Situational model

The same situation can be understood differently by the participants of communication. Therefore it is important to inform your understanding of the situation to others. If any of the present determines a situation differently, then clarification of this discrepancy is an absolute advantage. Otherwise latent controversy will last during the entire meeting and break the joint work in a hidden way. A situational model helps to avoid it.

A situational model contains four components:

1. An input channel is a history and cause of the situation.
In most cases meetings and conversations do not happen spontaneously, but on the basis of agreements. There is a reason for a meeting to take place. The questions that clarify the component: “What was the reason for this meeting?”, “Who invited for the meeting?”, etc.
2. The upper belly is the thematic structure of communication.
Each dialogue is devoted to a particular subject. This component involves answering the following questions: “What is on the agenda?”, “What is our problem?”, etc.
3. Lower belly represents the structure of interpersonal relations in the situation.
Communication always occurs with a particular, specific person, rather than “with anyone.” Here we are talking about the following: “Who is present at the meeting?”, “In what functions, in what role, with what interests, on whose behalf?”, etc.
4. An output channel is the purpose of the meeting and prediction of the outcome.
Meetings are held in order to obtain a result, for example, decisions, agreements, concepts, etc. To facilitate the communication it will be helpful to identify: “What is the purpose of the meeting?”, “What am I supposed to know or do during communication?”, etc.

In addition, our understanding of “the truth of the situation” would be incomplete if we did not take into account that the situation is involved in the system context. Participants of the situation not only meet each other in various roles caused by the situation, but belong to different subsystems. And some are suspended on invisible strings like puppets: they speak out, not on their behalf but represent another person or any other team.