Communicating To Results is a term coined in 2025 by educator and author David B. Ellis to describe a way of communicating that most directly influences outcomes in complex human systems. The name and the much of the content is beyond anything he has ever taught. It also represents the integration of more than five decades of study, teaching, research, and applied inquiry into ways language, intentions, and actions influence results.
Ellis traces the earliest roots of what he named Communicating To Results to his academic training and publications in computer programming languages and systems analysis in the 1970s. Through teaching of programming and systems design, he encountered the practical insight that symbolic input could be used to interact with systems too complex to be fully understood mechanistically. Computer systems responded reliably to well-structured inputs, allowing outcomes to be predicted and influenced without exhaustive explanation.
This orientation toward prediction and interaction was deepened through Ellis’s early research in fisheries science. In 1973, he presented a multi-system statistical analysis of fish populations at the American Fisheries Society’s International Meeting. That work was later published as A Comprehensive Time Series Model for Studying the Effects of Reservoir Management on Fish Populations.
Ellis’s formal academic work in computer science includes a master’s thesis titled “A FORTRAN pre-processor incorporating macro expansion and dynamic data structures,” completed in 1978 at the South Dakota School of Mines. This work further strengthened his emphasis on mediation between human intention and system behavior—an emphasis that would later reappear in his teaching and coaching methodologies.
In 1976, Ellis began his professional teaching career, teaching computer languages, operating systems, and computer system design. In 1979, he became Co-Director of the Development Center at National College, where he co-created a required, full-credit, first-year experiential course designed to shift students’ relationship to education and life toward self-responsibility. He said, “The students first learned to program the computer and then themselves. Which is much more of a challenge, but achievable.”
Across subsequent decades, Ellis articulated these principles through a series of books addressing learning, personal development, career planning, and coaching. These works sold millions and translated enduring principles into practical frameworks that emphasized action, responsibility, and communication as primary levers for change.
Rationale for Coining a Name
The value of coining the name Communicating To Results, Beyond Judgements To Actions is its ability to capture entirely new teaching while building on work that had previously been expressed through courses, coaching practices, and published writing rather than through a single unifying term. As cultural language shifted and interdisciplinary thinking became more common, it is useful to name an approach that emphasizes non-linearity, relational influence, and outcome sensitivity. It introduces a new body of ideas and provides coherence to a body of work already tested by Ellis across research, education, and applied practice.
The name reflects a growing readiness to recognize that communication itself functions as a form of action—capable of shaping outcomes in complex human systems beyond linear cause-and-effect models (judgements) that are based more in Newtonian physics to a style that is more relational and honors quantum physics. The sender is affected by the observer.
Selected Publications
- Ellis, D. B. Becoming a Master Student. College Survival, Inc. and Houghton Mifflin Company, Copyright 1981. 17 editions in five languages.
- Ellis, D. B. Creating Your Future. Houghton Mifflin Company, Copyright 1998. Multiple editions in four languages.
- Ellis, D. B. Falling Awake. Breakthrough Enterprises Inc., Copyright 2002. Two editions.
- Ellis, D. B., it al. Career Planning. College Survival, Inc. and Houghton Mifflin Company, Copyright 2003. Multiple editions.
- Ellis, D. B. Life Coaching. Crown House Publishing, Copyright 1998. two editions.
- Ellis, D. B. and Lankowitz, S., Human Being –A manual for happiness, health, love, and wealth. Copyright 1995.
- Ellis, D. B. & O’Heeron, M. K., Jr., A Comprehensive Time Series Model for Studying the Effects of Reservoir Management on Fish Populations. Presented at the International meeting of American Fisheries Society, 1973 Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, Copyright 1975.
- Ellis, D. B. A FORTRAN pre-processor incorporating macro expansion and dynamic data structures. Master’s thesis, South Dakota School of Mines, Copyright 1978.
- Ellis, D.B. The EllisSystem. Copyrighted 1997.
- Ellis, D.B., & Linn, P. Learning Power Learning Technologies, Copyright 1995, Multiple editions.
- Ellis, D.B., it al. Course Manual, College Survival, Inc. and Houghton Mifflin Company, Copyright 1983, 5 editions, three languages.
Vita
Ellis held positions at National American University:
- President
- Assistant Dean of Student Services
- Member of the Administrative Board
- Co-director of the Development Center
- Computer programming faculty
Education:
- Honorary Ph.D., Naturopathic Philosophy
- Work towards Ph.D. in Psychology
- Master’s degree in computer sciences
- Bachelor’s degrees in computer science and psychology
By Bill Rentz, Vice President New Breakthroughs, LLC and master certified coach
