Understanding communication systems

What it's about

In many companies, communication is seen as transmission: Someone says something, someone else receives it, and if something goes wrong, one of the two wasn't paying attention. The idea is convenient but explains little. It doesn't explain why the same instruction is implemented in completely different ways in two departments, why a meeting full of smart people ends without a result, or why a team “agrees” for months and still nothing happens.

The approach discussed here starts from a different place. It views communication as a system of its own that runs according to its own patterns and perpetuates itself. It goes back to the systems theory of the sociologist Niklas Luhmann and was developed further by Gitta Peyn in her FORMwelt approach. If you understand how communication systems behave, you understand a large part of what actually happens in a company.

Meaning, conveying, understanding

Luhmann describes communication as a unity of three selections: information, utterance, understanding. Communication only takes place when all three come together. Peyn shifts the emphasis and speaks of meaning, conveying, understanding.

What matters is that the three elements do not form a sequence but interact recursively. Every act of understanding becomes the occasion for new meaning, every message is understood or misunderstood and produces the next. The system itself decides how it informs itself. This applies to a conversation, a department, a company, and, according to Peyn, also to the individual psyche, which relates thoughts to thoughts.

According to Peyn, this form of reaching understanding is old in evolutionary terms. It emerged from a signal language tied to emotions and follows patterns of shared rhythm. That is why body language is so important, less as “expression” than through what someone does next.

The frame of reference for distinction

Anyone who means, conveys, or understands something makes distinctions: important or unimportant, urgent or not, problem or opportunity. The frame of reference for distinction (Referenzrahmen der Unterscheidung, RdU) is the frame in which a person or a system makes these distinctions. It is the basis for what someone takes to be real, and thus for communication in the first place.

Two departments that talk “about the same thing” can therefore be working with different frames. Each side understands correctly within its frame and still understands something different:

The epistemological basis is called real constructivism: Reality is constructed, but not arbitrarily. It depends on feedback, rules, and frames of reference, and it has givens that cannot be interpreted away. For companies, this stance is practical: Different viewpoints are taken seriously, but they have to measure up against feedback from reality.

FORMwelt is the toolbox for this: a formal language for thinking and communication that works with precise definitions and aims to avoid misunderstandings that rest only on different meanings of words. Its representations of patterns of distinction and conversational dynamics are called FoRMlines.

What it's for

The approach doesn't provide a conversation technique but an ability to observe. It helps with questions that come up in leadership all the time:

The benefit lies in recognizing communication patterns as properties of the system rather than as character flaws of individuals. Then they can be changed in a targeted way: through meeting formats, feedback loops, decision paths, and the way leadership sets its impulses.

Six emphasis patterns

There is a shorthand for the three elements: M stands for meaning, ! for conveying, V for understanding (from the German Verstehen). The order shows where a conversational move starts and what it relies on. M!V means: Someone means something, conveys it, and it is understood. The other five orders shift the emphasis. This results in six emphasis patterns.

The patterns describe how a conversational move is built, not who someone is. In a single meeting, the same person often shows several of them. None is better than another.

A few connections sharpen the picture:

• The directive pattern creates orientation and rhythm but tends toward silo creativity: Each unit becomes active in its own area without anything being brought together. Once a problem is dealt with, it falls back into monotony.
• Directive and initiating together produce a pattern like brainstorming that can be described as “Talk to me”: a lot of messages, but understanding is not the focus.
• Systems with a strong focus on meaning tend to become quiet. Little is said and much is understood; people nod. That can be deep agreement or a conversation that no longer moves anything.

What happens next

A central idea of the approach is: What matters is what happens next. Whether a message was good shows in what connects to it. Four continuations are possible:

Monotony arises when a system relies mainly on meaning and understanding and neglects conveying. Everyone knows what is meant, everyone understands, but nothing new comes into circulation anymore. In a company, this shows up as a meeting that has run the same way for years, as a report no one reads anymore, or as a consensus that is never tested.

Rhythm, on the other hand, is not bad. Recurring patterns provide a beat and reliability. The question is whether a rhythm carries something new or only produces repetition.

A co-creative sense-making system always expects an M!V: that someone means something, actually conveys it, and that it is understood. That sounds obvious but is demanding, because all three elements have to be served at the same time:

Meta-intervention

When a communication system is stuck, it rarely helps to get louder within the pattern. More helpful is an intervention at the level at which the system talks about itself, a meta-intervention. Its guiding question:

This question is easier to formulate than to ask:

The last point directly concerns executive management. It usually has exactly these levers and can back meta-interventions that would otherwise fizzle out.

What it looks like in practice

Meetings

A meeting can be observed for which patterns dominate. A meeting in which mainly impulses are set and tasks handed out creates a lot of activity, but not necessarily shared understanding. A meeting in which people only nod seems harmonious but may not be making tested decisions. A meeting in which no one conveys anything new anymore has tipped into monotony. A simple touchstone:

What happened next after this meeting?

Instructions

An instruction is a directive conversational move. Often that is exactly right: It provides orientation and rhythm. It becomes difficult when understanding is simply assumed. Then isolated solutions emerge, because each unit implements the instruction within its own frame of reference. It helps to deliberately make room for checking back after an instruction and to disclose the frame in which it is meant.

Follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are not a sign of weakness but a pattern of their own with a contribution of their own. The question that checks back (“Did I understand correctly?”) secures assignments; the exploring one (“What is it like?”) opens up a topic. Organizations in which follow-up questions are seen as a disruption lose both and pay with rework.

“Is that what we mean?”

A simple question a leader can ask. It works in two very different ways, depending on how it is asked:

The team notices the difference in what connects to it: in what happens after the answer.

Complexity and structure

The emphasis patterns are related to the question of how complexly a team is currently handling a topic (see Complexity management). If a team jumps between many topics without setting anchor points, checking-back and affirming patterns lead to actionism, control, and silo creativity, while directive and initiating patterns lead to shifting attempts at regulation without mutual understanding. Exploring and offering patterns, by contrast, show up where someone mediates out of a conflict.

A second bridge leads to Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM):

Three levels

If you want to shape communication deliberately, you need different perspectives. Three levels can be distinguished, each with what is necessary and what is sufficient:

For executive management, the third level matters most. It is responsible for the company's communication spaces: which meetings exist, who may convey what and when, how understanding is checked, and what happens next after a decision.

Limits of the approach

• An observation model. The emphasis patterns map conversational dynamics. They replace neither expert review nor responsibility for decisions.
• Not a tool for classifying people. Using them as a label (“he's just directive”) turns an observation into a judgment and produces exactly the monotony the model is meant to make visible.
• Condensed notation. The abbreviations are suited to shared reflection in a group that knows them. Without explanation, they easily come across as cryptic.
• Meta-interventions have prerequisites. Without backing through position, majority, or authority, they are easily dismissed as personal opinion.
• A formal approach with its own terminology. Its full benefit only becomes accessible with practice. To get started, the three elements and the question of what happens next are enough.
• Patterns, but no measures. The model names what is happening. Translating it into formats, roles, and decision paths is still work.