The Grammar of Relationships: a strategic approach to communication

Article by Massimo Berlingozzi – “The Grammar of Relationship: a strategic approach to communication” – JULY 2018_ LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

The ideal outcome of a communicative act is the full understanding by our interlocutors of the meaning of our message. However, we know very well how easy it is to be misunderstood, and this can happen on a purely informative level or also involve the relational component.

Speaking is such a natural activity that it is quite normal to forget the enormous complexity that underlies it. Yet, each of us when speaking uses and respects a set of rules without which the sentences uttered would be completely incomprehensible. Many of these rules we learnt naturally and spontaneously, through listening and imitation, when we were very young. Noam Chomsky, the greatest living linguist, argues that this ability is a unique characteristic of the human species, a cognitive specialisation linked to an innate biological endowment encoded in our genes. A sort of ‘Universal Grammar’ capable of endlessly processing abstract symbols, at the origin of all languages.

What we all know, however, is that school has taken it upon itself to make us aware of many of the rules that underpin the correct use of language, thus improving our ability to process increasingly complex messages.

However, there is a grammar that nobody taught us at school. We know the words, we are able to choose them and combine them in a thousand different ways in relation to the situation we are experiencing, we are, however, much less aware of the rules that govern the construction of relationships. We trust our instincts, we try to limit discomfort, we wish to feel good in relationships, but only rarely are we able to guide these situations consciously. Yet, all communication studies teach us that the possibility of understanding each other increases significantly in relation to the level of attunement we manage to establish with our interlocutors.

Studies geared towards understanding the importance of context and the effects of communication on behaviour are part of a discipline, termed ‘pragmatics’, which received a considerable boost from the so-called ‘Palo Alto School’ in the early 1960s. This systemic vision revolutionised the way of looking at communication, laying the foundations for a strategic approach to the management of relational dynamics. Studies that have generated a vast field of application: psychotherapy, helping relationships, negotiation and management activities. The best known exponent of this group, and the author who has made the most relevant contributions, is Paul Watzlawick.

The nature of the relationships in which we are involved on a daily basis is constructed through a series of ‘implicit negotiations’, which Gregory Bateson called ‘Relationship Propositions’. Dynamics that generally escape our attention, but which are crucial in defining roles within communication processes. An adequate awareness of what takes place at this level is a skill of fundamental importance, without which any communication tool risks being a sterile application of techniques, detached from the context of reference.

In training courses dedicated to this type of approach, it is important to go beyond in-depth theoretical study and devote considerable time to specific training aimed at acquiring awareness of one’s own communication style and the ways in which we influence others. More generally, the opportunity to delve into these topics helps us to understand how attention to behaviour and active listening do not only belong to the sphere of sensitivity and respect, but are also the indispensable prerequisite for dealing strategically with communication.

Having abandoned the static or merely informative vision of the communication process, its circular and systemic nature, in which our behaviour (at the same time) influences and depends on the behaviour of the other, becomes evident to us. Any attempt to evade this level of complexity leads to reductive and partial views of what happens in the interaction, preventing, even before an ethical attitude, an effective and conscious approach to communication.

Bibliography:

1. Watzlawick, J. Beavin, D. Jackson – Pragmatics of Human Communication. Astrolabium, Rome 1971
2. Watzlawick – The tail of Baron Munchhausen. Feltrinelli, Milan 1989

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3. R.C. Berwick, N. Chomsky – Why only us. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin 2016

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