January 11 Meeting Recap
Speaker Mark Kretschmar
Host Paul Boettner
Mark Kretschmar is a communications specialist who works with businesses and individuals to more effectively use communication toward better business outcomes. His talk was titled "When Worlds Collide" and began with his observation that we all communicate, but rarely think about talking, and even more rarely analyze our communication to determine if it is effective for us. We began by creating a working definition of communication as "a process which uses symbols to share internal worlds. As humans, our thoughts are not tangible-we live in our heads, interpreting the physical world around us. In order to create effective relationships in business and personal lives, we must understand others' worlds; in order to understand others' worlds, we must learn to listen. Analysis shows that our comunication comprises 30% talking, 9% reading, 16% writing, and 45% listening. We spend a great deal of time in school learning to read, write, and speak effectively, yet almost no time on the listening which is literally the most used communication tool and arguably the most important. He used a series of demonstrations with member Adam Thompson to show the power of listening as a tool, and the importance of setting aside our own assumptions and biases to create effective dialogue. Mark left us with a thought from Aristotle: "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Thank you to Mark Kretschmar and Paul Boettner for an interesting program.