You cannot not communicate
Paul Watzlawick
Tribute to a communication scientist with cult status
After many years of experience in the field of corporate communication, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Paul Watzlawick, the Austrian philosopher, psychotherapist and communication scientist (* 25 July 1921 in Villach, Carinthia; † 31 March 2007 in Palo Alto, California). It is not only his insights into communicative action, but above all his humorous view of possible and impossible communicative situations that inspired me and led me the way.
If you want to understand impact, you have to be clear about the communicative actions and understand them.
Stories and paradoxes like koans
Scared away elephants
Paul Watzlawick liked to explain his theses in paradoxes and stories, for example this one:
“A man claps his hands every ten seconds. Asked about the reason for this strange behaviour, he explains: ‘To scare the elephants away’. When told that there are no elephants here, the man replies, ‘There you go! See?'”
Also picked up:
The situation is hopeless, but not serious.
One cannot be too careful in choosing one’s parents.
For the communication scientist Paul Watzlawick, we create our reality through language. Reality is what we make of it.
Everyone constructs his or her own reality. This is a fundamental insight for feeling joy and sorrow, but also an important understanding for building and maintaining a brand.
And very often the so-called solution is the real problem – as is the case with the ” scared elephants”, the example is also an incredibly valuable insight in development and innovation processes.
The 5 axioms of human communication
The 1st axiom
Even if you don’t talk, you communicate. With facial expressions and gestures.
Yes, and even when we are alone.
“We are as if spun into communication; even our ego consciousness depends … on communication. … And yet [we] are – or precisely because of this – almost incapable of communicating about communication.” Paul Watzlawick, Human Communication, p. 42 f.
The 2nd axiom
…. whereby the latter determines the former.
In every communication there is a factual level and a relationship level. It is an “iceberg model”, in which 20% is factual and 80% relationship level. The latter is “below the water level” and is all the more dangerous because it is crucial in human communication.
Note: The demand of an interlocutor to “remain factual” is already suspicious because it is actually about the relationship level.
The 3rd axiom
“The nature of a relationship is conditioned by the punctuation of the communication processes on the part of the partners.”
- Each participant in an interaction gives the structure to the relationship
- Every stimulus is followed by a reaction (chain of behaviour)
- Every stimulus is also communication, as communication is circular. There is no starting point.
A “vicious circle” arises when one of the two communication partners assumes that the other possesses the same information as he does.
Example: A company advertises a product in a press release, the journalist thinks, I won’t be instrumentalised and therfore doesn’t write about it.
The company goes on advertising a product in its press release …
The 4th axiom
“Human communication makes use of digital and analogue modalities.”
Digital and analogue here do not mean technologies or media, but verbal (= digital) and non-verbal (= analogue) communication.
In physical contact: People lie with their mouths quite easily, but not so easily with their eyes and voice.
“Fake news” does not have this problem superficially because the physical reactions cannot be “read” directly. This also applies to the short videos shared on social media and the whole range of emojis. They too do not represent an immediate emotional exchange.
The 5th axiom
It means: “Opposites attract” (complementary) or: “Like and like go together” (symmetrical).
In complementary communication there is always a superior and an inferior, whereas symmetrical communication takes place “at eye level”.
In complementary communication, the participants are mutually dependent and complement each other. The system works as long as it is based on reciprocity.
In symmetrical communication, one partner can set out to outdo the other (equal) partner. The inherent complication may show two egomaniacs at eye level …
Learn more
