SPEAKING OF SPEAKERS....Part Two

In one of yesterday's comments, Darin recommended Made to Stick. This is a very powerful volume. Two brothers, Chip and Dan Heath are members of the Church of Christ and they have written this extremely important volume on communication.

One section reflects the thoughts of Stephen Covey's book, The 8th Habit, where he gives statistics gleaned from a poll of 23,000 employees:

• Only 37% understood the goal.
• Only 20% was sold on the goal.
• Only 20% felt they had a clear line of sight for their tasks.
• Only 15% believed their company backs them.
• Only 20% really trusted their company.

The Heath boys then wrote: Then Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in someway, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent."

Did you catch, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor? Do you understand that's what God did with His Son? God superimposed a human so we would get it! He gave us arms/legs/stomach cramps/and ear wax in human form so we could move from the abstract about God to the understanding of who He is and what His nature is like! This drives me nuts in gratitude! We get it because God superimposed before Covey did!

If we are to improve in communication one place to question is, Are we connecting the Living God to the human heart? Otherwise, we may be giving out chapters and verses or simply filling up the time as creatively as we can with little impact. We want our message to stick.

Too Jon mentioned in a comment yesterday, the book Communicating for a Change by Andy Stanley. I'll be picking that one up asap. Surprisingly to me, Andy recently sent me a little book he wrote called, Making Vision Stick which is similar to Made to Stick but much smaller. I recommend it as well. It's 74 small pages of ideas that stick.