[Strategy] The Law of Compound Interest

The fact of the matter is no one can truly penetrate another person’s conflict experience.

We have fooled ourselves into thinking that, with all the social proofing via digital tools, and the peacock-like social media displays that we all put on every day, that we know other people’s inner lives.

But we don’t.

This is why we’re often surprised when a person casts aside the carefully constructed false mask of their digital life and shows the warts and all. We become fascinated, not with the honesty and truth, not even with the vulnerability; we become fascinated with the act of being honest and vulnerable. But we shy away from interacting with that person on a deeper level.

Conflicts, disagreements, “differences of opinion,” frustrations, expose this dichotomy in a person-to-person, face-to-face interaction. We want the other person to change (I had a person in a workshop recently ask me “Why shouldn’t the other person see that I’m angry!? Why shouldn’t they see that they’ve pissed me off!?”) because we want an outcome that benefits us in the short-term.

Without really unwinding the gossamer of strands that got us into that situation with that person in the first place.

The law of compound interest is particularly instructive when thinking about this. The law basically states that interest—over time—compounds slowly and inexorably, a quarter point or so at a time. Until, when the party who owes finally takes an interest in paying back the loaned amount of money, the interest has built up to such a point that they can’t. The law of compound interest is what led many in the ancient world to despise money-lenders (religious prohibitions against usury), or on the opposite scale, to lend money out at outrageous terms and then when the amount plus interest could not be paid back, to frame the lack of payment in moral terms and throw the borrower (and even their families) out of a community (debtors’ prisons).

The law of compound interest applies just as keenly when thinking about how the responses and reactions to conflicts, disagreements, “differences of opinion,” and frustrations build up over time, until the reaction from both parties is to explode in anger—or shut-down into passivity. There is no resolution from such cycles of build-up, explosion, retreat, build-up, because every new cycle builds up new strands of complication as surely as compound interest builds on the loan principle of the the conflict. Until it’s so big and heavy that banishment from a community—or a situation, or a relationship—seems like the only answer.

Engaging with conflict in this mental and emotional framework seems scary and requires a person to be as vulnerable as they would have to be if they ceased to perform for a digital audience of “friends” and began to get honest and vulnerable. Resolving the conflict in this mental and emotional framework seems easy because resolution implies a release of the tension, compounded over time, from the uncomfortable friction of “dealing with this person.”

But all the tactics and strategies; all the tools and the verbal jujitsu; all the “hacks” and improvements; all the surface engagement and “easy” resolution; all of these things are just methods to avoid vulnerability, to indulge in the satisfaction of releasing our anger as a weapon rather than as a tool, and in the end only compound the problem, one quarter point at a time.

-Peace Be With You All-

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

HIT Piece 5.17.2016

The infrastructure of my assumptions is slowly undergoing a transformation.

I used to think that all of this would be a quick process (naïve, I know) and that I would achieve “success” faster than what I have.

But the infrastructure of those assumptions (around process, success, time, trust, awareness, attention, value, cost, pricing, the market, etc.) are all shifting inside of me in subtle ways I can’t really describe just yet.

And the thing is, the sign of an organization (or person) who’s open to changing is that the infrastructure of their assumptions is open to reduction, change, destruction, and even wholesale replacement.

If you’re not looking back and wincing about where you were, what you were doing, what you were saying (or writing), and what you were believing, about your business, your home, your life, or even your personal development efforts, then you’re probably not growing.

And growing is the only way to actually get to the future that I keep talking, writing, and advocating for.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] We Are Surrounded By The Remains Of Average…

Have you looked at a factory building lately?

If you walk around your town (either America or globally) you can see the remains of burned out factory buildings, corporate office complexes, and even industrial parks that lie empty, vandalized, or half occupied by struggling commodity businesses.

If you walk around your town (mostly in America) you can see the remains of a K-12 education system that used to be the model of the world. Inside many school buildings, there remain students that sit in rows, raise their hands obediently, only speak when they are called upon, are taught to pass the test, and when they don’t or can’t perform in those ways, they are labeled and sometimes forgotten.

If you walk around your town (mostly in the formerly Western World) you can see the remains of churches. Sure, the seats are full in some buildings, but increasingly, buildings are emptying and churches are closing. And more and more there is the trumpeting of people who claim irreligiousness (or disbelief) and in response more and more churches are coasting on the past Spirit (both financial and otherwise) that used to there, and hoping that a positive change (that resembles past glories) will come.

What do the physical buildings, the educational system, and the church all have in common in your town? Or mine?

They are the remains of a time when being just average was “ok.” They are the remains of the third greatest revolution in human history, the Industrial Revolution. They are all that remains of a promise that was over engineered, over sold, and over bought: The consumer (or employee) can just show up at work, do average work just a little better year on year, and then retire and be “ok.” In addition, the consumer (or employees) children will be educated to a standard that will be just a little better each year, and the family will get a little safer each year, in a neighborhood that will be a little better each year, and everything will be “ok.” And, of course, the church will require just a little more (usually money) from the consumer every year, and this will be “ok.”

We are surrounded by the remains of “ok” in a time when “ok” is no longer good enough. And when the disconnect between “ok” and reality reaches a breaking point, we get demagogues, marketers, con men, flim-flam men, and others selling us a bill of goods about a return to a glorious past, rather than the hard truth about the realistic future:

Here’s the hard truth:

“Ok” was never good enough. And doing “just a little better” than last year isn’t going to get the same outcome financially, morally, ethically, or materially anymore–if it ever really did in the first place. The greatest psychological block of our time for people to overcome (at least in America) is this idea that average work, average effort, and average outcomes are still “ok”—even as everything we see economically, spiritually, and materially at the start of the fourth greatest worldwide revolution proves otherwise.

From our physical infrastructure to our internal responses to conflicts, meaning, and mattering, we’ve got to stop walking around our towns (either physically or metaphorically) trying to recapture “ok” and instead shift to inspiring people at every level to consistently pursue better than “ok” to get to best.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Broadcasting, Sharing, and Interacting

There are subtle differences between broadcasting, sharing, and interacting in any conflict scenario.

Broadcasting is what live streaming and most posting on social media is about. Broadcasting is an act that—by itself without more thought behind it—is deeply selfish and desirous of attention for its mere existence. Broadcasting a suicide attempt, or broadcasting a cat video, fall into this same category.

Sharing is what much of blogging, email newsletter creation, and some social posting is about. Sharing is an act that—by itself without more thought behind it—begins a collaborative communication process between a creator and their audience. The audience can be a Dunbar’s Number of close friends, or it can be an audience of a few thousand “followers” but sharing is about skimming the top of a building a collaborative relationship.

Interacting is what broadcasting, plus sharing, plus intentionality, is about. Interacting involves going past merely acting to prove the existence of a product, service, philosophy, or process, and goes directly to creating for an audience and their desires. Interacting means engaging actively with everyone in the audience (even those people we’d rather not engage with) and is the penultimate act of courage.

In a conflict, broadcasting is the equivalent of telling a story about your conflict repeatedly, in order to create separation between “us” and “them.”

In a conflict, sharing is the equivalent of attending training and hoping that you remember one thing that you can apply afterward.

In a conflict, interacting is the equivalent of going beyond telling your story and attending training, and taking the time and effort to personally engage with personal development around your responses and reactions to conflicts in your life.

Broadcasting, sharing and interacting are happening at all levels in our society; and, our digital tools have provided us with the ease of communicating faster and faster. But this also means that our responses to conflicts in our lives become more shallow and immediate, even as the reactions cut us emotionally at a deeper and deeper level.

[Opinion] Podcasting to the Masses

A product has reached its peak in the early adopter stage on the classic distribution curve, and is ready to slide into the masses attention, when three phenomenon happen:

The product catches the attention of regulators, lawyers, and policy makers (Uber).

The product catches the attention of the mass industrialists who remain powerful at the top of the economic ladder (Tesla).

The product catches the attention of the mass of creators and they begin to give interviews and hold conferences about “What is to be done about this new thing we underestimated/ignored” (podcasting).

The lawyers haven’t shown up at the door of the “big” independent podcasters (read “the 65% or so of podcasts not produced, spun – off, or derivatives of NPR radio shows”) but the legalistic thinking employed by the corporate regulators and policy makers is already appearing in conferences and conversations–and the hand wringing has begun.

We haven’t yet hit peak podcasting. That won’t happen for about another decade, based on how quickly electric cars and integrated mobile phone devices have an impact on the market overall. But the signs are on the horizon that podcasting is about to reach its peak of the early adopter stage and begin the long-slow ride into public acceptance, and into the mass consciousness.

Will every niche podcast do well as this gradual swell of acceptance begins? No. If a podcaster (or podcast network) began two (or even five) years ago, the chances that the show will gain mass acceptance are still under 50%. But, if a large podcast content creator (such as a personality like Marc Maron or Adam Carolla) and distributor (such as NPR) can “port over” their audience from other channels (i.e. live comedy acts, other content on a network, etc.) there’s a better than 50% chance that those creators and distributors will survive and become dominant in the coming years.

Podcasting is riding the slow wave toward mass acceptance. For those creators who have waited for this moment, now is the time to begin sharing your digital voice.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Law of Average

It used to be ok to be, well, “ok.”

It used to be “ok” to do good enough work at home with your kids, in the neighborhood with your community, and in your church with your time.

It used to be “ok” to just show up, do what you’re told, don’t ask too many questions, and be the nail that hammered itself down.

It used to be “ok” to not do the little extras, to not give a little more, to care only at the level you were comfortable caring at and to devote little or no time to thinking about why that was ok.

And in this time, when things used to be “ok,” political world leaders still were elected and assassinated with regularity, wars still were started and ended, products were still invented and sold, television programs, the newspapers, and other forms of communication tools still worked to get you information. And people still lived and died, marketing still worked, and scandals still intrigued the masses.

So what happened?

The Law of Averages says that in a sample of any kind, from neighborhoods, to marketing campaigns, the statistical distribution of outcomes among members of a small sample must reflect the distribution of outcomes across the population as a whole.

The law has always been a fallacy, based on observed, personalized experiences that are then transposed to a much larger (or sometimes different) population sample. And the rules that the industrialists, the marketers, the politicians, and the policy makers created in the 20^th century (and that they are mightily trying to recreate in the 21^st century) are responsible for the massive belief in the law of averages.

But, wishful thinking is not reality. And the reality is, it was never good enough to just be “ok”: whether at your job, at communicating in conflict situations, or at creating a project, or taking a risk. And now, because of technological shifts that have been long remarked upon and analyzed, the fallacy is being exposed at mass, for what it is.

It’s not good enough to be average at communicating in a conflict scenario.

It’s not good enough to just show up at home, at church, in your community, or at work.

It’s not good enough to not go the extra mile, do the extra thing, and take the extra time, even if you don’t get paid for it. Especially if you don’t get paid for it.

It’s not good enough to disengage from what’s going on in someone else’s political, economic, spiritual, or financial reality because “that doesn’t impact me over here.”

Wishful thinking that “it will all be ‘ok’” doesn’t work anymore (and never really did), because it won’t be “ok.” The cultural, social, political, and financial machine that used to guarantee that “ok” would be good enough, is breaking down.

Its only individuals (not the masses at scale) who can choose to do the hard work that moves humanity collectively from merely “ok” in our emotional, spiritual, and material interactions with each other, and moves us to better, and finally to best (or most remarkable) in the world: meaning the world individuals inhabit on a daily, weekly, yearly basis, not the whole wide world.

Navigating the tension between the desire to passively slip into the anonymity of “ok” and the need to actively move from “ok” to better to best, is the place where engagement—personal and meaningful—must happen in the 21^st century if humanity is to become the best version of humanity it can be.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 5.10.2016

Seers.

Psychics.

Prognosticators.

All of them are false, phony, fallible, and human.

Trust me.

Nobody knows anything about how tomorrow—whether literally tomorrow or five years from now—is going to happen.

But the socially sanctioned comfort provided by either breathlessly predicting Armageddon or predicting Paradise outweighs the reality of individual people who relentlessly do the work, every day, regardless of what the external circumstances are—and no matter how personally Apocalyptic their worldview and frame may be.

Gradualism, eating the elephant one bit at a time, taking the time to focus: These are not flashy traits, and they don’t make for a raucous Twitter feed, a stunning reality show, or brilliant social media newsfeed. But a personal lifetime that matters, is made up not of repeated, breathless predictions, but instead of plodding, professional, daily work.

There will always be predictors (currently backed up by Big Data) and with computer algorithms and artificial intelligence on the horizon, the gap between prediction and failure of a specific prediction to come to pass (or the accuracy of the prediction coming to pass) will get smaller and smaller—probably narrowing down to a statistical meaningless difference. This will be most helpful with weather patterns and mathematical constructs—less so with people.

But the work, the plodding, professional, unsexy, work is what will matter.

And in the end, there will still be people whose life work, life focus, and lifetime professionalism will defy all the predictions of seers, psychics, and updated, Big Data bloated, statistical prognosticators, and will still be unpredictable, surprising, and ultimately, delightful.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Haters

The critic who has never produced anything…other than criticism.

The dilettante who has never done the hard work of going deeper…except in going deeper into dabbling.

The professional noticer who only notices the negatives…and begrudgingly gives space to the positives.

The Internet troll or commenter who takes perverse pleasure in commenting negatively…but who’s own personal life is in shambles.

There have always been critics, dilettantes, gossips, trolls, and commenters whose only job in the tribe is to maintain the status quo by determining who’s “in” who’s “out” and whether it makes a difference or not. And in a world where the masses mattered and the opinions of a few people could make or break the launch of your product, this function served a golden purpose: separating the wheat from the chaff.

The world has moved on though (as it always does) and the role of the critic, the dilettante, the professional noticer, the troll, the gossip, and the commenter, have to shift from curating for the masses, to curating for the small group. The function of social curation is never going to stop, but the audience that used to applaud public curation has moved on (as it also always does). This is reflected in the increasing ubiquity of trolling and the decline of constructive criticism.

And when the performer is conducting a show, the professional noticer, and the impolite troll are lumped into the general category of “haters.”

In a new communications world, in the midst of the fourth mightiest revolution in human history, the artist, the impresario, the performer putting on the show, has the power to shun the haters and their attempts to culturally curate through shaming. This is a hugely unremarked upon power shift, that has implications beyond communication in the digital realm:

What if it didn’t matter what the person in the other cubicle over thinks of you when you resolve that conflict?

What if it didn’t matter if you showed your humanity at work by treating people like people rather than like objects?

What if it didn’t matter how much revenue you made in dollars, but instead it mattered how much goodwill you could engender in the people who matter?

What if laboring emotionally was rewarded financially rather than looked upon as an outlier, or a spillover effect?

What if the statements and pronouncements of the critic, the dilettante, the professional noticer, the troll, the gossip, and the commenter couldn’t hurt your business because it’s really not for them, never has been for them, and never will be for them—and that was ok?

What if not scaling because you don’t have to please everyone at mass anymore, just a few hundred thousand people, really was the way to create engines of economic, cultural, and social growth?

What if the critic, the dilettante, the professional noticer, the troll, the gossip, and the commenter had to add something to the world and be vulnerable themselves, instead of trying to recapture an element of lost power that was an illusion in the first place?

What if you could hug your “haters,” but shun their shame, and grow from that emotionally, spiritually, and financially?

What if in every communication scenario, we started calling people’s bluffs, and having them really stand up, take responsibility and accountability, and encourage creativity from the challenge of saying “this is who I am, this is what I’m making” and let the work be on the line, rather than letting their inner selves be on the line?

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] What Are Your Core Values?

There are values.

There are beliefs.

There are principles.

Values are what we are willing to put our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honors on the line to defend, protect, and advocate for. Values are based typically in a moral or ethical code, or standard of behavior, sometimes enforced by society and culture, but much of the time determined privately by individuals.

Beliefs are what we really think, down deep, past the words that come out of our mouths. Beliefs are a core part of the stories that we tell ourselves about the values that we have. Beliefs are about trust, faith, and the confidence in something (typically values) that will come to reality.

Principles are the combination of values and beliefs. Principles serve as the fundamental truths that are the foundation of a chain of reasoning that leads to a set of manifested behaviors that shape our realities. Principles are bedrock, they are eternal, and they sound like positions when we articulate them.

But they are not positions (which are often about personal (and sometimes public) identity or maintaining “face”) nor are they about interests (which are often flexible, negotiable, situational, and impersonal).

There is little productive talk about values using anything but position-based language, designed to inflame people, rather than unite them. There is even less productive debate about beliefs using anything other than language designed to conjure up images of religion, rather than relationship. In both cases, the use of persuasive, argumentative, anchoring language is designed to separate people from each other (which is easy), rather than to engender deeper introspection (which is hard). And too often in our public language, at work, at school, in social media, and other places, we use the language of principles to talk about positions—or even worse–to justify behavior based in mere interests.

Don’t let people fool you. There’s plenty of hard, emotional work in introspectively determining what your values are, articulating to others what your beliefs are, and in figuring out how both of those are walked out in your lived principles.

But there’s no glamour. There’s low (or no) pay. And there’s often no audience. But it’s when there’s no glamour, pay, or audience to put on a show for, that we discover what really lives at our core.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Priority Management vs. Time Management

You can’t get more hours in the day.

I can’t get more hours in the day.

Neither can anybody that you know.

But have you looked at your priorities lately? Have you examined the choices that you make that reveal the priorities that you have?

Your p riorities matter more than how you spend your time. But this is tricky because, while it may be obvious to us (and everybody else) what our priorities are when we choose what to have at lunch between a roast beef sandwich or a vegetable dish, it’s only obvious to us (and not so much to anybody else) what our priorities are when we choose between being engaged or disengaged in a conflict.

Priority management reveals our deepest choices, desires, and motivations around, under, and above, the thing we talk about valuing the most—our time. Talking about the choices that undergird our priorities is not sexy or exciting. It’s sharp, cutting, and sometimes embarrassing. Which is why it’s easier to write about being productive, or “managing” time, rather than training adults in how to prioritize their lives by examining the stories they have chosen to create around their lives, and the lives of others.

Like many things in our lives, the thing that matters even more than our priorities (which are revealed after we make a decision) is the narrative we tell ourselves about our priorities before (and after) we make the decision to act on them. Or not.

To go back to the previous example: You may choose the roast beef sandwich because you think that meat tastes better because you were raised in a household where meat was eaten 3 times a day. Another person may choose the veggie dish because they think that the roast beef is too fatty and salty, and they’re trying to lose weight and eat better because they want to sit on the beach without embarrassment in August.

So, one makes roast beef, or veggies, the priority, then they order lunch in a blink, and they don’t beat themselves up over it.

But the story changes when the stakes are higher, like in the story we tell ourselves about what we do at work, the work that we have chosen to do, or the tasks we are asked to do at work. The story changes when we have to choose between priorities at home, and priorities in the community.

-Peace Be With You All-