How Do You Design a System?

Typically a consultant, or mediator, is called.

More likely than not after she’s answered some critical questions http://bit.ly/17Eb6icthat are integral to her success with her client’s conflict issues.

She walks into the organization and meets with the upper management. Sometimes the C-Level folks, but usually they don’t get in on the act until later.

She listens and takes notes, asks important questions and looks for opportunities to generate a positive outcome.

She prepares a report, usually only a few pages in length, outlining the primary conflicts and players in an organization, the nature of the culture of the organization and possible solutions that could be generated.

She floats the paperwork, quotes a price for continuing, and then waits…

And waits…

And waits some more…

Eventually, the upper management calls her back and, if another project isn’t taking too much of her valuable time, she goes back to the organization and gets to work.

At this point it would be convenient and effective to talk to the employees—from the janitor’s closet to the executive suite—about the issues, the conflicts and the cultures present in the organization.

However, this does not always happen and without the support of the entire organizational structure, typically the corporate executive folks in all of the divisions, from human resources to finance, good cultural design changes cannot occur.

Typically, a consultant will work most closely with the legal folks and the human resources division and will never see anyone from any other part of the structure.

Top-down conflict resolution systems with established internal features try to be swift, impartial, fair, confidential, simple and above all inexpensive.

But when was the last time that a top-down solution to a statutory (or non-statutory) organizational conflict worked to the satisfaction of all of those involved?

Then, typically, a consultant, or mediator, is called…

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

Cui Bono? Who Benefits From Systems Design

Businesses like human resource departments.
Businesses like lawyers and law firms.
Businesses like profits and positive media attention.
Businesses don’t like bad press.
Businesses don’t like lawsuits.
Businesses don’t like regulations, changes or business environment uncertainty.

So, why don’t more businesses have a system, or systems, in place to effectively resolve conflict?

Firing somebody is not always an optimal solution.

Demoting somebody does not solve a problem.

Ignoring and whitewashing issues does not decrease media attention or focus. In fact, it may actually increase the attention.

In a world where everyone is increasingly connected and “on” almost all of the time, it’s more profitable in the long term for a culture to be developed in an organization that allows for conflict—and conflict based issues—to be resolved, rather than ignored, paid-off or hushed up.

But how can businesses get there, from where they are now?

Systems design is the linchpin to developing a coherent and integrated overall organizational culture that can build healthy teams, increase productivity and employee engagement, and increase profits and revenues in the long term.

Culture matters, and in large or small organizations, where multiple people come from multiple backgrounds, representing multiple cultures, intercultural communication can only happen effectively, when an organizational culture exists that promotes openness, honesty and healthy conflict.

Workplace bullying, demotions, loss of productivity, lack of effective forward motion, these are all symptoms of a greater disease. And in a world of brand based, connective media, symptoms can spread a disease faster than any inoculations can stop it.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

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

On Liberty, Wikileaks and Sullen Paranoia

“We in this country, in this generation, are — by destiny rather than choice — the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.” John F. Kennedy
In America, we pride ourselves on freedom, first amendment rights and the ability to have extensive privacy protection.

Yet, Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Big Data and other intersections between the government and corporations sharing information to either get us to buy more, spend more, or to just watch us more, has put to lie some of these freedoms.

Enough Americans still see this country as the “Home of the Brave,” but less and less so over the last few years.

However, there is nothing that couldn’t be recaptured about the freedom to be left alone, inherent in our American freedoms, by replacing a few legislative leaders and by rethinking how we look at the cultural and social implications of privacy.

Two articles, one from Jules Polonetsky and one from Peggy Noonan make the point that, while personal-public behavior may change in the short-term, due to surveillance and monitoring, in the long term, such efforts serve to create a nation of, in essence, sullen, paranoid, people: Angry and pessimistic at being watched constantly, but unable to stop it and believing that it is everywhere.

The balance between the result of every click, search and posting being held against me and government and corporations being able to interrupt me constantly with marketing and appeals to buy or support more and more stuff, has not been worked out fully in the American public sphere yet.

Fortunately for all of us, the American public will figure out how to resolve the tensions in this conflict, long before the laggards and late-majority in governments—local, state and federal—will.

-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/

On Getting Skilled Art for Free

“Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.”

― Seth Godin

Volunteering is a great thing.

Volunteers built the prohibition movement and the feminist movement that sprang out of it.

Volunteerism has driven the establishment of non-profit organizations and associations that perform good deeds every day in this country.

Volunteers marched on Washington and had dogs and hoses turned on them to break Jim Crow.

In the interests of full disclosure, the principal consultant here at HSCT volunteers for two great local organizations in the Southern Tier.

But, at a certain point, for certain things, no one wants a volunteer to show up.

No one wants their case taken by a volunteer lawyer, though local Legal Aid societies do tremendous work for people who cannot afford legal protection in any other context.

No one wants a building constructed by a volunteer architect, engineer, or construction worker. Oh sure, a couple of college kids showing up to build a Habitat for Humanity house is fine, but having them design the build is another thing altogether.

No one wants a volunteer psychiatrist prescribing psychotropic drugs or recommending therapies for severe mental health issues.

We hire professionals in all of these areas.

So, the core question becomes: Why do organizations, businesses, associations and individuals continue to recommend, advise and, in some cases demand, that the only way to successfully resolve a conflict is to “get a volunteer mediator?”

The mediation process is at least as intense and involved as the legal process, the mental health process, the building and design process or the surgical process.

Mediation is about reaching inside the most intimate process a person can go through—a conflict—and helping guide two people toward whatever resolution they desire to get to.

This is Art. Worthy to be paid for.

So, why are there over 20,000 volunteers in this country alone, doing work that—if it were in another field—would be highly paid for?

Is it because everybody knows how to resolve conflict?

Is it because no one needs conflicts resolved?

Is it because people and organizations don’t know that mediation and conflict resolution exists?

We here at HSCT postulate that the reason there are a plethora of volunteers in the field of mediation is for two reasons:

Too many people think that they can mediate a conflict. This is best summed up in the phrase “Well, how hard could mediation be,” or “Can’t Judy in HR do it? She’s pretty good at resolving conflicts?”

Which leads into the second reason: The skills of a professional mediator, active listening, finding a third way, developing a negotiated agreement, etc., etc., are seen more as being a subsets of other professional skills and not as true artistic skills to be learned and practiced—and paid for—on a regular basis.

We here at HSCT believe that the combination of skills, training, education, experiences, and—well, life—is worth paying a pretty penny for. And we believe that more organizations, institutions, associations, corporations, businesses—and even governments—would do well to pay a salary to either a consultant with the specific mediation skills to help them. Or, create positions that will allow individuals to facilitate the development of the mediation field, both now and in the future.

And, mediation as a field should begin to make the argument—as fast as is humanly possible—that the skills of mediation are worth paying for. Before too many more graduates from Masters and Doctoral programs are compelled to volunteer to practice their art, and work full-time doing something else to feed their families.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

“Like” the https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTrainingpage on Facebook

Follow our Principal Consultant, Jesan Sorrells, on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

Connect with HSCT on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Email HSCT questions or comments at: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

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

On Leads, Or How to Sell What Clients and Organizations Don’t Think They Need

No one needs help resolving conflicts.

People need help communicating. People need help leading and figuring out leadership. People need help managing other people. People need help with figuring out “how to talk to annoying Aunt Janet and Uncle Mike.”

But no one needs help resolving conflicts.

When put on the spot, 9 times out of 10, people will be unable to identify a conflict they are having in their life, that is impacting them at a level where they may need conflict engagement skills services.

However, the person standing next to them—wife, husband, friend, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew—will be able to zero in on where the person is deficient in their approach to a conflict.

But, it’s not the person standing next to the person who can’t think of a conflict they need help with that’s the problem: The problem is that the dysfunction of unresolved conflicts is so normalized that it’s no longer seen as a problem.

Case in point:

Him: “So, what’s your business?”

Me: “I’m a professional conflict engagement consultant. I help small businesses, higher education organizations and churches engage with the conflicts in their lives.”

Him: “So, can I get your card?”

Me: “Sure.”

Him: “So, I guess I would bring you in say if I had problems managing the 40 or so staff members that work for me?”

Me: “That’s precisely where I would be the most help for you.”

Wife: “Hey!” “He could help you out with the argument you had with your daughter this morning!”

Him: “What am I gonna do, huh!? She’s gotta come into work at least once a week. I understand that she’s got an issue, but c’mon already!”

They both laugh. The wife rolls her eyes. They walk back into the restaurant.

No one needs conflict resolved in their lives. Until they actually do.

-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/

[Advice] Why Go to College: For the Rest of Us

Since the economic collapse of 2008, there have been many articles and blogs written about the importance (or lack of importance) of attending higher education for young people.

This talk has taken place amid a backdrop of ever rising tuition costs, zero wage increases, artificially suppressed inflation, a boatload of student loan debt burdening the 18-22 year old cohort and the dim post-graduation employment prospects where an average job search takes 6-9 months.

Hope and change indeed.

All of these writers, bloggers and opinionaters on both sides of the debate have one thing in common: They all hail from middle to upper middle class households and backgrounds, where at least one parent (and in many cases both parents) have already attended college.

In particular, they hail from backgrounds where they grew up with the suburban (and in some cases ex-burban) comfort that at least if they graduated from an overpriced college with an undervalued education and an economically meaningless degree, that somehow, someway, it would all work out in the end.

Now, in principle, we here at HSCT have no problem with people carrying such assumptions and even acting on them in the real world.

We have no problem with people writing long, effusive, opinion pieces on the lack of efficacy of a college education and worrying about the debt attached to obtaining it, in the context of a world where student loan debt cannot be disgorged through a bankruptcy process.

We also have no problem with questioning why it is important for people to have college degrees and even the tenuous link between a college degree and economic success based in secure post-graduate employment.

Make no mistake, yes our background is in higher education, but we would be blind and foolish if we did not admit that there are real structural problems and cracks in the mighty edifice constructed since post-World War II.

We get off the train though, when we think about the “please take the college years and go off to ‘find yourself’” type advice, being given to minority high school students.

We have a problem when very well meaning, successful, wealthy people, who did not attain degrees, but attained a measure of success, stand in front of diverse audiences and make the audacious claim that can be summed up as “we didn’t go so you don’t have to either.”

We’re sorry, but too many folks in those diverse audiences come with backgrounds from racial minority groups in this country that have experienced systemic, institutionalized, historical racism. And some of those students’ backgrounds are from communities still experiencing the results of such racism, racialism and racial prejudice. Thus, some of the worst advice that they–as well as their younger brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews–can possibly hear is “don’t attend college, because it’s too expensive, too much student loan burden will be upon you at graduation, etc., etc.”

This is not a statement based in social justice, social re-engineering or any desire for any form of social gerrymandering.

This statement comes out of a recognition that more African-American males are in jail in this country than even have completed high school.

This statement comes out of a recognition that Hispanic, Asian and Eastern European populations have traditionally valued education as the only way to advance in America.

This statement comes out of the recognition that the only way to open the doors and unlock opportunities if you are not from an upper class or even a middle class structure, is through the hard work of education, monetary sacrifice, and doing the right thing for the most people possible.

Of course, when there have been three to four generations of racial, ethnic and class minorities that have attained college education in America, we will be the first to write all about how going to college is a fool’s bargain.

We promise.

-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/

Acts 4:13

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the star ship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”–William Shatner

How many times in your life does exhortation come to “go boldly,” into anywhere?

Wait.

Here’s a better question: When was the last time anyone encouraged you to act boldly?

Well, split infinitives aside, we’d like to assert, here on the HSCT blog, that boldness is the only way to go in a world defined by timidity, false pride, arrogance, irrationality and impulsive behaviors. And the conflicts that go along with all of those afflictions.

However, don’t believe us. Take a look at the definition of the word, “bold.”

Bold (adj)

fearless and adventurous: willing and eager to face danger or adventure with a sense of confidence and fearlessness
requiring or showing daring: requiring or showing fearlessness, daring, and often originality
impudent or presumptuous: lacking in modesty or impolitely assertive.

All of those definitions are excellent, but the one for the purposes of our assertion in this blog post is the one most defined by the Old Russian proverb to “pray to God, but row for the shore.”

Acting boldly is something that requires a certain amount of fearlessness, courage and tenacity. All traits that we talked about last week in this space.

But we wonder, what are the gifts of boldness? What are those virtues that we attain from jumping headlong into a situation and facing a difficulty head on?

Some of them include:

Meekness
Humility
Courage
Curiosity
Healing
Patience
Resolution
Perseverance
Faith
Mercy
Grace

All of these are critical to have in the pursuit of peace, but the most critical one is the fact that boldness takes us across oceans of fear, blackness and self-doubt.

Boldness took human beings across the ocean and all the way to the Moon and back.

Timidity and fear keep us huddled at home, behind the skirts of Mother Earth, wondering who will save us from ourselves, constantly looking up for a savior instead of doing the hard work to bring out the Savior already in us.

Acting, responding and living with boldness is the opposite of living with fear.

And it gets us as far as Gene Roddenberry could have ever imagined–and then catapults us even further.

Live boldly.

-Peace Be With You All-

Big Data, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Federal Data Gathering Centers

“Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth. Tell no lie. Everything you think, do and say is in the pill you took today.”–Zager and Evans

There is a direct line between the rise of GMO’s, the enthusiasm with which “Big Data” is being adopted, the coming of Google glasses and other wearables, the prevalence of Federal Government “data centers” (7,000 at last count) and the ubiquitousness of cameras on stoplights, street corners, and in city parks.

This line overlaps with mobile device tracking, police and the NSA monitoring your cell phone calls and Internet searches, and the coming of “the Internet of Everything.”

This line is followed ever so casually, by the prevalence of laws and policies designed to provide a benefit (i.e. the Affordable Health Care Act, among others), but that tangentially allow larger and larger private and public bureaucracies to burrow deeper and deeper into personal behavior choices that we make on an individual and societal basis.

The intersections all meet at a point of behavior monitoring, or “nudging,” of private individuals into buying acceptable products, acting in acceptable ways and making sure that everybody else does the same.

In the arena of conflict resolution and peace building, we here at HSCT find the idea of behavior management or behavior monitoring by large, faceless, entities to be–well, “creepy” (as the kids are wont to say as they Tweet out every instance of their lives looking for connections)–and authoritarian.

Dare we say, all of this progress smacks of Orwellianism.

Now, before we are accused of wearing tinfoil hats and searching the skies for black helicopters, we have an “early adopter” curve for you to make our next point.

Now, early adopters are the people who will buy the I-phone when it’s brand new and will probably buy the first pair of Google glasses at $200 a piece.Your folks in the middle–the early and late majority– are most of us. They will buy a smart phone from Wal-mart two years from now and only because their friends all have one, so “why not?”

Your third group is at the end of the curve. The laggards are the people we all know who still have VCR’s and will never buy Google Glasses because they’re either paranoid about Big Brother, or they just don’t care.

The anti-GMO people…

The anti-CCTV camera people…

The ACLU…

The guy who drives around town distributing a mimeographed, weekly paper, out of the back of his car which is full of garbage and may or may not have an animal in the back.

These are your laggards.

Moreover, it is the behavior, choices and conflicts that this group of people present, that confounds, distorts and affects bureaucratic “thinking” and policymaking, and leads to more and more talk of “the Internet of Everything.”

Now, mugging people of their autonomy, independence and free will and limiting choices, stands in opposition to peace, in our opinion.

The right NOT to participate is the most sacred right in the Constitution.

This sacred right, to go off on one’s own, creates conflicts with other individuals and societies.

However, peace is NOT the absence of conflict.

The false promise of all of these technologies is that by everyone, everywhere, at all time, having their behavior, choices, ideas, attitudes, conversations and thoughts, confirmed, conformed, reformed, and reconstituted, for the benefit of the lowest bidder; that somehow, that act of “tamping down” the unruly nails, will ultimately lead to some sort of man made Utopia.

That is NOT peace.

That is TYRANNY.

Let us all become vigilant watchmen on the walls for peace.

-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/

[Advice] On Grit

“I hear that he is a man with true GRIT.” – Mattie Ross, True Grit, 1969

Grit doesn’t get talked a lot about in a society that prizes the easy and the compromising.

It is tough to be uncompromising in such a societal structure.

However, to paraphrase from the film Braveheart, it is easy to admire uncompromising men, without actually doing the hard work of joining them in their pursuit of doing the hard thing.

The definition of grit is clear:

Sand, gravel
A hard sharp granule (as of sand); also :material (as many abrasives) composed of such granules
Any of several sandstones the structure of a stone that adapts it to grinding
The size of abrasive particles usually expressed as their mesh
Firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger
Capitalized: a Liberal in Canadian politics

The fourth definition is the clearest one for our purposes here.

Grit has come to the forefront in the last few years as the idea of inherent talent has begun to take a beating from the likes of evolutionary biologists and post-post-modern philosophers.

In its clearest form, grit becomes a holdover from a simpler time, when talent was not as valued in the Western world. Instead, traits such as perseverance, persistence, courage and spirit were once lauded as virtues.

As the 20th century rolled on by, and as we entered the vaunted “Atomic Age,” grit became valued less and less.

And, with the rise in the latter part of the 20th century, of computing, analytics, the Internet, and other faster and faster methods of accomplishing what used to be slow, and grinding (like an abrasive piece of…well…gravel) grit was less and less talked considered as an important character trait.

But, my how the worm turns: As the holes in our education system have become more and more exposed in the opening years of the new Millennium, grit has made a comeback–becoming a touchstone for encouraging children to develop perseverance, resilience, persistence and to avoid quitting early.

But grit is still scary. Deep in our heart of hearts, we would rather succeed through ease of talent versus the scary, hard thing of work, taking hits and developing a thick skin.

The story we consistently tell ourselves about resiliency, persistence and grit is one of no fun, delayed glory and little riches.

In a world of instant connections and instant gratification, who wouldn’t quit and avoid conflicts in their lives if that were the alternative?

But maybe, that’s the only alternative that matters. Maybe the only alternative is to pick a position, be uncompromising, and grind it out.

Maybe the only alternative is to be a person with true grit.

-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/

On Quitting

What makes people quit?

Now, this question comes directly out of several experiences that we have had over the last few months and weeks that have lead us to question the need for our business, the efficacy of our business model and what it all means.

However, every time we have discussed these thoughts, feelings, and emotions with others, the admonition of “Just don’t quit,” keeps coming back to us over and over again.

The majority of this support and tacit encouragement comes from close friends, some family members and people in the overall community who recognize the value of what we do.

But that leads us back to the question: What makes people quit?

Here are some statistics:

In the United States alone, the divorce rate among first marriages is 3.6 per 1,000 and among second marriages it is even higher.
A 1998 study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics also makes the pessimistic case – that 80% of small businesses survive their first year, 65% survive their second year and 55% survive their third year.
According to the BBC, US researchers found people typically lose between 5% and 10% of their weight during the first six months of a diet. But the review of 31 previous studies, by the University of California, said up to two-thirds put more weight on than they had lost within five years.

So in some of the most important areas of our lives (health status, relationships, financial decisions), where we make momentous decisions, upend everything sometimes, we then turn around and we quit continuously and neverendingly.

But WHY?

Is the commitment to hard?
Is the time to put in too great?
Is the social approbation to heavy?

Or, are we all just lazy?

Is there a time to quit? Probably not the time that Byrds were talking about in their apocryphal song, but nevertheless, is there?

In the military, there is an idea known as a “strategic retreat,” which is a euphemism for what civilians would call a retreat, a failure or just quitting.

And yet, we abhor cowardice, we hate “quitters” and we encourage people to persist, have grit, “grind it out,” and all the other things that we say, while we simultaneously think: “Boy, I would’ve quit THAT long ago.”

Maybe the question isn’t why do we quit relationships, military strategies, business efforts, ideas, or each other; but, maybe the question is instead:

Why do we persist?