Leadership Fridays # 05 // The explosive 3Cs : Changes, Communication and Cultures (Part 2)

Raw Reflections noted down, unredacted, on 250131

Ciao a tutti,

First and foremost - sorry for very long time from the last posts : some very good news, both in private and professional life, have kept me away from recording reflections about leadership here. While I am very happy of the changes in my life, I also find some sort of satisfaction to finally have time for "dumping" thoughts, that had been fermenting in the background.

This one provides the elaboration in how I see the 3Cs interconnected with each other. Part 1 , with introduction to the topic is here

The magic art of Communication : a simple Mechanism

If there are at least two people working together, then Communication starts playing an active role in transmitting information. Of course communication exists independently of the reason of Changes and outside of project setup: it is a process that is part of us been social animals.

There are many theories around Communication, and entire academic courses developed on the subject. I will not substitute myself to those, while extracting key points of knowledge - and possibly relate them to the experiences I had.

You will ask . "Do you want to make a lecture about communication?" and my reply is "No, not at all". However I find more impacting and beneficial a deductive approach, due to the vast amount of literature - compared to the pseudo-deductive reasoning I have used in Part 1 : understanding the principles behind has helped me in understanding why I have not excelled in the past.

The most basic is consider the physical process of communication. A communication exists because there is a Sender, at least a Receiver, a Mean or Channel, that play a role in transmitting a Message. The sender and the receiver have developed mechanisms of Coding and Decoding the message, since they have to make the message ready for the mean that will play a role in the communication.

"We all know that, then why you talk about it?". Because of Lesson Number 1 : choose the right Tool/Mean. Have you ever been sitting in a situation where the tool chosen was so completely wrong? And what happened then ?

In one example, I have been - many many years ago - sitting writing an email in the prime of my career, where the full content was so complicated that would have required maybe a presentation and a meeting to discuss. Outcome of it? The other part didn't understand the message, and - even worst - has been giving additional interpretations to the core message. Here the tool played an active part in the distortion of the message, introducing biases : I overworked to code the message and the receiver failed to decode it. Lesson learnt, next time think twice and plan better.

"That's simple, now I know how to communicate!". Well, I also dreamed so, then I spent many years experiencing the next chapters.

The magic art of Communication : the Message you do not know you are giving

Coding and decoding are not mere "algorithms" , like would happen in non-human communication : for example of machines that exchange protocols, with defined rules to determine if the communication process is successful or not (aka : message transmitted and message received!). We humans are more complicated that this : a message is not merely a content, and we embed meanings in the communication, in different ways.

If few words : we do not just communicate, we meta-communicate

The principles for which we meta-communicate are enumerated by the psychological theory by Watzlawick . In few words : we are "programmed" to Code & Decode hidden communication in the messages.

Watzlawick, with several decades of work on the topic, has enunciated he 5 axioms. Having spent myself in the recent years much time digging out literature about this for my everyday professional career, I have recognized these concepts in live version during communications, to the point that I am wondering why this is not thought in statutory schools in young age : a better communication would prevent many of the problems we just generate ourselves , via misunderstandings.

In particular, the second axiom postulates that there is always a factual and hidden content in the communication - but this axiom should be put in the context of the other 4 to have a more valid 360 view of the concept. If you are up to rooting a solid foundation in terms of how communication impacts Leadership, I would strongly recommend to take the hard way and have at least an introduction to the concepts, going to the footer.

The magic art of Communication : the Layers that become the Strings

In more recent years , Friedemann Schulz von Thun had combined the second axiom from Watzlawick with other communication theories, providing a model that very much affiliates with a practical use - when referring to Management & Leadership.

In few words : a message contains more layers of information, and the sender and the receiver work actively to code and decode the message on these layers. In Leadership there is vey much in managing and motivating others, so it is required to make appeal to all the "Layers"

• Factual Layer : this is the same as the "Digital" concept by Watzlawick.
• The Relationship Layer : this is more specific that the general term of Relationship by Watzlawick; it is not a general hidden message, but what the sender/receiver think of each other as individuals. Do we judge the other, do we imply a message ? Do we appreciate the other person or do we want to steer ? What is the level of power we want to put in it ?
• The Expressive Layer : consciously or unconsciously, the sender sends a message about himself, what wants to show or what self-perceives about him. In my opinion, this has a lot to do with the Self Awareness and Self Management of the EQ theory by David Goleman - that I will report here as reference, but I will not dig too much into here. It is just logic to say - that the more we know about our emotions, the more we are aware of our triggers, the easier we filter them or correctly conveys into a communication
• The Appealing Layer : it is about what the sender would like to trigger and motivate in the receiver, to influence actions for example. In my opinion, this has a lot to do with the Social Awareness and Social Management of the EQ theory by David Goleman - that I will report here as reference, but I will not dig too much into here. It is just logic to say - that the more we are able to enter in empathy with other and understand the social mechanisms of the emotions, the higher the likelihood this layer is used in the communication.

Reflecting on the theory, I would have plenty of examples in which all these layers got mixed up , and the meaning in one of it overcome the other. The most practical example would be in a negotiation, where the counterpart has actively tried to use the Appealing and Relationship layer to "overcome" the factual one - and a lot of effort has been used to keep decisions on facts. Or a situation of conflict where the Expressive layer of the sender (me being the receiver) has grown so much, to make difficult to decouple emotions from the content - but somehow I had to do to avoid the escalation of conflict. I guess you also have some examples, where these layers mixed up and made communication very - very - difficult.

Have you ever been in a situation where the listener hasn't acted as you were expecting - resulting in a big misunderstanding and delays - with annexed frustration? Have you ever been disappointed because a leader seemed bringing you to the moon, while he just wanted a report? Have you ever been sure of having communicating A, while the other has understood B ….. and then derailing form it? Have you ever been in a situation of introducing a Change, but its (communicated?) benefit gets misunderstood in something else?

"Then why the Strings? Now do you want to make it more complicated?"

Not really, not trying to boil the ocean. In my simple mind, I just like to think of these layers like Strings, that gets pressed - singularly of in combination - by the personalities and the cultural traits of the people involved in the conversation. Like a guitar, we like to press string in some points accordingly to our preferences and moods, we obtain a specific sound that may be not familiar to a listener of another culture : it might result too acute or too deep to the receiver. And the listener would press the string somewhere else , in return. Will this turn into a symphony or just in chaotic superimposition of sounds?

More on this in the last part

Some Sources or Additional Material:

• Image adapted from "Culture Change is Bottom Up and Down" at this link
• Concept of Meta-Communication, an introduction
• Watzlawick and the Communication Theory, an introduction
• The 4 layers model by Friedemann Schulz von Thun , an explanation
• The Emotional Intelligence theory by Daniel Goleman , an introduction

A deeper reading

Watzlawick's axioms :

1. It is impossible to not communicate. Even when we don't. I have many times experienced a "not-reply", and this implies somehow a concept like: "I do not agree", "I do not want to work on this", "Your request is not priority at the moment", "I am overloaded" and many mores
2. Every communication has both a content and a relationship aspect. Independently on how good are we in trying to stick to the objective facts, there will always be an hidden message that gets transmitted and/or perceived. These are the components that might turn into hidden bombs, mentioned in Part 1
3. Communication procedures play a role in the relationship. I have many times planned the communication, as good rules of Project Management dictate - but then something in the way happened: and unplanned reaction, something that derails the interaction and more and more misunderstandings. I guess we all experience them daily I would say during work and life. This is rooted into the mechanism in which each other's behavior is interpreted, that fuels a reaction. The reaction might change the message or its interpretation.
4. People use both analog and digital communication. And here we do not mean social networks or emails. "Digital" is the bare content of the message : "the cat is black" clearly points to a color as an information. "Analog" instead is all about what is hidden in the message - and it can be non verbal or metaphoric. If I wrote instead "the cat is BLACK!", I would include a stress on the color - and we could wonder the hidden meaning of it : maybe I preferred red, or the color hides disappointment of my expectations ... whatever makes sense to you now to get the concept. I guess we all have been wondering in our heads, if the message we had just received in a meeting was implying something more that the simple words would carry.
5. A communication is either symmetric or complementary. This translates that in the end, when analyzing the back and forth of messages and the reactions, when putting this into the context of relationship we either go together (symmetric) or against (one above the other).