When CEO Satya Nadella took over Microsoft, he started defusing its toxic culture by handing each of his execs a 15-year-old book by a psychologist

• Observing what is happening in a situation (such as someone saying or doing something you don't like).
• Stating how you feel when you observe the action.
• Expressing how your needs are connected to the feelings you identified.
• Addressing what you want by requesting a concrete action.

Good communicators are able to separate their observations of a situation from their evaluations or judgments of it.

For example,  "Janice works too much" contains an evaluation: working too much is subjective, and if Janice heard that, she may take it as criticism and become defensive. Saying "Janice spent more than 60 hours at the office this week" is an observation without any judgments attached.