A secret to better communication that I learned by channeling Roman Jakobson.

By Steve Sampson

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Roman Jakobson was a remarkable 20th-Century scholar who escaped both Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany before helping to found the field of linguistics.

He argued that humans use words to accomplish six different types of goals (see below). I’ve been using a version of his model for 20+ years to do two things:

1. Clarify the purpose behind communication efforts–i.e., “Find the why”
2. Answer a crucial, often neglected question–”What do we need to do first?”

Find Your Why

Jakobson’s research showed that whenever we humans communicate, we’re trying to do at least one of these six things:

1. Build Social Bonds

We use words to connect, create trust, and maintain relationships. Communication starts or utterly fails right here. Simple phrases like “How was your weekend?” “Did you catch the game?” or “That’s a great outfit!” have probably done more good for humanity than all of the doctoral dissertations ever written.

2. Share Information

We use words to convey facts, observations, and ideas. Interestingly, would-be communicators often think this is their main goal when they really need to focus on one of the other functions listed here.

3. Drive Action

We use words to influence behavior–whether we’re giving instructions to people who report to us or trying to persuade people over whom we have little authority. Either way, we’re aiming to prompt specific actions.

4. Express Ourselves

Self-expression is a fundamental human need, and language is our primary tool for it. (Visual artists might disagree, but they’d have to draw pictures to make their point.)

5. Communicate about Communicating

We use words to start conversations: “Hey, got a minute?” “Can I run something by you?” We also use words to talk about words: “What do you mean by ‘intelligence’?” “I don’t think we’re using ‘liberal’ the same way.” Such metacommunication might seem tedious, but it’s essential. Without it, we’d talk past each other even more than we already do.

6. Create Beauty and Joy

Sometimes we use words simply because we love them–for wordplay, for poetry, for the sheer delight of crafting something beautiful. Some of us, admittedly, enjoy this stuff more than others.

Plan Your Way

While good communication often serves multiple purposes at once, you need to be crystal clear about your main goal before you begin. You’re unlikely to drive action simply by sharing information, and self-expression may not be helpful if people need clear instructions.

At the same time, you need to be realistic about where you’re starting in relation to your goal. Without such clarity, even words that are beautiful, right, and true can fall flat and fail miserably. You can’t inform or persuade, for example, if you haven’t first established an open channel, agreed on basic terms, and built some trust.

Think of it this way: Every time you communicate, you’re trying to deliver a message across a bridge. The question isn’t just what you want to carry across. It’s whether the bridge you’ve built can handle that cargo.

Bottom line: The wrong words will doom your communication efforts. And even the right words will fail if you try to deliver them at the wrong time or in the wrong way. So before you charge ahead, stop to think about where you are and why you want to go somewhere else. Then ask yourself about the bridges you need to cross to get there.

Find your why before you plan your way.