Strategic Communication: Ten Principles for Building Meaningful Relationships in Complex Contexts

This article sets out the principles that inspired it, forming a set of ten guidelines.

As their careers progress and their responsibilities grow, people come to realise that it is impossible to achieve ambitious goals by relying solely on their own abilities. Success stems from collaboration between people with different skills. Relationships are therefore an intrinsic part of professional dynamics – an element which, as well as improving well-being, is key to achieving results.

This new approach to relationships draws on a range of disciplines – primarily communication, psychology and neuroscience – adopting a holistic perspective that integrates different fields and brings them together into a single, coherent model, geared towards a specific goal: building meaningful relationships.

The science of relationships identifies methodologies, strategies and techniques for developing strategic interpersonal skills. It therefore offers a technical approach even to the study of those skills that are normally tackled in a more intuitive manner. This scientific approach facilitates their learning and teaching, as well as making assessment more objective.

Strategic Communication focuses not only on the results of individual actions but also on the overall effects generated by the relationship over time. For this reason, it does not aim to maximise short-term profits but adopts a long-term strategy designed to ensure sustainable results over the long term.

The scientific approach to relationships involves an objective analysis based not only on impressions, but on actual behaviours that give rise to actions and facts. The strategic communicator trains themselves to codify reality and to decode it. The final insight arises from the combination of the observed fact and the judgement formed.

We tend to relate to others in a self-centred way. Even when we try to ‘put ourselves in someone else’s shoes’, we tend to do so from our own perspective. This tendency, if repeated, can damage the relationship.

Strategic Communication, on the other hand, with the aim of preserving and nurturing the relationship, seeks to emphasise three essential elements: I, You and Context. Those who use it have at heart both their own interests (I) and those of the other person (You), and are aware that the other person’s perspective enriches the relationship. It also takes into account the people involved (subjective context) and the economic, legal, temporal and spatial factors (objective context) that can influence the relationship.

Our instinct leads us to form relationships in just two steps: observation and action. First, we ask ourselves what our objectives are, and then we immediately set about pursuing them.

Strategic Communication adds a stage to the process aimed at genuinely exploring the other person’s interests: asking questions. Here are the three steps that make up the O.D.I.® Method: Observe, Ask, Intervene. Asking questions improves the chances of achieving the set objective, as it allows you to verify the hypotheses formulated during the Observe phase, thereby gathering useful information to co-design a more robust solution together with the ‘You’.

When people feel they are playing a leading role in a project, they tend to attach greater value to it and invest more effort in it. It is on this premise that the concept of co-design is based, which forms the foundation of the Intervention phase.

Essentially, what is achieved through collaboration between several parties is not merely the sum of their individual contributions, but a multiplication of value. Once a decision has been made, the individual contributions become indistinguishable and everyone perceives the final result as their own.

The science of relationships identifies four relational styles: effective, manipulative, persuasive and strategic. Each style has its advantages; otherwise, it would not have been passed down by humankind throughout its evolution. However, each style realises its full potential in different situations.

Anyone wishing to become a ‘relationship scientist’ must master all four approaches in order to choose wisely which one to apply, depending on their own interests, the person they are dealing with and the context in which they operate. It is therefore necessary to be flexible in one’s relational style whilst remaining true to one’s values.

Whilst it is true that a relationship serves a purpose, it is equally true that it does not end once that purpose has been achieved. We need to move from a linear mindset to a circular one: every encounter becomes an opportunity to improve the next one, and to come to realise that the other person will always remain, at least in part, a mystery. A relationship ends when that spark that prompts us to ask questions fades, leaving us to believe that everything has already been resolved.

In conclusion, this set of guidelines is intended as a starting point for a cultural shift – rather than merely an organisational one or one focused solely on individual performance – in which understanding is transformed into knowledge and knowledge into habit. This is where true meta-competence comes to the fore: learning to learn so that we never stop growing.

Because Strategic Communication, like its subject matter, is constantly evolving. It aspires to explore what no formula, however brilliant, will ever be able to fully decipher: the infinite and marvellous complexity of human relationships.

*Director of the Academy of Strategic Communication