[Advice] Fighting on Ground You Didn’t Choose

We often engage in conflicts on ground we didn’t choose.

We go into engagements with people and wander through them, surprised by the depth of the presenting problems, caught off guard by the visceral nature of the emotions, and completely off balance in how to respond.

In addressing conflicts on topics we didn’t choose (the ground) we often take the Donald Rumsfeld approach of engaging in the conflict we didn’t want with the tools we already have, and we wind up in the opposite of the General Grant position of worrying about what we are going to do in the conflict. Our responses become reactions, our reactions become incendiary, and then we engage in conflict avoidance the next time a problem arises on ground we didn’t choose.

There are a few ways out of this:

Make a plan. Never go into an interaction with someone where you know that a conflict will arise, without making a plan for what you’re going to say or do.
Implement the plan. Many plans fail for lack of execution. Many approaches to conflict fail, because it’s easier to rea a list of best practices and then forget about that list, than it is to implement them.
Ruthlessly focus on your goals in the interaction. Make goals in the planning stages and then ruthlessly focus on accomplishing them. Your goals might be to preserve the relationship, to side-step an older argument, or even to hold onto your heart, but no matter what they are, focus on accomplishing them.
Let adults be adults. Don’t own the other party’s emotional content. They can carry it around by themselves well enough without you. Constantly checking in on yourself internally as you engage, may seem like a daunting task, but here’s the thing: it’s even more daunting to just surrender and accept the other party’s paradigm or premise.
Get out. Sometimes, an exit from an interaction is the entirety of the purpose of your interaction. There’s nothing wrong with choosing this as a goal. But how you exit one interaction, sets up how you enter another.

The best case scenario is to engage in conflict on ground you have chosen. Barring that option, engage with intentionality and focus.

-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/

[Advice] Hold Onto Your Heart

In any conflict, the hardest thing to do is to hold onto your heart.

When people mediate conflicts, whether professionally or informally, they run the risk of being demoralized by seeing the behavior of participants in the conflict.

Have you ever heard the joke about the family and divorce mediator who mediated their own divorce after doing this work for many years?

It’s not a good joke.

Hold onto your heart. Hold onto your vulnerability. Hold onto your tenderness. Hold onto your openness.

It’s too easy to let go when everyone around you is letting go as well.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Blogging for the Peace Builder

Blogging is still the easiest, lowest cost, way to build a business, establish a client base, become an influencer, or just to use a voice that matters.

It’s almost free marketing that is always on, always distributed, and always accessible.

There are great ADR professionals such as Cinnie Noble, Tammy Lenski, Victoria Pynchon and a few other high profile ADR practitioners, capitalizing on their blogging efforts. But for many ADR professionals, other than the contributors at Mediate.com (and here at ADRTimes.com), blogging is still viewed as a “one-off, one-time” thing.

There are many objections to blogging from the peace builder, but three are primary:

I don’t have time to blog.
I don’t know what to blog about.
I’m not a writer.

Let’s break those down:

I don’t have time to blog: ADR professionals lead busy lives. They mediate, negotiate and arbitrate complex issues that place psychological and emotional strain on them. Then, they return to homes where they may be confronted by more conflict (Ever hear the joke about the mediator who mediated their own divorce proceeding? I have. It’s depressing.) And, peace building professionals are exposed to more conflicts in social media feeds and from popular culture.

Then, there are children, partners, and responsibilities. By the time the end of the day comes, they are ready to do what their clients do: Go to bed and go to sleep. Then they get up and repeat it.

Who has time to blog?

Well, I’m writing this article in between just having fed my four-year old daughter and working on a client project. What I have found is that there are spaces in the day where thoughts worth blogging about can come flooding in. And, when we sit down at our seats in front of the computer, time becomes available, in spite of distractions, children, clients and other responsibilities.

I don’t know what to blog about: There is so much conflict in the world, at both an organizational and individual level, that I am often surprised by how many peace builders believe this. Peace builders witness disputes in line at their favorite coffee shop in the morning. Disputes occur at local school board meetings, attended the night before. There are disputes in our social media feeds, or even in the newspaper.

When I started blogging regularly, I worried about filling digital space with something meaningful. Then I had a revelation: The number of people consuming content in a digital space will always outweigh the number of people creating content in digital space.

The other piece to consider in this, is a thought that many peace builders have that goes “I don’t have anything to say (or write) so what could I possibly write about?” The fact of the matter is, we need more people who are involved in building peace to have the courage to lay out an argument, stake a claim to a position of truth, and then defend it vigorously and assertively. Courage has always been in short supply in the digital space (see the proliferation of Buzzfeed-like listicles and “Top 25” posts) and hiding away from the consequences of taking a position on topics such as neutrality, client-self-determination, or even the area of deep listening, does not negate the overwhelming need for online wisdom. The fact of the matter is, wisdom is also in short supply in a world where every piece of knowledge is a Google search away. We need more peace builder’s wisdom in the online space and the best place to get that wisdom across is through online, long-form, writing.

I’m not a writer: Many people stop writing regularly about the same time they put college (or high school) in the rearview mirror. Writing is hard, but for the peace builder, writing is the best way to explore and develop thoughts about process, procedure and practice and to grow the field. We need more writing, not less.

And, putting together a sentence or two is really all that it takes to begin. Once that happens, the real struggle becomes how to improve writing, rather than how to start.

One last point on all of this: Many peace builders want to begin writing, but fear that when they are vulnerable in the online space; when they take a position, raise their hand and say “this is me, this is what I’m making,” that there will be pushback from trolls, baiters, scammers, critics, and other bad actors (or actors with mixed motives) online. The thing to remember is that, at a practical level, the bad actors, spammers, and trolls are merely seeking negative attention and—even more perniciously—are seeking to place their shame on the person taking a stand.

At a practical level, the way around this for the peace builder to not accept comments on their blog. Or, to moderate them, or even to not read them. But, peace builders should never allow the bad actor to steal their voice, out of their own mouth, before it has even been used.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] What Is For You?

“I guess this isn’t for us.”

“It’s always been done this way in our field.”

“I can’t do it because I don’t have the positional authority.”

“What will my co-worker’s say when I do this?”

“It’s easier to sue the people than to settle with them.”

All of these statements are fear based. All of these statements are stories; stories individuals (and there are a lot of them) tell themselves to stop themselves from embarking upon doing the hard work that matters. Doing that work will require a sacrifice of time, power, authority, influence, and many other intangible assets, and many of us are unwilling to give those assets up, because a bird in the hand is worth…well, exactly what we’ve always been told it’s worth.

Whether you’re choosing to dance with the Devil you do know, or choosing to avoid (or accommodate) the Devil that you don’t, you’re dancing with the Devil either way.

How about this instead: Don’t dance.

Don’t dance with the naysayers (no matter how powerful they appear to be); don’t dance with the status quo (no matter how entrenched it happens to be); don’t dance with the expectations and assumptions of others who have no idea how important the work is. Instead, dance with your own fear and seek not to conquer it; instead, seek to collaborate with it assertively.

Then, not only will the process, the philosophy, the service, and the project be for you, but it will also be for everyone else who can’t dance with their own fear.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 6.14.2016

What do you need from your blogging and your content creation?

Do you need reassurances and pats on the back?

Do you need more fans, audience members, and readers?

Do you need more clients, attention, and awareness that leads to revenues of referral, trust, and revenues?

I made the decision that I need to tell the truth: about conflict, about resolution, about reassurance, about the future, about technology, about fear, about progress, and about the future of a field I believe in.

I made the decision that the blog is an outlet for the drip-by-drip, daily opportunity, to convince, persuade, and cajole my daily readers into thinking that way that I think and believing the way that I believe.

In essence, I decided that my blogging (though not necessarily my YouTube channel or my podcast) was going to be a long-term, dedicated, committed and consistent trust building, argument building tool. Not a tool to force my “I’m right” on people who don’t want to hear my “I’m right,” but instead, it’s a tool to have arguments, work out ideas, and test myself against the market.

I recently told a participant at a conference who was interested in signing up for my blog, that “Stick with reading it. It’ll take you about six to eight months to figure out what I’m doing.”

Do you have six to eight months to build a following, convince an audience, persuade a reader, and do so without feedback, support, or much interest?

I do.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Building a Subscription Model for Content

Being the last person standing is an underrated tactic in the world of online content creation.

But for the peace builder looking to create a subscription model for content, this may be the best strategy possible.

Three things are working in the peace builder’s favor:

the speed of the Internet and the ways in which content consumers access content is increasing, even as the cost of acquiring the tools is decreasing;
the rise of ad blocking is causing many organizations to either double down on advertising, or to simply eliminate it altogether as a driver for content;
the cost in time, emotional energy, and personal effort (number of “touches”) to acquire a paying customer online is about the same as it is to acquire a paying customer offline.

More content—written, audio, and particularly video—is being consumed by audiences via mobile applications, nested on mobile devices, and accessed via the cloud. This is being seen most visibly in the overlap between subscription based product services (i.e. Harry’s Razor, Dollar Shave Club, Birchbox (for men and women) Trunk Club, Casper Mattresses, etc., etc.), and the ways in which applications, URLs, and even QR Codes are being integrated into the content consumption experience around advertising those services. Peace builders must be aware of these trends to keep their content delivery systems current and updated to get in front of as many audience members in their long-tail as possible.

The rise of ad blocking as a driver for developing a subscription based business model for content development is a key point for peace builders to take in to consideration. Yes, putting content behind a paywall and encouraging people to either give an email address (or pay a fee) to access that content may knock the peace builder in a Google ranking. But if there is an abundance of previously “free” content (audio, written, or video) that can be nested behind a paywall, advertising and ad blocking become less worrisome, in spite of whatever changes Google attempts to make to its search algorithm.

The offline content acquisition experience and the online content acquisition experience are beginning to hew closer and closer together. In the past, both on and off line, there was tremendous friction between the consumer of content and the creator of content. Now, both online and increasingly offline, all of that friction is either being automated, “app”-ed, or otherwise disappearing from interactions. Content consumers in the peace builders’ long tail are still eating, sleeping, buying clothes, and purchasing content from a variety of both on and offline resources. Peace builders must be aware of this friction reduction and move to a world where the frivolous parts of the experience (i.e. signing up, giving an email, taking a payment, etc.), are becoming more friction less so that the actual engagement with the peace builder can happen.

The peace builders that understand these three trends and incorporate the reality of them into their content business model will be the last peace builders standing (and getting paid) even as others drift away.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] New Behaviors

Peace builders struggle with sales for a variety of reasons, but the most pernicious reasons are around behaviors.

There are three areas where behaviors can be changed for peace builders to close more sales:

Determine what kind of prospecting are you doing as a peace builder: active (networking) or passive (website development). The prospecting that you are doing as peace builder may come down to understanding that you have to leverage what you do like (passive prospecting) in order to mentally and emotionally address what you don’t like (active prospecting).
Determine what the one scary behavior is that you would engage in during the day. The scary behavior goes beyond just writing a blog post and hitting “publish” (although it may start there) and goes right to researching ten local companies and calling their human resources departments. Many times, the scary behavior involves collecting “no’s” as if they are going out of style.
Determine where you as a peace builder are making excuses to not engage in the act of selling. Whether you have decided to become an evangelist—or a champion—for an idea with clients, or if you have decided to use cold-calls as a way to collect informal information about the market, peace builders often make excuses to get out of doing hard work that’s scary and uncomfortable.

Many times peace builders struggle because the things that they don’t want to do (the scary things) are the very things they need to do to build the sales in their practices.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] How to Pay Your Dues in a Digital World

The nostalgia for the perceived security and safety of the Industrial-TV complex dominated world of work and human interaction, is almost deafening.

The nostalgia mostly comes in the form of complaints about the work ethic of the current generation by a generation feeling left behind, and discounted.

When work ethic (or nostalgia for an imagined time in the past when people worked “harder” than they do now) is discussed, it’s often framed in the context of “paying your dues.” That mythical state of working hard, being unnoticeable (except for the work that you do), making no demands upon the work structure, and showing appropriate deference to the life experience of people older than you.

In a communication world with digital tools that are reshaping everything from shopping to working globally, “paying your dues” can begin at the age of 15 doing things that

Don’t scale…
…will not appear on a resume…
…that an employer will never know about…
…and will bring the person passive income that can be leveraged after ten years…at the age of 25.

You know, at the moment when the “you should be ‘paying your dues’” conversation begins to happen, directed by superiors, co-workers, and others who didn’t have the digital tools that the 15 to 34 year olds have at their disposal right now.

Work ethic still exists. We just haven’t figured out a new way to calculate its value.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Curing a Spiritual Disease

Giving every working age member of a population a stipend of money per month, per year, for the rest of their lives, will do little to relieve the two states it’s designed to relieve: jealously and a lack of meaningful employment opportunities.

Jealousy and envy are human emotions that often aren’t addressed as motivators for people to work. Envy, vanity, jealousy, and pride (yes, all emotions grounded in negative storytelling) are typically at the root of many people’s motivations to chase money, status, titles, honor, and respect.

Lack of meaningful employment opportunities is also rarely discussed. The era of “make-work” is over; but the things is, we are at the end of the Industrial Revolution, so the era of “we make stuff just a little bit better” is also over. Meaningful employment is typically not found at the beginning of the employment ladder in minimum wage positions by many people.

Without addressing both a lack of meaningful work opportunities and the inherent built-in drivers toward accomplishing goals and earning money, all the universal basic income in the world is only going to exacerbate conflict, providing enough impetus for people to engage in conflict en masse.

Work provides spiritual, financial, and emotional meaning for many people. But because those outcomes don’t appear on a spreadsheet, they are either discounted as being meaningless, or not considered in the first place. Universal basic income does nothing to address any of these disparities, emotions, or drivers in people.

It really comes down to giving people money, hoping to cure a disease of the heart and the spirit without the uncomfortable surgery of examining deeper motivations, and instead opting for a placebo.

A sure recipe for increased conflict.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 06.07.2016

Tips, tricks, and hacks are everywhere across the Internet. As a matter of fact, I was informed of this by another professional recently.

Listicles are popular because they don’t take much time to digest, they appear to satisfy an immediate need, and they are about a short-term “pop” versus a long-term commitment to changing something that might not work.

It seems though, that the trend toward distilling, “dumbing down,” and demystifying is actually really starting to ramp up in the advice, opinion, “best practices,” coaching spaces of the Internet. As lifestyle entrepreneurs have to get more real as the glut in advice means chasing fewer dollars and more pennies they are going to have to decide to either push more listicles (a safe bet) or to advance into telling the truth (a risky bet).

Making a decision to create products that are built on taking apart assumptions, philosophies, “sacred cows,” and conventional wisdom, is a difficult decision because there’s a risk that the person doing it won’t be liked, hired, or referred to. Making such a decision requires a genuine, calculation examination of personal risk tolerance and stating out loud, and unequivocally, what you can afford to lose. Making such a decision means abandoning the mass audience, the mass attention, and the mass awareness, and choosing, instead, to talk only to the true fans, who need to hear what must be said.

There is a choice to be made to no longer engage in listicles, hacks, one-sheets, “silver bullets” and situational advice, and to instead go deep into the heart of what matters with people; to go on a collaborative, uncomfortable, and scary journey, not focused on the past, but aimed at the future.

The decision to do this, and the courage to act on such a decision is a linchpin act. It is an act that makes a person invaluable, because Truth is scarce, but the courage to say the Truth is even scarcer, and the courage to say the Truth, and to stand by it through whatever consequences, is rarer still.

I am on the journey to making some decisions, as I hew closer and closer to the Truth. Are you interested in going on this journey?

-Peace Be With You All-