Tomorrow is our student government election day. Before everyone hits the polls, we’ll be hearing speeches from the candidates. These are always interesting. While none of the candidates are professional communicators, you can tell who does it better than others. If I could sit down with each of the candidates as they put their speech together, I’d offer the following …
The Missing Ingredient In Listening
In one ear and out the other. It’s a common cliche’ of a critique where a conversation (or perhaps a monologue) ends with one person feeling like the other didn’t listen. They heard you. They nodded their head in affirmation. They even recited back to you word for word what you just said. But listening did not take place. What …
10 Suggestions To Save Your Speech
It’s difficult to get people’s attention. It’s even harder to keep people’s attention. Making a speech is part communication, part theater. That’s right, you’re an actor/actress on a stage. You finally get your chance to make your presentation, your talk, your big speech. Now that you have their attention, you must now spend your precious time entertaining, as well as …
How Should I Respond?
When I was in the third grade, the popular way (and most direct way) to ask a girl if she liked you was to write her a note expressing your affection and at the bottom give her three options to check her answer (Yes!, no, and my personal favorite…maybe). Then you’d give the note to your friend, who gave it …
Are You Hearing What They’re Saying?
Pretty historic election yesterday. The Republican party won nearly 65 seats, taking control of the House and gaining spots in the Senate. There was also a large Republican majority in the Governor’s races as well. I’m not going to use this post to argue the benefits or downsides of either party, nor am I going to anticipate what will happen …