're a useless slob who can't hold a proper job and I hate you"
But this doesn't mean that words don't matter. We don't control the meaning we convey, but we do influence it. Choice of words and phrasing is a very powerful tool for that. There are other tools as well, of course. But getting the words right is the low hanging fruit for most people.
>If you want to improve your relationships though, make rule zero "minimize the extent to which you require other people in the world to change."
I actually think this is profoundly awful advice, that gets progressively worse the more intimate the relationship, as a fundamental function of human relationships is accountability.
I'd rather not have an intense sit-down over socks. I am not a boor for thinking conversational tricks to manipulate me into tidying up are the opposite of functional intimacy.
> minimize the extent to which you require other people in the world to change.
That is the central point of NVC though. It isn't a mind trick to make people change, it is a framework for someone to communicate how they see the world without requiring anyone else to change.
Your rule 0 combines with NVC to lets conversations drift into meaningful topics while allowing other people to change only if they want to.
Your rule 0 without NVC basically means you need to rediscover NVC yourself or you have to limit your conversation only to the superficial. Which is workable but sub-optimal.
If you want to improve your relationships though, make rule zero "minimize the extent to which you require other people in the world to change."