Communication is the invisible architecture that shapes how teams trust, learn, and act together.

In every organization, from esports to business and education, it determines how ideas spread, how actions align, and how trust is built or broken.

Most problems inside teams stem from unclear communication. Misunderstandings turn into conflict, inefficiency, and frustration.

Through years of working with players, coaches, and leaders across cultures, I’ve seen people repeat the same patterns:

Talk a lot, listen to reply, but understand little.
Stay silent when it matters most, avoiding discomfort and calling it professionalism.
Chase the same goals but fail to connect and therefore don’t perform.
Blame others instead of taking responsibility and re-explaining better.
Confuse being direct with being harsh and step into toxicity.

What’s meant to motivate can sound like criticism.

What’s meant to clarify can create confusion.

To lead effectively, we must understand what communication does beneath the surface.

The following seven mental models will help you connect deeper, convince smarter, and coordinate better.

1. The Three Core Functions of Communication

Every act of communication has at least one of three goals:

To Connect — to build trust, belonging, and a sense of safety.
To Convince — to shape understanding, attitudes, or decisions.
To Coordinate — to align actions through shared clarity.

These three are linked. We connect to open minds, convince to align thinking, and coordinate to move together. Then we reconnect to maintain trust and momentum.

Communication is a living cycle: connect, convince, coordinate, reconnect.

1. To Connect

Connection builds the foundation of trust. It shows care through empathy, humor, and acknowledgment.

When connection is missing, all other forms of communication lose effectiveness.

2. To Convince

Convincing is communication for persuasion or teaching. It combines logic and empathy, because logic alone rarely changes minds.

Coaches, teachers, and managers often are shine here when explaining a new strategy, influencing decisions or gaining buy-in.

3. To Coordinate

Coordination turns understanding into action. It’s about precision, structure, and shared expectations.

In-game communication belongs here. It must be quick, clear, and actionable.

The same applies in organizational settings. It involves aligning team members, clarifying responsibilities, setting deadlines, and communicating plans.

Many coaches struggle with this transition. Moving from working alone to leading a full staff that includes an assistant coach, a psychologist, analysts, and a manager requires a new level of coordination and clarity.

The Communication Flow

Communication moves constantly among the three functions, and it always begins with social connection.

Connect to build trust and openness.
Convince to align understanding and beliefs.
Coordinate to turn agreement into effective action.

After action comes reflection and the cycle returns to connection, strengthening relationships and psychological safety.

2. The Three Communication Channels

Every message travels through three channels: Verbal, Paraverbal, Non-verbal. Together, they shape the full meaning.

Verbal – What we say
Words, structure, and content. They express meaning clearly but can sound flat if disconnected from emotion.
Paraverbal – How we say it
Tone, pace, volume, rhythm. This is the music behind the words. It carries emotion and intent.
The same phrase, “We need to talk,” can sound supportive or threatening depending on tone.
Non-verbal – What our body says
Posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact.
It’s the area where most coaches and players have the least awareness. Yet it’s the one people trust the most on a subconscious level.
When words and body language conflict, people believe the body every time.

How the Channels Support Each Function

Function	Verbal	Paraverbal	Non-Verbal	Description
Connect	Low	Mid–High	High	Warm tone, relaxed posture, empathy cues
Convince	High	Mid	Mid	Clear language, confident tone, aligned body
Coordinate	High	Mid	Mid–Low	Precise wording, firm tone, directive posture

To connect, focus on emotional tone and body language.

To convince, use clear language supported by a genuine tone.

To coordinate, depend on structure, precision, and consistency between tone and intent.

Mastery comes from adjusting these elements smoothly to fit the moment.

3. The Sender Owns Clarity

I’ve heard versions of this many times:

“Players aren’t paying attention! They don’t want to learn!” — Esports coach

“I’ve told the engineers three times how to design the feature. How do they still not get it!?” — Team lead

Sometimes players or employees misunderstand, but most of the time the problem starts with the person giving the explanation.

“The sender is responsible for the message.”

I’ve repeated this principle countless times, especially after conversations where a leader feels frustrated or let down. That frustration usually comes from two places:

Expectation gap: The difference between what was imagined and what actually happened.
Ego protection: Blaming others feels easier than questioning your own clarity.

The best way to reduce frustration is to raise your own communication standard. Clarity is a skill you control and can always improve.

Adopt the Ownership Mindset

Blaming mindset: “They didn’t get it because they weren’t listening.”
Ownership mindset: “They didn’t get it because I didn’t explain it clearly enough.”

The first protects ego. The second improves skill.

As a sender, you can only influence attention, but you can control clarity.

Shared Responsibility, Unequal Weight

The receiver still plays a role, but the balance of responsibility is not equal.

The sender owns clarity.
The receiver owns confirmation.

In professional settings, where people are motivated to understand, most failures still stem from unclear delivery.

When in doubt, ask for confirmation:

“What did you take from that?”
“Can you summarize what I just explained in your own words?”

You will be surprised by how often the person receiving a message interprets it differently.

If your message isn’t understood, refine it. Each improvement builds trust, alignment, and credibility.

4. Shared Language: Align Meaning

A common problem among leaders and coaches is the lack of a shared understanding of key terms.

Without a common language, misunderstandings are inevitable.

This affects both broad concepts like feedback, strategy, or professionalism, and in-game terms such as tempo, pressure, or priority.

This happens often in multinational teams where English is a second language for everyone. Words can carry different meanings across languages and cultures, and even small nuances can lead to large gaps in understanding.

Definitions Evolve Over Time

Meanings change as professionals grow. The process is often subconscious, people add nuance or shift definitions without realizing it.

For example, a coach might first define tempo as “doing things faster than the opponent.” Later, it may evolve into “consuming all available map resources before the next action,” because acting before that point is considered cheating tempo, a short-term gain that may hurt long-term efficiency.

In this process, the coach redefined tempo and added the idea of cheating tempo to describe a subtle variation in meaning. And it happened organically.

When these evolving definitions aren’t shared, miscommunication follows. Teams must regularly align on what key terms mean.

How to Create Semantic Alignment

Build and regularly update a shared glossary of key terms.
When someone seems confused, consider language as the cause before judging effort or ability.
Ask players to explain key terms in their own words and revise the glossary as needed.
Simplify language for non-native English speakers. In-game talk is simple, while off-game communication such as feedback, emotion, and reflection is far more complex.

5. Sequence and Residue: Every Conversation Has a Past

The impact of a message depends not only on what you say, but also on what came before.

Two forces shape how your words land:

Sequence: The emotional tone of previous interactions.
Residue: The emotional state the listener brings into the conversation.

Sequence

When someone has been criticized repeatedly, even a neutral comment can sound hostile.

I once worked with a League of Legends coach who focused almost every post-game review on the jungler’s mistakes. Over time, the player started playing scared and his performance dropped. The psychologist later pointed out that the constant criticism was eroding confidence and suggested giving feedback privately and balancing negatives with praise.

It came too late. The player never fully recovered.

The lesson: alternate critique with recognition, and know when to move difficult conversations to a one-on-one setting.

Residue

People don’t enter conversations as blank slates.

A player who has a rough SoloQ morning may carry frustration into scrims, speaking less and playing worse. If staff miss this, they might read it as lack of effort.

The same effect appears in other fields.

Research shows that doctors make fewer proactive decisions late in their shifts, and judges give harsher rulings before lunch.

Fatigue, emotion, and timing all shape judgment.

Why It Matters

Sequence and residue explain why the same message can work one day and fail the next.

To communicate effectively:

Build safety first.
Create openness second.
Challenge third.

Reversing that order leads to resistance.

When trust and openness already exist, challenge becomes growth instead of threat.

6. The Rational–Emotional Gap

In any conversation, people communicate through two main channels:

Rational: logic, facts, and structure
Emotional: feelings, needs, and safety

Miscommunication happens when one person speaks from logic while the other speaks from emotion. Without realizing it, they use the same words but come from different states of mind.

How to Navigate It

Identify the Channel
Ask yourself: Is this person seeking understanding or relief?
If they need relief, respond emotionally: “I get that this feels unfair.”
If they need understanding, stay rational: “Let’s look at what caused this.”
Match First, Then Guide
Empathy calms emotion faster than logic. Once the emotion softens, reason can enter.
Regulate Yourself
If you’re emotionally charged, you’ll only mirror their state. Step away if needed to regain control.
Calmness is contagious and reopens the rational channel.

After a tough loss, a player says angrily, “You always blame me after every loss.”

Rational reply: “That’s not true. I gave feedback to everyone.” leads to escalation.
Emotional reply: “I see why it feels that way after a tough game.” leads to connection.

Once the emotion cools, explanation can follow:

“I’m sorry if it feels that way. My goal is to give feedback to everyone so we can keep improving.”

Through my career, I’ve failed at “match first, then guide” many times.

I tend to approach problems rationally and try to fix them immediately.

But as a coach or leader, it’s often more powerful to make someone feel understood than to solve the issue right away.

7. Repetition: Patterns Create Culture

What we hear, see, or experience repeatedly becomes familiar. Over time, what feels familiar begins to feel true, safe, or meaningful.

Our brains are designed to trust patterns, so repetition gradually shapes belief, emotion, and behavior.

In communication, repetition turns isolated moments into expectations:

If someone consistently begins conversations with criticism, others will anticipate negativity
When appreciation is expressed often, it builds confidence and trust.

In marketing, repetition makes people feel familiar with a brand, and familiarity builds trust. The “rule of seven” suggests that people usually need to encounter a brand about seven times before taking action. After enough exposure, the brand feels trustworthy simply because it feels familiar.

In politics, repeating a message can make people believe it, even when it is false. The brain confuses familiarity with truth. When we hear something many times, it feels easier to process, so it also feels more believable. This is why repetition is often used to reinforce false claims until they seem real.

Repetition is powerful. It shapes both emotion and belief. It plants seeds in the mind that grow into habits, assumptions, and lasting impressions.

What you repeat is what people remember, and what they remember becomes their reality.

If you are a leader or coach and your team is not performing at the level you expect, ask yourself:

Am I repeating what truly matters often enough?
Could I be reinforcing the wrong message?
What messages are being repeated naturally within the team?

The answers might surprise you.

Beyond the Illusion of Communication

We tend to assume that words equal clarity, that agreement equals alignment, and that silence equals acceptance.

But communication always passes through emotion, culture, timing, and personal history.

That’s why leadership communication requires knowledge and awareness.

These seven mental models provide that awareness:

Function: Connect → Convince → Coordinate
Channels: Verbal, Paraverbal, Non-verbal
Responsibility: The sender owns clarity
Shared Language: Align meaning, not just words
Sequence & Residue: Every interaction has a past
Rational–Emotional Gap: Match first, then guide
Repetition: Patterns create culture

True communication is not about speaking clearly, it’s about being clearly understood.

Breaking the illusion of communication is the first step toward being understood and genuine alignment.

And alignment is the foundation of every high-performing team.

7 Mental Models That Transform Leadership Communication