
As a student of public speaking, I’m always watching and analyzing how people communicate. Whether it’s on television, at a play, or just sitting in Starbucks, there are certain key ingredients to effective communication. The list can be rather long: presence, voice, style, word choice, authenticity, structure, content … we could keep going. One distinction I’ve been reflecting on lately has been the difference between communicating in order to influence and communicating simply to inform. As a pastor and preacher, my natural bent is to communicate to influence. That’s not to say we don’t inform. We certainly do. In fact, to truly influence requires solid information otherwise the influence will be short-lived, perhaps even harmful. Here’s a mistake I see many communicators make: they desire to influence but simply inform. Every public speaker has to be clear about the goal of their speech — if it is to influence or…