The art of communication

That would be nice

Do you have good communication in your company, in your team, in your private life? Have you mastered the art of communication?

If so, then no destructive tensions will build up and there will be no toxic friction in your team. Then the trusting “together” will replace the hostile “against each other”. Then you and your team will be able to see the bigger picture, recognize new paths and shape them together.

Instead

In fact, we encounter dysfunctional communication on a daily basis, both in our professional and private lives. You may be familiar with it:

• Lack of clarity: People send unclear messages for a variety of reasons; unclear on a content level or on the level of underlying, unspoken deeper meanings or emotions.
• Messages are not accepted: Messages are consistently, consciously or unconsciously filtered out by the recipients. Recipients of communication are mentally in “their world”.
• Destructive dominance: A manager dominates communication. Genuinely constructive, passionate conversations are stifled and other, new perspectives on the issues are suppressed.
• Substitute discussions: Behind a seemingly rational, substantive and passionate dialog lie other issues, unspoken desires and visions or emotions (anger, frustration, disappointment or fear).
• Recurring warm-up: Teams discuss necessary topics. Decisions made are warmed up again and again.

There are many reasons for such dysfunctional communication. It may be because the basics of successful communication are not being practiced. However, there may also be structural or emotional, underlying reasons, e.g. a fear of taking responsibility, anger, frustration due to experiences from the company’s or team’s past, personal disappointments and many more.

And now?

Finding a solution to these problems is not difficult. It simply means that managers and teams should get to know and apply more than just the much-cited and important “active listening”. Systematically improving communication leads to much more cohesion, fun, energy and ultimately success in the team.

We propose a development process along 5 systematic steps, based on the tried and tested approaches of William Isaacs (“The Art of Thinking Together”):

• 1️⃣ Creates a safe space for communication
• 2️⃣ Learn to communicate – bilaterally and in a team
• 3️⃣ What do your communication patterns look like? What do you want to change?
• 4️⃣ Understand how your “ecosystem” (team, environment, history, vision) influences your communication
• 5️⃣ The art of communication – how can you consciously shape this as a manager and team?

Here are some thoughts and experiences from our practice.

1️⃣ Create a safe space for communication!

When can good communication arise? Or: what is good communication? In our opinion, good communication is based on trust – trust at the relationship level.

Trust is the certainty that my counterpart will not use what I have said against me. Trust is the security of being able to passionately express controversial things without being punished. And the other way around, it is the permission given to oneself to perceive, respect and consider dissenting, passionately expressed messages. Only this trust enables a safe space for communication.

The idea of a ‘safe space’ is so fundamental that it reappears with many authors and in many coaching and training sessions, be it with Simon Sinek as the “Circle of Safety”, or with Lencioni (5 dysfunctions of a team) as trust and the ability to deal with conflict.

Creating trust and appreciation are a team’s own development steps. Sometimes we are asked to heal communication from above. We then listen attentively – and recommend that we first focus on mutual trust within the team.

2️⃣ Learn to communicate – bilaterally and in a team

Once a safe space for communication has been created, the next step is for the team to look at the basics of communication. This is about experiences, patterns and beliefs in communication. And how these patterns can be changed for the better.

We work – again based on Isaacs – in the following four steps:

1. Listening– Are we aware of the topic on all levels? Are we attentive to the factual level, but also to meanings, emotions and power? Do we have organizational aspects in mind? What is going on inside us when we perceive something unpleasant or irritating? What are disturbances in the team’s perception and what is behind them?
2. Respecting– What is mutual respect in communication? For myself? And for the others? For the team? Am I very quick to explain and judge? Or do I manage to observe and perceive independently? Do I also see my own parts?
3. Interrupting (“Suspending“) – Do I personally and we in the conversation succeed in pausing and allowing new perspectives? Or is ‘the truth’ set? Do I allow something new to emerge? Can I take myself back? If not – why is that? Are personal issues making communication difficult? Do I ask: is something missing? Am I overlooking something?
4. Voicing– How do I deal with putting new thoughts, considerations and visions “into the world”? Do I censor myself? Or do I manage to speak out courageously? Contribute to something new? Do I dominate others?

These four steps build on each other and are interdependent. More awareness, for example, leads to more respect, more perspectives on the matter and clearer, appreciative communication.

3️⃣ What do your communication patterns look like? What do you want to change?

The next step in the development of the team (or organization) is to make the team aware of the patterns that influence daily communication. It is about recognizing and eliminating the communication traps that are practiced on a daily basis:

• How authentic is the communication? Is there a difference between “walk” (acting) and “talk” (speaking)? And why does such a difference sabotage all good communication? And how can we do it instead?
• How much does assertion dominate over learning and why? And how can you deal with the fact that different languages lead to dysfunctional communication?
• Who plays which role in communication? Who is the doer, who is the supporter? Who is in the opposition? And who is on the sidelines? And why? How do you strengthen your ability to make these roles transparent? How do you recognize dysfunctional extremes of these roles (e.g. the “toxic saboteur”) and deal with them?
• Overarching: Which beliefs and taboos influence your communication? Your trust, your growth and your actions?

It is therefore more intensively about the self of the team, the organization. It is about recognizing – and forgiving. This creates calm, energy and the urge to move forward. And the courage to create something new.

4️⃣ What are the structural “traps” of your communication?

The next step is to recognize structural aspects of communication. This includes all explicit and implicit, formal and informal framework conditions, conventions and habits that influence the content, form and atmosphere of communication:

• Which topics are discussed where? Where are decisions made? Is there a lack of clarity around the organization of communication? Do those who have to implement decisions feel marginalized? Frustrated? Not heard? How consistent are places of communication and places of decision-making?
• Who in the organization feels like the bearer of “meaning”, perhaps in the face of change? Have harder or softer fronts developed, perhaps between “what we have always stood for” and “what we now have to pay attention to (margin)”?
• How clear, focused and swift are decisions made? Are things talked through or are decisions made blindly without thinking? Where? By whom? What do these decision-making processes do to the organization?
• What do formal and informal incentive systems look like? For example, are particular interests promoted, but the communication “from the top” emphasizes cooperation and the we?
• How do historical structures, e.g. from mergers, influence the actual communication in an informal way? What influence do such structures have on formal communication channels?

Kantor offers us two conceptual tools to analyze what he calls the structural dynamics of communication.

On the one hand, Kantor speaks of the three languages of communication: the language of emotions, the language of meaning and the language of power. A dialog in which – unrecognized – everyone speaks a different language will fragment itself and fail. If, on the other hand, the team learns to recognize and consciously use the languages, then a new depth and quality of communication is created. All three languages are good and necessary.

On the other hand, Kantor describes different preferences for communication and decision-making in organizations. He speaks of open, closed and random (inconsistent) paradigms.

In the open paradigm, organizations openly negotiate individual needs and try to synchronize them with those of the organization. These organizations are convinced that participation creates more motivation for and loyalty to the organization.

In the closed paradigm, the organization is a-priori in the foreground. This can be the traditional, hierarchical organization. However, if the management team of a company orders “more focus on revenue and margin” from above, this also shows aspects of the closed paradigm.

In the accidental paradigm, organizations are in between, often unstable and inconsistent.

As with languages, there is no “good” or “bad” for paradigms. Consciously designed structures, decision-making and communication processes that work and offer the team a certain degree of reliability without paralyzing them should be strived for – see point 5.

5️⃣ The art of communication – how can you consciously shape this as a manager and team?

The next and final step in developing functional communication in your team or company is about consciously shaping communication. It is about anchoring the learning content from the previous steps and setting an example for the organization with a great deal of authenticity, patience and discipline. It is about working on taboos and beliefs, setting up and developing good structures for formal and informal communication.

This process takes time, calm and patience. And is usually more than worth it.

Isaacs also offers a useful tool for this phase of development, design and change. He describes the maturity of the organization or team on the basis of two dimensions:

• The primacy of the whole (organization) vs. the parts (individuals, rope teams, …)
• The approach and the type of reflection: from reproachful/non-reflective to self-reflective

Organizations and teams can now develop in four steps:

1. In the status of “ politeness”, the focus is formally on the whole, communication takes the form of “shared monologues”, there are subliminal accusations, overall little trust and a lot of driving on well-worn, safe tracks. Primacy of the whole, reproachful, non-reflective interaction.
2. In the next status, the “ breakdown”, individuals (or teams, groups) come into view. Communication becomes more intensive, sometimes sharper but clearer. More primacy of the parts, with similar interaction.
3. Thirdly, a well-managed second status results in more and more understanding, more listening, more openness: in other words: more trust. The dialogs become more intensive, more exploratory, more reflective. Isaacs calls this the status of “deeper analysis” (inquiry)
4. Finally, something new emerges from the third status, which Isaacs calls a status of “ flow”.

Depending on which of these 5 states the organization is in, managers (and coaches) can and must support and promote the process differently. In the status of politeness, for example, it is about clarifying the framework and objectives, creating a safe space (step 1) and actually having the courage to consciously bring about the resolution.

And what happens now?

Successful communication can be open, deep, intense, controversial and emotional. Good communication is both a binding agent and fuel. Good communication is central to the long-term success of you and your team.

Creating good communication within the company is the central basis for short and long-term success. It is absolutely essential in the much-cited VUCA environment. Creating it is not trivial, it is a central management task.

What are your experiences with successful or failed communication in a team? What really matters? What concerns you? How do you consciously shape communication? What taboos and beliefs influence your communication? What structural hurdles? How do you go about changing communication in your organization?

We hope that with our considerations we have been able to show you a few approaches on how you can take this path in a structured and successful way.

We are happy to support you. Maybe you just need a few ideas or some training. Perhaps we can also guide you to more calm, more confidence, more security, better dialog and great results!

Let’s communicate for your communication! Get in touch!