Scarcity is a Lie

Human beings have trouble engaging with conflict effectively, from the schoolhouse to the workhouse.

Well, the “workhouse” doesn’t exist anymore, but you get my meaning.

In a world of scarcity, conflict engagement is incredibly difficult, primarily because we tend to view our resources (i.e. time, emotions, money, etc., etc., etc.) as limited.

We tend to approach conflicts in our lives from an inadequacy fueled, poverty based mindset that views the future as scary, the past as dominant and today as a mere distraction.

This leads to people avoiding conflicts regularly.
This leads to people confronting conflicts badly and ineffectively.
This leads to people being confounded by conflicts genuinely.

This also creates a reality for people in conflict that causes them to believe that they solve conflicts well (they don’t) or that they don’t have any conflicts in their lives (they do).

The other side effect of a poverty based mindset around conflicts involves being pushed– through experiencing repeated conflict situations–toward trauma and dysfunction, before seeking professional help.

Trauma. Dysfunction. Poverty. Scarcity.

Engaging with conflict effectively requires a shift in psychology, designed to view resources as abundant, other people as partners and conflict situations as temporary moments in time, rather than permanent states of being.

-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/

Navigating the Employer Market

Due to wage and price controls instituted in the 1930’s and 1940’s, employer sponsored health benefits (and other “bonuses”) became popular as a way to guarantee full-time labor force participation and employee loyalty.

Now, however, the option of offering “healthcare as a benefit” has been effectively removed from the employer/employee discussion.

Plus, work has changed dramatically with the rise of temporary work, part-time work, and—of course—the ever expanding internship.

If you’re an employer of any kind, the question becomes:

“How much should I invest in my part-time workforce?”

Traditionally, the answer to that question has been:

“Minimal to nothing.”

The real question for the remainder of this century should be:

“How do I—as an employer—engender loyalty and work ethic in my part-time, side hustling, web connected, virtual currency using, workforce of the future?”

Or…

Employers can continue to believe that an “employer’s market” will somehow, Frederick W. Taylor-like, continue on.

-Peace Be With You All-

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

Change The World

The greatest gift you can give someone is to show them their own highest value.

I’m going to give that to you. Use the code BL-JSorrells79 to take Sally Hogshead’s Fascination Advantage Assessment ($37 value) for free!

This is a special, limited-time promotion for her new book How the World Sees You (which dropped a couple of weeks ago, by the way).

When you take the assessment using BL-JSorrells79, you’ll get a unique code to share with your audience as well!

Offer only lasts till July 25. Act now!

-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: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HIT Piece 07.22.2014

I haunt bookstores, seeking the rarest of items.

A muscular, fictional novel (not a genre title) that can be marketed to and for men.

You know, those people that work in the United States, but statistically speaking don’t read nearly as much as young adults and women.

Genre titles are great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not looking for the next James Patterson, John Grisham, Lee Child or Dean Koontz.

I’m looking for the writer of novels about men (with women and children, of course), and the modern male experience, that is going to draw men into the bookstore, and onto the tablet device.

And away from the video game, film, tv, and outdoor sports industries.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Advertising Drowning

These days, advertising is flashy, interruptive, and mostly tuned out by an organization’s target audience.

Sales are harder because the distance from initial engagement to close has never been more tenuous.

Marketing, ironically enough, is easier than ever before because the tools for creativity, engagement and growth have never been more accessible than they are right now.

The individuals, organizations, associations and corporations that get this are thriving.

Those that don’t are either treading water—or are drowned already and don’t even know it.

-Peace Be With You All-

Be My Guest

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“I’m Worried About My Bottom Line.”

Really?

Well, let’s be honest:

Bottom line concerns tend to only appear when “getting by” and making the quarterly numbers, no longer works and when competitive pressure, employee choice and other market conditions begin to appear.

Employers will not always be blessed with an “employer’s market” and ignoring, or minimizing, the training and educating, of those demoralized, traumatized employees who have been long-term unemployed, could cost in the billions in lost revenues, time and profits.

Worried about the “bottom line” around conflicts in your workplace?

You should be.

-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/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

How The World Sees Jesan Sorrells

I’ve always had trouble “fitting in” with organizations.

I deliver pioneering, irreverent, entrepreneurial ideas and solutions for my clients in corporations, nonprofit organizations and even to individual clients.

#BuildingForTheFutureSelfie

I’ve taken Strengthsquest and MBTI and I know how I see the world. And, I’ve often been given insight (some would call it “feedback”) from others who have seen how I interact with the world. My approach to ideas and processes in organizations for which I have worked has been described as:

Scary
Overbearing
Sucking all the air out of the room

Sally Hogshead, and the Fascination Advantage assessment has changed all of that for me.

I found out that the world views me as a Maverick Leader. I am seen as pioneering, irreverent, and entrepreneurial.

Meaning, others think that I lead with unconventional ideas, propose new directions and believe that higher goals can be achieved in any project. Which gives me those three new words:

Pioneering
Irreverent
Entrepreneurial

Now, according to the assessment, I am also seen as being a sharp wit, creative and able to stay on track (my wife would say “doggedly”) when others peter out or lose interest in a project or direction.

Now, there’s a way to wrap all of this up into one package, and that’s through developing my Anthem.

So, here goes:

I deliver pioneering, irreverent, entrepreneurial ideas and solutions for my clients in corporations, nonprofit organizations and even to individual clients.

Bold. Unconventional. Reaching higher.

I like the sound of that.

The greatest gift you can give someone is to show them their own highest value. I’m going to give that to you. Use the code BL-JSorrells79 to take Sally Hogshead’s Fascination Advantage Assessment ($37 value) for free!

This is a special, limited-time promotion for her new book How the World Sees You.

When you take the assessment using BL-JSorrells79, you’ll get a unique code to share with your audience as well!

This offer expires July 25. Act now!

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 07.08.2014

How easy is it to say “no?”

About as hard as it is to accept the consequences of a bad “yes.”

An agreement made based out of desperation, greed, a desire to please or a need to avoid a conflict (whether with self or with others) is an agreement destined to produce your worst work, not your best.

A well thought out “no,” as painful as it may be to give because of circumstance (financial, emotional, psychological, etc.), can destine you to produce your best work, not your worst.

With that in mind, it’s easy to say “no” to a difficult client, a time consuming and fruitless mediation, a meaningless workshop or speaking engagement, or even a “too good to be true” “once in a lifetime offer” to work, or serve, for an organization that has more problems than fleas on a Texas mule.

I’ve never known a mule to have trouble saying “no.”

Why don’t you?

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

The Reason for Workplace Pathologies

There are conflicts everywhere, but the ones at work leave some of the deepest marks, because we spend, on average 40 to 60 hours a week with people we did not choose.

The common response to most work conflicts—from uninvolved employees to supervisors—sometimes ranges from “It’s not my problem,” to “I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me.”

There’s also a version of the Bystander Effect—where everyone stands around waiting for someone else to take a stand against a situation rather than themselves doing anything.

When conflict occurs between co-workers, apathy and fear of reprisal or negative consequences resulting from taking an action, paralyze fellow coworkers in the escalation cycle of conflict.

In contrast, when conflict occurs between supervisors and employees, grumbling, gossip, and other expressions of powerlessness become evident.

The escalation cycle continues, but is slows down, sometimes allowing the conflict to fester for years and transform into other cultural workplace pathologies.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA