Have you ever heard or read something and found yourself being encouraged just knowing that there was someone else out there who felt the same way as you? That was the sense I had reading Steve Saccones book “Relational Intelligence”. I have long felt that how we relate with people is an important area that we often overlook and in his book Steve illuminates many ways that we can better ourselves in this area. In fact I thought it so good that I gave a copy to those who are in leadership at Genesis and believe it will help us not only be better leaders, but better people.
It bothers me (probably more than it should) how we can be fascinated with the sensational, yet be dysfunctional with the practical. We learn all we can about eschatology (end times stuff), but never think to better our ability to communicate on a deeper level. It’s the typical guy who will talk your ears off about the ‘mark of the beast’, but can’t get a date! Or, the girl who dominates every conversation with all she does for God, but fails to understand why she has so few friends! I have to say that in all my years of counseling, I’ve never had to help a troubled teen or couple in crisis because they didn’t have a clear grasp on the second coming of Jesus, but failure in communication is almost always at the top of the list. Leaders who don’t recognize this often fail to see that the truths they share aren’t received many times because of the tiresome and detached way they are relating those truths.
Steve writes about this and says, “When people aren’t engaged in our vision, our movement, or our cause, its easy to think that they lack the ability to remain interested, rather than absorbing the responsibility ourselves to become more interesting persons. If we struggle in our leadership to capture people’s attention and engage their interests, we’re not simply the victims who have fallen prey to the culture of boredom; instead we must allow this reality to motivate us to become more compelling relators.” He then says “We must take responsibility to become the most interesting people we can be to bring that part of us into our relationships.”
Jesus is a tremendous example of how to communicate with identification, passion and illustration to those listening (look at the Sermon on the Mount). He never gave off the impression of being too busy or uncaring. Whether it was the Children who came to him, Zacchaeus, the women at the well or so many others? He was the epitome of a relational genius.
I know that some people are good with this area and some not so good, but all of us could use improvement and this book is a great tool to help in that endeavor. It sure helped me. 
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