Communication 2 go

Every day, dozens of meetings take place in companies. According to Atlassian 54% of people leave a meeting or call with no idea what they are supposed to do or what the next steps are. I am not exactly a numbers person, but that is a lot. And it is not a concentration problem. It is a communication problem.

And up here on the Olympus of communication, we want to understand. So you and I are going to explore five communication models. After all, we want to reduce the uncertainty in communication. I firmly believe we need something solid to hold on to. That is why the zflys Communication Temple exists: the most important messages carved in marble give us a little security.

You can use the finest communication models in the world, but if you do not know who you are and what you stand for, they will not get you far. Working on yourself is difficult—and essential for survival. Up on Olympus, we take the time for exactly that. So have your laurel wreaths ready. We are starting.

Communication models

Communication models help us understand why messages land—or do not. Not as academic theory, but as practical tools for everyday work. If you know the mechanics, you can spot misunderstandings before they escalate.

A communication model is a simplified system for explaining how communication works. It describes what happens when a message is sent and received, what interference can arise and why two people can hear the same thing yet understand something different. At zflys, we believe external communication is only as strong as internal communication. In a company, that matters enormously.

For everyone who has dismissed communication as hocus-pocus so far, here is a fact. The Grammarly State of Business Communication Report 2023 shows that companies lose up to 15% of their productivity through poor communication. The figure clearly reveals communication’s networked nature: it crosses departments, spans the globe and has many layers. Communication models try to make this beautiful chaos connecting all of us visible.

There is no single correct model. Each explains a different slice of communication. We need to let go of the idea that there is one right answer to the question of communication. There are as many truths as there are people. And now the artificial species are joining in too. In ancient Greece, Plato got just as worked up about writing as people do about AI today:

So anyone who thinks they can leave behind an art in written words, and anyone who receives it believing that writing offers something clear and certain, must be exceedingly naïve...

Plato wrote that in his Phaedrus.

Communication always has occupied us and always will. So, back to the point: how can communication models bring clarity to the jumble of letters, facial expressions and alleged jokes? In the living room as well as the meeting room?

The sender–receiver model

In 1949, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver developed what is, to me, the foundation of communication. They wondered why messages never arrive "just like that". So they created the first mathematical model of communication. Their original aim was technical: to understand how signals travel through telephone lines. What emerged still explains why human communication fails today.

Is that not funny? They wanted to explain signal transmission in entirely objective terms. Data, facts, numbers. Yet they ended up with one of the most human explanations of communication. I find that delightful.

Their model has a sender on one side and a receiver on the other. (Why the neutral technical terms matter here: the two researchers were not thinking of human senders and receivers at all, but technical devices.)

1. The sender sends information to the receiver.
2. The sender encodes this message.
3. The receiver then has to decode it.
4. On top of that, interference can occur during transmission before the receiver can even decode the message.

Simple as it sounds, it pinpoints the central problem in all corporate communication:

•       The sender encodes according to their own understanding: their past experiences, how they were trained and the terms they know.

•       There are more digital and analogue sources of interference than ever: email, chat, meetings—every channel has its own conditions.

•       The receiver decodes according to their own understanding. Same game as above.

Ergo: it is perfectly logical that something can go wrong on the first attempt, because creating exactly the same frame of meaning is rare.

Real-world example: At 10 p.m., a manager writes: "Can we briefly discuss this tomorrow?" The employee reads: I have done something wrong. What the sender meant: a quick catch-up. What arrived: a threat. The noise was the channel (the time, no context) and the missing shared frame of meaning (what exactly is this about?).

Paul Watzlawick’s 5 axioms

As an Austrian, there is no getting around him—and who would want to? Pauli Watzlawick formulated five basic rules of human communication. The best known:

You cannot not communicate: Anyone who stays silent communicates. Anyone who looks away communicates. Anyone who answers without looking up communicates.

As we have written in other zflys blogs: you can ignore them and lose. But we are victorious Olympians, so we are going to read all five axioms.

The 5 axioms at a glance:

•       You cannot not communicate—every behaviour is communication

•       Communication has a content and a relationship aspect—the how trumps the what

•       Communication is always cause and effect at once—who really started it?

•       Communication is analogue and digital—words and body language often say different things

•       Communication is symmetrical or complementary—between equals or within hierarchies

Real-world example: A team member who consistently stays silent in meetings is communicating. Perhaps disinterest, perhaps fear of criticism, perhaps a lack of psychological safety. A manager who reads silence as agreement overlooks axiom two: the relationship aspect. Is it really approving silence, or fearful silence driven by panic about supposed consequences...

The four-sides model in everyday office life

Friedemann Schulz von Thun developed the well-known German communication model called the four-sides model, also known as the communication square. His theory: one statement contains four messages at once.

The four layers of every message:

•       Facts: What is the factual information?

•       Self-revelation: What does the sender reveal about themselves?

•       Relationship: What does the sender think about the receiver?

•       Appeal: What should the receiver do, think or feel?

Real-world example: A colleague says in a meeting: "We have tried that before." Facts ear: There was an earlier attempt. Self-revelation ear: I know this project’s history. Relationship ear: Apparently, you do not. Appeal ear: Stop. The reaction changes completely depending on which ear is listening.

At zflys, we know that far more conversations fail not because of their content, but because of the relationship layer. The four-sides model shows why.

Denis Mourlane: The 5 Needs

Denis Mourlane is a neuroscientist and one of the best-known resilience researchers in the German-speaking world. His model of five basic needs explains why people escalate, withdraw or shut down in communication situations even though they meant to have an objective discussion. We all know that one, right? If you want to assess the other person’s behaviour more accurately, think about THEIR needs too in your next conversation.

Mourlane’s 5 Needs:

• Security & control: People long for security. Unfortunately, it is an illusion. What is truly secure? When the other person says something, ask yourself whether it comes from a need for security. That is often the case, especially in times of so much uncertainty.

Fun fact: that is exactly why Tyche stands on the roof of the zflys Communication Temple. Greek goddess of uncertainty, among other things.

• Seeking pleasure and avoiding discomfort: People usually choose the option that brings them the most joy, pleasure or fun. Even when people say they like something, only their actions show whether they really mean it.   
• Belonging to the tribe: Feeling alone is awful, and humans are pack animals. That may be why the other person acts strangely from your perspective, while it makes perfect sense to them: they do not want to lose their place in the group, switch departments or be banished from Olympus.
• Coherence: Odd word, important effect. We need decisions made by heart and head to feel aligned. Something can be fun, yet you still do not do it because it would not feel like you. That more or less describes this need.
• Boosting self-esteem: Endless monologues, lengthy CVs, repeating what has already been said just to hear yourself speak. People do all this to boost their self-worth. Allegedly. In any case, this need is driving them.

Denis Mourlane, Resilience: The Undiscovered Ability of the Truly Successful, 2014 

The zflys communication system: Temple Methodology

We combined all these communication models into one—and made it more fun. At zflys, you build your own temple, or your company’s, step by step. After a workshop together, image, values, messages, audiences and channels are carved in marble.

We begin with a map. On the left is the island with your temple. In front of it are several smaller islands: your audiences, the people you want to communicate with. Messages are written and sent back and forth on ships through the channels. To understand, listen, build and send—everything good communication requires.

Image: The statue in your temple that communicates before you have even entered the room. The first picture you want to appear in your audiences’ minds.

Message: We place the one sentence everyone should remember beneath the temple roof. There, it reminds everyone to communicate authentically.

Values: A stable temple needs columns. Values form those columns. What we stand for supports all our communication, inside and out.

Fire: Hermes may be the messenger of the gods, but he is only Tyche’s messenger—the true goddess of communication. The hearth in the temple is where the communication commandments live. The same for everyone.

Islands: The islands are the people we want to reach as individuals or as a company. They help us change perspective and create communication that lands in both head and heart.