[Advice] Disagreements are Conflicts

No matter what language you use to describe them….

“kerfluffle”

“drama”

“disagreement”

“viewing the situation differently”

“a fight”

“a ‘temporary’ setback”

“…a moment”

“there was an ‘incident’”

…they are all conflicts. And all the cutsey, metaphorical language that we use to not describe them as they are, is, in effect, allowing us to hide from the results of them, the process of fixing them, and making the hard choices to address the other party co-creating them with us.

When we seek to use other language that truthful language to describe the conflicts we are having, in our jobs, in our homes, in our churches, we effectively shift into miscommunication, leaving the door open to future…

“kerfluffles”

“dramas”

“disagreements”

“viewings of the situation differently”

“fights”

“‘temporary’ setbacks”

“…moments”

“incidents”

And though effective conflict competence requires naming before reframing, without accurate analysis and naming, reframing becomes another exercise in either futility or furthering the conflict we can’t describe that we’re in.

-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 12.22.2015

My wife will tell you that I never take “time off.”

She’ll say there’s no “break from this project” and she’ll tell you that many of my interactions with other people only demarcate interruptions between email, social platform updates, blog posts, product development ideas, and new business operations ideas. Some that might pan out—many that might not.

My in-laws will tell you I’m obsessive about work. And so will my children. That I never “unplug” or I am “always on the computer.” My immediate family will say that I seem distracted and antsy when I’m not working on cracking some project.

They’re not wrong.

It’s hard to be in this project alone, because, even though many people think that it looks romantic from the outside, to truly become even a moderately large sized force in the arena of conflict engagement and corporate training, the person in the arena has to be dedicated 24/7.

Now, to answer the objections, yes, I understand that material success is nothing without relationships that matter to share it with. And I am doing a better job than I was last year at actually trying to “dial in” to family moments, breaks and respites.

But I’m doing what I love, and I don’t know any other way to get to those outsized rewards in the minimal time that I have left on this planet, than to pursue the results of that love really, really hard for just a little while.

And I do take “time off.” Today is my annual retreat day, where I go to the mattresses (as Clemenza pointed out to Michael in The Godfather) and take some time away from the grind of the day-to-day and reflect on what I’ve done well, what I’ve done mediocrely, and what I haven’t done at all…

Now, I’m headed to Barnes and Noble. It’s the place to unwind, at least while they’re still around.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Manipulation, Deceit and Disagreement in the Digital Age

When most information can be known about other people via the swipe of a finger, the click of an Internet search, or through scrolling through a social media feed, how is it that so many people can still be deceived?

This is not really an information based question, this is a question about one of the key components of persuasion in the digital age, the dark side of it, if you will, deception and manipulation.

When only a few people and organizations used to hold the keys to both Truth and Power, it was hard to find out facts that disagreed with whatever the dominant narrative happened to be. Speaking truth to power was not an exercise for the faint of heart, either in a family, a community, or even in a municipality.

But, after over 25 years of commercialized Internet access to the masses, information (about people, ideas, processes, services, and on and on) seems hard to come by, rendering many people suspicious that they are being deceived but no quite knowing how. This feeling leads to the creation of various digital “tribes” that do battle to “correct the record” and “make the facts known.” But, at the end of the conflict, everything seems murkier than when the disagreement initially began and the residue of mistrust and anger lingers in the air.

Are we more deceived, or more informed?
Are we more oblivious, or more “tuned in?”
Are we more selective (“owning our own facts”) or are we more open to hearing and contemplating the “other side.”
Do disagreements and disputes have more weight online than they do in “real life” and if so, why?
Does anonymity and privacy lead to manipulation and deceit, or are they the only tools the powerless have to call the powerful to task?
What is the middle ground?

There are no easy, quick, or definitive answers to these questions. And after 150 years of “The Industrialization of everything” from education to social services, we in the Western world have been inculcated to believe that quick and definitive is the “new normal,” rather than being aware that, for many questions, there is more ambiguity than there are answers.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Contributor] Repairing the Internet of Things

Contributor – Alexander Gault
Follow Alex on Twitter @AlexanderBGault

The connected TVs, refrigerators, microwaves, electrical outlets, cars, and so on have made their foray into the market, and into our homes. But with these new innovations comes a cost, and that cost is one of the most basic of any appliances.

Reparability.

When you have a broken refrigerator, chances are you can call a repairman or the family handyman to fix it. When your refrigerator no longer can stream Netflix, though, it’s less likely that you can call your family handyman, or even some repairmen. And it’s unlikely that the local computer repair shop will know what to do with your appliance either, as they are not typically run on a normal operating system.

The clearest example of the difficulty of repair presented by the connected world is in the car industry.

Since the late 1990s, cars have had increasingly computerized components used in them. Modern cars have MPG calculators, WiFi hotspots, computerized speedometers, thermostat units, and all other manner of computerized units to make it comfortable and convenient for its owners. Even car doors are more complicated than before, with auto-opening features on sliding doors and trunks that can disable a door with the slightest mechanical error.

A few months ago, I was watching a mechanic explain the systems of an Audi. He explained that often, when a car comes in with a service light on, it can be attributed to a simple sensor error, or even a trivial issue that can be resolved without the help of a mechanic. For example, most German luxury cars, including this Audi, have a slew of sensors in their electrical systems, that can detect even a blown trunk light. When the car came in for its routine servicing, the tool to detect error codes turned up multiple errors for cabin and trunk lights, all contributing to error codes on the information panel that worried the customer.

Car mechanics have, therefore, been required to update their methods, and sink much more time and education into their profession than they expected. For those who cannot or will not train, they quickly lose their relevancy.

This is the future for all handymen, those who make it their profession to repair things. In 10 years, your refrigerator will be automated, telling you when you’re almost out of food. And when it continually shows “Out of Milk”, or even worse, orders more each time it queries the sensors, you’ll have to find a mechanic relevant to the current decade.

Alexander Gault-Plate is an aspiring journalist and writer, currently in the 12^th grade. He has worked with his school’s newspapers and maintained a blog for his previous school. In the future, he hopes to write for a new-media news company.

You can follow Alexander on Twitter here https://twitter.com/AlexanderBGault

[Strategy] Open A.I. Disagreements

In a world with responsive, predictive artificial intelligence, operating behind the veneer of the world in which humans operate, a philosophical question arises:

Will the very human tendency toward conflicts increase or decrease in a world where the frictions between us and the objects we have created is reduced?

From the Open A.I project to research being done at MIT, Google, and Facebook, the race is on to set the table for the technology of world of one hundred years from now.

As with all great advances in human development (and the development of artificial intelligence capabilities would rival going to the Moon) the applications of artificial intelligence at first will be bent towards satisfying our basest desires and human appetites and then move up the hierarchy of needs.

But a lot of this research and development is being done by scientists, developers, entrepreneurs, and others (technologists all) who—at least in their public pronouncements—seem to view people and our emotions, thoughts, feelings and tendencies toward irrationality and conflict, as a hindrance rather than as a partner.

Or, to put it in “computer speak”: In the brave new world of artificial intelligence research, humanity’s contributions–and decision making–is too often viewed as a bug, rather than as a feature.

However, design thinking demands that humans—and their messy irrational problems and conflicts—be placed at the center of such thinking rather than relegated to the boundaries and the edges. Even as humans create machines that can learn deeply, perform complex mathematics, created logical algorithms, and generate better solutions to complex future problems than the human who created the problems and conflicts in the first place.

Eventually, humans will create intelligence that will mimic our responses so closely that it will be hard to tell whether those responses are “live” or merely “Memorex.”

But until that day comes, mediators, arbitrators, litigators, social workers, therapists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, poets, and writers, need to get into the research rooms, the think tanks and onto the boards of the foundations and the stages at the conferences, with the technologists to remind them that there is more to the future than mere mathematics.

Or else, the implications for the consequences of future conflicts (human vs. human and even machine vs. human) could be staggering.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Conflict Management Style

From the boardroom to the bedroom, assertiveness as a mode of approaching all conflict situations, is valued above all other choices in America.

But, what is lauded in a competitive business landscape, driven by media, and advertised to a distracted public by marketers, does not represent lived reality. Reality is messy, unmeasurable down to the final metric, and unknowable all the way up to the point that we are allowed to enter someone else’s headspace.

And even then, we don’t really know anything. We just can measure outcomes.

And the reality is, many people would rather practice avoidance, accommodation or just compromise in a fight, a disagreement, or a dispute, rather than practice any variation of assertiveness.

But if assertiveness is promoted as the “be all and end all” of all possible conflict approaches; and, collaboration is confused with weakness; accommodation is seen as charitable and kind (but not effective); avoidance is paired with fear of conflict itself; and, compromising is too often framed as losing, what is the average person to do?

Well, the fact is that, many people—from the boardroom to the bedroom—rotate through all four styles depending upon the situation, or context, in which they find themselves and the goals they are pursuing within that context.

And while assertiveness may be fine when negotiating a conflict solution across the table from a manager or supervisor, it may not be as appropriate a style to adopt when negotiating a candy exchange with a five-year-old.

But with the pressures and stresses of life compounding, rather than reducing, and with conflicts over resources growing exponentially over time, the value of being able to make healthy, conscious decisions to switch from one style to another—and to let the others around you know that this is happening—is the ultimate goal.

Because in a world where the technologists are here and building a world where human agency will be reduced to a mere shadow of its former glory, in pursuit of brave, new outcomes, the human touch to approaching conflict wisely is the only result that will matter.

-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] The Gap Between Here and There

The decision is the thing.

It looks romantic from the outside, I’ll be honest. A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, but you can’t take the first step without the decision to make the first step in the first place.

The gap between being there and getting here and the gap between being here and getting there are only covered by two actions:

Making a decision without much reassurance from others…

And

Doing the work without much appreciation from others about how difficult it is.

What covers the first gap (the one between being there and getting here) is making a decision. Making a decision to take action is scary and uncertain; and there’s usually very little reassurance from others. It typically begins when you are motivated enough to actually make the decision in the first place, and you’ll either be motivated by internal factors or external circumstances. And only one of these do you have control over.

What covers the second gap (the one between being here and getting there) is doing “the work.” Many people believe that “the work” or work ethic, is fading in American life. I prefer to believe that as the nature of “the work” shifts (from blue collar to white collar to “no” collar) the nature of the work ethic changes as well. Have I put in less “work” when I type up a 500-word blog post than a person has, who codes an algorithm all day in a language that looks like Mandarin to me?

It looks romantic from the outside, I’ll be honest. But on the inside, I can tell you, the work is what people observing you building your business, your project, your idea, or your processes from the outside aren’t going to see. And by “the work,” what these outside observers are really looking for are the tangible results of your efforts, your arguments, your research and your time.

Because, for better or worse, American culture is still built on getting results, rather than the nature and efficacy of developing, managing and experiencing, the process. For the peace builder, thinking about how to start building their project right now, I encourage you to cover the gap, first by making a decision, and then by doing the work.

For the peace builder (or anyone else who ever built anything) the decision is “the work.”

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 12.15.2015

Two topic areas that have been popping up a lot for me lately in business conversations:

“People” lack follow-up
“People” lack initiative.

The first lament goes something like this: “I (the business person in question) reached out to “so and so” (another business person) and they didn’t get back to me. And I called them and called them and they didn’t show up or return my phone calls or emails.”

This first has happened to me more times than I can count with potential clients, clients I’ve actually had meetings with, and with clients I’m attempting to do a deal with.

The second lament goes something like this: “ ‘People’ [and then imagine someone sucking air through their teeth, squinting their eyes and sighing all at the same time] just don’t have the initiative or drive around here to do what you’re asking them to do. What you’re proposing won’t work…”

The second issue of initiative I chalk up to the fact that very few people have a motor driving them into business, and the difference between people who are “making it” and people who “aren’t” is the presence (or absence) of said motor.

These two laments I almost never hear from people in geographic areas that are cities, or even suburbs of cities. But in rural areas, small towns, or even villages consolidated across a major highway, you will sit down with the few people in town who are able to follow-up and have initiative and I will hear these two laments.

The future is coming and it’s not going to arrive everywhere all at the same time. The future is going to be driven by the people who have initiative first, and then second by the people who have the desire and the courage to follow-up. Without reassurance, without lack of faith, without a competitive desire to “get what’s theirs” first.

The income gap between the wealthy and everyone else is definitely something to think about overcoming; but the initiative and follow-up gap is something no one (outside of private conversations) is even thinking about shifting at mass.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Podcast] The Death of F2F Communication

Our personal assistants have names like Cloe, Clara, Julie, Luka and Amy.

Our devices have names like Alexa, Siri and Cortana.

We are getting the future we were promised, though not evenly distributed (as has been pointed out in the past), and not in the same areas simultaneously. Soon, HAL 9000 will be in our homes, not in a deep space vehicle.

We have FitBits, Jawbones, and Apple and Android Watches. We are slowly getting augmented reality, virtual reality and even electric, automated self-driving cars.

Voice data, movement data, and biometric data collection technologies lie at the “bleeding edge” of future machine-to-human communication technologies. We do not have laws or regulations to deal with the consequences of having these devices; which are always on, always recording, always collecting and always reporting to someone—somewhere.

We have given up our privacy for convenience, and whether or not you believe this is a Faustian bargain, the deal is in the process of being struck even as you are alive and watching it happen. And the people of the future will not lament the loss of face-to-face communication, any more than present generations lament the passing of the horse and buggy.

How should conflict professionals respond to the death of face-to-face communication and the rise of machine-to-human communication?

Get involved in the collection of data, the organizations that collect it, and even on the boards of organizations that make decisions and regulations about the use of it—peace builders have an obligation to no longer sit on the sidelines, hoping that none of this will happen. Getting involved in all parts of the process, from creation ot decision making, is the new obligation for peace builders.
Build businesses that act as intermediaries (mediators, if you will) between Alexa, Siri and whatever is next and the people who will seek to control what those devices reveal about people’s private lives—private conflict communications are about to go public. And peace builders have seen the devastating effects of such publicity on relationships, reputation and understanding through the first level of all of this—social media.
Prepare to address the stress that will be magnified through people curating their lives, tailoring their responses to what “should” be said, rather than what will actually be “true”—with the death of privacy through all of your devices in your house either recording you, tracking you, suggesting items to you, or even interacting with you, the line between what is truly felt, and what you actually say, will become even narrower. Peace builders should prepare through training to address this cognitive dissonance, because it will only take a few generations before more masking of previously transparent communication will occur.

As man and machine begin to merge at the first level with communication, peace builders should be engaging with the process proactively and aggressively, rather than waiting and being caught by surprise.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Does Your Manager Think Managing Conflict is Important

The most often repeated piece of feedback is “The people who should be here in this training/presentation/speaking engagement are not here.”

What does that mean though, other than as a piece of feedback?

Typically, it means that the people in the hierarchical chain above the people attending the training are seen as part of the problem, rather than as part of the solution, by the people in the room.

It also means that the people in the hierarchical chain above the people attending the training are interested in maintaining the organizational “status quo” and not really moving forward to become part of the solution; by role modeling what the future might be like for the people in the room.

Either way, this piece of feedback is indicative of the appearance of members of management not really believing that conflicts, disputes, disagreements, or even fights in the workplace are all that important to deal with at the root.

This feedback also indicates that the attendees will probably continue to experience frustration in the organization; even as they implement all of their newly attained knowledge of how to engage with conflicts better.

And then, as the frustration mounts and the cognitive dissonance really kicks in, employees will either become more disengaged in the workplace—or leave the workplace altogether; creating a cycle of people who arrive, then get trained, get disillusioned and then leave.

Managers, supervisors, and others up in the hierarchical chain, can thwart all of this, but it requires an investment in finding the time many claim not to have in the short term, to play the long game in building an organization doing work that matters, in the long term.

-Peace Be With You All-