Communicating Through the Chaos

If I had any doubts from the job interview, the first day on the job was confirmation. The next few months underscored it. If I could summarize it one word, my job as Director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools was all about chaos.  

Every day was chaotic. Little if anything could be anticipated or planned for. I often looked at the office telephone (and my Blackberry; that was the phone we used) as the enemy. You answered a call, and your day instantly changed.

 

I learned that I wasn’t the only one dealing with chaos. The man brought in to take over the district’s finances (which were a train wreck; the district was not only technically but actually bankrupt) was a former corporate CFO.  He dealt with impossible tasks every day. His wife later told me that she worried most about public meetings – Board of Education meetings, town halls, outreach meetings – because anything could and often did happen. She would look for me making a statement on TV news, and then she knew her husband was okay.

 

The district had all the problems of an urban school system – money problems, crime, declining educational standards and test scores, dropping enrollments, school consolidations. An outside management firm had been brought in to try to transform the district; school closures, budget reductions (the communications budget was reduced from $1 million to $20,000, and that had been spent by the time I arrived).

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Wayee Tan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Beyond the Modern Myths of Ancient Athens – Arlene Saxonhouse at Church Life Journal.

 

Winston Churchill, American Patriot – Michael Lucchese at Acton Institute.

 

“Malefactors of Great Wealth” – Burton Folsom at The Coolidge Review.

 

Writing My Novel on My Phone (and Through Grief) – Ros Hill at Writer’s Digest.

 

The Road Vanished Before We Reached Dinner – Riyanka Paul.

 

The Job in Which No Day Was Like Any Other

I worked as director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools for seven months. I’d gone through the strangest job interview I’d ever had, and I had a first day on the job unlike any other I had had or anyone I knew had had. But I figured that, after that tumultuous first day, things would settle down. 

I figured wrong. 

 

Things would never settle down. Every day would be unlike every other day. 

 

One ongoing source of turmoil was the Board of Education itself, the seven people elected by voters to oversee the district’s operations. Four had been elected on a reform slate. Three had not. Most of the turmoil generated by the Board came from those three. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph of the Headquarters building by St. Louis Public Schools.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Advice for Older Writers – Nathan Bransford.

 

“On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic,” sonnet by Charlotte Turner Smith – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

The Overseas Trip Where Language Didn't Matter

Our missions trip was scheduled for September 2001. We’d been preparing all summer. But 9-11 intervened, and the trip was postponed.  

We were an unusual missions team. The mission we’d be visiting had specifically asked for it – a small team devoted to communications to help the mission tell its story, produce a short film for a building fundraiser, and interview missionaries who could use videos and stories to send reports to financial supporters and home churches. We were a team of three: team lead/logistics guy/organizer/general factotum; the videographer, aka the guy with the camera; and me, the writer, the guy with the laptop who would be typing away in airports, planes, homes, offices, and in the car. 

 

We’d be in central Europe for a week, with a schedule so packed I thought we’d need slotted times for breathing. Four countries, five languages, cultural shocks, and no time to detox from jet lag.

 

I could probably write pages about that trip, story after story, detail after detail. But what sticks with me were a few examples of how communication didn’t depend upon language.

Photograph of Dresden by Lukas D via Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Poet Laure: Going Fishing with Dad – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“Casey at the Bat,” poem by Ernest Thayer – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“In School-Days,” poems by John Greenleaf Whittier – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

 

A Reader Continues to Reread the “Dancing Priest” Stories

Pastor Bill Grandi is continuing to reread the Dancing Priest stories. And he’s continuing to pull lessons. He’s finished reading the third book in the series, Dancing King, and he posted twice this week about what he’s reading. 

On April 14, Bill discussed the question of “Why?”. People and organizations can tell you what they do, he writes, but they have difficulty explaining why they do what they do. He cites the example of Michael Kent-Hughes’ brother Henry, who becomes a Christian largely because his Mchael accepts him for having intrinsic value – that his worth came not from money, or power or position, but from being created as a child of God. Henry had never experienced that before.

 

On April 15, Bill cites a conversation between Michael and Jay Lanham, the young man Michael’s interviewing to be his director of communications. Jay tells Michael that what struck him about his sermons was that Michael didn’t communicate at people as an audience, but instead he talked with them as people. Again, this reflects Michael’s belief that people have intrinsic value, that they worth talking with.

 

I’ve often read and hear people speak of “communication to the masses.” If there’s an expression I can’t stand, that’s it. It’s elitist, since the speaker or writer never considers themselves to be a member of the “the masses.” It’s Marxist. And it’s ultimately dehumanizing, objectifying individual people as some large bloc of humanity that has to be communicated at, with talking points at the ready. 

 

Read Bill’s posts. And follow his blog, Living in the Shadow. He always has something worthwhile to talk with you about.

 

 

Related:

 

Rereading the “Dancing Priest” Series.

“An Effort to Understand” by David Murray

It may be the most idealistic definition of communication I’ve ever seen: “With sincere intent and real imagination,” writes David Murray, “all human beings can understand one another.”  

Murray is the editor of Vital Speeches of the Day. He’s the force behind the Professional Speechwriters Association. He leads the Executive Communications Council. He blogs, usually daily, at Writing Boots. He’s spent more than three decades in the communications business; I first met him when he was editor of Speechwriter’s Newsletter, back in the dark ages before social media, web sites, smart phonies, Amazon, and Google. 

 

He’s also politically blue. But he’s an unusual blue, one who believes that the politically red might actually be worth talking with. And thus his new book, An Effort to Understand: Hearing One Another (and Ourselves) in a Nation Cracked in Half.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Poets and Poems: Denise Riley and “Say Something Back”

It was 15 years ago that I first heard an expression that struck me as almost uncommonly rude. Little did I know how commonly rude it would become.

I was sitting in a conference room in a northern suburb of Chicago, called in as a consultant to help plan a company conference that management hoped would be a game changer. My role at the planning meeting was to listen closely, take notes, and gather information for what would be several speeches at the meeting.

Denise Riley

About 10 people were helping plan the conference, and clustered around a table. They were talking about each day’s agenda, outside speakers, and the reasons why this conference was so important. After the executive with the highest title talked about what his hopes for the meeting were, one manager expressed her own hopes, beginning her words with “And the other thing is.”

That expression did two things. First, it dampened any other opinions. She was implying there were only two things here – the boss’s thoughts and her own. Second, it told me that she hadn’t really been listening, only looking for the opportunity to express her own opinion.

It’s unfortunate that it became a common expression used in general conversation.

British poet Denise Riley examines the idea of communication in her latest collection of 45 poems, Say Something Back.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

To, Not Past

So he was old enough to retire

to become a former PR guy, and

he suspected he had never really

been a PR guy so what had he

done for forty years, except try

to convince people to talk

with each other not

past each other

because he knew what we all do

is talk past each other

as we tweet

post our secrets to Facebook

trade Instagram snarkiness

because it is better to score

than to talk, than to care 

So he wrote, he wrote

because that is what he did

that is who he was forty years

after he first tried to convince

people to talk with each other

not at

not past

not at

but to

but with

because Jesus talked

with us

to us

and he changed the world 

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The heart escapes

And is it the same things

we say or don’t say as

we talk past each other

the same things that pour

through the air

between us, smashes

into our ears, our hearts,

because we are designed

to talk into hearts

to each other

with each other

the heart

hearts can forget

not remember

mis-remember

dis-remember

it’s not enough

you can’t force

hearts to talk

to hearts

not on my own

my own life

but my words come

quickly now

easily, a torrent

perhaps with blood

like poppies, red

growing in the field

not ceramic but

red poppies, thousands

germinating in each life

left in each grave

a poppy is unmarked

uncelebrated

no monument with words

fading from rain

wind

cold

chipped by heat

the heart escapes

Photograph by Fabrizio Conti via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.