Communicate from Your Heart
Heart-to-heart communication is the most powerful. Facts and logical arguments have their places in our communication, but they are wooden without the heart of the speaker connecting with the hearts of...
View ArticleListening with Childlike Curiosity and Wonder
A basic principle of servant communication is that listening is the most important communicative skill. Listening is how we become intimate with reality so that when we speak or write we know what...
View ArticleWhy RSVP Is Dying
I hate to admit it to myself after years of denial, but RSVP is nearly dead. Why? I’ve always been an RSVP fan. I appreciate it when someone invites me to an event and provides a way for me to indicate...
View Article6 Tips for Great Interpersonal Communication in the Age of Social Media
This 35-minute presentation is from a speech I gave on my new, co-authored book, An Essential Guide to Interpersonal Communication: Building Great Relationships with Faith, Skill, and Virtue in the Age...
View ArticleWhat to Say To Someone Who Loses Loved One to Suicide
This personal story is both heart wrenching and full of hope. When words fail, actions can speak compassionately. Thanks to the author of this article for writing it and publishing it.
View ArticleAre You Really a Grateful Communicator?
Our hearts can hold three basic attitudes toward others: displeasure, indifference, and gratitude. These shape how we communicate with one another, and especially how others perceive us. Displeased...
View Article6 Ways to Be a Great Communicator
1. Encourage—build up others 2. Advocate—speak up for others 3. Listen—care about others’ thoughts and feelings 4. Tell Stories—give others joy and delight 5. Forgive—make things right when you’re...
View Article7 Signs of Poor Listening
Seven Signs of Poor Listening 1. Judging others too quickly and harshly 2. Jumping to premature conclusions 3. Responding thoughtlessly 4. Basing opinions of others on first impressions 5. Failing to...
View ArticleHow to Be a Real Listener
Listening isn’t easy. Listening is messy. Complicated. Counterintuitive. We can’t become good listeners unless we first acknowledge how difficult it is for each of us personally. Novelist Ernest...
View ArticleDoes God Communicate? Audio
One of the most enduring questions at least in the history of the western world is whether or not there is a God and, if so, whether God can and does communicate with human beings. In this 30-minute,...
View ArticleTaming Our Tongues Video
I preached at Christ Church of Oak Brook on “The Joy of Taming Our Tongues.”
View ArticleWhy Is So Much Public Communication Nasty?
Public discourse is particularly unpleasant today. What’s going on? Rather than blame a political party, candidate, system, or ideology, I would like to suggest a new way of looking at our troubling...
View ArticleListening with Childlike Curiosity and Wonder
A basic principle of servant communication is that listening is the most important communicative skill. Listening is how we become intimate with reality so that when we speak or write we know what...
View Article4 Essential Ways to Communicate in the Age of Social Media
I address candidly the four essential ways that we can reinvigorate our communication in the age of social media: (1) cultivate gratitude in our hearts in order to avoid cynical, critical, impatient...
View ArticleGratitude: The Most Important Leadership Trait
Some years ago I met with former Herman Miller CEO Max DePree to discuss communication. I humbly wanted to confer about his splendid definition of leadership in The Art of Leadership: “The first...
View ArticleLeadership Communication is Excellence with Compassion
I got my first regular job at 16 years of age, assisting a 45-ish man who ran a family-owned pharmacy in Chicago. Jerry was the pharmacist and manager. He was also a friend to locals who came in to buy...
View ArticleCommunication is Shared Understanding—Not Transmission, Influence, or Agreement
As a new professor in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was sitting in my campus office when the administrative assistant asked if I could take a call from a radio station in Zeeland. Seconds later a program...
View ArticleTo Communicate Better, Give Up Some Control
I receive humbling notes from former mentees thanking me for something I said to them. Sometimes I don’t recall saying exactly such things. They sound like something I might have said, but not...
View ArticleServant Leaders Risk Embarrassing Communication
A fine friend and skilled speaker landed in a dreadful situation. He had agreed to address a convention of toastmasters—persons who lead local public-speaking clubs where members overcome common...
View ArticleWhy Jordan B. Peterson Is Popular on Video
Jordan B. Peterson is one of the most popular academic speakers on YouTube. Why? In the first of my video “critiques” of popular communicators, I examine Jordan B. Peterson’s video communication style...
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