Cultural competence in culturally mixed teams

6. The Four-Sides Model of Communication

There are several models explaining how communication works. Here, we are looking at Schulz von Thun's model to analyze the communication between Zara and Svenja.

Schulz von Thun's model is based on Watzlawik's communication theory, and you can read more about this in the resources section.

The basic process of communication holds a Sender, a Message and a Receiver. The sender sends out their message, the receiver decodes the message in order to understand it.

Let's take a closer look at the message:

According to Schulz von Thun, each message always has content and relationship aspects to it. Looking at it in more detail, he describes four sides of a message.

You see these aspects depicted in this sketch.

Please click on the 4 sides of the message picture to learn more.

The four sides model of communication objective content Relationship Appeal Self-disclosure

Considering these 4 aspects of a message, what might Svenja have heard from Zara? Click [here] to see how Svenja might have received Zara's message.