HIT Piece 06.10.2014

“…but I would have liked to have been asked!”

This statement typically…

…comes from the ego…
…comes from a fear of being left out, left behind, or not given consideration…
…covers a situation that says nothing about the other person’s selfishness, lack of consideration, caring, etc., and says everything about the person making the statement and their insecurities.

I have often completed a complaint with this phrase.

I have been fearful, anxious, insecure and not consulted often.

Sometimes, this has led to more conflict as I have reacted, rather than responded.

I’m trying to catch myself and do better.

-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/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

Pajama Based Coding

Are you wasting your time?

This is the interesting summation that Michael Tomeson came to in his Forbes article from a couple of weeks ago.

In doing work that can never be compensated for, to help build something for a corporation who will take it and make profit off of it—but not share any of it with you—you are, in essence wasting your time.

This is a classic conclusion that bubbles up from the depths of the old, Industrial based economic thinking, where every piece of effort to make a widget can be monetized, categorized and codified.

The application of scientific management for labor and profit, if you will.

We here at HSCT don’t believe that you’re wasting your time. Nor are we cynical enough to believe that you would rather help a corporation than help your fellow man.

We do believe that the economic, cultural and social rules are being rewritten, and the next trick to be played will be on all of those systems that insist on being non-symbolic, highly regulated and impervious to any disruptions.

You know, the kind of disruptions that encourage you to sit in your pajamas and code for free while having to go “work” for a big-box retailer for minimum wage.

-Peace Be With You All-

3 Organizations Operating on Scarcity

Some companies don’t believe that they will be impacted by the sharing economy. Hey Im at a Call Center

Some organizations and associations believe that they will continually be allowed to “skate by” operating with a scarcity based model.

Some of these organizations exist in the area of public utilities (i.e. gas, electric, water, etc.), public governance (i.e. state and local governments) and big brands (i.e. hotels, car dealers, certain media companies).

They believe that their large size will insulate them from the disruptions that the Internet and that social media have already created in other areas of the economy.

Public utilities believe that they will be saved by government regulation from having to collaborate and connect with customers on prices, processes, accessibility, affordability, etc.
Public governance believes that since they have everyone’s tax dollars, they will be insulated as they have been under the old rules of an industrial economy, from competitive market forces.
Big brands believe that their lobbying, cash and influence will allow them to buy, bribe or force out the smaller, swifter competitors and keep the market positions that they have had for the last century.

They are all wrong.

We are in the midst of a cultural, social, political and economic evolution.

We are reverting back to the time of tribal connections, based on Twitter and Instagram and collaborative problem solving through openness, transparency and authenticity.

This is a golden opportunity to explore the conflicts between the old and the new and to help resolve them in favor of everybody.

So…who’s going to step up? I’m already doing my part…

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Caucusing Arete

Caucusing in a mediation happens when a mediator takes each party aside and talks to them privately about issues and concerns that the other party may not be open to hearing.

In a divorce mediation, it could be about issues of infidelity, emotional abuse or unresolved anger.
In an organizational mediation, it could be about issues of pay structure, proprietary information, or that there’s a personal problem with the other party.
In a church mediation, it could be a about an interpretation of Scripture or a moment of clarity.

No matter what it is, however, the phrase heard most often within a caucus is “I don’t want [insert name of party here] to know this, but…”

A mediator’s virtue then shows, because she has a choice about addressing the opposite party with a concern that could tip the mediation one way—or another.

Arête is the Greek word for the idea of living up to your potential with excellence. And when a mediator navigates a caucus with arête, it can make all the difference.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

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

[Opinion] Trapped on the LIE

Imagine if when people were in conflict, they were transformed by changing their minds and approaches to conflicts, rather than conforming to “the way things have always worked?” (Romans 12:2). Applying principles expounded by the Gallup Organization, people can be transformed, but many prefer to conform to patterns and behaviors that stem from three areas:

Lies that they tell themselves about the nature and type of conflicts in which they are involved,
Attitudes that have been “wired” into them through past experiences, traumas, stresses and difficulties,
Insecurities that they have that bind them to their traditional attitudes and thought processes

Now, we shouldn’t be deceived (and I’m not the first one to point this out) but whatever we create in a conflict from whatever basis we create it, we are going to get back in return (Galatians 6:7).

So, shouldn’t we be acting from our best selves, based on our strengths and what we’re really good at, to respond to conflicts in our lives, rather than reacting based upon lies, insecurities and falsehoods?

[Thanks to Pastors Dawn & Joe Coudriet for pointing these ones out to me]

-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] Generous Polluters

In an abundance economy, there is one polluting element that is produced.

It’s more toxic than carbon dioxide and more damaging to the environment than the plastic bag island floating out somewhere in the Pacific.

It’s more damaging to the body politic than a disease epidemic. It corrodes and destroys as surely as acid does.

This pollution destroys access, ownership and privacy. It overrides the values that a connection economy is based upon, including honesty, transparency, clarity, motivation, courage, self-awareness, focus, discipline and empathy.

It turns adventure into obligation and has its own properties.

It is colorless, odorless and tasteless.

We’ve even written about it here in this space before.

Fear is the most abundant, most toxic, most polluting element generated in an abundance economy:

Conflicts arise in the abundance economy from a fear of a future that is likely (rather than preparation for the future that is desired), a perceived (or actual) scarcity of material resources and a lack of patience.

Mediators, lawyers, counselors, theologians, therapists and others in the helping professions are going to become more middle class (and in some cases, wealthier) in the developing connection economy, because fear is not disappearing. As a matter of a fact, fear is growing and expanding as the disruptions generated by the inexorable rise of an abundance based economy, become more and more acute.

The lizard brain has been with us too long.

However, there is one antidote—one environmental scrubber—for the pollutant of fear. Plus, it’s the final leg on the three-legged stool of the connection, abundance based economy of both now and the next 100 years:

Cooperation.

-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/

Towards A More Thankful Union

We here at the HSCT Communication Blog are all thankful this day for many things:
The country where we live,
The family that we have,
The connections we are about to make,
The business that we are growing,
The tools that we have to explore the world,
The intellect and science behind them,
The religiousity that allowed people to develop ideas,
The advancements in the world that feed more people well,
The times that are a changin’,
The peace we have an opportunity to build,
The relationships we have had a chance to build,
The connections that we have made,
The critics, naysayers and disbelievers that we have,
The “no’s,”
The “yes’s,”
The “maybe laters,”
The incredulity,
The pain
…and the promise…

-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/

Don’t Take on a Client Who Can’t Answer These 7 Questions

As a conflict consultant, mediator, conflict coach or a motivational speaker, are you continually frustrated when you arrive at a clients’ business and they immediately hit you with a problem that they want solved cheaply, immediately and permanently?

They want you to come in, put on a Band-Aid and then leave, but not before answering these questions laid out here http://tinyurl.com/q9ef9no.and if you can’t, then getting thrown out of the door. Or never getting a callback on a project that you know your skills would be perfect for.

And if you can’t answer them to the client’s satisfaction, then you risk getting thrown out of the door.

Or never getting a callback on a project that you know your skills would be perfect for.

Meanwhile, as a professional with years of, not only academic experience, but also practical experience, you can tell from the decision maker’s, or gatekeeper’s, immediate description of the conflict or issue, that the problem is so much deeper. And that a cosmetic solution is not going to work.

And that a cosmetic solution is not going to work.

Here are seven questions to ask they about their business that will help you weed through the clients who are seriously committed to changing their organizational cultures from those who are only committed to the now, the immediate and the solution that will keep them out of litigation.

What kind of conflicts do you have in your business right now? Every business has conflicts: Between managers and managers, between employees and managers and between executives and management. If the client isn’t self-aware enough to acknowledge that honestly, then that’s a problem.

How are your responses to conflicts living up to the core values of your business? Punting (avoidance), false empowerment of employees and managers (accommodation) or going to legal and then firing somebody (attack) are all responses to conflicts. Sometimes the responses are representative of true core values, not the ones published on the masthead.

Have you ever failed personally at resolving a business conflict? Again, the decision maker or gatekeeper should have a certain level of self-awareness and accountability around all their business decisions: from the fun financial ones to the difficult personnel ones.

What non-HR, non-legal related systems do you have in place currently to manage employee-employee and employee-supervisor conflicts? HR exists to understand laws and regulations, to engage in on-boarding new employees and to retain older employees. Legal exists to litigate, purely and simply. Neither of these departments in an organization are always useful for dealing with behavioral, cognitive based conflicts in a business.

How do you let people go? Organizational cultures grow up around three areas: recruiting and hiring, training and retaining and firing and laying off employees. How the last area is addressed is key to understanding how deep organizational dysfunction goes.

When was the last time you examined how you deal with conflicts in your business personally?This reads like a therapeutic question, but decision makers and gatekeepers are people first before anything else. And everybody learns how to address difficulty starting at home as a child.

We have been talking for 45 minutes now, describe for me how you see me challenging your business culture to evolve and grow? Resolving conflicts, teaching new skills to employees and managers and addressing engagement requires businesses to evolve in their business models.

This is inherently a challenge, but such radical growth allows a company to shift in an economy increasingly built on a model of not only clients but also employees, acting as brand ambassadors on social media, word-of-mouth and in a collaborative economy.

And really, all of these questions, for you as a conflict resolution professional, should serve to provide you understanding and to answer the real question: Are the clients open to the hard, disruptive challenge of true, meaningful and lasting change, or do they just want a cosmetic, Band-Aid application?

-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/

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/