In Part 1 of our series, Tom Dean's lead off message was that "truth can't be relative" and last month in Part 2, Leigha Kiger took us on a grand tour of using Plain English writing techniques when communicating with your audience. Now in Part 3 of this season's training which focuses on "Ethical Communications", Ms. Lauren Laurie discusses Accurate and Tailored Communication.

What is ethical communication and why is it important? Does it even exist in our digitized world where instant communication is often valued more for its speed and response time than its content or sentiment? How can you trust what you are hearing and are you in fact, an honest communicator or do you just hear and say those things that correspond to your biases?

These are tough questions to answer if you're going to be truthful with yourself but don't worry, we've identified an outstanding slate of 6 speakers this year who just don't talk the talk, they walk the talk. They come from different disciplines and backgrounds and will share with you their insights on ethical communication. We'll be covering such diverse topics as communicating in plain English; advocating for resources and budget increases; how story-telling can be used to address sensitive or taboo topics; building emotional connections with people; and sticking to the facts so as not to mislead.

We plan on concluding our 6 speaker series with an open panel discussion where you will be invited to ask questions of these expert practitioners, but a warning is in order. If you keep an open mind and are honest with yourself, you will probably realize that some, or maybe much of what you've been hearing or saying doesn't fall into what would be considered ethical.

Now, with that warning out of the way, please come join us and let's welcome Lauren as she continues to open our eyes, ears, mind and heart concerning ethical communication.

After this session, you will be able to:

Lauren Laurie, Budget Analyst

Lauren Laurie joined the DIA in 2017 as a budget analyst but has worked with the Department of Defense for more than 15 years. While at DIA she has overseen the effective execution of the Agency’s budget and now serves as a career development officer for all finance and acquisition employees. Prior to joining DIA she lived and worked abroad in five countries and traveled to more than 50 countries. Ms. Laurie graduated from the University of San Francisco with degrees in both accounting and finance and Santa Clara University with a master’s in business administration.

As a life-long learner and an enthusiast for improving efficiency she sees using simple, effective communication to improve just about any situation. Often in the in the government budget and finance world we find ourselves relying on non-finance partners to initiate purchases and acquisition processes that if done incorrectly can lead to undesirable outcomes that the accountants struggle to fix on the back end. How can we communicate with them to ensure these steps are done correctly without feeling like we’re asking them to become accountants as well?