A Suggested Donation

Placing trust and value in a process that is not fee based—instead is given away for free, a low cost or for a “suggested donation”—is the future in an abundant, connection based economy where, ultimately at the end of the day, everyone will be giving something away for nothing.

“Well, you know, we got what we paid for,” is the common lament expressed by many who have participated in a free process.

The two most common questions that people have who have little trust in a free, abundance based process are:

“When are you going to take all of this stuff that you are doing for free and make some money off of it?”
“When are you going to stop putting out ‘junk content’ and monetize it?”

The questions tend to come from individuals, corporations, organizations and others who are so wedded to the industrial based past, that they cannot understand that “free” creates an abundant, connection based future.

The reverse of these two questions are the ones that many (who are also wedded to the industrial based past) ask who are at the provider end, offering a service for “free” or in exchange for a “suggested donation.”

“Why can’t we get people to pay us to do this (insert name of humanitarian service here)?

Scarcity in an abundance economy is built around the cornerstone of trust: If payment is coming for something that is offered initially for free, then trust must be established and maintained that what is being paid for has even greater value than what was just received for free.

Or, I have to trust that the organization or person requesting a “suggested donation” for a service that they just provided for free, will give me back something with even better consistency and quality.

Either way, the hard work for the provider, shifts from asking for a fee and hoping that one will come while toiling under budget constraints and doing mediocre, rote work, to instead providing the service for free and then creating a relationship with the end-user based on the idea that something else more awesome lies just behind the pay wall.

The newspaper business couldn’t figure this one out.

Neither could the music industry.

Both have collapsed.

And more collapses are coming, from the way cars are sold to the way that the United Way raises money.

-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://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

Quality is Job One

Trust is evident when a company, organization, association or individual promotes themselves, their ideas, their products or their services online, either via social media or via search.

Trust works in a social sense (again, both on and off line) because without a relationship, even if it’s a tangential one, connection cannot happen and then referrals cannot happen and cash—revenue—cannot change hands.

Trust is the only thing that works to facilitate this transaction.

Trust works when something—a product, service or idea—is given generously, and nothing is expected in return. This is something new in our industrial based, “let’s all make a better widget the next time around,” process that has dominated the Western world for the last 80 years.

Trust worked then as well, but it worked more as trust in an industrial based, quality driven process, rather than people.

Trust got us more stuff, because the corollary to trusting in the industrial process, was trusting that the industrial employer would provide a safe job, for life, with safe working conditions: Same thing with government promises based on social programs, social safety and social/business regulation, both local and national.

Process, quality and precision came first, safety, security and high pay came second, people, relationships and “giving it away for free” came third—if they made the list at all.

Remember the old Ford ad tagline from the 90’s: “Quality is job ONE.”

Even the Bible, in Psalm 115, the exhortation to trust is evident in verse 11 which states that you who fear the Lord (where “fear “means to stand in awe, to be afraid or to have reverence for a superior being) trust in the Lord, for He is their help and their shield.

Why belabor this point?

Well, there are 20,000 volunteer mediators working in dispute resolution centers, court rooms and law offices around the country right now. And if you are a mediator or a conflict professional, trying to make a living—or make a little revenue—doing this work, then you are in a tough bind.

This is because so many folks who could be your target market for trust, connection, referral and revenue are already knee deep in trusting that a non-fee based relationship will endlessly provide for all of their needs.

Mediation is about connection and relationship. Mostly, it’s also about trust: Trusting the mediator to get out of the way; trusting the other party to deal fairly; trusting the process of mediation to produce whatever outcomes are desired by the two parties in conflict.

How does an enterprising professional then, transform freely given trust into paying revenue?

Well, that’s the real question for this week, isn’t it?

-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: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

Top 8 Negative Communication Traits

Everyone is in sales all the time everywhere.

We try to persuade our family to go to the store, or on vacation.

We try to persuade our bosses to give us a raise, or more control in our division.

We try to convince others to buy whatever it is that we are selling as part of our jobs, or our volunteer work.

However, here at HSCT in our role as peacemakers, we are constantly reminded that it’s not what we say, but how we say it, that is important.

There are ways to drive these people apart

What we say may lead to escalation.

How we say what we say, will definitely lead to escalation: Particularly that escalation from merely a difficult situation or conversation to an all-out conflict that may emotionally ignite and reignite for years.

What are the top eight ways to communicate with other people that will guarantee you a negative relationship?

Passive-Aggressiveness: This is the classic “I don’t have a problem. Them folks over there have a problem.” If you don’t think that you are the problem, it’s time to get self-aware about…well…yourself.
Put-Downs: “Of course Sheila causes the problem, she’s never not been an idiot in this organization.” Or, “When was the last time Bill actually contributed anything of value?” Cue everybody laughing. Cue a difficult conversation upcoming with Bill or Sheila.
Scapegoating: “I didn’t have anything to do with the failure of this idea. I was just the middleman.”
Denial: Is not just a river in Egypt. “I didn’t do it. You never saw me do it. You can’t prove anything.”
Argumentativeness: There are people who love to cynically disagree and there are people who aren’t seeking to disagree, but to merely act as the “Devil’s Advocate.” The first type seeks to destroy for the sake of elevating themselves and dismissing others (see Put-Downs above). The second type seeks to push others to greatness in projects and ideas. It’s a simple matter of collaboration versus condemnation.
Lying: This one is simple. Just remember, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. Just ask President Nixon. Actually, no, ask former President Bill Clinton.
Slander: Slander is a false spoken statement. For instance “Sheila has to have this project succeed, after all, she’s gotta support her kids since her husband lost his job.” Libel is a false written statement. For instance, Sheila has ten kids by four men and can’t support any of them.
Gossip: This last one is particularly cancerous and corrosive because in life, while “that’s just how Bill is,” or “Sheila always takes a long lunch,” may not immediately seem to be damaging, the long term effects of such statements can serve to lead to everything other negative communication behavior on this list.

-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 page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

My First Job

In the spirit of the blog series going around LinkedIn, featuring thought leaders and influencers writing about the first jobs that they had, some of which laid the foundations for attaining the success and influence they currently enjoy, I want to add to the noise by writing about my first job.

I started working “officially” at around age 14 or 15.Before that, I had briefly been a child actor at around age 8 or 9 in a few local commercials in the American Southwest, as well as performing in the pilot for a show that was to be produced by an Italian film company, based on the old school children’s cartoon, Lucky Luke (check the ballad out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Gm3acD0V4). I had also been an altar server in the local Byzantine Catholic church and had worked with my mother “off the books” in a janitorial capacity for the company that she started very briefly.

However, my first, official paid gig, was working in a privately owned dog kennel/animal rescue shelter in Naperville, Illinois. I went in the business in the evenings, after hours and worked from around 5pm to around 11pm.I worked with a team to clean up after the animals, move them from indoor kennels to outdoor kennels, feed them and make sure the place was locked up at the end of the night and that things were prepped for in the morning.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of dog and cat poop as well as bird and reptile poop to clean up on a nightly basis. I once cleaned up after a Kimono dragon. Some of the animals were well behaved; others not so much. One of the dogs there (who was classified as a “long-term” boarder because she was so neurotic that no family would adopt her) was consistently filthy and borderline dangerous.

And, after all of this, my first paycheck was a robust $68.55, based off of the old $4.25 minimum wage.

This first job taught me three valuable lessons that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else and that I have kept throughout the years that I have worked other jobs and other entrepreneurial ventures:

There is no legal, moral, ethical job or position that I am “above” doing. Humility is egalitarian and will take you further than pride, ignorance or ingratitude.
There is no benefit to lacking compassion. The animals were unable to take care of themselves and for 6 hours a day for three days a week, I was part of a team that could give them compassion and care.
There is nothing valuable in being greedy. To paraphrase from The Big Lebowski, “it’s not about the money!” Sometimes, to get your foot in the door, you have to be willing to play chess at about four levels higher than everyone else and realize–at an emotional and psychological level–that this too, shall pass.

Rolling up my sleeves and getting involved in cleaning up in the arena of peace, talking and writing about new approaches to doing the “same old things,” and pushing to be compensated accordingly, all began at a dog kennel/animal rescue shelter.What was your first job?

-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/

The Final Conflict

Our societal focus tends to be on the beginning and the middle of a life.

And the events that clog up the middle of a life.

You know the ones: school, single hood, marriage, kids and retirement.

But in the youth oriented society that we have unarguably built over the last 50 years in this country, we have neglected to talk about the necessity of mortality and death.

Maybe with the new federal healthcare law and it’s eponymously dubbed “death panels” we will change our societal approach, but we here at HSCT aren’t betting one it.

With the exception of the Showtime series, Six Feet Underfrom a few years ago, when was the last cultural moment of seriousness around this topic?

Death and its surrounding shoals represent the final conflict: People’s souls and Spirits fight the flesh to leave this world and the flesh (both the flesh that is dying and the flesh that is the people surrounding the flesh that is dying) has fights with the people.

We are trapped in this world, but, whether a devout atheist or a devout believer, the desire is to resolve the last conflict in our favor and to win the last argument.

And death does that.

It is the ultimate leveler. It wins all arguments and settles all debts. Google, NSA data centers, federal student loans—none of them have ever overcome–or will overcome–that final leveler.

What does death cost the living?

In terms of money and fees associated with the burial, internment or cremation of the last earthly evidence of a human being—the body—the cost can range from either astronomical to affordable.

But we the living don’t find that out until the flesh is almost at an end.

Legal documents, procedures, the medical process and all the other human—and dare we say, temporal—aspects of death are just as mysterious and shrouded in silence.

What are we to make of this equation: Youth oriented society + Silence around the topic + simple processes made to seem esoteric = death made mysterious.

We as mediators, conflict managers, coaches, negotiators and peacebuilders need to educate ourselves more around this final area, cloaked in silence, in order to expose the conflicts and generate better outcomes that will create peace for those who are left behind.

-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 page on Facebook
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

[Opinion] Rendering Unto Peace

There is nothing more capitalistic and freedom loving than making peace.

Think about it.

Two people come together to agree (or disagree) on an issue.

The issue gets resolved, gets to stalemate or gets blown up, but no matter what happens, the people involved in the process (the warring parties and the mediator) get to participate together.

Managing conflict is a place where the capitalistic principle of work = pay should rule.

The principles of freedom and republican democracy work in conflict management as well, because all parties involved can make a choice, whether they want to participate or not, and to get to resolution, everyone must learn and practice the principles of negotiation.

We here at HSCT grow weary of hearing political commentators and others talk about the fallacy of conflict resolution and of developing peace, while at the same time focusing on litigation, imprisonment, warfare and strife as the preferred way to go.

Jesus talked about peace. He also talked about money (check out Matthew 22:15-22 on this one).

When are we going to cease believing that making peace and making money are mutually exclusive?

-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/

Scarcity and Abundance

Mediation, conflict resolution, dispute resolution, conflict engagement, interpersonal communication training, reputation /relationship management, counseling, therapy and legal services are all valuable skills to pay top dollar to get in the abundance economy.

Trainers, workshop presenters, facilitators and consultants in an abundant economy are consistently looking for the edge that will make them—and the services that they offer—“scarce.”

In a traditional, industrial based economic system, this wasn’t an issue, because brands advertised, salesmen sold, and certain professions didn’t have to advertise (i.e. lawyers, doctors, etc.) because everyone “knew” that the professional expertise was locked up in a crystal palace (to borrow from Seth Godin here http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/10/our-crystal-palace.html) of scarcity.

Scarcity based on access, knowledge, education, and resources.

But, in an economy where the Internet, social media, Google searches, blogs and a thousand other media content methods have leveled the playing field, how does a professional conflict engagement practitioner get the parties to pay?

By being the only one who can show up.

The mediation process is not scarce. It’s abundant.

More education, more exposure more publication of methods, practices, tactics and approaches ensures that when a client calls XYZ Mediation Service, they are going to get the only thing that they can’t get anywhere else:

XYZ mediator.

That’s scarcity in an abundance economy.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Technical Tango & Cash

Last week our principle conflict engagement consultant, Jesan Sorrells, was asked to speak at the Technical Career Connection Class at Suny-Broome Community College in Binghamton, NY.

This was a great opportunity to talk about the importance of marketing yourself as something more than a brand and about the exciting opportunities for development and growth that access gives us in the early 21^stcentury.

As part of the “deal” the Technical Career Connections class awarded Jesan this very fine certificate and he agreed to answer questions emailed to him from the participants.

Below is a sample of some of the questions that were asked and some of the answers provided:

If someone isn’t technically sharp and doesn’t have a lot of time, what would you recommend them doing in regard to social media for professional outreach purposes?

We are the vanguard of an evolution in human communication, connection, development and society, just as important as anything that happened in the 60’s or 70’s and the difference between the people who will be left behind and the people who will be participating (remember the curve) will be thick.

Here’s a story to illustrate what I’m talking about: I was standing next to an older man at a retail store and he was telling me “I’m too old to learn new things. I can barely operate a flip phone.” I asked him “How old are you?” He said “I’m 58 years old.”

Confusion, disengagement and dismissal are luxuries that we won’t have time for 40-50 years from now, much less now. For a person who’s not technically sharp, there has never been a better time to be engaged and to get educated than now.

What are some tools that you feel people should know as they look for professional careers?

Know how to navigate multiple social media platforms (or at least talk about them) and know how they can interface with the business you are aiming at.

Know how to be an entrepreneur and actively practice building an idea, a platform or a product that will protect you, create connection, relationship and revenue and allow you to pick yourself when the economy tanks again or you are “downsized” by either a robot or automation or globalization.

Know how to navigate the tools of the future, including mobile technology and wearable techs.

Do you feel social media will change people’s day to day interactions?

Yes. It already has. And if it hasn’t hit your friend circle yet, it will. Even the laggards and late adopters in the government are going to be impacted in their day-to-day interactions by social media.

Think about it: How often during the week do you get up and check Facebook, Twitter or whatever your favorite blog is? How often do you listen to a podcast or read a blog or get a personalized email and then tell someone about it? How often do you “share” a good song from Pandora or Spotify?

Do you think becoming depended on a social media site is a good thing?

I think that “becoming dependent” is neither good nor bad.

However, I think that taking time away, unplugging and living a disciplined life that allows for being around family, friends, other activities, etc., will keep you balanced and a person who will remain engaging, funny and interesting.

For me, I have “date night” with my wife and I try to always have dinner with my kids with no phones or electronics at the table as a family. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for how we (and I) try to maintain balance. I also try to read at least four or five books a month that aren’t e-books or downloaded on my electronic device. It helps to remember that content wasn’t always on a screen.

-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/

Know Your Role…

The traditional definition of being a “creative” is dead.

Professionals and passionates in fields from nonprofit fundraising to sports celebrity, now describe themselves as being “creative.”

Being a “creative” has been co-opted by tech innovators and entrepreneurs.

The term has gradually transformed in meaning from defining those who toil at creating a sculpture, a painting, a drawing or a photograph to encompass anyone who is moderately skilled at being an outlier at what they are doing.

Marketers call themselves “creatives.” So do corporate executives.

Entertainers describe themselves as “creative” and even the RedBull Flutaug participants describe themselves as being a “creative” force for daring to do the impossible.

Well.

We might have made up that last part…

As a firm whose owner and founder has a background in the fine arts and who developed a former practice that involved design, color, line texture, emotional impact, subtlety and message, we wonder, here at Human Services Consulting and Training, how long will it take for everyone to describe themselves—and the work that they do—as “creative?”

We aren’t wondering to pick a fight or out of a pique, but instead are focused on a reality: In a world that is increasingly tolerant, supportive and mindful of the great impact of “the weird” (which is what being a “creative” used to be all about) where is the room for those who are in conflict with the “creative?”

What happens when the person who doesn’t view their role in an organization as being “creative” (but instead views it as being “just something I ‘do’ from 8-4 or 9-5 to pay my rent”) gets into a disagreement with those who view EVERY role as having the potential to be “creative?”

This is an expanded version of our article (link here) about who will hire the jerks and the bullies in a world where “the weird” is tolerable and the people who seek to limit or hold it back are socially (and sometimes legally) sanctioned.

How do you empower those who do not believe that their actions and lives have a drop of possibility of being “creative” in an organization, a society or a culture and give them the tools to describe themselves, their roles and their lives as “creative?”

-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 page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Guest Blogger Ruth Gray: The Bigger Picture

In general, when we think about creative people, we often do not think about conflict.

We sometimes assume that emotions in an artist are expressed through whatever medium they have chosen, and to a certain degree this may be true. However, conflict comes to the artist and creative as surely as it does to the executive and team leader.

The fine artist Ruth Gray of Ruth Gray Images: Anything But Grey–has been among our followers via Twitter for the entire time that we have been building Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT).

Her studio, Ruth Gray Images out of Derbyshire, United Kingdom (http://ruthgrayimages.net/) focuses on landscape painting influenced by the landscapes of the United Kingdom as well as Australia.

We here at HSCT have a fondness for artists (after all, our principal conflict consultant, Jesan Sorrells has a background in printmaking and drawing) and we believe in a creative, collaborative approach to the conflicts in life.

Please welcome our guest blogger, Ruth Gray.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

Waiting for the Bus Market Place Ripley

My name is Ruth Gray I am a fine artist I have been painting for over ten years professionally and like any job, for being an artist is a job, I have to interact with many other businesses and contacts before I make that magical sale! Conflict is something you can encounter everyday as an artist and my way of dealing with conflict is to always think of the ‘bigger picture.’

The ‘bigger picture’ that I refer is the length you would like your career to be whether you are an artist like me trying to sell pictures or a newly set up retail business. You have to decide how you will handle each conflict.

For example if a rival artist in your locality decides to change their modus operandi to be similar to yours and you feel it could have a knock on effect to your sales margins do you bad mouth that artist or think of ways of complimenting each other and collaborating?

I know which I would do! Collaboration brings many more opportunities for future projects and opens doors you previously had no idea about how to unlock. I am part of a few art associations and work alongside other artists at events and exhibitions and each decision I make is a big picture decision always thinking carefully about sharing and giving rather than taking and gaining.

Projects currently:

Ruth Gray Images Fine Art Landscapes – Anything But Grey.

Flourish Exhibition airarts aid to wellbeing Royal Derby Hospital: Now until Feb 2014.

http://airarts.net/2013/09/19/flourish-exhibitions-launch-thursday-26th-september/

The Ripley Rattlers Exhibition: DH Lawrence Museum June 2014.

http://ruthgrayimages.net/gallery_570722.html

Links:

http://ruthgrayimages.net/

http://about.me/ruthgray

http://ruth-gray.artistwebsites.com/

http://facebook.com/Ruthggray

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/ruth-gray/1b/472/a17