[Strategy] Chessboxing Motivation and Morale

Motivation is about individual effort and achievement.

It’s about having internal drive that gets you personally engaged with something (a situation, a person, an interest, or an idea) that animates you. Motivation can be driven from a place of positivity, or it can be driven from a place of negativity, but either way, it’s from inside of you.

Motivation to act can be sparked by other people, but much of the time, motivation has to be driven by what people think about themselves and their place in the world. A lot this is driven by where individuals believe that their control comes from. Some people believe that other people and situations control them. Some people believe that they make their own decisions and that other people and situations have little to no impact on them.

Morale is about team efforts and team achievement.

It’s about having multiple motivations working together and “clicking” with each other. Teams go through cycles of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Morale is about how all their motivations work together. This is where conflicts arise. This is where friction happens when one person’s locus of control (and personal focus) doesn’t match another person’s locus of control (and their personal focus) on the team.

Morale is something that exists—or it doesn’t. We use terms such as “cultural fit” or “alignment” to describe the pursuit of morale. We often focus so much on the tactics and hacks to shortcut the only true way to build morale: Building relationships.

But building relationships is not sexy. It’s not tactical, or strategic. Building relationships is about focusing on one-person at a time, discovering their deep motivations, and leveraging those motivations for the good of overall team morale. Building relationships is about knowing when to increase tension, when to put in some slack, and when to let go.

If you are looking for the next big idea to build morale on your team, or in your organization, start with asking three questions:

What do we do here? Not what do we produce here, or what do think we do here, or what does the market say that we do here. But what is it that we actually do here? This core question will take you months to get the answer to.
Why should what we do here be important to anybody else, other than us? This question is not answered by the typical bromides of “we are for everyone.” No organization, no product, no personality, no philosophy, no idea, no service is for “everyone.” If you can answer this question honestly then you can go about the painful—but revelatory—process of architecting who’s on your team—and who isn’t.
Who do we want on our team? Too many organizations (from start-ups to established Fortune 1,000 Companies) begin with this question, get stuck on the second one, and never ask the first. Trying to architect backward from this question to build a team is like trying to unbirth a baby. It doesn’t work. This is the least interesting and relevant question, because if you answer the first two honestly, then this last one becomes almost an afterthought.

Conflicts, disagreements, and “differences of opinion” will happen between passionate people. However, there is no reason to consider those realities in the box of “poor” or “low” morale. The morale comes after the motivation, which comes after the architecting.

-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] Building an Arbitrage Machine for Entrepreneurship

In financial markets, in gambling, and even in entrepreneurship, there are two skills that are critical for success: making small bets consistently through developing a model (buying) and breaking an old model (selling), and building an anti-fragile machine that can withstand the shock of either of those small bets failing.

Arbitrage is the process of hedging bets (through the purchase and the sale of an asset) so that, no matter how much is spent, the buyer/seller can always either come out ahead, slightly behind (not enough to be far back, but enough to catch up), or slightly ahead (building a continuous lead). Hedge fund managers and stock traders with fancy algorithms understand arbitrage. So do insurance agents, financial advisors, professional gamblers, and even entrepreneurs.

Many people though, make bad large bets (thus financial collapses and the development of ‘flash’ trading via fancy computer programs) and take massive losses with little to no gains. This is due primarily to ego driven betting that has nothing to do with market conditions, and everything to do with personal psychological and emotional tics. The most successful people bet small, bet consistently—or they don’t bet at all.

Day by day, step by step, entrepreneurs should be building a machine in their unique niche that will arbitrage against their unique market. One that will allow them to see opportunities, take advantage of them, and not lose their livelihoods, their families, or their peace of mind. This does not have to be a stressful process, but it does have to be done.

When the entrepreneur makes those small bets they don’t become business people (business is about maintaining a consistent place in one spot with gradual upticks in growth, rather than about advancing a model) instead, they become evangelists for a new way of doing things. In whatever field they’re in, they begin to make bets that will fundamentally breakdown the model they saw as problematic (which lead them to entrepreneurship in the first place) and will replace it with a new model.

Customers, clients, and others don’t have to know what model the entrepreneur is building. As a matter of fact, they don’t really care. But the entrepreneur should care. Otherwise, freelance work is always an option.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled ‘HIT Piece’ To Ask A Question

In many parts of the United States, there are people who are addicted to drugs.

We could talk all day about the mechanics of addiction, but there is something that is almost never focused on in any discussion of addiction. We talk about the socioeconomic conditions, familial conditions, societal conditions that lead individuals to pursue the short-term rush of pleasure that come from addiction, rather than seeking the long-term work that comes with addressing any area of our lives.

Compulsion, bad habits, obsessions, addictions; we can all agree that moderation in the material world is best in all things, but when moderation—through individual decision making—begins to warp and change patterns of behaviors in the community of people around addicts, then we all begin to agree that there is a problem.

In the digital space—as in our real lives—brands and individuals are addicted to the short-term impact of paying for attention because of its seemingly immediate results. But once you pay digitally, just as in any addiction off-line, you’ll pay again, and again.

Thus FB can sell ads.

Thus Google and Twitter will have you pay-per-click or per Tweet.

The thing is though, in the digital world, the equity of attention is really expensive in the long-term while seeming deceptively cheap in the short-run, so brands are more than willing to pay, particularly when the cost comes down to a rounding error on their marketing balance sheets. While in the long-term, individuals become impatient, leaping from platform to platform hoping to be done, consistently peripatetic, never really satisfied, and finally abandoning the whole thing in frustration.

But the outcomes for both brands and individuals in the digital space is the same as in the real world. And as the outcomes of this digital addiction become more manifest, the social media commons are wrecked and destroyed (through cynicism over loss of privacy and data selling), messages become drowned out in the cacophony of noise (150 million channels on the Internet and rising), and the audience (always fickle) shifts its focus faster than a goldfish.

I’m not complaining though.

Putting in the work on the long game is the only way to outlast, outplay, and out endure the short-term addicts with deep pockets and little self-awareness. There are three things the smaller people (like myself and other corporate trainers) can do to ensure our survival and longevity (rather than giving up and going home) in this digital foaming red sea:

Share, share, share—someone told me the other day that the reason her company doesn’t do more work in the online space is because she’s worried that she won’t get paid for her content and that she won’t get proper attribution, credit, referrals and revenues. This is backward, Industrial Revolution based thinking where scarcity still ruled in information. I can’t believe I have to point this out, but after 25 years of Google and almost 40 years of the Internet, scarcity rules in attention. So share freely, because if you don’t your competitors will.

Carve, carve, carve—finding a niche is huge in the digital landscape and then mining that niche in the way that it wants to be mined not the way that you think it should be mined, is the path toward long-term longevity. Carving a niche where you own the attention of a few thousand people is the most valuable, long-term form of scaling there is.

Unite, unite, unite—joining with others is the only way forward, whether you’re a digital publisher, or a corporate trainer, or a product person. The big brands in all spaces and niches have seemingly deep pockets. But there is so much white space in collaboration, connection, and growing your network to increase your net worth, that it’s amazing to me how great the level of contraction is that’s currently happening as fear of loss rules rather than anticipation of gain. Uniting together—and keeping that unity through using open source software and collaborative in-person methods—is the only way to combat the fear of loss.

The drug of “I can go it alone.” The drug of “I don’t need to share.” The drug of “I am for everybody.” These gateway drugs lead to other addictions (like gaming short-term attention through paying for it) that then lead to emotional exhaustion, disengagement, and cynicism.

The question you have to ask yourself—and that I’ve already clearly answered—is: How committed are you to the long-game?

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] Burnout Over The Pacific

When you talk with divorce and family lawyers about divorces, separations, or even “conscious uncouplings” a statement they always make in the course of the conversation focuses around their amazement that couple choose to go through a litigation based process.

In particular, their statement tends to focus on the fact that litigation takes time and is more emotionally draining than mediation, and yet many couples would prefer to go through that process than another, more collaborative one.

There are many points to consider from this observation, but there are three immediate ones that could be instructive and strategic for your conflict situation—even if you’re not getting a divorce, experiencing a separation, or have decided to “consciously uncouple”:

A desire to see “justice done” is really a desire to see our will done unto the other person who hurt us. Which really means, when we go to a third party (whether a lawyer or a judge—and sometimes even a mediator) we aren’t looking to grow collaboratively with the other party out of a difficult relationship. We’re really looking for revenge and a reckoning.
Collaboration is not about “being friends again” or even forgiving the other party. Collaboration is simultaneously a selfish and selfless act of growing with that other person (who sometimes you have a deeply personal relationship with) so that the relationship can end in a way that benefits both of you. Mediation is a collaborative process. Litigation is always a competitive process.
Litigating not to “lose” is not the same as not collaborating to “win.” The fact of the matter is, “winning” and “losing” are black and white concepts that have little to nothing to do with the facts of the dispute, the relationships involved, the values on the table, the positions and interests of the parties involved, or the outcome in question. But parties in a dispute often view not “losing” (or outright “winning”) as the only satisfactory strategy that can justify emotional decisions made in all of those areas. Which is why litigated disputes always end up feeling emotionally hollow and are often decided—in hindsight—to have been a waste of both time and energy.

Many people in disputes, conflicts, disagreements, and who are having “differences of opinion” with other parties, experience a sense of burnout throughout the processes of both litigation and mediation. But the question on the table is “Do you prefer your burnout slow and steady, or quick and dirty?”

Answering that question, individually and corporately, with honesty, self-awareness, and insight into the other party, can lead to picking the best process for managing your particular conflict.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] 3 Thoughts That May (Or May Not) Intersect…

Three thoughts that may (or may not) intersect with each other:

Thought #1: There’s a lot of high profile, persistent, whining going on in the space of web publishing, content creation, and even in the scrappy world of podcasting. This phenomenon of whining is also extending into commentary around entrepreneurship as the venture capital money that has been floating big bets for years begins to dry up. The thing is though, if you are a web publisher, or a podcaster, or a content creator, or a struggling entrepreneur, the whining has got to stop. The landscape of the Internet is infinite, no matter what the big digital brands are telling you through their marketing.

Thought #2: Attention and awareness are the coin of the realm right now in any digital space, and all you need to be successful (whatever that means) is 1,000 people willing to bet on your reputation, have a relationship with you, then give you revenue, and make a referral for your service or product. The idea that the digital system can be gamified through creating fake followers, fake awareness, and false hype is dying as fast as the money dries up.

Thought #3: In the digital space, and in our off line, real life interactions lately, the substance of truth is seen to not be as marketable as the illusion of symbolism. But this is a false paradigm. Substance based in truth has always grow more followers, attracted more awareness, and generated more revenues (in trust first and money last) for more people that anything else tried ever.

The problem comes when many people—from celebrities to the average man on the street—buy into the frothy hype of the short-term gain at the expense of the long-term relationship. As the bubbles pop all over the place and as web publishers, content creators, entrepreneurs, and others have to get back to the substance of building products, let’s hope they focus on communicating the truth—no matter how scary it is.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Doing More Work with Fewer People

There are now computer programs and algorithms that can render daily, rote, assembly line decisions faster at scale than human beings can.

There are experiments beginning with artificial intelligence programming, that promises to make decisions faster, cheaper, and more rationally and accurately than human beings, without getting clogged up with all that mushy “emotional” content humans bring to such decisions.

There are discussions about the disintermediation of low wage, low motivated, human workers with automation and robotics in places where such technology has never been seen.

There are even more discussions about paying people a pittance for a lifetime to do less of rote work, so that they can do the creative work resulting in outcomes and products that currently many of those same people want for free—or low cost—via a connection to the Internet.

Talk of all of these advances—algorithms, A.I., automation, robotics, basic income—are often made in certain media outlets, with breathless enthusiasm; while quietly, where many people live, we still go to restaurants, coffee shops, bars, and other establishments where human beings are laboring for a wage that is minimum, trying genuinely hard to do meaningless work that is truly the last vestiges of a system showing signs of collapsing all around us.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, in certain media outlets the much talked about “winners” in society are still lauded via social media, television, and viral videos. Much of the news cycle focuses on the comings and goings of the mythical “1%”, while many of the people that act as a buffer between those “1%” and “the 99%” (you know…the middle class…) are working in jobs which appear to offer less and less financial reward, for doing more and more unrewarded work. Places where the corporate mandate to “do more with less” is not really about doing more work to produce outcomes that matter with fewer people; it’s really about doing more busywork that doesn’t matter, with fewer engaged people, while watching salaries remain stagnant.

The technological advances that are gradually seeping into our society are going to reshape the work landscape. The distortions of reward versus effort will be rebalanced in favor of effort. But neither of these events are going to happen in the way that they did in the past: There are no more third party advocates for workers (unions) at scale; and there is little empathy for those organizations and individuals expending effort to actually do work that means something (emotional labor) for little pay.

This is a conflict, no matter how many ways you slice it.

Policies and regulatory changes by governments would help to ameliorate much of this tension. Heart changes in the “1%” and “the 99%” would do a lot to reduce the social friction such changes are creating.

It appears that neither of those changes are on the horizon.

But there is a way out: It requires individual efforts, and individual leadership, in order to work though. And there’s no immediate, tangible, reward or recognition for being successful at it, which is why many individuals refuse to take it on.

Do more work that matters with fewer people.

The myth of scale that we were all sold in the Industrial Revolution was clear that, in order to “get rich” an organization (or individual) had to grow past just doing work by themselves. The myth of scale also reinforced the ego-driven, industrialist idea that, if a small group of dedicated people are doing hard, emotional labor and leading a small tribe of equally dedicated people, with no immediate, tangible benefits, then that work can’t possibly make a dent in the universe.

Well, like most myths, that one is no longer true. And while navigating the communications revolution of the Internet seems daunting to many people, and organizations, there are other revolutions coming, in the Internet-of-Things, and in the development of block chain programming.

The greatest revolution however, has yet to happen. And that is the one in the human mind, and the human heart, that unites with other humans to lead them into doing the only work that can’t be done by a robot, an algorithm, a computer program, or even intelligence—no matter how artificial.

And that’s the work of connecting, collaborating, and relieving the hearts of human beings embroiled in loneliness, disconnection, and conflict. And in doing that work, human beings will come to realize that the tools aren’t what makes the profit; it’s the people connecting with other people in a meaningful way, that makes the stock price tick up a tenth of a point every quarter.

Imagine if the global financial, spiritual, and emotional economy was based on fulfilling those principles…

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] The Law of Compound Interest

The fact of the matter is no one can truly penetrate another person’s conflict experience.

We have fooled ourselves into thinking that, with all the social proofing via digital tools, and the peacock-like social media displays that we all put on every day, that we know other people’s inner lives.

But we don’t.

This is why we’re often surprised when a person casts aside the carefully constructed false mask of their digital life and shows the warts and all. We become fascinated, not with the honesty and truth, not even with the vulnerability; we become fascinated with the act of being honest and vulnerable. But we shy away from interacting with that person on a deeper level.

Conflicts, disagreements, “differences of opinion,” frustrations, expose this dichotomy in a person-to-person, face-to-face interaction. We want the other person to change (I had a person in a workshop recently ask me “Why shouldn’t the other person see that I’m angry!? Why shouldn’t they see that they’ve pissed me off!?”) because we want an outcome that benefits us in the short-term.

Without really unwinding the gossamer of strands that got us into that situation with that person in the first place.

The law of compound interest is particularly instructive when thinking about this. The law basically states that interest—over time—compounds slowly and inexorably, a quarter point or so at a time. Until, when the party who owes finally takes an interest in paying back the loaned amount of money, the interest has built up to such a point that they can’t. The law of compound interest is what led many in the ancient world to despise money-lenders (religious prohibitions against usury), or on the opposite scale, to lend money out at outrageous terms and then when the amount plus interest could not be paid back, to frame the lack of payment in moral terms and throw the borrower (and even their families) out of a community (debtors’ prisons).

The law of compound interest applies just as keenly when thinking about how the responses and reactions to conflicts, disagreements, “differences of opinion,” and frustrations build up over time, until the reaction from both parties is to explode in anger—or shut-down into passivity. There is no resolution from such cycles of build-up, explosion, retreat, build-up, because every new cycle builds up new strands of complication as surely as compound interest builds on the loan principle of the the conflict. Until it’s so big and heavy that banishment from a community—or a situation, or a relationship—seems like the only answer.

Engaging with conflict in this mental and emotional framework seems scary and requires a person to be as vulnerable as they would have to be if they ceased to perform for a digital audience of “friends” and began to get honest and vulnerable. Resolving the conflict in this mental and emotional framework seems easy because resolution implies a release of the tension, compounded over time, from the uncomfortable friction of “dealing with this person.”

But all the tactics and strategies; all the tools and the verbal jujitsu; all the “hacks” and improvements; all the surface engagement and “easy” resolution; all of these things are just methods to avoid vulnerability, to indulge in the satisfaction of releasing our anger as a weapon rather than as a tool, and in the end only compound the problem, one quarter point at a time.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] We Are Surrounded By The Remains Of Average…

Have you looked at a factory building lately?

If you walk around your town (either America or globally) you can see the remains of burned out factory buildings, corporate office complexes, and even industrial parks that lie empty, vandalized, or half occupied by struggling commodity businesses.

If you walk around your town (mostly in America) you can see the remains of a K-12 education system that used to be the model of the world. Inside many school buildings, there remain students that sit in rows, raise their hands obediently, only speak when they are called upon, are taught to pass the test, and when they don’t or can’t perform in those ways, they are labeled and sometimes forgotten.

If you walk around your town (mostly in the formerly Western World) you can see the remains of churches. Sure, the seats are full in some buildings, but increasingly, buildings are emptying and churches are closing. And more and more there is the trumpeting of people who claim irreligiousness (or disbelief) and in response more and more churches are coasting on the past Spirit (both financial and otherwise) that used to there, and hoping that a positive change (that resembles past glories) will come.

What do the physical buildings, the educational system, and the church all have in common in your town? Or mine?

They are the remains of a time when being just average was “ok.” They are the remains of the third greatest revolution in human history, the Industrial Revolution. They are all that remains of a promise that was over engineered, over sold, and over bought: The consumer (or employee) can just show up at work, do average work just a little better year on year, and then retire and be “ok.” In addition, the consumer (or employees) children will be educated to a standard that will be just a little better each year, and the family will get a little safer each year, in a neighborhood that will be a little better each year, and everything will be “ok.” And, of course, the church will require just a little more (usually money) from the consumer every year, and this will be “ok.”

We are surrounded by the remains of “ok” in a time when “ok” is no longer good enough. And when the disconnect between “ok” and reality reaches a breaking point, we get demagogues, marketers, con men, flim-flam men, and others selling us a bill of goods about a return to a glorious past, rather than the hard truth about the realistic future:

Here’s the hard truth:

“Ok” was never good enough. And doing “just a little better” than last year isn’t going to get the same outcome financially, morally, ethically, or materially anymore–if it ever really did in the first place. The greatest psychological block of our time for people to overcome (at least in America) is this idea that average work, average effort, and average outcomes are still “ok”—even as everything we see economically, spiritually, and materially at the start of the fourth greatest worldwide revolution proves otherwise.

From our physical infrastructure to our internal responses to conflicts, meaning, and mattering, we’ve got to stop walking around our towns (either physically or metaphorically) trying to recapture “ok” and instead shift to inspiring people at every level to consistently pursue better than “ok” to get to best.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Broadcasting, Sharing, and Interacting

There are subtle differences between broadcasting, sharing, and interacting in any conflict scenario.

Broadcasting is what live streaming and most posting on social media is about. Broadcasting is an act that—by itself without more thought behind it—is deeply selfish and desirous of attention for its mere existence. Broadcasting a suicide attempt, or broadcasting a cat video, fall into this same category.

Sharing is what much of blogging, email newsletter creation, and some social posting is about. Sharing is an act that—by itself without more thought behind it—begins a collaborative communication process between a creator and their audience. The audience can be a Dunbar’s Number of close friends, or it can be an audience of a few thousand “followers” but sharing is about skimming the top of a building a collaborative relationship.

Interacting is what broadcasting, plus sharing, plus intentionality, is about. Interacting involves going past merely acting to prove the existence of a product, service, philosophy, or process, and goes directly to creating for an audience and their desires. Interacting means engaging actively with everyone in the audience (even those people we’d rather not engage with) and is the penultimate act of courage.

In a conflict, broadcasting is the equivalent of telling a story about your conflict repeatedly, in order to create separation between “us” and “them.”

In a conflict, sharing is the equivalent of attending training and hoping that you remember one thing that you can apply afterward.

In a conflict, interacting is the equivalent of going beyond telling your story and attending training, and taking the time and effort to personally engage with personal development around your responses and reactions to conflicts in your life.

Broadcasting, sharing and interacting are happening at all levels in our society; and, our digital tools have provided us with the ease of communicating faster and faster. But this also means that our responses to conflicts in our lives become more shallow and immediate, even as the reactions cut us emotionally at a deeper and deeper level.

[Advice] The Law of Average

It used to be ok to be, well, “ok.”

It used to be “ok” to do good enough work at home with your kids, in the neighborhood with your community, and in your church with your time.

It used to be “ok” to just show up, do what you’re told, don’t ask too many questions, and be the nail that hammered itself down.

It used to be “ok” to not do the little extras, to not give a little more, to care only at the level you were comfortable caring at and to devote little or no time to thinking about why that was ok.

And in this time, when things used to be “ok,” political world leaders still were elected and assassinated with regularity, wars still were started and ended, products were still invented and sold, television programs, the newspapers, and other forms of communication tools still worked to get you information. And people still lived and died, marketing still worked, and scandals still intrigued the masses.

So what happened?

The Law of Averages says that in a sample of any kind, from neighborhoods, to marketing campaigns, the statistical distribution of outcomes among members of a small sample must reflect the distribution of outcomes across the population as a whole.

The law has always been a fallacy, based on observed, personalized experiences that are then transposed to a much larger (or sometimes different) population sample. And the rules that the industrialists, the marketers, the politicians, and the policy makers created in the 20^th century (and that they are mightily trying to recreate in the 21^st century) are responsible for the massive belief in the law of averages.

But, wishful thinking is not reality. And the reality is, it was never good enough to just be “ok”: whether at your job, at communicating in conflict situations, or at creating a project, or taking a risk. And now, because of technological shifts that have been long remarked upon and analyzed, the fallacy is being exposed at mass, for what it is.

It’s not good enough to be average at communicating in a conflict scenario.

It’s not good enough to just show up at home, at church, in your community, or at work.

It’s not good enough to not go the extra mile, do the extra thing, and take the extra time, even if you don’t get paid for it. Especially if you don’t get paid for it.

It’s not good enough to disengage from what’s going on in someone else’s political, economic, spiritual, or financial reality because “that doesn’t impact me over here.”

Wishful thinking that “it will all be ‘ok’” doesn’t work anymore (and never really did), because it won’t be “ok.” The cultural, social, political, and financial machine that used to guarantee that “ok” would be good enough, is breaking down.

Its only individuals (not the masses at scale) who can choose to do the hard work that moves humanity collectively from merely “ok” in our emotional, spiritual, and material interactions with each other, and moves us to better, and finally to best (or most remarkable) in the world: meaning the world individuals inhabit on a daily, weekly, yearly basis, not the whole wide world.

Navigating the tension between the desire to passively slip into the anonymity of “ok” and the need to actively move from “ok” to better to best, is the place where engagement—personal and meaningful—must happen in the 21^st century if humanity is to become the best version of humanity it can be.

-Peace Be With You All-