Crossroads: Servant Leadership Part 9 - Effective Communication

♪♪ Hello, and welcome to the Crossroads Podcast, the show where Mark Meckler and Rita Peters discuss hot-button issues from a biblical perspective, helping to equip other Christians to bring light to a darkened culture. Rita is the senior vice president of legislative affairs, and Mark serves as the CEO and co-founder for Convention of State's Action. Find out more about visiting conventionofstates.com slash pop. Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Crossroads Where Faith and Culture Meet. I'm your host Rita Peters, and going solo once again this week. Mark Meckler, truth be told, is in Hawaii right now. But I am promised that he will be back with us next week for a wrap-up of the current series we're doing here on Crossroads. We are continuing today with a journey that we started several weeks ago through the book Servant Leadership by David Coonert. Now, if you're just joining us for the first time in the series, one explained the reason we're talking about Servant Leadership on this program is because it is practical training to help us have the most and best impact, not only on our families and colleagues, although it definitely applies there, but also on the culture around us as we try to be leaders and have influence on our culture. You can find the book we're discussing on Amazon, again, it's Servant Leadership by David Coonert. And I encourage you to pick this book up. It's a super easy read, totally practical. And today we are going through chapter nine. And let me tell you, you do not want to miss this one because it is all about effective communication. Who doesn't need that? And who can't improve? We can all improve in our means of communication. Now, to work through this with us, we have again, Jenny Rapini. Jenny is a full-time volunteer with Convention of States, and she is a leader of our grassroots and our mentoring department. She has walked many, many people through this material as part of our Servant Leadership Training. And she is also a leader of all kinds of great women's Bible studies. Jenny, welcome back. Hey, thank you. It's so good to be back to talk to you today about one of my favorite topics. So that is communication, but through Servant Leadership. That is my favorite thing to talk about. Yeah, well, this chapter is so good. And I want to dive right in because we have a habit of filling up all the time and running out. There's so much to talk to you about, Jenny. But this chapter begins by talking about clarity, which is the issue with communication. We need to have clarity in where we're going and also clarity about our present reality. Why is clarity so important, Jenny? Well, first of all, communication is the thread of every circumstance in our life. That when we communicate, we're sharing value with one another and we align ourselves with either a mission or an alternative agenda. And also in relationships. And when building a meaningful organization or a meaningful relationship, communication is critical because it is what connects and serves as that binding agent among everybody involved. We need effective communication. And we need it to be clear within our framework, it's the clarity of the message that's going to create unity in the effort in whether it's at work, whether it's at church, whether it's in our relationships. It's that good communication that's going to bring about the clarity. If my communication is foggy or unclear, that can have disastrous consequences. So when communication is clear and understood, organizations and relationships will thrive. Yep, absolutely. Well, David in this chapter sets up a model of effective communication that requires the following elements. I'm just going to list them and then I'm going to ask you to talk about each one. So the elements are a sender, the person who's sending a message, the receiver or the intended audience, a medium to transmit the message. And then the other element that we have to take into consideration are barriers to that communication. What's going to get in the way from this communication being effective? Now, that sounds pretty simple. Just a few elements. Yeah, of course there's a sender and a receiver and a medium. That sounds straightforward. Jenny, why is this actually so complicated? I believe it's more complicated because in communication and because of our humanity and our concern about self, that we try to make everything about me instead of we. Most of us are more concerned about being heard than really hearing the other person. I believe that's one complication. And that other complication can come from our backgrounds, how we filter words that can come from our life experiences. My life experience is different than your life experience. Certain words will trigger me that won't trigger you. So life experiences play a role in why communication can be complicated, filtering things through your experience. There's a whole lot of other reasons why it can be complicated. But let's just consolidate that and that for now. I know we have limited time. OK. Well, it's interesting that you bring up the focus on me. One thing I heard a long time ago, and I've paid a lot of attention to it ever since, is that when you go to a party or when you're spending time with a group of people, the people who will generally come back from that and say that it was the most fun or they had the best time, or the people who got to talk about themselves the most. We are. We all love to talk about ourselves, right? We are very me focused by nature. OK. Well, David points out in this chapter. I thought this was really interesting because sometimes, Jennie, I forget to look at the models that God has provided me and his word, but it really is a very smart thing to do. So David points out that when we read the Bible, we see that God uses repetition and story in order to communicate clearly with us. And he also points out that while God has given us the ability to communicate and to understand, our tendency to miscommunicate and misunderstand is a function of our fallen condition as human beings. So how is that? And can you give us examples? I think the most effective way to communicate and engage an audience if you're speaking to a group is with storytelling. And you see storytelling in the Bible. You see Nathan the prophet telling a story to David as he's confronting him with his sins. Human beings are wired for the stories. Our brains don't often distinguish between fiction and reality. So we immerse ourselves in the stories and we become part of them. And most of the stories that I share usually about myself to try to confirm the truth that I'm trying to get across. But I'll give you the example of how it's not about me, but how a story that I heard affected me, that I've remembered it after 30 years. And the story was talking about our mindset and how important it is to have the proper frame of mind. And it all depends on how you look at things as to how you're going to interpret a situation. And the example that was given was back in the 20s, there was a shoe manufacturer that wanted to see what kind of market there was in Africa for shoes. So they sent two men to Africa. Well, then they had to do that on ships. So they were going to be away from their family for months. And one went to one part of Africa and the other one went to another part of Africa. But both were in Africa. And the first guy that gets over there was grumbling, complaining, saying, I don't want to go. This is a bigger waste of time. And the second one thought, oh, this is a great opportunity and I'll see what comes out of it. And the first guy, when he gets there, he wires back to the manufacturer, total waste of time, they don't wear shoes here. The second guy sends a wire back, great opportunity. They don't wear shoes here. And so you see how a story can leave an impact of a point that you're trying to make. So it's always good. I can remember stories from sermons even from 30 years ago that were just impactful. Storytelling is a really important way to communicate as well. Absolutely. Now let's go ahead and take a closer look, Jenny, at each of the four elements of effective communication. What do we need to know first of all about the sender of the message? Okay. So the sender is the person communicating the message and they must have internal clarity of their message in order to communicate it clearly. They need to fully understand the message, but there's two parts to that. You understand what you're trying to tell them, but it is your responsibility to make sure that your message is understood. And an illustration of that is my husband is an engineer and my mind does not operate like an engineer at all. And when we were doing a remodel on our house, he's also an architect and he drew up these plans and he puts them in front of me and says, what do you think? And I look at those lines and they're blue and then there are circles and there's all this stuff there. That makes no sense to me. And so it was his job to make sure I understood what that picture was telling me. So I could say, the toilet should not be there. There's a mirror behind it. You know, and I can, but it was his responsibility to make sure that I understood it. He needed to choose the right way to tell me and then the medium to use to communicate with me. He would not try to communicate that with me over the phone. So we also have to see what I need to do to bring clarity to the situation. It's not enough to say, well, I told you, you need to be sure that what you told them was understandable and understood. And that's your responsibility as the sender. Yeah, I think I get that wrong a lot. I tend to think, well, if I told you, then it's all on you now, but yeah, that's not exactly how it works. But one other thing too with the sender is when I'm communicating something, I might know all the facts. I have all the data in my head. I know exactly what I'm saying, but the person that I'm communicating to doesn't necessarily have any of that background information. And it's up to me as the sender to also figure out and understand where they are in terms of receiving this information that I'm trying to give to them. Yeah, I'm sure we've all been in those situations where someone says something and we're sort of like, wait, what? It's just coming out of the blue. And I think what happens sometimes if you're the person who knows all the background so well, you've thought about it in your mind 100 times, you can say something without remembering that that other person hasn't been thinking about this for three days like you have. So you have to bring them up to the food. Okay, you mentioned the medium briefly. Why is the medium of the message important? What do we need to be aware of in that? Well, the medium is really important and there's all different kinds of mediums that we can use. We have texting, we have email, social media, internal communication, things like we have in our company, we have Slack that it's kind of like texting internally. Then you have phone calls, you have video calls and then you have in-person communication. So how do you choose the right medium when you're going to have communication with somebody? I'll tell you this, email, texting and social media have gotten me in a lot of trouble. Because people cannot hear my tone or see the expression on my face or even the twinkle in my eye that I'm really just kidding. That single one-way communication creates a dangerous vacuum. Maybe I was intending to be playful, but they took my words as being hurtful or demeaning because of their filtering system or because of just something, a phone call they just had before mine or before I sent this email or this text message. So sometimes you think you need to send a correction message through email or text. Oh no, don't ever do that. That can come across harsh. You don't know, do you realize that only 70% of what we communicate is nonverbal? 70% is not the words we use. So these mediums of flat words, including even a letter, handwritten letter, we, these mediums leave a lot of room for miscommunication. And one thing we have to make a pact with the people we love and care about that we will never, ever deliver bad news through a text or email. Yeah. And that those mediums, text, email, social media, inter-department communication, they should be used for imparting information only, not emotion, only information. I'm having a meeting tonight, hope you can be, or I'm running late, I'll be there as soon as I can, or let's go out to dinner or never, ever, am I gonna say I'm breaking up with you. So one of those mediums. I hope not. And I wanna make a couple of comments on the things that you just said. First of all, how important our nonverbal communication is. And I just wanna say to parents, and I'm talking to myself too as a parent, we have to teach this to our kids, because so often, kids will maybe respond to the right way verbally, but their body language is saying something entirely different, or they might be sitting in a classroom, or in the audience at church listening to a sermon, and maybe they really are paying attention, but they're all slumped down in their seat, or they've got their head leaned back, like they're in a recliner and about to go to sleep. And our kids need to understand that their body language is always communicating something. And so they need to be aware of that thing, that their body language is communicating, as do we. Yes, I'm first. Yeah, there's, you know, the, the text messages and communication via text messages. You know, we have to be careful even with emoji. And I say that because I, one of my daughters came to me at one point and said, you know, depending on what your text message is, when you put the little smiley face emoji after it, sometimes it just seems like you're being a smart alec. And so who knew? I was so glad she told me because, you know, that is a generational thing, I think. All they interpret and emoji might be totally different from the way that it was intended. And I, last thing I wanna say, Jenny, and then I'm going back to you, but a lot of the people who listen to our Crossroads radio program are people who are politically involved and who, you know, feel a calling to be involved in the political and cultural, the big hot button issues. And so I wanna pause on this for just a moment and remind you how important it is to be so careful with what you're putting out there on a chat or a comment to news articles or social media posts. Please be careful because what you're communicating when all you can do is type a comment that someone is only going to read in black and white, it can really be damaging to the cause of truth if you're not very careful and being gentle with your words. We are gentle on people. Tough on issues is fine, but gentle with people is very important. One other thing I'd like to add to that before I go to the other medium, and that is be careful that whenever you share another post, you have vetted it properly. Not just sharing it because it fits your narrative. Make sure that it is 100% accurate. I can think of hundreds of things that have come my way, that people have just sent and sent and sent and they have been not true, but they fit the narrative that I like. And so therefore they'll pass things on. So be very careful about that. The other medium of communication is a phone call. 38% of communication is delivered through your tone of voice. That's better than words that are flat on a page, but it's important to let the person you're communicating with hear the tone in your voice because you can control that tone. And if you come off harsh, then your tone was harsh. Use phone calls or conference calls for higher levels of complexity or response back and forth. At least there's a back and forth that can take place with a phone call. And then there's video calls. We can FaceTime on our phones now. We can use GoToMeeting or Zoom or Skype. But 55% of our communication is delivered through body language. Now in these areas you can see from the chest up, which is better than nothing. But because there are those subtle clues of communication that are a lot more on the receiver than the words alone. So they don't leave the receiver with as much of an open interpretation when they can see the look on your face. They can see you from the chest up. So use this when you can't meet face to face. Always use this or in person if there is emotion involved, which is the next mode of communication, which is the best mode of communication, which is in person. And that's best for any kind of human connection. It's the full ability to see the body language and hear the words and the tone of the words and the facial expressions, the twinkle in the eye. Because really true communication also allows feedback. And so the phone, the video call and face to face allow that feedback to be two-way. On the first three they don't allow feedback. They're only one way of communication. The receiver listens and with feedback, the receiver listens and then the receiver becomes the sender and vice versa. Which brings us to the next area of communication. We talked about the sender and then the medium that we use. But then there's the receiver. You have sponsored by the receiver. I flipped the receiver, Jenny. No, I'm back up to it. Talk to us about the receiver. What is the job of the receiver? Boy, the receiver has got to have humility. As well as the sender. But it requires humility to listen and to understand the message that the sender is trying to receive without filling in gaps with my own personal bias. Oh. So a person who is really listening well will ask questions to get great clarity and understanding. Now, not the kind of questions like, well, why would you think that? That's not the right kind of question I'm talking about. The kind of question I'm talking about is, hang on just a minute, would you repeat that so that I, this is what I think I heard you say. Did I hear that right? And you're showing that you're interested and you're getting the clarity that you need to give a better response. So many times we're formulating the response in our head and then they finally get done saying what they're saying and our response isn't correct anymore. So don't hold back on trying to do that. There's a great formula for listening. First of all, humility. Recognize that the communication is not all about you. It's about we. The other thing you can do for, to be a good listener, is focus, pay attention to the individual. Try to stay focused, try to look in their eyes. I know for me, especially if I'm in a big group, I am very sanguine and I don't want to miss out on any fun. And if someone has me cornered and I hear a fun conversation over here, I'm trying to, you know, go, oh, I don't want to miss this. And I need your room to closed. If I am on one of those, although, although I am God is just chiseling away at me and showing me that if I take five minutes to stare in someone's face and listen to what they're saying, I'm doing it, I'm getting much more out of it than being involved in a flipping conversation over here. So the other thing is you want to seek to understand and not be understood. Try to understand where the person is coming from, your spouse, your kids, your friends, your coworkers. And don't talk unless you're really trying to seek clarity. And what I mean by that is, I have a friend, I love her dearly. But I've learned, I just don't share certain things with her. I don't share stories with her because in the middle of my story, she will interrupt me and share her story. Don't do that. And there are times when you need to just zip it and let the person have that moment. You might have had the same experience, but let them have their moment. I was with two other women and one woman's dad had recently died. The other gal's dad died about two years before. And the one who was just recently grieving is sharing her heart and in the middle of it, the other one interrupts and says, oh, I know exactly how you feel, my dad died and when my dad died, it did this and I went there and then we did this and we did. And it just, that wasn't the time to share that. Let her share her pain and you be quiet. It's not about you. Your question should show curiosity. You want to understand as clearly as possible the perspective of the sender and questions are really key in getting that insight. So there's another thing that you can do that I call active listening. You repeat back what they say to make sure that you have clarity, but also observational listening is what David talks about where the listener focuses on the sender's story or whatever it is they're doing. They're telling you. And makes a mental movie in their head about the story that's being told. Some people don't do that. I do that. And when I read a book, I've got the characters, I got the movie going in my head and I even have the whole Hollywood thing all planned out on how they should make a movie about it. And that's easy for me to do that. If it's not, you might want to try just picturing them. Even when you're on the phone and someone's telling you a story, you can do that and that helps you to stay more engaged. But it also requires a lot of humility and focus to be able to do that. Well, Jenny, when you first started with talking about the receiver needs to have humility, I was sort of thinking, well, where are you going with that? What do you mean by humility? I totally get it now. The receiver and the sender both definitely need to have a posture of humility. Yeah. Now, this is so good. David talks about a passage from the book of James in the Bible in this chapter. What can you learn from the book of James about effective communication? Well, he talks about him James 119 through 27 and I want to just focus on James 119, where he says, let every man be quick to hear or swift in some translations. Slow to speak. And what James is saying there is he's talking about how our, what obedience looks like. And that word, let him be willing and desire is to receive instruction. Let him be quick to hear because what has come before that is saying, hey, count it all joy when you encounter various trials, you guys. And we are to not say, oh, great. I'm in this horrible painful time. But instead God, what do you have for me in this? Learning to see God in the midst of things. So that's the background of him saying then, let every man be quick and swift to hear and slow to speak. Listen to the word of God. Listen to the words of the people who are speaking to you and then be willing and desirous to receive the instruction from God's word, as well as be willing and desirous to receive the communication that someone is trying to impart to you. And then diligently embracing these opportunities then to hear God's word and to hear those that are in our lives that we want to hear if their message, their communication to us, slow to speak. Everybody hears, we got two ears and one mouth. Yeah, that's right. But you know what? We need to close this mouth a lot more than we do. Being slow to speak with me to being slow to deliver your opinions, being slow to take control of somebody else's story, not being, not really well understanding. Because if you speak too fast, you're not letting the person share their complete thought. So a person who is half instructed frequently will have a very high opinion of the knowledge that they have. And they're really, really fun of teaching that lack of knowledge to others and bringing them over to their opinions. You see that when you read the book of Job and you see his friends that are so half knowledgeable and then imparting this before hearing, just listening to the pain of their friend. So I truly believe that it's really important that we take a step, stop, do that system three thinking that we talked about a few weeks back. In the middle of somebody talking, praying and asking God, help me hear what they're saying. Help me see what they see. And you'll be a much better communicator when you learn to zip this thing open these two things up that are your ears. It is amazing to me how many of our problems would be resolved by simple obedience to God's word and simply taking heed of that instruction to be slow to speak and quick to listen. I get that so wrong all the time, but if we would just learn to do that, it would resolve so much. Jenny, we are out of time once again. Thank you so much for being with us for these past three programs. Oh, it's been my pleasure. All right, well, that's all the time we have for today. I'd like to thank our sponsors at Blue Ridge Timmons Services, Blessings Christian Bookstore, Sunshine Ministries with Christian Radio, Wishing Well, Florists and Travel Services, and our friends at New Beginnings Church and Garber's Church of the Brethren. Thank you all for listening and for your encouragement and for your financial support. If you'd like to make a donation to help keep crossroads on the air, you can do so by check to Crossroads and mail that to PO Box 881 Harrisonburg, Virginia 2-2-8-03. I'm Rita Peters signing off for another program but inviting you to join us again next week for another edition of Crossroads where faith and culture meet. Thank you for listening to the Crossroads podcast. To learn more about conventional states, go to conventionofstates.com. ♪