There’s no other way to sell peace to a conflict comfortable public, than for a peace builder to be champion and a linchpin.
There are two ways to become a champion:
- Only talk about what matters.
- Constantly iterate and reiterate your minimal viable product, which in this case turns out to be your words and your perspective. This strategy does not eliminate having principles (they are bedrock and don’t change) it does however eliminate meaningless discussion, advocacy, and negotiation around principles.
By only talking about what matters (and constantly iterating and reiterating on the how) you are opening up yourself to doing the hard, champion level work, of actually negotiation with others of good conscience and moral fiber around positions.
You are also opening yourself up to the ideas and possibilities that knowing other people’s interests (not values (which equate with principles) or positions) but interests: the “what” and the “why” underneath the how.
When you do this intentionally and deliberately over a long enough period of time, drip-by-drip, you begin to persuade people of the value of what you are selling (a perspective, process, service, or product of peace) and begin to move them away from the resistance to it.
This moving, this drip-by-drip, is how you become a peace building linchpin: A person who, if they were gone, we all would have to invent.
A person who broke the mold, even before they walked into the room and convinced you.
-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/
