HIT Piece 3.22.2016

Three benefits accrue to you (or me, or anybody else) when you show up and guest lecture at a college or high school class.

Prestige—I get to show up and talk with (or to) people who are there to hear knowledge and already mentally prepped with the idea that I’m the “expert.” I might not be the “expert” and I might not set myself up as the “expert” but the person (typically the instructor) introducing me to the class has more clout than I do. They set the table and they follow-up.

Accountability—I’m always accountable to other people for everything that I say, that I do, and that I write. But when I guest lecture, there’s almost no feeling of immediate accountability. Which means I have a choice to be accountable, or to be not accountable. Being accountable—and choosing to follow-up and answer questions from participants either in person or via email later—is the prize that participants get when they listen to me ramble on for an hour.

Responsibility—There’s always a measure of responsibility for the outcomes of any speech that accrue to the sender and the receiver. The receiver has a responsibility to actually do something with the information that they receive. But, since there’s rarely any penalty for not taking action (or at least, no immediate penalty) the intrinsic motivation to act must be energized by the sender of the message. The sender’s responsibility is two-fold: To be empathetic and accountable, and to be extrinsically and intrinsically motivating to the attendees.

The benefits may not be apparent immediately to you the guest lecturer, but they are there.

-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/

[Strategy] Selling for the Peace Builder I

The sales process for a peace builder in the open market is wrapped up with impressions, ideas, concepts, and intuition that the peacebuilder has in their head about every sales film, sales call, and selling situation they’ve ever been involved with.

But, in order to be successful in the open market, where noise and multiple messages reign, the peacebuilder must become comfortable with establishing their value in the market early—which is the first step in starting the sales process. The struggle for the savvy peace builder is how to find clients who will pay (marketing) and then how to “close” them ethically (sales). The only way for the peace builder to sell ethically is to build a fulcrum (from Seth Godin and his 2006 book Free Prize Inside) and to become a champion for peace. Through such a process, the peacebuilder becomes the “free prize” inside the value they add to the client.

All sales are relational in nature, but, in order to “sell” and “close” on the promise of peacebuilding for clients in conflict, the peace builder must become a champion of peace. This requires a changing in the thinking of the peace builder around the sales process.

The second step after marketing then becomes, not the “ask,” but the process of building a fulcrum to demonstrate value and become a champion, and then leveraging that value and championing to grow the revenues of relationship, trust, and money.

The practical steps in building a sales fulcrum involve:

Determining if the customer you’re selling to as a peace builder thinks the work of building peace is worth doing.
Determining if the customer you’re selling to as a peace builder thinks that you are the person to build that peace.
Determining if the customer you’re selling to as a peace builder believes that the outcomes of work of building peace are actually an added benefit to them, their organization, or their lives.

[Strategy] Selling for the Peace Builder I

By definition, all of these practical steps are hard for the peace builder to answer, because they are based in assumptions, ideas, and a worldview that is unproveable, unknowable, and unquantifiable, until after the work of building peace is already in progress—or already completed.

This is why building the fulcrum should be front and center of any peace builder’s sales process. Too many peace builders get caught up in the easy part (creating the product (i.e. early, mid, or late stage intervention) that the client in conflict can use); or get focused on talking about the unpleasant part (entering structures (i.e. families, companies, schools) from the outside w/no leverage or trust to build a fulcrum); while avoiding the hard part entirely (building a fulcrum in spite of rejection, hopelessness, or the inability of clients to close).

All of peace building, from negotiation to mediation and every intervention at every stage in between, is built on needing other people to act.

When you need other people, you must leverage them.

What they think matters.

What they think about you matters.

What they think about peace and peace building matters.

-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 Things That Are Unpleasant

There are things that are hard, things that are easy, and things that are unpleasant.

This is similar to the differences between events that are difficulties, events that are confrontational, and events that are conflicts.

The things that are easy are the ones that don’t require a whole lot of hard work, that we enjoy, that make us feel good, and that make other people feel good. The things that are hard are the exact opposite: these are the things that require a lot of hard work, that we don’t enjoy, that don’t make us feel good, and that usually make other people feel “not good” as well.

The things that are unpleasant are things that might be difficult, but are often necessary to do, in order for another, easy thing, to happen. The things that are unpleasant generally involve difficulty, confrontation, and sometimes conflicts with other people. The things that are unpleasant are often unpredictable (you don’t know what the other person is going to do) and we often avoid the unpleasant things, in favor of doing the things that get us the dopamine hit.

The things that are unpleasant are often confused with things that are hard: Engaging with a new conflict engagement skill, applying new knowledge, and even establishing a healthy exercise routine may be unpleasant; but too often, we use the term “hard” to describe breaking a pattern that was pleasant for us in the past, but is untenable now in the face of current events.

The things that are unpleasant and the things that are hard, should be front-loaded in any situation, before focusing on the things that are easy, or else we run the risk of never doing those things at all.

-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/

[Strategy] My 6 Biggest Mistakes…pt.2

I had turned back to the computer and was working again, when the ramifications of the first three of my six biggest mistakes came down upon me like a whirlwind.

Or, at least that’s what it felt like.

They came in a group (my Grandmother and my martial arts instructor years ago used to warn me that was how they always come at you) and they were angry. They started yelling at me across the lobby of the big building, and fortunately, since it was late at night, I didn’t attempt to meet them halfway, to exit the safety of the desk area, or to engage them in any way. I watched them walk over quickly, not quite understanding what I was about to experience.

That was my fourth mistake.

I stood up and took a power stance. I spread my legs (they could only see me from the waist up) and crossed my arms as they approached. Then I heard the yelling:

“Why did you come inside and talk to us that way!?”

“What were you talking about in there!?”

“There were other people in that room making noise hours ago and you didn’t come in then!!!”

I started to respond—not thinking at all—as they approached, yelling. Then, both they and I realized something at the same time: We (the two men and the two women and I) both shared the same skin color. I was dressed in the assigned outfit from the company though. And they were dressed—well—however…

“I can only address what I’m actually told about,” I said as they approached. “I was told a few minutes ago that there was a disturbance going on in the room, and the person wanted me to address it. The person also indicated that you were in the general area and had been making noise all night.”

By this time, the inside of my head felt like it was on fire. I was watching their body language, trying to determine if they were going to really be a REAL problem (i.e. an “I gotta call the cops” problem”) or if they were gonna be a SOLVEABLE problem (i.e. an “’I gotta call my manager in the middle of the night’” problem.) Well, with that statement they already made a determination about me, and they proceeded to escalate.

The two men immediately yelled out “Oh! This Uncle Tom is gonna do what the white people say! C’mon (and he used the word you’re thinking of here) get with the program!!!”

Now, a person like me, who does what I do, and who grew up the way that I grew up, has heard this term before. But, my internal response was to flash like a fire. And once the inferno began raging inside me, the adrenaline started, my pupils dilated and I was ready to fight. And the two men and both the women, sensed it. One of the men immediately started jumping up and down with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, staring me dead in the face, egging me on.

This was my fifth mistake.

And we hadn’t even approached addressing the topic at hand.

Everything began to slow down, from my point of view. And everything became sharply clear.

I visualized my options, and in turn, the outcomes of exercising those options:

Fight and lose my job, possibly my freedom, and probably my life, because I had no idea if the men (or the women) were armed.

Or, call the cops or my manager and “firefight” until they showed up.

Or, get them out of the building as quickly as possible and not worry about pride, or personal offence.

I had those three clear thoughts, and even as I laid out the options for myself in my head, I chose the last one. At the time I was working at that place, the third option was our way of “de-escalating” a customer. But you weren’t supposed to tell the customer you were doing that. I threw that policy out the window when I turned to them, raised my voice, and said “I guess I’ll have to get you a refund on your tickets and your food then. And I’ll get you passes for the next time you come back.”

My heart is pounding, the inside of my head feels like jelly, and as I made my sixth mistake, I looked at their faces, reading their nonverbal expressions—a mixture of surprise, disappointment, elation, disgust, pride, victory—and I didn’t have a clear thought other than “Turn to the computer and start the process.

As I did, these words—still two octaves too high in the open lobby, began to ring out from the group:

“Oh yeah, YOU go and get us our refund!”

“You ain’t nothing! Who do YOU work for around here!”

“Damn right we’ll get our money back. This entire place is RACIST!”

“You gotta CALL somebody to get me my money!?”

And on.

In reality the entire refund process took about three minutes. Find the file on the computer, print the documents, walk to the printer, put the documents on the counter in front of the desk, have them sign, collect the passes, give them the passes, watch them walk out of the building.

It felt like it took ten years.

As they walked out, triumphantly waving their free passes and their refunds above their heads, they cried out “We’re NEVER coming back here! We’re going to Regal!!!”

I didn’t care. I sat back down in the chair in my office, and as the adrenaline left my body, and the incident passed, I trembled and shook. I was relieved t have them out of the building, with no police, or managerial, involvement.

Thinking back on the incident, there were many things at play in the confrontation: perceptions, emotions, ideas, thoughts, motivations, goals, history, biological responses, and even cultural issues. All of which, if handled differently would have put me (and them) in a different place.

As it is, our lives are only entwined in the story that I tell. A story they have probably long forgotten. And a story, now here for you all to read.

The Bible tells us that knowing the right thing to do –in thought, in word, and in deed—and then refusing to do it (or choosing to do something different) is sin. The secular world tells us that sin is just a poor environment, the result of bad parenting, or just a set of bad decisions.

But at every step in making my six biggest mistakes, I was triggered in a conflict cycle toward another reaction, by other people who were in relationship with me, and also triggered in that moment, by my responses and reactions. The conflict cycle is not sinful. The conflict cycle is not just a product of environments. The conflict cycle—just like our lives—is a complex, gossamer – like, combination of ourselves, our world, and our choices.

And breaking all of that apart, and learning from it, so we don’t repeat the mistakes in our lives, is a critical process for us to grow and change.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] My 6 Biggest Mistakes…pt. 1

The first mistake I made was not verifying the claim.

The second mistake I made was walking in the room.

The third mistake I made was confronting inappropriately.

When the customer came and got me, I was busy doing another task and I was switching back and forth. With the small gaps in between the thoughts and the switching. The customer who came and got me said “There’s been disruptions all evening from these people and you and your staff haven’t done anything about it.”

And then, the customer stared at me.

Nonverbal communication drove a lot of this, and with one look, I was prodded into action. But, instead of verifying the claim of disruption (my first mistake) I instead reacted and sprang into action. I hustled down the long hall, into the dark room, where the light from the images flickered across the faces of the people staring in rapt attention. I walked down a poorly lit aisle (my second mistake) and knelt down in front of the people in the general area where I had been informed that the disturbance was occurring.

I said something to the effect of “I’ve gotten a report about a disturbance in this area. I’d like you to quiet down so that other people can enjoy the show.”

The third mistake was confronting inappropriately.

Then, I turned around and walked out of the dark room, into the light of the hallway. I proceeded to head back to the office, feeling a vague sense of self-satisfaction. I tasked switched back to the work I had been doing before the customer initially approached me, and continued to believe that all was well.

I often tell groups that, even though I am a trainer and conflict engagement professional, and even though I can tell you what the right response is, and even though I can tell you how you should respond and manage other people antiseptically, I’m often confronted with the results of my own poor choices in my own life.

At the time that I made these three mistakes in a row, I had the same education and knowledge level that I do now. At the time that I made these three mistakes in a row, I knew much of the literature on response, reaction, and how to navigate both.

At the time that I made these three mistakes, I knew the path, but I was far away from getting committed to implementing walking the path, 1% better every day.

And then, to compound my problems, I went ahead and made three more mistakes.

-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 3.15.2016

There are two kinds of motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is driven by what you feel on the inside. Much of intrinsic motivation comes from emotions and reasoning. Motivation to accomplish tasks that touches on emotions and reasoning comes in the form of feedback, in a 360 degree fashion. The impact of that feedback creates intrinsic motivation, or it erodes intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is driven by a carrot and stick approach from the outside. Much of extrinsic motivation comes from other people attempting to provide feedback, provide coaching, and to provide encouragement and recognition. Extrinsic motivation is about the impact that other people can have on you and your internal motivation.

Both kinds of motivations are about outcomes, feedback, and meaning and mattering. Both kinds of motivation have motivation behind them and the psychology of motivation is extensive and deep.

For me, however, I’m all in for the intrinsic motivation. Don’t get me wrong: I like pats on the back, “good job” statements, thank yous, and other forms of intrinsic recognition. I’m also all in for the extrinsic motivation. Don’t get me wrong: Money helps pay the bills and move the project along. I like getting swag as much as the next person.

But at the end of the day, my internal motor runs on fuel from Within, rather than on fuel from the World.

Every entrepreneur has to decide what fuel they are running on.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The Candy Coated World 2

Advice based on principles is the chocolate candy missing underneath much of the candy coated knowledge and information on the Internet these days.

Principles aren’t really that compelling though, and talking about them leaves no room for entertainment, spectacle, or fame.

Positions are much more compelling, because they can shift with mores, styles, and trends. Talking about positions is entertaining, but not really relevant.

I keep pressing this point in various ways: Wisdom cannot be distilled into just one blog post, one podcast interview, one live streaming video feed, one impermanent interaction at a time. Wisdom comes from developing relationships, but it seems that our human tendency on the Internet to favor our dessert over our vegetables has begun to creep into our real-time, real-world interactions.

Advice based in principles, relationships, lived experiences, as well as theories and ideas, leads to innovation, progress, and development. But it can all seem like gossamer when your relationships with other people don’t work out like they seem to via your social media platform of choice.

There are ways to accumulate this advice: solitude, mindfulness, focus, respect, deep thinking, writing, and listening without arguing in your head with the person speaking are the tools (in the Frederick Winslow Taylor mode, they are the 22lb shovel) you can use to acquire wisdom.

Style over substance used to be a negative, but that era is long since passed. And in our rush to get to the next innovative hill, we forget the time tested tools, insights, and advice that come from hard-won wisdom.

And we risk being increasingly unfulfilled by a candy-coated shell.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] New Triggers

Emotions then judgment then language.

The old advice no longer holds in addressing the language of conflict. The new advice can best be articulated as “Sticks and stones may break my bones, and words will really hurt me.”

We often focus on the language of conflict, to avoid addressing the structures of emotions that actually drive the language.

Focusing on the language allows us to hide effectively and to avoid doing the courageous work of addressing conflicts at their root.

Focusing on the language allows us to anchor people to positions, using the language of principles, without ever addressing people’s expressed needs.

Focusing on language allows us to continue to rest comfortably on our assumptions, prejudices, biases, and pre-conceived notions about the other party (or parties) without ever doing the hard work of addressing the impact of their needs on us.

Focusing on language allows us to render quick judgment, maintain the shorthand of conflict, and to continue to allow our own emotions to go unexamined, without self-awareness or change.

Make no mistake, words have meanings, they tell stories, set the table for conflict, and can be used as weapons to create problems.

But if we’re going to be successful in a future less and less defined by equanimity and peace, then we’d better get really good at overcoming our thin-slicing, our first impressions, and our reactions to language—and the words ensconced within them.

Otherwise, we face a conflict fueled future of escalation around eggshell sensitivities and trigger warnings.

-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/

[Opinion] The Part of Belief We Don’t Talk About

Belief—insane, determined, focused, irrational belief—is sometimes the difference between a successful entrepreneur and a failed entrepreneur.

Having such belief in the accomplishing of “big, hairy” ideas, is often lauded as the only way forward in order to build projects, scale them, employ people in them, and then sell them to the highest bidder and go off to make trouble elsewhere.

Having such belief is the benchmark of successful professional entrepreneurs who consistently develop “crazy” schemes and seem to have the Midas touch when it comes to developing business ideas in spaces that other people, without such belief, dismiss out of hand.

But belief is a tricky proposition.

It can come from the entrepreneur, or project builder; from their internal drive to impose their vision on the world through personal force of will.

It can come from the world, reinforcing that the imposed vision is indeed a well-accepted one and that it is profitable as well.

Both of these visions of belief are human focused, and when successful, are lauded as being “lucky” both by people who supported the entrepreneur in their vision, and by people who detracted from that vision. Both perspectives on the power of belief can lead to developing myopia on one hand and hubris on the other.

Faith is almost never addressed in the entrepreneurial community, except when it is noted in passing. If insane, irrational, determined, and focused belief is the difference between success and failure for the entrepreneur, then faith—in a power greater than themselves that’s moving through this world and their lives—must be a huge part of that difference.

Faith is too often wrapped up with religious practice, which blinds rational people to the power of relational interactions, the impact of serendipity, the importance of preparation, and the limits of personal, individual power.

Faith is the thing that brings genuine humility to the project builder, because it opens their mind to the reality that while their belief may be the most powerful force they have ever wielded, it is not nearly the most powerful force in the world, operating on their behalf.

More talk about faith as a deep driver for entrepreneurial success—not wrapped in religious language, imagery, and symbolism—would go a long way toward deflating the arrogance, hubris, and endless calls for “hustle” that surround many entrepreneurship conversations, happening in the world today.

-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] On Doing What You’ve Always Done

Intentionality is the watch word in conflict.

If you know how you will respond (rather than react) and you have an understanding of your conflict style (controlling/competing, accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, or compromising) then you can be intentional in how you deal with other people in conflict.

And since conflict is a process of change—even though it feels like a process we’d rather avoid (or define as a disagreement, a fight, or a “difference of opinion”)—we can change out responses and behavior by being intentional.

Supervisors, mangers, and others in positional authority in organizations must do the hard work of deep diving into themselves—and gaining awareness of themselves—before sending employees to training to get awareness.

This is a time consuming proposition that reads like therapy, but in reality is about gaining effectiveness, strengthening ability, and ensuring future success and supervisory outcomes.

But, you do have an alternative choice.

You can always keep intentionally doing what you’ve always done and hope that changes will result.

-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/