Pillar #3: Communication, by David Bork
David Bork
May 3, 2025
To be an exceptional communicator includes the ability to be constructive—to use communication in a positive way that accomplishes positive results.
Summary
Communication plays an important role in determining the quality of human relationships and the ability to develop skills that build and sustain those relationships. Being an exceptional communicator includes the ability to be constructive—to use communication in a positive way that accomplishes positive results. This pillar provides the opportunity take an objective look at your own communication habits.
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This is an introduction to Pillar #3: Communication. Download or read the publication using the link below.
Introduction
To be exceptional communicator includes the ability to be constructive—to use communication in a positive way that accomplishes positive results. To be exceptional also includes the awareness of the role communication plays in determining the quality of human relationships and the ability to develop skills that build and sustain those relationships.
How can communication cause so many problems? There are two obstacles that keep most people from becoming exceptional and highly competent communicators. First, we learn how to communicate from our families. For better or worse, we inherit ways of communicating and interacting that are modeled by our parents and siblings. We carry the ways of communicating that we learned in our families, from our peers, and from our sociocultural groups into our personal and professional relationships.
Words don’t just reflect our “reality.” They help construct it.
Let’s step back and take an objective look at our own communication habits.
The second obstacle is a lack of awareness. Communication plays a primary role in determining the quality of experience on both the personal and social levels of human relationships. Even if we have received some basic training or education in communication, this education might not have emphasized the powerful influence communication has on our perceptions, emotions, and psychology.
