Word-Dancing Together Towards Noble Outcomes

How can you make professional communication training at once more engaging, easier to understand, and more memorable? That question was central to a research project that ran from December 2022 to December 2023. All participants took part in a communication training programme based on an interaction model developed from recent research. This model was implemented differently across groups: some groups worked exclusively with cognitive knowledge transfer and exercises, while others combined the model with explicitly embodied movements and principles drawn from aikido. From Training to Publication The analysis of the results has since been published. This process took time, as is typical of rigorous academic research. The article went through a double-blind peer-review procedure: independent experts assessed the study anonymously, without knowing who the authors were, while the authors in turn did not know the identity of the reviewers. This procedure guarantees a critical, careful, and ...

The Association for Business Communication (ABC)  brings together scholars, educators, and practitioners who share a commitment to advancing business communication research, teaching, and practice worldwide. Left to right: Greet Angèle De Baets, Gail Flanagan, and Marlies Whitehouse Taken during the 90th International ABC Conference in Long Beach, California, October 2025 ABC operates through a strong international network, with regional representations across the globe, including Europe, Middle East, and Africa ( EMEA) . From 2026 onwards, Marlies Whitehouse (Switzerland) will take up the role of Regional Vice-President EMEA, succeeding Ursula Lutzky (Austria). I would like to thank Ursula for her sustained commitment and leadership over the past years, and I warmly welcome Marlies in her new role.  My sincere appreciation also goes to the many members who actively shape this community through their work and engagement, including colleagues such as  Gail Flanagan ...

In communication training, learning outcomes are often framed in terms of techniques: better questions, clearer arguments, more effective structures. In our mixed-methods study on aikido-based communication training, however, participants consistently described something different. They spoke of eye-openers , surprising insights , and experiences that continued to resonate long after the training ended. Physical interaction: Powerful understanding Rather than listing newly acquired techniques, many participants characterised what they learned as edifying : physically learning from the aikido as a theoretical model for interaction and communication. The following excerpt is taken word for word from our article: When screening the open-text answers, most participants in the aikido-embodied groups reported that they found the interaction skills they learned to be edifying: ‘gave a few eye-openers in conducting conversations’ (Nina, Aikido-Embodied Group D), ‘a very interesting experience...