[Advice] 3 Entrepreneurial States

There are three emotional states that can catch hold of the entrepreneurial peace builder as she is building her project:

The fear which is accompanied by every new decision
The exhilaration when a client is helped and “closed’
The dread of returning to working for “the Man”

The employee mindset is built on the idea of stability, predictability and “money that will always be there.”

The employee mindset still dominates, even in our post-Industrial world.

This mindset also tolerates bad behavior, ego driven decision making, and gives away its autonomy for dollars.

The detoxification process than the savvy peace builder experiences as she moves confidently through dread, fear and exhilaration, while also holding onto her employee life, ensures that—once her definition of success is realized—she will never go back to “golden handcuffs” ever again.

And she’ll be no good to any large organization—other than as an equal to be negotiated with, a competitor to be crushed or a morsel to be gobbled up.

The three emotional states—and their impacts— are integral to overcome because the road back to the “golden handcuffs” is a long one indeed.

-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] The Hard Thing About Now Its Too Late

The savvy peace builder is either all in—or not.

But, at a certain point, financial realities take over and the rent must be paid, or the electric bill, and the savvy peace builder must make the choice to make making peace a side hustle.

Now, typically the word hustle comes with negative connotations, but mostly it should be associated with little sleep and much success.

But, when the main work (the 40 hour grind) takes over more and more time and energy from the hustle that matters (the peacemaking pursuit) the savvy peace builder will sometimes kill the side hustle by dividing time away from it even further.

This is how many entrepreneurial ventures end, dissected and subdivided under the scalpel of the 40 to 60 hour work week and the “sure” thing that brings security, a steady paycheck and fewer uncomfortable conversations with spouses and children.

The tough decision—the hard thing about this hard thing—is that diversification of focus and talents leads to more work not less; but making the decision to keep it to one-and-a-half hustles makes all the difference between “man I’m glad I lost sleep to build this project” and “man, I wish I’d taken the time when I had it to build this project. But now it’s too late.”

Now, it’s too late.

-Peace Be With You All-

Seduced by the ZMOT

There is a zero moment of truth.

Google researched this a few years ago, and the upshot of the idea is, that, due to the amount of content we are consuming on a daily basis, the modern Western consumer has so many more options to try and research before they buy.

There are other elements that tie into this, including the brand being what customers says that it is and advice to brands on how to avoid interruptive advertising, but the idea remains relevant for us in the conflict fields.

For practitioners and participants in the process of conflict, the nature of change and attaining the skills to be successful at managing conflict and change, there is a zero moment of truth as well.

We talked a little bit about that in this post here, but it remains indicative of our modern day that the zero moment of truth—the moment at which we decide to pre-shop our notions, read and get advice from others, watch a conflict video on line, or ask questions of other individuals—for conflict practitioners, is a moment of great impact.

But for participants in conflict, there seems to be a dearth of materials and resources, leading to the ultimate moment of truth, where conflict participants attempt resolution themselves, and may succeed, fail or just surrender.

-Peace Be With You All-

A Distinction With A Difference

The savvy conflict consultant isn’t afraid of the hardship of the “beans and rice” life that has to be lived while building their peace building project.

They aren’t afraid to bootstrap their way to success.

And we’re not talking about millionaire status here, we’re actually talking about making enough money in this economy to pay the mortgage (or rent), keep the lights on and feed themselves and their family regularly.

If the savvy peace builder is bootstrapping, that’s the true difference between them, and the peace builder who bets it all on the market with one big shot—and either takes a loan out to fund their project, or tries to develop a funding scheme involving other parties.

The thing to remember is that bootstrapping your project allows you to waste less psychic, emotional, psychological and even financial energy on the risk that doesn’t matter (the money) to focus all of your energies on the risk that do matter (building peace in a broken world).

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] What to Do When You have Issues…

…and you will.

There will be days when no one will take your cold calls, your warm calls, or even a hot call.

There will be days when the family, the children, the house and other distractions will seem to crowd out the endless stream of productive work that you know you have to do.

There will be days when you will get angry/depressed/despondent/melancholy and it will seem to others that are outside of your internal mental circus that you are actually not all that engaged with reality.

There will be days when, no matter how many accolades and “thank yous” you will receive, they will seem to roll off of your back in the face of mounting debts, panic and fear of imminent failure.

On the days that the conflict consultant has these issues, she should push back from the table, take a break and go have coffee with a trusted friend or colleague.

Physical activity also helps, in taking a walk, or going for a run.

Finally, on the days when the committed conflict consultant has issues the most important thing to remember is that this too, shall pass.

-Peace Be With You All-

7 Points of Articulation

As journalism continues to crumble, thought leaders and cultural critics still write about blogging with a rhetorical sneer.

But, we don’t know of any other way for an aspiring writer (or journalist) to gain an audience before getting the job title.

In essence, the process for developing a resume has changed from writing down accomplishments on an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper and then showing up at a scheduled time to engage in a false dance and (hopefully) get hired to perform a job, to a process whereby if the aspiring writer isn’t blogging, tweeting, creating images and videos, and podcasting before the call comes from the major leagues–well then they don’t get picked at all.

And, since every blogger is not going to wind up with the name recognition of Andrew Sullivan or a writer for TechCrunch, there are seven different areas that a blogger may want to consider as they develop their blogging career:

Reciprocation: The rule of reciprocation says that we try to repay what another person has done for us. In the realm of blogging, this rule applies through comments on, social sharing of, and curation of, content from yourself and other sources.
Commitment: The rule of commitment says that, once people have agreed to do something, they feel compelled to follow-through on the agreement. In the realm of blogging, this commitment is demonstrated by showing up and writing every day.
Consistency: The rule of consistency follows from the rule of commitment and states that people have a tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with whatever stand they have initially taken. The successful blogger (not Andrew Sullivan level, but being able to buy an extra cheeseburger occasionally) should be ridiculously consistent.
Social Proof: The rule of social proof states that people view behavior as correct when they are surrounded by others doing the same thing. In the realm of blogging, this means channeling blog content through social distributive channels, aimed at gaining positive reinforcement from an audience.
Liking: The rule of liking really focuses on the fact that we do things for people that we like and that we build a connection and relationship with over time. Building connection with fans through backlinking, responding to comments, curating other people’s content and other ways of connecting follow from that rule.
Authority: The rule of authority states that we tend to defer to others in authority based on physical attributes, titles, or even clothes and other trappings of “power.” When you’re blogging consistently, with liking and social proof, it gives the blogger authority. Don’t have authority yet? Well don’t give up. Outlast the other bloggers.
Scarcity: The rule of scarcity says that we want more of what we can’t have—or that is in limited supply. In the digital world, where it seems as though every blogger is giving away content for free, scarcity comes to a blogger when they use their influence and authority to build a niche audience for their content, their point of view and their process through their writing. Scarcity also comes through building an effective distribution network for blogged content, including social media channels, email distribution lists, subscriptions and on and on. Combined with consistency and commitment, scarcity becomes the gold under the dross.

There’s a lot of talk about how blogging is disappearing, along with journalism. But, as the Internet of Things really ramps up, we don’t know how content is going to be managed on these devices, without bloggers having a voice at the root of the Internet of Things…websites….

-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/

Presentation Tips and Tricks

Presentation is the most nerve wracking thing for many conflict engagement professionals, as it is for many other professionals in many other fields.

Many presenters forget a basic fact: meetings, workshops, seminars, classes, podcasts, pitches, elevator speeches and even 1-on-1 conversations are presentations.

Any time that you stand up in front of somebody else and use your words, your voice and your presence to transpose information from your brain to another person’s brain, that’s a presentation.

With that in mind, here are three tips to keep it fresh:

Remember the audience: The average attention span is down, and there are plenty of distractions in the world, so remember that the audience is whoever is in front of you right now.
Lose the crutches: Images and slideshow are too often used as a crutch to support the presenter, rather than as an addition—like spice on food—to the actual meat of the subject matter. The bravest presentations that you can do are those that don’t involve images and a slideshow. This is why the only difference between a 1-on-1 conversation and a 25 person breakout session is scale.
Don’t get intimidated by size: When speaking, people are really comfortable 1-on-1, but the sweat level goes up as the size of the audience increases. Why is that? Why do we get intimidated by size so often? Scale scares us, because it seems as though the risk level increases along with the size. But we’ve got it backwards.

The risk level decreases as the size of the audience expands, but the importance of what you are presenting should increase, rather than your nervousness level.

Any time that you’re in front of a person, that’s an audience, and the real risk is not getting your point across the bow.

-Peace Be With You All-

Conflict Engagement Systems Design: Will You Choose?

Organizations, just like individuals, have a particular conflict style and support a particular conflict response culture.

Since culture eats strategy for breakfast (thanks Peter Drucker), conflict is an inherent part of the cultural process of continual misalignment at many organizations.

Don’t believe me? Well, organizational misalignment between cultures and products can cause problems for people in organizations who are trying to innovate. It also causes problems for customers who experience a confusing product and poor customer service.

With all of that, one of the easiest ways to break a culture and let it grow is to reach inside the culture to the people who are part of the culture, to develop something new. But, this approach is fraught with difficulty and mixed motives, which are why most change management—and conflict development processes—tend to fail.

One easy way to overcome resistance to change and organizational misalignment is to develop a visual model, because people in organizations are more attuned with what they can visually interpret.

However, getting a person who can facilitate, storyboard, capture the visuals, and circulate the story among the gatekeepers and decision makers who often aren’t in the room, requires bringing in an outside presence; which, can be fraught with difficulty, because if the person—or organization—that you choose doesn’t work out, well, then all that investment gets no return.

Of course, you can always accept the alternative in your organization, where continual misalignments create disputes and the conflict process never gets straightened out or successfully engaged with.

[Thanks to the folks at HBR.org for moving my thinking on this.]

-Peace Be With You All-

Stop Fooling Around

“Let’s get serious.”

So…what…we’ve just been fooling around the whole time?

Those three words, codified through social niceties and small talk, are often said before official, issue driven, conversations and negotiations begin.

Typically, they are used as a way to separate people from each other and to categorize those who seem issue focused and decision driven—from those who seem distracted and lazy.

But, this is a false equivalency: equating being “serious” with being focused, driven—and by extension—successful in life in all the ways that the folks in the other silo are not.

And all this siloing through language only serves to inflate individual egos, and to deflate the potential for a positive situation to develop between parties who may be viewing the same issues through different frames.

We’ve got a better idea: just get started with the large talking and move right past the short hand, small talk, to the issues that matter.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Work – Life Integration

The engaged, consultant maximizes her time, so that she is working on her business, rather than in her business.

This is the difference between a job and an entrepreneurial venture.

Or even, dare I say the difference between golden chains and a golden ticket.

There are spaces between responsibilities to family, meetings, and other gaps in our lives that can be maximized for the greatest level of productivity.

But that’s not work/life balance.

That kind of balance is not attainable.

There’s only maximizing as much productivity and gaps as possible, and then hoping for the best.

The work of an entrepreneur is to minimize the level of risk in her project: To codify and commoditize the process, the product and even the productivity.

Work/life integration is more attainable than work/life balance, which is the Holy Grail of all entrepreneurial ventures.

-Peace Be With You All-