Larry D. Lauer

If you are leading anything today, or aspire to lead something, or just want to be a more informed follower, it’s not very complicated to set up a home study experience… and if you wish, invite a group of fellow travelers to join you. This is not neuroscience!

Looking back over 50 years of seeking to understand, teach, practice, and write about communication, I believe that serious discussions and internet searches of topics similar to those below can yield the necessary knowledge and insights for leading in today’s world. Here’s my list:

1. Describe why communication always seems to fail… and what (if anything) can be done about it.
2. Search the internet for insights from communication and media research.
3. Describe ways media revolutions significantly changed society, individuals, and audiences.
4. List ways to intelligently consume and use 24/7 journalism.
5. Identify the many troubling characteristics of the ever-pervasive new media ecosystem.
6. Describe ways that media have become weapons, and fake news.
7. List personal benefits and hazards of social media.
8. Describe best ways to use digital media for direct and interactive communication.
9. Identify ways to make sure brand identities are authentic and clear.
10. Describe processes for orchestrating one-voice messaging.
11. Show how to use small groups for problem-solving.
12. Identify the essential elements of productive meetings.
13. List common internal politics issues and ways to address them.
14. Clarify best methods for resolving conflicts.
15. Find examples of using soft-power in local and foreign relationship-building.
16. List the requirements for effective partnerships and allies.
17. Write rules for constructive speech in a new media world.

It is absolutely essential to have enough informed, talented, articulate, values-driven, and courageous leaders and followers ready, willing, and able to help save the day when it’s needed. With our current media clutter, endless confusion, and total political chaos, that day has come.

Last weekend we may have witnessed the next generation getting ready to take on dramatic change. And these young people are also born searchers and tweeters. So either the weekend was just another mass march, or it was an entire generation suddenly awakening to the real possibility that they can make history. Indeed they can… but only if they really have the will.

In retrospect, I decided to bet on them. How about you?