Word-Dancing Together Towards Noble Outcomes

  Referral Letter🧭  Empathy in Action What aikido teaches us for challenging interactions The Communication Doctor's Referral Letter In every work environment, moments of tension arise. A critical remark in a meeting. An unexpected objection. A conversation that keeps replaying in your mind afterwards. You know you could have handled it differently, with more calm, clarity, and strength. We often already know the principles of good communication. But knowing is not the same as doing. Especially not in challenging situations, where body and mind seem to go their separate ways. A training or workshop on empathy starts from a simple but powerful question: How do you choose empathy with people for whom it does not come naturally? To explore this, we draw on an Eastern perspective: aikido, a Japanese martial art that focuses on connection rather than conflict. Not by giving in, but by moving with. Not by convincing the other, but by making a different course of interaction possi...

The Communication Doctor's keynotes are thought-opening sessions with a scientific backbone. They can be delivered as a keynote, a public lecture, or a facilitated reflection session, depending on the context. The series below consists of four talks that can each stand on their own, while also forming a continuous reflection on language, culture, interaction, and meaning. The keynotes are available in Dutch, English, German, and, where appropriate, French. Keynotes with backbone | Communication Doctor 1. Intercultural Communication Under the Lens What we really need beyond clichés about language and culture Intercultural communication is not a niche. We engage in it every day, often without naming it as such: in everyday encounters and in professional collaboration. Sometimes it flows naturally, sometimes it breaks down. In this talk, Communication Doctor Greet examines what intercultural communication actually is and why some popular ideas about it prove too simplistic. What...

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 ...

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...

One of the most consistent learning outcomes in our mixed-methods study on aikido-based communication training was tranquillity . Not tranquillity as relaxation, but as a trainable form of self-regulation that directly affects how people communicate. Tranquillity is a skill The following excerpt is taken word for word from our article: Qualitative analysis of the observations, transcripts, and surveys showed that tranquility was a highly popular learning gain in the aikido-embodied groups. Nora (Aikido-Embodied Group A) reported how she benefitted from learning tranquility skills through posture and breathwork: ‘Working on my grounding and breathing to communicate from a stronger position and thus have better conversations. Applied twice already with brilliant results.’ Louise (Aikido-Embodied Group A) shared that she used tranquility in her daily communication at work, adding her catchline in capital letters: ‘CENTERING AND ATTENTION TO THE LOWER ABDOMEN.’ During the plenary feedbac...

Inzichten uit recent onderzoek Hoe maak je een professionele communicatietraining tegelijk boeiender, beter begrijpbaar en makkelijker te onthouden? Die vraag stond centraal in een onderzoeksproject dat liep in van december 2022 tot december 2023. De deelnemers volgden allemaal een communicatietraining gebaseerd op een interactiemodel dat was ontwikkeld vanuit recent onderzoek. Dat model werd in verschillende groepen op een andere manier uitgewerkt: sommige groepen werkten uitsluitend met cognitieve kennisoverdracht en oefeningen, andere groepen combineerden het model met expliciet lichaamsgerichte bewegingen en principes genomen uit aikido. Van training naar publicatie De analyse van de resultaten is intussen gepubliceerd. Dat proces nam tijd, wat eigen is aan degelijk academisch onderzoek. Het artikel doorliep een double-blind peer-reviewprocedure : onafhankelijke experten beoordeelden het onderzoek anoniem, zonder te weten wie de auteurs waren, terwijl de auteurs op hun beurt niet w...