Message_04_Perception_ communication
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This document discusses perception, communication, and their importance for facilitating collaboration and learning. It makes three key points: 1) Perception is how our brain receives, processes, and interprets information from our senses, while communication involves transmitting and receiving signs, data, and knowledge between individuals. 2) For facilitating groups, it is important to consider both the individual spaces of perception as well as the common space where individuals learn together through cooperation. 3) The quality of cooperation depends on the quality of communication, as individuals working together rely on communicating their goals, methods, roles, and building a shared body of knowledge over time.
Message_04_Perception_ communication
- 1. Message 4Basic concepts of perception and communication Perception is the conscious reception, selection, processing and in- terpretation of information by our brain via all senses. Perception is also used for what is perceived. Communication can be several things. Regarding the process, com- munication is the reception, exchange and transmission of data, in- formation and knowledge, more generally speaking of signs like words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds, between two or more individuals. Regarding the purpose, communication means informing and/or sharing of meaning. Our context of reflection about perception and communication is the shaping of collaboration and learning processes and conditions by facilitators. For this application context, it is utterly important to consider that we have to consider and organise two “spaces of per- ception” at the same time, the space occupied by individuals as they are the actual learners - all learning is individual – and the common space of individuals who learn together in a common space of co- operation. Individuals are understood as independent systems and the actual place of learning is the individual brain. The brain - along with the senses it uses for perceiving - is a self-organising (autopoietic), self- related (self-referential), operationally closed system. Not only from a constructivist point of view but also from the perspective of mod- ern brain research, learning is a way of perception and recursive processing of reality in the forms of data, information and knowl- edge; recursive means, with a strict relation to the context of al- ready existing cognitive structures including the experiences and emotions linked to them. We are not talking about a reflection of the outer world in the brain but about a (re-) constructive process of a system with itself (self-referential). Already the sensuous perception of the surrounding system, the en- vironment, is regulated by individual selection criteria provided by the brain’s already existing thinking structures and linkages (syn- apses). They check whether and how the new perceptions may fit into the existing knowledge, experience and beliefs. Potential new information and knowledge is checked against the existing informa- tion and knowledge in a process which in the constructivist termi- nology is called „re-presentation“, as information or knowledge made present. For our context, we will add the notion of re- Cf. Message 10: Basic concepts of knowledge and knowledge management A more extended view of perception and learning is provided in Chapter 2.2 on the Didactics of Action Learning 08.08.2008, 09:57:40
- 2. 2/4 actualisation because in an action learning context information and knowledge are not only recalled into presence for the sake of re- membering, they are compared, aligned and adapted according to its present relevance for action. A simple but absolutely mandatory consequence of this aspect of self-referentiality of our spontaneous thinking is that we can never be sure that other people know and understand what we know and understand. We have to reassure ourselves by making questions or by doing it together checking whether the result is what we expected. Only then we have a relative certainty of having understood the same. And when we say something we should be very careful with assuming that it could be valid for everybody. Statements starting with “I …” should prevail over statements. Two or more individuals working together cannot do so without com- municating about the aims and purposes, the contents, methods, instruments, materials and tasks or roles of each person participat- ing in the co-operation process. The quality of co-operation is im- mediately depending on the quality of communication. If they are to work together successfully over a longer time span, they (must) build a common body of knowledge concerning their common work. What was initially done very consciously will become unconscious competence, and only serious problems, significant changes and new challenges from outside will instigate them to examine what or how they could improve their co-operative performance. They would have to analyse what is wrong in what they are doing, unlearn cer- tain things, and establish newly developed (learned) routines which in their turn become unconscious again. Cf.the ‘Four levels learning theory’ in Message 5: Basic concepts of learning and competence In such a practical context of co-operation, not right or wrong, true or not true motivate a decision of changing something, i.e. of learn- ing, decisive is the usefulness for what we are about to do; it is the perception of the new solution or method offered to me/us or the way it is offered to me/us, whether it is new (not redundant), rele- vant (important for me/us), viable (practical and useful for me/us) and connectable (fit for being integrated into my/our system). And in order to know what seemed new, relevant, viable and connect- able how to whom, we have to talk about it in some structured way for finding a common understanding which is the basis of the new consent on how to work together from now on. A balloon is de- scending over un- known territory. The pilot asks a person on the ground: “Where are we?” The person answers: “You are in a balloon about 100 feet above the ground.” We have come to call this critical process of collective deconstruc- tion and reconstruction LEGO playing. The old house is taken apart, a new plan is developed and a new house is built. Facilitators sup- port such processes of joint deconstruction and reconstruction or of joint construction of completely new projects. Facilitating then means supporting and structuring the perception and communication of a number of people who have a common in- terest in order to lead a common process of analysis, design, plan- ning, implementation and/or evaluation to become a success.
- 3. 3/4 Sharpening perception In order to sharpen the perception of facilitators, we usually start facilitator training with some simple exercise. One of them is the balloon joke on the margin above. It shows that correct information may not at all be useful and connectable to the situative context and hence may be completely useless. ∞ Another similar example is to ask for the colour of clouds. Physically, clouds are white as clouds consist of tiny water bubbles that reflect light like snow crystals very diffusely which makes white. Clouds seen from an airplane are white; clouds seen from the ground often show all shades of grey to black, the more black, the less light can penetrate them. For a pilot this means completely different things as for a farmer. For a pilot on the ground it means different things as for a pilot up in the sky. A third very simple example reproduceable at all times as a sponta- neous exercise in precise observation and perception is the ‘nine or six sign’ card (see margin). Draw a thick sign that could be a nine or a six on a card, throw it on the ground between you and the partici- pants and ask them: “What is it?” Usually, they will answer, “a six or a nine”. When you don’t confirm this immediately, some people might look a second time saying, “This is a white, oval piece of pa- per.” Of course, it is all of this, a white, oval piece of paper with a sign on it that could be a six or a nine. We will have to decide what it is “for us” in the given context. The same puzzling experience can be set in scene with a lying 8 that can equally be a sign for infinite. The same applies to listening. When you are the person who visual- ises – e.g., writes on cards or in a mind map - what people say, it is absolutely necessary to capture all contributions, omissions will be noticed as disrespect. And writing down in few words fitting on a card what people have said, often means interpreting what they said. Therefore, it is necessary very frequently to ask back, • “Have I hit what you wanted to say?” • “Could you please explain what you mean.” • “I have understood what you said in the following way …. Is this correct?” Active listening making reassuring questions is a must. Participants will soon adopt this attitude of mutual respect. It says, “Instead of assuming that what I understood is what you said, I ask you whether what I understood is what you wanted to say.” And people will transfer this attitude to their working environments. It will help to build mutual trust and understanding. Four dimensions of personal communication Facilitators - and through them the people they work with - will also learn to perceive unconscious messages as well as to control their own ones. When we say something, we all transmit and receive four messages (cf. Schulz von Thun 1981); we talk with four tongues and listen with four ears concerning: • the content consisting of the actual statement,
- 4. 4/4 • the so-called I-statement telling something about myself, my opinion and my emotions regarding the content statement, • my relationship to the receiver of the message, and • my appeal to the receiver expressing what I want him or her to do or to be done in general concerning my actual content state- ment. Additionally, all the information transmitted by my voice, eyes, atti- tude and gestures will underline the messages linked to the way the statement is formulated. Also here one of the main conclusions is to avoid statements which directly or indirectly include assumptions about other participants or even attack them. Sentences expressing my subjective perceptions and interpretations are usually a more precise way of formulation than generalisations. Obviously there is an additional complication. The four messages emitted with one statement are not necessarily the same four mes- sages heard and understood by the receiver. We do not know what is heard and how it is interpreted by the opposite. We only can judge from the response or the common action whether the meaning of something is shared. Many problems in communication derive from the mere assumption that something must have been perceived by somebody else just because we ourselves have perceived, said or not said, done or not done it. Behind this assumption there is often a theory-of-use con- sisting in an extremely simplified, merely technical model of com- munication (Model 1). It assumes that a message is emitted and transmitted by whatever medium and that exactly this message will arrive at the receiver side. But even merely technical models are usually more complicated (Model 2). They include context condi- tions, possible problems of transmission and suppose a feedback to be complete. Transmission mode 1 ls 2 Context Expounding (with Hall 1980) on this basic model, we can see that even in technical communication, more so in direct human commu- nication, there may turn up problems of encoding a message on the sender side and of decoding on the receiver side. Among other rea- sons, this may be owing to different sets of signs (mindsets) on both sides. Moreover, both sides may not have the same context condi- tions. Transmission may be blurred or disturbed one or both ways. Cf. Tool D3: Customer and sup- plier needs analysis and Eluding the problems of technical expertise which might turn up in following this example further, we have suggested a similar model based on the typical supplier-customer situation as it is used in qual- ity management which is much more customised to our network cli- entele. Furthermore, our Tool D3: Customer and supplier needs analysis and planning provides a practical model of creating a space of co-operation and communication, at the same time. As all our tools, it does not only serve as an analytical approach but also for designing, planning and shaping co-operation. planning