Be More of Who You Are

MBTI, DiSC, Strengthsquest and multiple other personality assessments and sorters have appeared on the market after World War II, proposing to provide people insight into themselves.

But, when a person attains insight into themselves, what they do with that insight—how they change—is at least as important as the insight itself.

How we are seen and perceived by others is more of a tricky proposition and this is where Project Fascinate and Sally Hogshead come into play.

Sally has come up with an assessment that examines how the world sees you and breaks it down in an easy to read, highly accessible 16 page document.

But, what’s even better is that she promotes becoming more of what you already are, and differentiating yourself from the crowd by becoming more of what people see you being.

In a positive manner, of course.

This can create conflicts with self and conflicts with others, particularly if you’ve spent a long time (such as a lifetime) being what you think others want you to be, instead of being what they actually know you to be.

Unlearn boring and be more of yourself. This is the core of Project Fascinate.

-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/

Authentic Teaching

Authenticity has become synonymous with credibility.

Consistency has become the new currency.

Yet, in the world of content development (and the entrepreneurial base that it begins from), the “old” rules of marketing, advertising and sales still apply:

The audience doesn’t really care what you know; they only care about what you can teach them.

-Peace Be With You All-

Change The World

The greatest gift you can give someone is to show them their own highest value.

I’m going to give that to you. Use the code BL-JSorrells79 to take Sally Hogshead’s Fascination Advantage Assessment ($37 value) for free!

This is a special, limited-time promotion for her new book How the World Sees You (which dropped a couple of weeks ago, by the way).

When you take the assessment using BL-JSorrells79, you’ll get a unique code to share with your audience as well!

Offer only lasts till July 25. Act now!

-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/

Wisdom in the Machine

When the astronaut Dave powers down the rebellious HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and more recently in the 2013 film, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix, we determine through pop culture, what machine “death” looks–and feels–like.

The fact of murder comes from the fact of life and ideas and philosophies that we have as individual humans–and collective societies–about what traits constitute life.

In the case of a machine, we here at HSCT take the position that a machine cannot overcome the limitations of its creator.

Life is defined, not only by self-sustaining processes (we were asked while writing this post, if it would be murder to power down a machine created by another machine) but also by wisdom that is attained through life experience.

The crux of wisdom lies at the intersection of common sense, insight and understanding.

HAL 9000 may have had one, or even two, of those things—such as insight and understanding—but “he” (see how we anthropomorphized an inanimate object there) lacked the third trait in spades: common sense.

Just like Skynet in Terminator or the machines and computer programming networks of The Matrix, HAL 9000 was unable to negotiate in good faith with his creator.

“He” made an “all or nothing” decision about Dave’s presence, Dave’s mission and Dave’s motives and then took extreme action.

The same way that the machines did in The Matrix and Terminator.

The ability to negotiate with others in good faith, and to honor those agreements, is a human trait based in knowledge, experience, common sense and insight, not just a happy byproduct of a conscious mind.

And until machines have the ability to negotiate with, not only their environments in the rudest sense of the term, but also with their creators, we should feel free to power them up—or down—at our will.

After all, our Creator does the same thing.

Right?

-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/

Oscar the Grouch Wins

In a sharing, collaborative economic system, a grouchy mediator can succeed.

The same as a grouchy salesperson, a grouchy consultant, a grouchy NASA scientist or a grouchy plumber.

Or even Oscar the Grouch.

In an increasingly social world, where the old methods of building rapport, such as personal style, manner of speech and dress, common interests and associates have moved to online networks first and offline interactions second, building rapport becomes much more difficult if someone has…well…virtual “resting “bitchy” face.”

Now there’s nothing wrong with that.

However, as the whiz kids of smart move faster and faster toward commodifying, commercializing and socially selling, everything up to and including death, the more difficult it becomes for anyone—even a mediator attempting to create relationships with clients—to establish rapport based on anything other than authenticity.

A grouchy mediator, who markets to the long tail of people who value seriousness and professionalism over cat pictures, facile Tweets, or pointless blog posts, can succeed.

Food for thought.

-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/

Take Me to the Other Side

Much ink has been spilled about the impact of Martin Luther King’s life and legacy.

As a conflict engagement specialist, though, I think of something else today.

Nonviolent resistance is the best way to expose the hypocrisy and unjustness of legalized policies and has been used from Jesus to Ghandi to MLK to Nelson Mandela to affect change in societies and cultures.

But what about those folks on the other side of the confrontation?

What about those folks in power in the American South who had instituted systems of privilege and power that oppressed people?

What about the British government in India or the Roman government in Judea?

What about the white minority population and government in South Africa?

Why didn’t they look at the resistance, stop what they were doing, lay down their arms, put away their power, and work collaboratively to come to a just and equitable resolution?

In conflicts and mediation situations, I often observe parties who are incapable of changing their patterns of behavior, their ingrained responses and their knee jerk reactions to external stimuli coming in the form of difficulty, confrontation and conflict.

If people as individuals cannot look at the resistance, stop what they are doing, lay down their (metaphorical) arms, put away their power, and work collaboratively to come to a just and equitable resolution in a personal or family conflict, then what hope do countries, cultures and peoples have?

The issue at that point becomes one of decisions, choices and the will to follow through on them.

Jesus and Ghandi had the will.

So did MLK and Mandela.

The will on the other side was weaker, the ability to “save face” was not as strong and the capacity for change was not as developed.

Mediators are the only ones with the training, expertise and desire to get all the parties to the table to even begin the talking process.

Yet, we still have volunteer mediators in this country.

Yet, we still think that mediation, collaboration and compromise are for the faint of heart.

Something to think about, today on January 20, 2014.

-Peace Be With You All-

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/

Why So “Serious?”

Amid the theater and drama surrounding the very real conflict around the 2013 government shutdown, the Affordable Health Care Act implementation and other events in Washington DC, we are a little surprised here at HSCT to hear one word fall consistently from our government leaders’ lips:

“Serious.”

As in, “I won’t negotiate without serious reform on the table.”

“I won’t talk to [Insert name of politician/political party here] until they make a serious offer for change.”

Now, part of our role here at HSCT is to teach people how to negotiate. We teach how to navigate stonewalling, interests, judgments about the future, risk tolerance, and time preference. In addition, we cover lessons around framing, communication and the use of deceptive tactics.

We’re also not naïve to the whims and modes of American political history and realize that there have been “budget battles” in Washington DC that looked intractable, but that eventually produced workable compromises between governing parties.

However, nowhere in our training or in our experiences, were we ever taught to not negotiate until the other party became “serious” and made an offer we could live with before beginning the bargaining process.

This all kind of puts us in mind of The Joker in The Dark Night .

He didn’t want to negotiate until Batman was “serious” either. And yet, somehow, negotiations (such as it were in the film) moved forward anyway.

And that’s what has us so surprised.

After all of the bluffing, deception, and everything else, we are absolutely sure that the debt ceiling, the government shutdown and the Affordable Health Care Act implementation will be resolved one way or another.

But, when people in power harden their positions—as do their followers, the pundits and the casual observers—the chances that, to paraphrase from The Joker “everything burns,” become that much more possible.

Why then, is there such emphasis on “serious?”

-Peace Be With You All-

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/

[Advice] On Grit

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

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

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

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

The definition of grit is clear:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/