[ICYMI] Organizational Climate Change – Part 2

Anthropogenic is a big word that basically means, “the fault of human beings.”

When we look at organizations built by human beings, from families to governments, there are a lot areas where anthropogenic issues combine to create a negative, toxic conflict climate.

And since conflict is a process that never really ends, there are only two kinds of environments that it can happen in, nurturing or harmful.

We all know what a harmful environment looks like, but a supportive, cooperative environment, where conflicts can happen and not leave traumatic scars that carry over into other aspects of our lives—well that’s the Holy Grail isn’t it?

Anthropogenic conflict climate change starts with disrupting the internal focus around an ancient resource that many people lust for deep in their hearts, but no one knows how to define.

Innovations around power tend to focus on redistributing the detritus that arises from the resource—such as wealth, social control or political influence—without ever really addressing the power itself.

There’s gotta be a better way…

Originally published on January 27, 2015.

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[ICYMI] Organizational Climate Change – Part 1

The presence of climate change is real. And the climate is heating up the planet.

Everywhere on earth there are objects expelling hot air, and other gases, that serve to create a harmful climate.

And the climate that’s being created is the opposite of creative, nurturing and balanced.

Changing the climate of the planet is hard, but changing the conflict climate of an organization, filled with people with their own ideas, has to be focused on disrupting four areas:

Power abuse and threats
Unhealthy competition
Endemic distrust
Defensive behaviors

And the conflict climate where the psychological atmosphere is balanced in favor of these four areas (rather than in another direction) is bound to experience negative change.

This is particularly true when the conflict management tools used regularly in an organization, are focused in areas that support power, competition, distrust, and defensiveness, such as litigation and policy regulation.

This is also true when the conflict continuum is focused on escalation, and continuing comfortable levels of dysfunction, without seeking to break apart the underlying psychological processes.

Global climate change didn’t happen in a vacuum, and neither does changing the conflict climate of an organization.

Originally published on January 26, 2015.

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[ICYMI] On Persistence

“Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.” -Tom Krause

Monday, we asked a series of questions, borne out of experiences, conversations and observations that we have made as we have been building a business here in the Southern Tier of New York State.

We went from asking “why do we quit?” to “why do we continue?” With that in mind, let us take some time to talk about the opposite of quitting: persistence.

The dictionary defines persistence three ways:

quality of persisting: the quality of continuing steadily despite problems or difficulties
act of persisting: the action of somebody who persists with something
long continuance of something: continuance of an effect after its cause has ceased or been removed.

Clearly there are some elements in these definitions that apply to building a business, building a marriage or building a diet program. But why?

Do we want to prove something to other people?

Do we want to prove something to ourselves?

When we continue steadily despite problems or difficulties, we may look on it as persistence not during the process of persisting, but after the fact of a positive outcome.

After the outcome is secured, and after the battle is won, in hindsight, not foresight, persistence is lauded from the tops of the mountains to the bottoms of the valleys.

When individuals continue steadily in spite of problems or difficulties, and the outcome is the opposite of the one that they intended or stated, others may deride their actions as failures, them personally as incompetents, or as individuals lacking in the foresight to “get out while the getting was good.”

Persistence, in these cases, becomes a virtue only after it is vilified by others as a vice.

Abraham Lincoln was only seen as persistent in a positive way after the Civil War was won and the South defeated.
Business owners are only seen as persistent in a positive way after they make a substantial profit or build a culture or brand that lasts.
Artists, writers, poets and creatives are lauded for their persistence (in this case continuance of an effect after its cause has ceased or been removed) after their efforts have been “recognized” when they are long dead.

The rarities who persist in efforts we would have long since quit at, become the Martin Luther Kings, the Jay Z’s, the Pablo Picassos, the Lady Gagas and the James Deans of the world.

So why should anyone persist in anything at all?

If individual, worthwhile efforts will not be sufficiently recognized, compensated or lauded while alive (or if the actions “fail” according to others’ estimation)…AND…If the applause for such actions deemed “foolish” by others, is only personal, and rarely public, what makes individuals, groups, organizations and even cultures, insist that persisting is the only way to accomplishment?

Could it have something to do with grit?

Originally published on July 24, 2013.Download the FREE E-Book, The Savvy Peace Builder by heading to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/e-book-the-savvy-peace-builder/ today!

[ICYMI] No

The word “no” is so compelling because it serves as both a positive and a negative.

We’ve written about this before, here and here, and it never fails to amaze us how much more there is to cover. This is because the crowning question that we asked, from clients to casual observers of our blog and social feeds is: “How do I say ‘no’?”

Saying “no” to an opportunity, a person or a situation is hard for three reasons:

It requires us to articulate the values that we hold dear.
It requires us to make judgment about those values in relation to another persons’ desires and requests.
It requires us to place a potential future best, above a present tangible good.

It is hard for people to say “no” (positively or otherwise) because we feel as though we are letting down other people. And being the social animals that we are, reciprocity and social norming exert a powerful pull upon our psyches, our hearts and even our souls.

The word “no” places a delineating marker between people, ideas, projects and purposes. It segregates, and closes off, even as it opens up other possibilities. This is why rejection is such a hard thing to overcome for sales professionals, marketers and others who engage in the business of persuasion.

“No” ultimately can feel like a rejection of persuasion, rather than a statement of preference:

Preferring the safety of nostalgia over the danger of the new
Preferring the comfort of the present over the uncertainty of the next moment over
Preferring the status quo over a change

What are you saying “yes” to by saying “no”?

Originally published on March 19, 2015.

Download the FREE E-Book, The Savvy Peace Builder by heading to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/e-book-the-savvy-peace-builder/ today!

[ICYMI] Does All This Stuff Really Work?

Yes.

But it requires you to engage and be active, rather than passive.

How many people do you know that are passive participants in their own lives?

How many of them are in conflict with others?

Stuff doesn’t just “happen”(no matter what the bumper sticker may tell you) and active participation in choosing to be empathetic, to be a listener or to be positive is tough.

The family won’t save a person in conflict.
The workplace won’t save a person in conflict.
The school won’t save a person in conflict.
The church won’t save a person in conflict.
The society won’t save a person in conflict.

The only person who can save a person in conflict is themselves.

Originally published on November 24, 2014.

Download the FREE E-Book, The Savvy Peace Builder by heading to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/e-book-the-savvy-peace-builder/ today!

[ICYMI] No Parking Here

“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind. Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?” – Five Man Electrical Band (1971)

In this week’s post “How to Autopsy a Conflict,” we here at Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT) addressed some of the methods which our conflict consultant (and many other mediators and peace practitioners in the field) use to examine conflicts almost after the fact.

There are many ways of communicating in the world today and a conflict communication situation came to us recently and we’d like to address it here, for the benefit of our readers.

In any conflict, both parties have three options in how they can choose to communicate:

They can be nonassertive “What good would it do to speak up?” Or, “Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
They can be passive aggressive: “I’m going to spy on you and then tell on you later to a person or entity up the ladder.”
They can be aggressive: “I am the boss. What I say goes.”

There is an apartment complex in Binghamton, NY, somewhere around the NYSEG stadium where the Binghamton Mets play. This apartment complex has on the street parking.

Typically, a friend of ours (for the purposes of this blog post, we’ll refer to him as C.) parks all the way up to the sign that reads this:

In essence, his selfish act of kindness, provides somewhere near an extra half to full space requirement for the vehicle behind his to park on what is a crowded, on-street parking, apartment living situation.

Now, one would expect such largesse to eventually be rewarded and acknowledged. And it is:

The person who wrote this…well…let’s get a direct quote from C. about this:

“This person clearly has a f—king problem.” (We had to edit that, we’ve got kids reading over our shoulders as we write this.)

Profanity aside, the head consultant here at HSCT agrees. As a matter of fact, we would call this type of communication passive aggressive at best.

Since we are about solutions to this, we have about three for you, our dear reader, our friend C., and the note leaver, that may help alleviate issues like this in the future:

In a previous post, (click here) we addressed getting to know your neighbor.

This would be our recommended course of action in this situation. You may key a stranger’s car, but not a friend’s.

Assertive, not aggressive, communication is the key. A note, left under a windshield with a message on it, provides the first, subtle message that escalation is not only OK, but preferable and acceptable.

Intimidation, fear, closed-off-ness, and anxiety are all present in this note and lay deep in the subtext of C’s feelings as well as his verbalized response.

The antidotes for all of those are collaboration through mutual understanding, clarification of perspectives and by having a rigid goal, but being flexible in the means to get there.

Finally, if you just can’t correct the parking situation on your own, call in a third party: A good friend, the police or the conflict communication and resolution professionals at HSCT.

We’ll take care of it all, from notes to nuts.

Originally published on July 10, 2013.

Download the FREE E-Book, The Savvy Peace Builder by heading to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/e-book-the-savvy-peace-builder/ today!

[Opinion] Trust + Accountability = Quality

There’s a lot of negative social proofing going on right now.

Some of it is transmitted through social media; some of it comes through more traditional means.

Personal branding as a marketing term has fallen out of popularity, now replaced by the equally amorphous term “thought leader” which will soon be replaced by influencer.

Microcelebrity via YouTube, Vine, Facebook videos, and other forms of entertainment are becoming more and more popular, as the inevitability of tools that enable marketers, brands and individuals to create audiences that show up just for them.

The thing is the courage to create and develop a positive, consistent presence in the face of a lack of positive social proofing has never been in shorter supply than it is right now. At the core of this lack are three crucial areas:

Trust: There is a trust shortage. People, personalities and companies that have shown up, day-in and day-out succeed, but will the current crop of YouTube celebrities make it ten more years? And when there’s no belief that the People Who Matter are even paying attention, then organizations and individuals trust themselves more than the community.
Accountability: When there is little trust—or even belief that anything (or anybody) worth trusting will show up in the first place—then there is little incentive for people and organizations to stand up and say “Yes, I made this decision.” Social shaming, a continuing erosion of public (and private) empathy, and the increasing visibility of public (and private) narcissism, are the ingredients that create a toxic stew where Bystander Behavior (or worse) is supported, condoned and given a pass.
Quality: The quality shortage is most loudly evident in the explosion of voices on social media. But it goes deeper than that. In the pursuit of thinner and thinner profit margins, and with high unemployment and social unrest, the search for quality—of work, of attitude, of standards, of values—becomes a quiet, desperate search, which very few organizational supervisors, human resource hiring managers, recently elected politicians or media talking heads, ever really address.

Trust + Accountability = Quality.

It used to be that circumstances, such as poverty, a lack of articulation, a social power structure, were barriers which could be overcome with a little grit, persistence, faith, trust and accountability.

But the belief that underlies those ideas is eroding because the disconnect between the story behind circumstances, and the reality of erosion in the above three areas, is becoming more and more pronounced.

-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] Managing Muscular Development

Here’s a simple calculation:

Managing yourself + managing other people = a full time job.

Don’t let people fool you. There’s plenty of full-time work out there. But there’s no pay. And the cost for failing at it is high.

We underestimate the power of disputes (as a part of the conflict process) to go viral, through the stories that we tell other people about the conflicts we are embroiled in.

Conflict engagement requires that we understand our own inner lives, and move from being selfish (inwardly focused) to being self-aware (knowing what’s going on with us internally, without becoming overwhelmed and focused on it). This is the core of the first part of the equation.

Conflict management requires that we understand (or at least acknowledge) the presence of emotions and the depth of their impact, on other people in with whom we are in dispute. This is the core of the second part of the equation.

Conflict as a full time job is requires us to recognize that conflict sometimes serves the other person and their motives, sometimes it serves us and our motives, and sometimes it serves nobody at all. Conflict will never go away, and sometimes the management of the process requires us to be tuned in (almost to have a sixth sense) about how power, story and emotions wind around issues of advocacy, policy and process.

There’s plenty of full time work out here. But too many people would rather defer the hard work of figuring out the parts of the above equation today, in the hope that tomorrow will just be a slightly better version of the past they just left.

This is neither engagement, nor management. It is mere avoidance.

And mere avoidance atrophies our emotional muscles as surely as a lack of exercise atrophies the physical muscles.

-Peace Be With You All-

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

[Advice] Cultural Competency

The following meme is shared around LinkedIn and it goes something like this:

“The worst phrase in business is ‘We’ve always done it this way.’”

This has to come from somewhere. Not the meme, but the sentiment behind the meme.

The sentiment has to do with three areas that are critical to people becoming (and remaining) culturally competent in their organizations:

The presence of social proof: Whenever people get together, they begin to form tribes, cliques and in/out groupings. We can’t help it. Social proof allows some people to be “let in” to a culture, a way of doing things, or even a language–and encourages others to leave or get pushed out. Social proof is so strong, that when an individual violates it (either through ignorance or malfeasance), people in a group are more likely than not going to avoid confronting the behavior and wait for someone else to do something. This is why we have police officer and the Bystander Effect.

The need to be liked: Whenever people get together, there is an instant “shaking out” of the pecking order. Who is up, who is down and inside of those constructs, who is in and who is out. When people in the group don’t have an internal need to be liked by other members of the group, the group either ostracizes them or shames them into submitting to the group. This is why pre-school, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Dr. Seuss matter between the ages of 4 and 6, and standardized curriculum, rigid conformity and social norming don’t.

The desire to obey authority: Whenever people get together, they automatically seek to assign power to one (or several) members of the group. In smaller groups, this may be based on skillsets, acquired knowledge, or even personal, physical power. In large groups, this desire to obey will be conveyed to people with titles, degrees, certificates and other pieces of paper that have been deemed to have social worth (there’s that proofing thing again). This is why a car mechanic has more authority carrying a clean overcoat and clipboard, than a car mechanic does with grease all over their hands and in their hair.

So what does all this have to with organizational culture?

Well, since culture in established organizations is driven by inertia and supported by social proof (“there’s evidence everywhere that the culture is working…we all still have jobs”), the need to be liked (“the culture can’t change because that would require someone to stand up and not be liked”) and the presence of an authority figure (“that guy over there in the suit and tie says ‘no’ so we’ve gotta follow him”), the idea that “we’ve always done ‘X’ this way…and we aren’t changing because that’s the culture” is a logical, rational, emotional statement.

But, it’s not an innovative one.

And it’s not a statement that’s going to disappear any time soon.

Better to distribute the meme around LinkedIn that goes something like this:

“The best phrase in business is ‘That person was a rebel, took a risk, changed things, and got fired for it.’”

Would that fit on a shirt?

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Sound of Listening

People hear tone in vocal inflections, but some people are more sensitive to it than others.

In a story, tone comes about because of connoted understanding around allusions, diction, imagery, irony, symbols syntax and style. Tone also comes about because of a shared understanding about the general character and attitude reflected in figurative writing.

People are both good (making accurate assumptions based on a shared history) and bad (making inaccurate assumptions based on a shared history), at interpreting and reacting to tone of voice or a nonverbal facial expression. People are also good and bad (and getting better and worse all the time because of social media) at interpreting and reacting to tones reflected through writing.

People hear (and interpret meaning) from tone in the sound of silence as well.

In a conflict situation, what is stated (presence) is almost as relevant as what is not stated (absence). People are sophisticated communication machines and they pick up instantly (or miss terribly), the meaning (both figurative and literal) behind presence and absence.

Emotional literacy in a conflict situation requires people to set aside assumptions and reactions about what tones may mean (presences) and about what silences may mean (absences) and instead do the hard, unsexy work of actually asking the following starter questions:

What do you think?
What are you feeling?
What do you need?

Then sitting back and engaging actively with the sound of listening.

-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/