COMMUNICATION, AWARENESS, COMPLEXITY

Communicating complexity is complex. Acknowledging it may be enough.

Communication can build understanding, but not every gap needs to be bridged. Sometimes the most conscious approach is to acknowledge incompatibility, suspend judgment, and choose.

I studied Public Relations and Corporate Communication at IULM, when the world of communications was already undergoing major transformations, even though many of the dynamics we observe today had yet to manifest themselves with this intensity.

Over the years, tools, languages, the speed at which information circulates, and, above all, the social and cultural context in which that information is interpreted have changed. Thinking of communication as a linear process between the sender and the receiver has long been insufficient, if it was ever sufficient. Every message enters into a system of different values, experiences, interests, fears, identities, and levels of awareness.

I attended the webinar Communicating complexity is complex, organized by FERPI with CASP and FERPILab, during which Enrico Cerni he defined the public relations professional as a navigator: someone who reads the context, picks up on weak signals, intercepts cultural changes and contributes to the construction of shared meanings.

I deeply identify with this vision, which has informed my work for many years. The same reflection was already present in my thesis on human value in the era of global communication, from which I am developing a new book on leadership, awareness, and the changes transforming work.

But a question remains: are we sure that, faced with complexity, it is always necessary to arrive at a shared meaning?

Complexity also includes incompatibility

Communicating complexity requires the ability to make it understandable without reducing it to a slogan, erasing context, or transforming every dilemma into a seemingly simple choice.

However, understanding complexity also means recognizing what resists recomposition.

People, groups, and organizations may have different values, interests, internal structures, and levels of awareness. We can construct a framework in which these elements become visible and understandable, but the framework doesn't guarantee that they can coexist in the same direction.

Edgar Morin, one of the main references of the complex thinking, invites to connect while continuing to distinguish (relier, tout en distinguant): not to fragment reality into isolated compartments and, at the same time, not to erase contradictions and antagonisms in an attempt to artificially recompose them.
It is a step that I find fundamental, to which I would add a distinction: relating does not mean making compatible.

During the webinar, an interesting question arose regarding the network of relationships that the communicator helps to weave:

«"How do we convince others to weave this web with us?"»
In my opinion, the question already contains a presupposition that should be questioned: We don't always have to convince others. And we should ask ourselves why we feel the need to do so.

Part of the uncertainty that characterizes complex systems arises precisely from the impossibility of controlling what surrounds us: Uncertainty also grows when we are confronted with a plurality of possible points of view, interpretations, values, and directions, not all of which are compatible with our own. Convincing the other can then become, even unconsciously, an attempt to reduce this uncertainty by bringing the difference back into a framework that reassures us..

Building relationships doesn't necessarily mean producing convergence. We can observe different ideas, people, values, and systems within the same framework; we can understand their relationships, observe what they produce when they come into contact, and even recognize what they have to teach each other. This doesn't mean they can or should converge. Making room for complexity means, for me, also making room for the possibility that some elements remain distinct and incompatible. We can observe all the colors in the painting without expecting each color to mix with the others.

Incompatibility is part of complexity. It serves to make it knowable.

Diversity serves as a mirror for us, allowing us to observe, through contrast, who we are, what values guide us, what we prefer, and what reality we want to help build. Seeking to eliminate every incompatibility also means eliminating a fundamental part of the evolutionary function of difference.

As I explained in the article Conflict or incompatibility? The ego's deception that turns every difference into a war., Incompatibility doesn't mean conflict. Conflict arises when someone tries to deny the difference, correct it, overcome it, or force the other to become compatible.

Neutrality comes before choice

Recognizing incompatibility requires a neutral stance. Neutrality, in this context, is a space in which to slow down, be silent, and listen, temporarily suspending judgment to observe reality with the least possible interference from our fears, projections, expectations, and identity needs.

From that neutral ground we can choose using our compass, made up of our values, acquired awareness, and the reality we prefer to build.

We can decide what we consider positive or negative, what we want to include in our experience and what we want to exclude, which relationships we intend to cultivate and which directions we no longer feel are alien. Each choice will be made through our compass, composed of our values, acquired awareness, and the reality we prefer to build.

In complexity, in fact, we may not have a map precise enough to tell us where we'll end up. But we can have a compass. The map tries to describe the territory; the compass reminds us which direction we want to go. And that direction is given by our values.

This also means accepting that not all compasses point in the same direction. We can listen to each other, understand each other, build connections, and even network together, but only as long as there is sufficient compatibility to do so. The task of communication cannot become that of convincing every interlocutor to climb aboard our boat or to desire the same port as us.

During the webinar, Cerni also recalled the Greek word alētheia, truth, connecting it to the idea of non-concealment and the absence of forgetfulness: truth as something that emerges when we remove what hides it.

It is a definition that is deeply in line with my thinking and my approach. In my method, truth is also a remembering: a return to recognizing who we are beneath the superstructures, what values belong to us by our fundamental nature and what direction our compass continues to point when we stop, at least for a moment, looking outside ourselves for a definitive map.

Neutrality doesn't require indifference or passivity. It requires enough presence to observe and listen before reacting, and enough responsibility to choose without turning one's preference into a universal law.

This principle also runs through my ebook Calm during the storm, dedicated to the ability to maintain clarity and discernment amid informational, emotional, and social chaos. Staying centered allows us to distinguish what is happening from what we are projecting onto it.

Knowing when to communicate

One of the most important communication skills is recognizing when communication has reached its limits.

We can change the words, provide more context, clarify the message, and choose a different frame. All of this remains useful when there is a genuine willingness to understand on the other side.

In other cases, continuing to explain fuels the savior complex: the idea that, by finally finding the right words, we will be able to bring the other person to our level of understanding, convince them, or free them from a reality they continue to choose.

Communication requires reciprocity. Understanding something can force a person to question the identity, position, or balance they wish to preserve. No explanation can replace their willingness to do so.

Even choosing to interrupt a conversation communicates something: it declares that we have recognized the limits of confrontation and that we have stopped confusing perseverance with the ability to create understanding. I also talk about this in When tolerance becomes complicity and resilience becomes enabling, where I analyze the point at which continuing to communicate risks turning into participation in a dysfunctional dynamic.

questions to read the complexity

What web are we really weaving?

One of the final questions of the webinar concerned the network we, as communications professionals, are helping to build.

The question concerns everyone.

What reality are we fueling every time we communicate? What differences are we trying to understand, and which are we trying to erase? How much of our need for dialogue stems from genuine openness, and how much from a desire to convince, save, or control the other? What incompatibilities continue to generate conflict because we refuse to acknowledge them?

Communicating complexity remains a fundamental responsibility. So too does accepting that certain distances must be understood, observed, and ultimately respected.

The communicator's task is to construct a shared meaning or, when common ground cannot exist, to make the difference visible and create a neutral framework broad enough to allow everyone to recognize the incompatibility and consciously choose their own direction: without real differences between what I prefer and what you prefer, after all, there would be no complexity to communicate.

I work on communication from this very perspective: reading complex systems, relationships, and contexts, recognizing what holds them together and what requires a choice, to transform understanding into a viable direction.

Discover my approach →