Peter’s Face Here

Even in an economic and industrial structure moving rapidly toward the destination where being “good” isn’t nearly good enough, there are still people named Peter in our lives, influencing our decisions.

In conflict, people named Peter rarely engage with difficulty or confrontation, much less conflict. They prefer to avoid the whole thing and stay in the comfortable box of their assumptions and preconceived notions.

In an organization, people named Peter still tend to fail upward in a race to the bottom around mediocrity and incompetence.

In an economic and industrial structure increasingly based around collaboration and openness, people named Peter exhibit an disturbing tendency to remain competitive and closed—and seem to be succeeding tremendously if stock prices are to be believed.

Shocking incompetence, wide ranging mediocrity, selfish competition—these seem to be the catalysts for growth even as competent, skillful, open disruption continues to flood the market with goods, services and ideas.

People named Peter should take note, as should people not named Peter: in the economies of scale of the likely future, the Peter Principle—working toward a personal level of incompetence, and working toward the level of management’s incompetence—will no longer apply.

And then people named Peter—along with other bad and incompetent actors in our midst—will have to either adapt, or perish.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

8 Things No One Sees

There are a few things no one sees when you’re building a project. We’ve listed the top eight below, though there are at least a hundred more…if not a thousand.

No one sees the endless hours of work a week.
No one sees the intellectual, emotional, psychological and behavioral pushups.
No one sees the grueling sweat of an exhausted mind.
No one sees the research and the dead ends.
No one sees the countless hours logged onto Pandora. Or Spotify.
No one sees the self-motivation.
No one sees the partners’ disappointed eyes.
No one sees the frustration of delayed gratification.

The same way that no one sees the wind and water pound against the rock and watch it get reshaped over the course of several millennia.

But of course, human lives are much shorter. Our conflicts–to push the analogy, our volcanoes–are much more destructive, as are our earthquakes.

The applause and appreciation comes, but not when you’re in the gym, putting in the work.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Working From Home

The old gray mare ain’t what she used to be. Right?

When you’re working from home, there approaches a point of contention, unless you are very clear right away, around what working means and doesn’t mean.

There are children who don’t think that what you’re doing is work.

There is the partner who leaves the house everyday and leaves you with a stack of “Honey-Do’s” that could choke…well…an old gray mare.

There are the general disturbances of the household and addressing household emergencies that crop up during the day, as well as distractions from other forms of entertainment in the home.

The savvy consultant working from home knows that defining lines, particular boundaries and even the well articulated IRS deduction can determine whether success or failure knocks at his door—or at the door of the co-working location two streets over.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Small “J” vs. Big “J”

Forgiveness is difficult because many people have a deep misunderstanding of what forgiveness is and is not.

Half-Measures-Didnt-Get-You-Into-Conflict-Half-Measures-Wont-Get-You-Out-Of-it

Forgiveness gives fairness a chance. And while we don’t know about a lot, including what’s fair and what’s not, we know that the feeling that fairness has a chance to occur can only come about through the act of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is an active act we engage in, rather than a passive event that occurs to us from the ether without our acquiescence or knowledge.
Forgiveness does not mean that we surrender our right to justice. And justice comes from our moral core.

The act of forgiveness and the process of getting there, is often mixed up with small “j” judgment—focused on determining who’s right and who’s wrong—which often then turns into capital “J” judgment—where we determine where another’s soul might or might not be going.

The Christian conciliator often gets the idea of judgment mixed up with the gut feelings of discernment.

Discernment comes from the Holy Spirit and the move of the spirit in a person. Confirmed through prayer, the Christian conciliator can get closer toward guiding others through the forgiveness process, and past the capital “J” judgment that blocks true understanding.

[Check out The Art of Forgiving by Lewis B. Smedes for more on this.]

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 11.04.2014

Today is Election Day in the United States.

In multiple elections, both large and small, the political fates of these amorphous entities that we have socially constructed—called parties, ironically enough—will be either moved forward…or stopped warm.

The business of navigating the political system in this country—or any other—is not based on promoting peace.

Rather, the business of politics seems to revolve on the front-end, around division and making disconnection. And on the back-end, the business of politics seems to revolve around collaboration and accommodation for those whose interests really matter.

It’s enough to make the people who vote, the “electorate” if you will—who deserve to have their faith rewarded and deserve to continue to believe in the best of people involved in the business of politics—become cynical and tire of the entire process.

And many have.

The progressive, peace building thing to write would be “Get out and vote. It’s your civic duty.” The regressive, disconnecting thing to write would be “Don’t vote. None of this matters. Stay at home.”

Well…what are you going to do?

-Peace Be With You All-

Residents of (YOUR TOWN NAME HERE) Save $100 A DAY by Doing This One Simple Trick!!!!

Click bait articles and headline jacking efforts are just the latest in a long line of American hucksterism that began with Western, one man traveling wagon shows and continued through to TV infomercials from Billy Mays for OxiClean.

The first inherent problem with of all these forms of advertisement is the combination of shameless flim-flamism, the deceit of the short con, and the promise of a good deal of vaudeville.

The inherent false promise in this tradition plays on the long-standing, human desire for just one easy step that solves a difficult problem, fulfills an unmet need, or at the very minimum, entertains the viewer outrageously.

The reason why concerns about the lack of regulation in election advertising fall on deaf ears every two to four years is that the majority of election advertising is targeted at about the same level of click bait, online advertising and blog posts.

Add to all of it, candidates approving messages that, if your kid, your partner or your friend said them, you’d tell them they were full of it.

And we all know what “it” is.

“It seems so simple. It should be easy.”

This statement came out of a workshop I did recently as well as a podcast interview I gave recently.

Well, if the Truth were simple and easy, hucksters, flim-flam men, election year advertising, and other forms of selling that create artificial conflicts, fake disruptions, and incoherent disconnections, wouldn’t be so popular to use as shortcuts to the capital “T” truth.

And clickbait articles would drive almost no traffic on social media and in new journalism.

Do you feel like you saved $100 yet today?

-Peace Be With You All-