Looking for the latest communication tips? Communication is more than just the delivery of facts and data. True communication is just as much about listening as it is imparting. And there are a lot of ways to do it wrong. Here you can find all the latest news that we have handpicked on this most important topic. Communication: Everyone does it, even when they’re trying not to, and doing it well requires constant improvement. Here you can brush up your skills on ways to avoid failure, use better words, make more relevant points, understand context, make it stick and build understanding. Plus, getting great at presenting … or at least how not to dread it so much.
Every large institution takes on some level of bureaucracy, which can be incredibly frustrating and infuriating to normal people who have to work with it. Almost every institution tends to adopt its own acronyms and language, in part to simplify internal communication but also, as I’ve seen, as a kind ... read more →
Clarity and Candor are the Batman and Robin, Lennon and McCartney, Bacon and Eggs or SpongeBob and Patrick of public engagement; the perfect pair and indispensable under the right circumstances. Clarity and candor are more often than not missing from much of the communication that organizations, both public and private, ... read more →
I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been in the audience in tough public meeting settings and watched the speaker lob verbal duds into the crowd without a clue that he or she is doing it. I don’t know of any institution that provides formalized training in ... read more →
I’ve always believed that fake news might just doom us all eventually unless we figure out how to deal with it. But it may be that we’re worrying way too much about that. What do you think?... read more →
Conversations are interesting social constructions – a give and take and turn-taking encounter. But it’s particularly interesting to dig deeper into who’s giving, who’s taking, how they start, how they continue and how they end.... read more →
A lot of our clients are introverted. Funny, but we tend to be professionally extroverted introverts ourselves. Most introverted people are really uncomfortable making small talk. But small talk builds connections that lead to conversations which lead to discussions that can solve problems. This will help.
We talked about the power of asking great questions in a past newsletter and got a lot of feedback from you. I happened to run across the following that, although it speaks to workplace situations, is certainly applicable to asking really useful questions that we can use in stakeholder assessment ... read more →
Many moons ago, and in a different life, I lived in Arkansas. For a born and bred upper Midwesterner, it was a little bit of culture shock. I remember fondly my first grit(s), my first glass of sweet-tea, and most of all, I learned that genteel way of insulting anyone ... read more →
Nothing happens in the work that you do with the public without being able to communicate well with people. Communication – the exchange of information. One big challenge that we frequently face is how difficult it is for some clients to realize what effective communication requires. I can’t count the ... read more →
A few weeks ago, I did a customized online training session for a group of more than 30 environmental engineers who wanted help better understanding the angry public they were dealing with on one of their cleanup projects, and what to do about it. Now, the guy who set this ... read more →
