Houston, We Have a Communication Deficit

This post was written by Dan Cooney, Director of Coaching and Senior Facilitator at The Latimer Group.

At the Latimer Group our mantra is “Great communication skills can change the world” and I was asked recently why I felt that was true both from a personal and a professional standpoint.   

When I speak with workshop participants and friends from all professions, it is encouraging to hear the good, smart, sometimes ingenious projects and ideas they are working on to put their not-for-profit, their company, their community, their world in a stronger position.

People have so much talent, so much creativity, intelligence and energy to bring to bear on solving difficult problems. Some of these problems are local and focused narrowly, others more sweeping and broader in impact.

While not universally true, one thing that slows the roll of many brilliant ideas is the inability to communicate them simply and powerfully. We hear the frustration of people who are unable to persuade others to pull in the same direction so they can muster the resources to properly tackle the objective.

75% of people report some level of anxiety when they speak in public. It begs the question, how much compassion, wisdom and creativity is being left on the table as a result of this fear?

In reference to food shortages, you often hear from experts that it is not a food shortage as much as it is a distribution problem – the challenge is getting the food that exists into the hands of the hungry. It makes me wonder: How big of a bottleneck in the free flow of ideas is the communication deficit – the inability to express ideas with power and purpose? Great communication skills can change the world – let’s put them to work.