Have you ever seen a speaker oblivious to what’s happening in a room? In reading off some slides or performing some memorized bit, sometimes speakers and audiences end up in disconnected worlds. On the other hand, have you ever seen a speaker communicating with a group with high levels of rapport, interaction, and adaptations? With each word, gesture, and audience response, the experience of communication feels like a dance. Just watch Craig Valentine’s speeches for a master-class in what this looks and sounds like.
A person who thinks communication is only a matter of sending people messages in a one-way fashion will unconsciously channel this mental model in practice. The speaker who has a more complex view of communication, accounting for such two-way variables as the audience’s nonverbals, energy levels, environmental distractions, and more, will shift and adapt their behavior accordingly to what’s happening in a space.
The simpler our understanding of communication, the harder it will be to create that latter kind of experience. Some of my writing underscores a core theme: creating thriving relationships and communities starts with making our understandings of communication more rather than less complex. This is not the advice that many of us receive. A lot of tips for professional communication reduce the subject to being clear and simple, for instance.
Countering that belief, I think communication is more complex than rocket science. Truly. In rocket science you largely put numbers into formulas for specific outputs. While the technical knowledge for how to do so is advanced (and accounting for unexpected variability does play a part), rocket science has many known problems with known solutions.
When it comes to addressing the types of questions communication deals with, however, such as what kind of communication contributes to the best long-term relationship possible between two people, or how to quell a centuries long conflict between several countries, we’ve entered increasingly complicated, complex, and even chaotic terrain.
Canine Complexity
I used to watch a popular TV show called the Dog Whisperer. In just about every episode, owners who were fed up with their dog’s bad behavior would visit the host, Cesar Millan, who would take them from a “simple” view of “my dog is like this by nature” to more “complex” understandings of dog psychology that required re-framing their challenges. We’d see dogs’ behavior transformed from getting more walks, walking beside their owners, and having new household boundaries set.
The last thing dog owners needed was a reinforcement of their simple and ineffective approaches to relating to their furry companions. In the same way, advanced understandings of communication are liberating, expanding our views and allowing us to take more positive actions in our lives than our prior, limited understandings permitted.
Communication is dynamic and ever-changing. The increasing complexity of societies and heightened needs for interdependence intensify this theme. Whether it’s Kegan’s stages of development, Delia’s take on “cognitive complexity,” or environments being filled with “wicked problems,” the idea that we need complex understandings of relationships and communication has much support. And this isn’t just some “nice to know.” As you’ll see in the remainder of this post, it’s one of most practical ideas you could have for ethical and effective communication.
In this post, I want to take us on a journey from simple to more complex models of communication and offer a new, updated framework for communication. I call it the “The Kaleidoscopic Model of Communication,” with an eye toward what it offers for practice.
Three+ Models of Communication
If you take an introduction to communication course, or pick up a textbook on the subject, you’ll likely come across three traditional models of communication with implications for practice. The first is a “linear” model of communication in which a sender sends messages to a receiver. Simple enough, right?
If this is all there is to communication, you’ll end up like the speaker who thinks it’s their job to simply broadcast messages to an audience. Or sitting in a job interview where you only respond to a panel’s questions with pre-prepared, highly scripted answers. Or acting like a boss who thinks sitting in a corner office and sending out emails all day, without engaging anyone in dialogue, is all that’s needed to keep an organization running. Or a politician who listens poorly and has no sense of many constituents’ real-life experiences because they see their job as only about “telling” and “selling” a pre-determined agenda. Not without consequence, a lot of sales, marketing, and PR approaches are grounded in this simplistic model of communication.
Variants of this impoverished model show up more subtly in a lot of practice too, such as job descriptions that forward “effective communication” to rather than with others as a main demand (Sostrin does a great job of highlighting many more of these). Here’s a visual of the linear model:
Source: Melissa Ashman, Introduction to Professional Communications, CC licensed
Is this all there is to communication? I’ve asked this question with hundreds of audiences and the response is the same every time: “No, that’s far too simplistic, there’s much more going on when at least two people are communicating.” “What else is going on?” I then ask. “Oh, you’ve got to have more of sense of ‘feedback’ (or effect) and the physical and social ‘contexts,’” I’ll often hear, among other elements.
That’s where the second model of communication, the “interactive” model, adds complexity to the first. This one’s a bit more like an “internet-based” view of communication, where indirect feedback remains constant.
When a speaker channels the interactive model, you’ll get more of that back-and-forth sense of engagement with the audience previously mentioned. In a job interview an applicant should be more responsive to what’s being asked and understand that the context demands attire within an expected range of possibilities. A boss would seek to have dialogues with as many employees as possible, on a frequent basis. And a politician might set up systems of communication that help them listen and learn to adapt to many peoples’ experiences and needs. Here’s a visual that shows the updates this model provides.
Source: Melissa Ashman, Introduction to Professional Communications, CC licensed
Again, an important question to then ask: when at least two people are interacting, is this all there is to communication? Now that we get the idea, most of us are eager to contribute other variables that can be built into a model of what communication is and does. I often hear from groups that “culture,” “identities,” the “relationship,” and even “power” should be added to this mix. This gets us to the third, “transactional model” for communication that complicates the picture further.
Source: Melissa Ashman, Introduction to Professional Communications, CC licensed
According to one entry on the subject, transactional models “stress that meaning is created in the process of communication and does not exist prior to it. This is often combined with the claim that communication creates social realities like relationships, personal identities, and communities. This also affects the communicators themselves on various levels, such as their thoughts and feelings as well as their social identities.”
A chapter distills the transactional distinction to: “individuals are often acting as both the sender and receiver simultaneously.” To my prior point about PR and similar often fields being too grounded in linear assumptions, scholars and practitioners have advised moving toward more “co-creational” approaches that incorporate elements from transactional models instead.
There’s more models to look at, many of which can be found here and here. Just some of the considerations that these models add to what’s involved in communication include the medium or channel (e.g. communicating through a cell phone vs. face-to-face), attitudes, knowledge, values, beliefs/opinions, personal history, emotions, rules/norms, influential others in one’s life, gatekeepers (who filter information for communities), credibility, language, the five senses, intrapersonal factors (such as sending messages to oneself), and the experiences of past encounters upon which future communication always expands and continues.
In sum, going through these models provides a good way to see communication’s complexities and the many factors that influence all that’s happening when at least two people communicate. Yet, I think we’re overdue for an understanding of communication that’s fully fitting for the 21st century. One that captures complexity and that’s transformative for practice.
The Kaleidoscopic Model of Communication
In this model, we start with two people whose communication creates a central relational space between them. There’s forces both within and outside each of them impacting this interaction. For example, in the midst of a conversation one person might suddenly think about their father once saying to them, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” At the same time, the weather outside could be cold, making each participant feel that they need to keep this interaction short to get inside for some warmth. Both internal and external factors affect what happens as the discussion ensues.
From here, I start with the same question as the other models: what else is there to communication? From a survey of communication literature, there’s a lot we could add. Here’s some of the other variables and elements that come into play when at least two people communicate: communication styles, genres, patterns (turns, episodes, and the force of certain messages), expectations (e.g. about conflict, time, leading, feedback, touch, and other variables), race/ethnicity, gender, clothing, how deeply one is processing information, the singularity or multiplicity of interpretations at play, moods and other biological factors, sounds/music, frames, scripts, forms, codes, tropes (e.g. metaphor, irony), intangible assets such as “trust,” policies/laws, message design logics, and the mystery that always lies beyond our attempts to coordinate meanings together.
Are there many more elements involved? Yes, but it’s not possible nor is it preferable to get to an exhaustive list of all the factors involved when people communicate. The point of the kaleidoscopic model of communication is less to provide conclusive categories than to have our eyes opened to the incredible complexity of communication, with a goal of seeking further understanding and making plans for action that match that level of complexity.
It’s a starting point for “communicative virtuosity.” It’s meant to ignite a flame of curiosity about “what is going on,” to engage more thoughtful, accurate diagnoses for problems, and generate multiple solutions instead of getting stuck in rigid thinking that imagines no other way of viewing the world is possible.
When I began constructing this model, I put many factors relevant to communication in a Prezi slide to capture the gist of this model:
The two overlapping circles with the individuals within them represent how the act of communicating and its many elements are at the core of any encounter. I list many other factors are play when at least two people are communicating in concentric circles outward from there, with larger contextual elements such as “culture” affecting the central relationship.
Yet a static visual doesn’t go far enough in capturing what we’re after.* In the very act of communicating, these layers can shift so that, for example, the importance of the “episode” that the two people are in becomes less important than the “relationship” at stake.
Pearce gives the example of how in a “date” situation, the “episode” is initially at a higher level of importance than the relationship. If that episode (e.g. having dinner at a fancy restaurant) goes badly during a first date, then there will be no relationship to speak of moving forward.
But if two people have had a good “relationship” for a long time and have one bad date, the two communicators will still probably be together after that, since the “relationship” is at a higher level of importance. Too many bad dates, though, and the “relationship” and “episode” levels may shift. In the same way, factors such as “identity” may move from the periphery to the center in communication, as explained more in CMM theory. The Kaleidoscopic Model of Communication accounts for these types of dynamic developments in the very process of communicating.
The Importance of Mystery
The most important and useful concept for practice is the layer of “mystery” in this model. If we come to communication with a sense that there’s always “mystery” beyond what we can possibly know, we’ll act with a bit less certainty and with a sense that communication can bridge differences, build trust, and create new worlds.
There may be little to no mystery in some communicators’ approaches to the world. Switch on opinion-based cable news programming, for instance, where this orientation has been commodified to the extreme. Introducing more mystery into conversations provides a practical way to break the spell that’s been cast over such folks’ lives, as it’s simply not a stance that can be held in good faith unless one is all knowing and seeing. In Pearce’s terms:
“Mystery comprises recognition of the limits of the stories in which we are enmeshed. These limits are not taken as confining boundaries, but the surest sign that here exists something beyond them. Mystery is a quality of experience of the human world, characterized by rapt attention, open-mindedness, a sense of wonder, perhaps even awe.”
At the very least, mystery underscores how we’re never done with the task of knowing and growing beyond our current boundaries, making imperative the tasks of learning, communicating with diverse others, and approaching every interaction with a sense that there’s always more to find out.
Putting It All Together
Let’s say you’re in a conflict at work about the choice of project A or project B. You support the former while your colleague promotes the latter. In the linear model, the goal of communication will center on trying to influence the other person to your point of view, without really caring what they think or feel.
With the interactive model of communication, you’ll take in and adjust to the other person’s feedback in a way that could lead to more coordination between you both, but without much thought to what lays beyond the immediate interaction.
With the transactional model of communication, you might do more research in advance to understand project B and where the other person is coming from, and the many potential factors at play in looking at project A and B from outside the fishbowl, rather than just within it.
Where the linear and interactive models start from the “zoomed in” standpoint of either/both of the two individuals in communication (a small world), the kaleidoscopic model starts from the “zoomed out” standpoints accounting for the huge number of factors in the situation (a large world), implying a need to explore details and test understandings, always with a sense that “there’s more to know.”
At some point, with always incomplete information in hand, a judgment will need made, but that judgment will at least benefit from an informed, broad lens. Those applying the kaleidoscopic model will likely engage in divergent thinking first, before convergent thinking takes place. In this sense, the kaleidoscopic model aims to develop cosmopolitan communicators.
Don’t get me wrong, forcing ourselves to prioritize and seek the simplicity within complexity is a critical skill. Yet, when it comes to a view of what communication is and does, “communication is more difficult than rocket science” can be a helpful reminder that we’re navigating incredibly complex and challenging terrain. Having a mental model that fits that level of complexity we’re operating in provides a first step toward improving communication, leadership, and even democracy.
“Kaleidoscope” as Metaphor, Recovery Project, and Creative Strategy
I use the term “kaleidoscope” partly as a metaphor for our colorful individual and social worlds. I also use the term partly as a recovery of the Kaleidoscope sessions that some decades back sought to transform the nature and quality of public conversations. Grounded in decades of interdisciplinary developments on personal and social transformation, according to scholars and practitioners such as Pearce and Freeman, the facilitation of these sessions had a “radical commitment to social processes which differ sharply from the conventional wisdom,” recognized that “human beings exist only in community, and that communities consist of patterns of communication,” and thus sought for nothing less than “the institutionalization of better forms of communication than generally exists in public and about public issues.”
Approached with an eclectic “seriousness and high humor,” the Kaleidoscope sessions were a highly public, “systemic intervention” in complex conflicts at the time. These sessions created the conditions for new understandings and solutions by getting participants to zoom out from their partial viewpoints and apply advanced communication techniques such as systemic/circular questioning, third-person listening (especially through outside team reflections), appreciative inquiry, putting a spotlight on the developing social patterns and grammar/language used, and most of all, getting all to imagine possible better futures.
Kaleidoscope sessions acknowledged the many social worlds people bring to public issues, while inviting them to expand beyond the deep “enmeshment[s]” in which they live, or the “extent to which people are caught up in patterns of communication in which they participate,” and the “logical force” or “sense of ‘oughtness’ that people feel in specific conversations.” With its particular focus on how “conflict always occur within particular discourses” they showed how “conflict is best changed by changing those discourses, thus enabling new ways of thinking and acting to occur.”
Rooted in a long history of communication theory development, the Kaleidoscope sessions helped people see groups, organizations, and even cities as a “complex tapestry of interconnected conversations,” a “multiverse,” as rich spaces for change when an openness to the values, perspectives, and desires of each participant could be discussed in a reciprocal fashion, and where the role of one’s own way of looking always matters in a developing system. Over and above communication as a noun, a kaleidoscopic view is hence attuned to the dynamic, shifting elements of communicating as a verb.
In these senses, “kaleidoscope” isn’t just a metaphor to understand communication, it provides us with a visualization for how all creative strategies work. To create something new, Duggan notes that all innovations occur from a rapid appraisal of what’s going on, a search outward for what works, and combination of elements from past and current successes. Any project to find the best and most positive types of communication for humanity’s future implicates the same structure. A kaleidoscopic view casts a wide net in both trying to understand how communication works and the opportunities it presents in any situation.
Finally, at the heart of a kaleidoscopic view is an understanding that people, organizations, and societies are now so complex that “forms of communication predicated on common beliefs or world views are simply not adequate to deal with the characteristics of contemporary society.” This doesn’t do away with coming to agreements or the need to make decisions. The invitation, instead, is to “participate in forms of communication that allow [us] to find ways of understanding each other and coming to decisions about how to live together” that don’t try to dominate others with what Adichie calls a “single story” that might work in a local situation, but fails when scaled to large, heterogeneous political contexts. There’s lots and lots out there on this.
Put another way, a kaleidoscopic view puts a focus on our processes for engaging with one another primarily and the products of our communication only secondarily, rather than vice versa. Why? Because every belief has to be worked up into existence through a conversation first. There’s no new local transit system involving trains and buses until a decision-making group talks about it. Even if led by the efforts of one person, the new system can only result from a process of connection between people first (whether via edict, persuasion, dialogue, deliberation, or other means). The product comes after the process. So the kaleidoscopic view puts our attention on the nature and quality of the processes that create the worlds around us.
By making communication complex, we gain the perspectives and tools to navigate deep disagreements without being disagreeable. We can create spaces that help us live together, make decisions, and commit to the ongoing work to be done. We can build an appreciation for the many variables at play in any situation involving diverse people. This dynamic view of communication ultimately offers steps forward for how, with each shift in the kaleidoscope, we can create new and better realities with one another.
Final Note: A Placeholder for The Kaleidoscopic Model
My team and I started toying with AI to see if we could come up with an image to represent a kaleidoscopic way of looking at communication. Here’s a placeholder for now:
Created with Poe**
This placeholder gif shows how turning the kaleidoscope changes the terms that matter and with the inner/outer layers changing as a conversation ensues. It bears similarities to the “serpentine model,” but with more of a 3-D and motion-picture sense to it. It’s also intended to provide a sense for the dialectical patterns and multiple identities that emerge within and between each person over time. We’ll keep working on it.
*I’d like to thank Robyn Penman, Arthur Jensen, and Abbie Van Meter for their helpful feedback on these needed aspects in this model.
**Thanks to Zoe Karch for help with the placeholder visualization for this model!