HIT Piece 03.29.2016

If Bob feels as though he got screwed in his last mediation session out of assets like a boat or a pile of money, his world view of the mediation process is different than that of his ex-wife.

If Ann sees her job I’m human resources as determining policy and keeping people in line, she’s going to take a different view of conflict management training than Jill who sees her job as being an agent of change in the organization.

If Dave sees his role at church as being a person who keeps the boat from tipping over rather than as a person who is there to lead a flock to Christ, his approach to internal church conflict is going to be different than that of Melinda’s, who sees her role in the church as a Deacon, as one who is there to lead people to a relationship rather than through religion.

Worldviews of your clients around conflict–and the processes of getting to resolution–matter more than your worldview does. And if you haven’t bothered to explore their worldviews as you champion peace, then all your selling peacemaking as a place of transformation, facilitation, or even evaluation won’t matter a hill of beans.

-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] The Good News

The set-up for the story is always the same.

There’s coercion, envy, false accusations, an artificially whipped up mob, a person turned into a scapegoat and a trial without representation, on trumped up charges, geared toward a predetermined outcome.

Then there’s an execution by a regime a downhill slide from a once great republic, with once great ideals, that has become inherently monarchal, brutal, and undemocratic.

There are manipulations, machinations, and deceitful dealings by people who care more about power and religion than relationship with the people they are claiming to serve.

And then, at the end of twelve hours, it’s supposed to be all over.

But then, a radical claim that’s never again been claimed by anyone else since that time in the history of the world, is made three days later. The scapegoat is said to be alive, walking around, not seeking vengeance, or destroying those who destroyed Him. Instead, He’s talking about peace, forgiveness, and preparing His bewildered and scared followers for even greater things to come.

And then, body and all, He disappears; leaving behind a world filled with followers, disbelievers, empires ruled by men who seek power and recognition above all else, and leaders who seek power and religion more than relationship.

Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is the most powerful story told in human history.

There are many reasons for its power, but at the bottom of it, is the radical idea that a man can be killed for saying all the things out loud that people think in their hearts about how the world—and our relationships should be—and then can be filled again with new life, and then leave the Earth, body and soul, of His own volition.

This is a story that many, many people reject. This is a story that many, many people find too unbelievable to be believed. This is a story that many, many people have argued with, fought against, or sought to co-opt for centuries.

But it’s a story that won’t go away.

And today, on Good Friday in the Christian world, Believers in the power and message behind, underneath, and through that story, would do well to take some time to meditate on what that story really means around their worldview, their decisions, and their lives.

I know that I will.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 3.22.2016

Three benefits accrue to you (or me, or anybody else) when you show up and guest lecture at a college or high school class.

Prestige—I get to show up and talk with (or to) people who are there to hear knowledge and already mentally prepped with the idea that I’m the “expert.” I might not be the “expert” and I might not set myself up as the “expert” but the person (typically the instructor) introducing me to the class has more clout than I do. They set the table and they follow-up.

Accountability—I’m always accountable to other people for everything that I say, that I do, and that I write. But when I guest lecture, there’s almost no feeling of immediate accountability. Which means I have a choice to be accountable, or to be not accountable. Being accountable—and choosing to follow-up and answer questions from participants either in person or via email later—is the prize that participants get when they listen to me ramble on for an hour.

Responsibility—There’s always a measure of responsibility for the outcomes of any speech that accrue to the sender and the receiver. The receiver has a responsibility to actually do something with the information that they receive. But, since there’s rarely any penalty for not taking action (or at least, no immediate penalty) the intrinsic motivation to act must be energized by the sender of the message. The sender’s responsibility is two-fold: To be empathetic and accountable, and to be extrinsically and intrinsically motivating to the attendees.

The benefits may not be apparent immediately to you the guest lecturer, but they are there.

-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/

HIT Piece 3.15.2016

There are two kinds of motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is driven by what you feel on the inside. Much of intrinsic motivation comes from emotions and reasoning. Motivation to accomplish tasks that touches on emotions and reasoning comes in the form of feedback, in a 360 degree fashion. The impact of that feedback creates intrinsic motivation, or it erodes intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is driven by a carrot and stick approach from the outside. Much of extrinsic motivation comes from other people attempting to provide feedback, provide coaching, and to provide encouragement and recognition. Extrinsic motivation is about the impact that other people can have on you and your internal motivation.

Both kinds of motivations are about outcomes, feedback, and meaning and mattering. Both kinds of motivation have motivation behind them and the psychology of motivation is extensive and deep.

For me, however, I’m all in for the intrinsic motivation. Don’t get me wrong: I like pats on the back, “good job” statements, thank yous, and other forms of intrinsic recognition. I’m also all in for the extrinsic motivation. Don’t get me wrong: Money helps pay the bills and move the project along. I like getting swag as much as the next person.

But at the end of the day, my internal motor runs on fuel from Within, rather than on fuel from the World.

Every entrepreneur has to decide what fuel they are running on.

-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/

[Opinion] The Part of Belief We Don’t Talk About

Belief—insane, determined, focused, irrational belief—is sometimes the difference between a successful entrepreneur and a failed entrepreneur.

Having such belief in the accomplishing of “big, hairy” ideas, is often lauded as the only way forward in order to build projects, scale them, employ people in them, and then sell them to the highest bidder and go off to make trouble elsewhere.

Having such belief is the benchmark of successful professional entrepreneurs who consistently develop “crazy” schemes and seem to have the Midas touch when it comes to developing business ideas in spaces that other people, without such belief, dismiss out of hand.

But belief is a tricky proposition.

It can come from the entrepreneur, or project builder; from their internal drive to impose their vision on the world through personal force of will.

It can come from the world, reinforcing that the imposed vision is indeed a well-accepted one and that it is profitable as well.

Both of these visions of belief are human focused, and when successful, are lauded as being “lucky” both by people who supported the entrepreneur in their vision, and by people who detracted from that vision. Both perspectives on the power of belief can lead to developing myopia on one hand and hubris on the other.

Faith is almost never addressed in the entrepreneurial community, except when it is noted in passing. If insane, irrational, determined, and focused belief is the difference between success and failure for the entrepreneur, then faith—in a power greater than themselves that’s moving through this world and their lives—must be a huge part of that difference.

Faith is too often wrapped up with religious practice, which blinds rational people to the power of relational interactions, the impact of serendipity, the importance of preparation, and the limits of personal, individual power.

Faith is the thing that brings genuine humility to the project builder, because it opens their mind to the reality that while their belief may be the most powerful force they have ever wielded, it is not nearly the most powerful force in the world, operating on their behalf.

More talk about faith as a deep driver for entrepreneurial success—not wrapped in religious language, imagery, and symbolism—would go a long way toward deflating the arrogance, hubris, and endless calls for “hustle” that surround many entrepreneurship conversations, happening in the world today.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 3.08.2016

The old saw went “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

This old warning is meant to indicate that believing in the efficacy of your own plans—and your human ability to execute them—is a form of hubris and arrogance, doomed to failure from the start.

More appropriate for these days might be, “If you want to hear other people laugh, tell them your plans.”

Other people believe (or disbelieve) in you accomplishing your plans, based on ideas, thoughts, and experiences originating in their lives. Their judgement on the hubris and arrogance of your plans may means more to you than that of a silent (at least to you making the plans) God.

Even more appropriate for our times might be, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him how you’re going to accomplish your plans without Him.”

Hubris and arrogance still run rampant, and many people are hoisted by their own social media feeds. Many others experience a species of schadenfreude when watching other people fail. But very rarely are people ridiculously prepared, ridiculously talented, and ridiculously driven to walking the will of God out in their lives.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Life Long Learning Myth…Busted

Implementation, coaching, mentoring, and supporting through experiences matters more to adult learning in a corporate setting, than sitting in a room for four hours listening to a facilitator.

The drop-off in retention after such an experience is 50% after participants leave the room, and without immediate changes, immediate implementation of the learning outcomes, coaching along the path of uncomfortability, and supervisory mentoring through the tough times, the retention drop-off is 75%.

So why do many organizations still offer corporate training opportunities in all kinds of topical areas, within a formalized “sit down, and absorb” learning structure, syllabi, certificates, and experienced trainers and facilitators who drone on and on for—at most—half a day?

There are three reasons:

Most organizations—whether corporations, training organizations, or higher education institutions—are unwilling (and many times unable) to do the hard work of challenging, breaking, and remaking the foundation of learning established through the last 150 years of K-12 schooling. Schooling which was designed in conjunction with corporate leaders and influencers, and codified with the support of intellectuals and educators, to produce compliant workers, who would sit (or stand) all day and do widget based, industrial work, while leaving the thinking and innovating to others up the chain. The kind of work that was hollowed out by those same individuals starting 40 years ago and now no longer matters much in America.

Many supervisors, managers, bosses, CEO’s, COO’s, and others in the hierarchical structure of many organizations, have come from a background of schooling that they either internally rejected because it was too rigid, or found comforting and conformed too. Such engrained mindsets around the value of learning (and education) do not advance and innovate organizations. Instead, they continue to produce leaders who believe that training (and life-long learning) is either a “nice to have” (rejection mindset) or a “necessary evil” (acceptance mindset). Either way, the mentality shaped through that rejection or acceptance, is reflected in buying, internally developing, or advocating for models of learning for employees based in an Industrial Revolution K-12 schooling model.

Trainers, facilitators, consultants, and others in the wide and deep field of corporate training (myself included) aren’t doing enough of the hard work, often enough, of breaking our own mindsets of how information, experiences, and content is delivered to audiences (online, F2F, etc.). We also aren’t engaging with the hard work of breaking institutional, corporate mindsets from the outside by creating offerings and client deliverables that will transcend the dying model of K-12 education. This means having the courage to stick to our principles around peer-to-peer learning, advocating to organizations that we serve for mentoring and coaching for our learners, encouraging accountability, and at the furthest end, treating adult learners like adults in the training room, rather than continuing to train them (i.e. treat them) in the K-12 learning mold they’re familiar with.

The feedback I always get when I write (or talk) in these three areas typically focuses around the inability of organizations to change, the unwillingness of employees to actually be motivated to do the hard work of working on things that are hard (i.e. engaging with emotional labor) and the inability of trainers, consultants, and others to feed their families based on selling what the market is not progressive enough to demand.

These are all legitimate concerns, but the facts of the 21^st century are clear for anyone with two eyes to see:

The workplace, jobs, labor, and other tasks that people need to be organized into groups to accomplish, must still be done, or else there will be chaos in the world. Hard work—manufacturing work, “blue collar” work, etc.—will still be done in the world, but increasingly due to automation and algorithms, that work will be either outsourced or done by machines. And when it’s not, the people who will do it, will charge an even higher premium for it, to support their continued learning to become better artisans.

An acknowledgement that work matters, that tasks should be meaningful, rather than meaningless, and that employees should be treated like adults rather than like children in the workplace, is growing rather than going away. Calls from researchers, thought leaders, influencers, advocates, and others for more pay transparency, flexible family leave policies, and “flat” hierarchical structures, are only the tip of the iceberg.

The rewards to organizations in terms of prestige (Top 10 Best Places to Work), revenues (The World’s First $2 Billion Company), and public goodwill (Anyone See What Apple Made Today) in America, are drivers for success (or determinants of failure in a transparent media market) more now than ever. And these drivers become outsized to organizations that are willing to take risks, to supervisors that are willing to challenge the status quo, and to vendors who are willing to sell with courage.

Unrest will continue among employees who believe that they are not getting paid what they are worth, are increasingly mobile, and are calling the bluff of the industrialist mindset that has dominated every sector of life for over a century now. This unrest will grow in continued calls for a basic income, the cries against income inequality, and the accusations of a new “Gilded Age” of wealth and prosperity for some.

Wihout meaningful changes the conflicts that will arise if life-long, continuing, robust education is not increasingly, innovatively, and creatively integrated into the work lives of employees in all organizations in all sectors (from small businesses to the Fortune 1,000 companies), will be massive and unmanageable.

And bosses, managers, supervisors, shareholders, CEO’s, CFO’s, communities, civic leaders, politicians, business owners, corporate training organizations, and others will have to explain in plain terms to their constituencies, employees, followers, and others, the reasons (and their mindsets) for why they rejected or ignored the golden opportunity to implement, coach, mentor, and support in order to transform corporate learning into something meaningful and valuable, in the early 21^st century.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 3.1.2016

The value of strategy and tactics—and knowing the difference is two-fold:

You have to know what the map looks like in order to figure out how to get where you’re going.

You have to know what your strengths are in order to accomplish what you want to do.

Strategy (the map) and how to navigate the map (tactics) are not the territory. The territory is the field, the platform, the audience, the market, the brand, and at the furthest end, the horizon and the dent in the universe that you want to make with your life.

Internal conflicts come about because people often confuse the map with the territory. Or they, on purpose, use the language of principles to describe positions that are negotiable. Very few people speak and live in spaces and markets where they mean what they say, and they say what they mean.

When you’re launching a project, knowing the difference between strategy (the map), tactics (how to navigate the map), and the territory (where in reality you want to end up) can make all the difference between walking with authority and wandering with confusion.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 2.23.2016 – The Book Trailer

My book, Marketing For Peace Builders: How to Market Your Value to a World in Conflict is one step closer to being completed today.

I recorded a book trailer (link here), laying out some important points from the book, and encouraging you to get on the pre-order list.

After you’ve watched the trailer, send me an email with the subject line: PRE-ORDER list and I’ll add your name to my list, no questions asked.

Then, closer to the end of February (which is fast approaching) I will be at the end of the proofing cycle and will open up pre-orders for people on the exclusive list only!

I’ve already got a few names, but I’d really like to add more, because I think that peacemaking and money making shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

Because I think that getting the word out about a path to peace is critical and the only way that peace builders can do that is with a stream of consistent revenue and consistent clients.

Because I know that peace building is hard, marketing and business development is even harder, and that there are no “silver bullet” solutions—no matter what the Internet tells you.

Because I know that relationship based, permission marketing is the only way for the relationship oriented, peace builder to make a mark on this conflict-ridden world with their message.

And…

Because I know that you want to go along with me on this amazing journey, one step at a time.

So, send me an email. Join the pre-order list. And let’s make peace together.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 2.16.2016

Here’s an update…

I listen to a lot of podcasts. A LOT.

One of the better ones out there for entrepreneurs, thougth leaders, and others that isn’t filled with Silicon Valley hype, or “unicorn” nonsense is the Stanford Entrepreneurial Podcast series. This podcast allows real entrepreneurs to advance their ideas, and increasingly has been a platform for venture capitalists and others to come to Stanford.

Mitch Joel continues to care about his industry, marketing, the changing nature of work, and innovation. His Six Pixels of Separation podcast is beyond interesting and it drops every Sunday. Oh, and he just had his 500^th episode. Talk about longevity in the podcast medium…

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is actually trying some revolutionary things with their branded content in the podcasting space. From Science Fridays to Stuff You Oughta Know, they have managed to brand their sound, their host approach and interview style, and even the types of questions that they ask. Public radio may be on the decline in cars, but it will survive (in one form or another) on the Internet. The podcast I listen to—and am consistently fascinated by—is Death, Sex, and Money. Hosted by Anna Sale, the podcast cuts to the heart of things left out of polite conversations.

Adam Carolla is building a pirate ship. All that means is if you don’t like his podcast, then it’s not for you. This is the best possible approach to building content with the tools that the Internet provides, particularly if you don’t want to be beholden to corporate sponsors, the whims of mercurial audiences, and the dictates of “good” taste. Listen to the Adam Carolla Show and find out what I’m talking about.

Podcasting is a medium of relationships, engagement, collaboration, and a place to build a brand, drip by drip. Thank you to all who are out there putting out their craft.

-Peace Be With You All-