[Advice] Being Alone and Being Left Alone

In the world that we have built, noise is confused with engagement and silence is confused with disengagement.

This is a problem, because in silence and disengagement, introspection and self-awareness are found. When the presence of noise is confused with engagement, distraction reigns, bouncing already limited attention from point to point, with seemingly no meaning, no deeper engagement and no resolution.

The presence of silence also implies the presence of being alone, which the modern noise distribution system cannot abide. When noise is a garden hose, limited and coming out at a trickle, opportunities to “be alone” or to “get away for a while” are seemingly unlimited. However, when noise is a fire hose, an endless barrage coming out at a flood, opportunities to “be alone” or “get away for a while” are viewed as precious oases, in a desert of meaninglessness.

What does this all have to do with conflict resolution?

When the noise of the world is turned up to fire hose levels, resolutions are less interesting than continuing a spectacle, avoiding learning, and dancing with immediate gratification. Conflict becomes less a static state of change and transforms into a series of endless emotional lurching from “one damn thing” to another.

Resolving conflicts takes time, attention and emotional “bandwidth” that silence, aloneness, and contemplation on solutions, rather than focusing on problems, brings. The pushback is always that “Well there have always been conflicts” and this is true. But there’s also always been resolutions, rather than a state of endless festering under the surface, encouraged by a fire hose of meaningless noise.

-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] On Fences, Boundaries and Good Neighbors

Does the admonition my mother gave me during my childhood still ring true in an era of refugees, immigration and fears?

Natural boundaries have existed since the dawn of human existence to separate “them” from “us” and, once Dunbar’s Number kicked in at scale, political boundaries existed as stories that developed into myths designed to separate “us” from “them.”

In the 21^st century though, the illusion of noise as communication has convinced many people that boundaries (natural and otherwise) are the provenance of a time long past, and a people long dead.

The ability to erect an artificial barrier(anyone remember the Maginot Line) or to manipulate a natural one (“Don’t bring troops across the Rubicon River…”) has always acted as a trigger in the human psyche to the prelude for greater conflict. This is not necessarily always cast in military or political terms but, as human beings are conflict prone and naturally political, it often comes across in such ways.

And then we throw race, gender, national origin and culture into the mix and things get really dicey.

Which leads me back to my mother. When I was a child and my two sisters and I would have a conflict, unless we could work it out between ourselves (most often we could) my mother would separate us with the admonition that “Good fences make good neighbors,” and would put use each in our rooms—with the doors closed. This would precipitate a “cooling off” period before the real negotiation/resolution would begin.

Political boundaries existed as symbols, designed to protect and grow cultural stories around “us” and “them” and to allow people in charge to manipulate power, create conflicts, control resources and at the furthest end, start larger conflicts.

This all seems so illusory in an era of the 24/7/365 news cycle and the false dichotomies of conflicts. But in the world that average people live in, fences, borders and boundaries are still fiercely enforced, from families to neighborhoods and even at scale. And without such stories—which is all that those political boundaries really are—the chances of conflicts arising and becoming more virulent as those stories change and grow due to the reactions to the human choices to make war, migrate, emigrate or to have fears, is more and more likely.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] How To “Make A Ruckus”

There are two ways to “make a ruckus,” if you want to:

The first way is to be generous, give away your knowledge and spiritual wealth (and maybe even your material wealth if you are led to) and to collaborate with others to use the power you have gained to help others less powerful.

The second way is to race to the bottom on price and cost, worry about the corners and the fractions of an inch, to create/lobby for regulatory environments that favor incumbents, to use power as a weapon and to deny the human individual, and only look at the masses.

One way leads to abundance and an ownership mindset, no matter what environment or context you happen to be in.

One way leads to scarcity of resources and a perpetual employee mindset, no matter what environment or context you happen to be in.

Envy arises in individuals and groups of one mindset when they observe the physical, external manifestations of an internal set of choices. This feeling of envy, based in fear, clouds judgement, and leads to the false premise behind some conflicts. These conflicts—that are really about mindsets and values rather than about material resources—can almost never be resolved, they can only be engaged with—or moved on from.

If you want to “make a ruckus,” you have to make three decisions first:

What kind of mindset do you want to have?
What kind of environment or context will create the circumstances for acting on that mindset?
What kind of outcomes are you willing to advocate to advance, to protect and to reject?

It’s easy to say “I make a ruckus.” It’s not that easy to do.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The Decay of Power

Everyone “knows” what “it” is, but we often confuse the outcomes of “it” with the source of “it.”

Everyone “knows” that “it” is shifting geographically, technologically, morally, ethically, physically, mentally and spiritually, but no one “knows” why this shift is happening at this moment in our global historical consciousness.

Everyone “knows” that “it” is what makes “the world go around” but no one can really describe why “it” has so much ability to make things happen.

Everyone “agrees” that “something” must be “done” by people with more of “it” than themselves, but no one can successfully articulate why those with more of “it” would do “something” more with “it” than what they are already doing–or not doing.

Everyone “knows” that corporations, big businesses, governments, nonprofit organizations, parents, school systems, and even banks have too much of “it.”

Everyone also “knows” that the people who operate at the top of those organizational structures feel more and more under siege everyday as they look around and see “it” evaporating away from the siloes they’ve built to protect, use and exploit “it.”

Power is a curious thing. As it decays and moves, from one geographic or generational “space” to another, the fear of losing “it” (or the fear of gaining “it”) drives more conflicts than ever before.

Everyone (the royal “we”) “knows” what to do about that shift and how to resolve that fear, but, apart from talking in coffee shops, writing blog posts, or creating long form journalistic critiques of “it,” no one really has a clue about how—and why—this shift is happening.

But when a state of influence, such as power, which is so often confused with its outcomes (money is an outcome of power, not power itself), is seen to be decaying before everyone’s very eyes, the fear of loss—and the accompanying panic—generates a focus on escape and hiding.

Which is why, in conflict scenarios, whether between a husband and a wife or between a student loan holder and a bank lender, the energy that should be expended on getting to resolution, is instead expended on getting to escape, using power as a weapon, and/or hiding from the consequences of bad/poor behavior.

Which, of course, “everyone” can see…

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Perceptions of Power

There are conflicts everywhere.

From wars to rumors of wars, people, nation-states, corporations, organizations and many other individual and corporatized entities, are locked in conflicts, rooted in two factors: perceptions of reality and perceptions of power.

Perceptions of reality:

This one is the hardest to address, because from every person to every organization, perception is based on past experiences, contextual clues, and even the psychological and emotional make-up of people. No one agrees on the nature of reality, because, very few can agree (with 100% certain) on the nature of objective truth and facts. Both of which are mixed up with emotions when defining reality. Which lead to differences in perceptions, and ultimately create the spark that causes conflicts to rage like wildfires.

Perceptions of power:

Power is an interesting phenomenon, because everyone “knows” what “it” is—the ability to influence others to do your will—but no one can put a finger on where “it” shows up in the world. People, organizations and even nation-states, equate all kinds of material, psychological and even emotional “goods” with power. They make the same correlation with the trappings of power, or even the results of wielding power. But, no one can tell anyone what power actually is.

Perceptions of power and perceptions of reality both spring from the seeds of fear. Fear as an emotional driver motivates and animates most conflict scenarios. Whether a person is an employee at work, or the Pope in Rome, everyone fears something (an outcome) or someone (a person) and this fear drives the lust for power, the inability to establish a shared reality structure, and the desire for conflict.

On this Veterans’ Day in the United States of America (and Armistice Day, everywhere else in the world), we think on the ramifications of the impacts of reality and power and reflect on how much blood (both literal and metaphorical) has been spilled, in how much mud (both literal and metaphorical), since the dawn of mankind.

And how much blood (both literal and metaphorical) has yet to be spilled.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] On Predicting the Future

You can’t do it.

Neither can we.

Human beings (all of us) spend a lot of time generating a lot of anxiety, about what will happen tomorrow, what will happen next, or when this thing we’re doing now will all be over.

We can’t help it. Our biology has us wired for fear and anticipation of the next thing over the horizon. But, we believe that the work of conflict is for human beings to overcome their biology.

In our modern, conflict ridden culture, we have the tendency to mythologize the past, as if the people who lived then were somehow less intelligent, less forward thinking, less analytical, and less worried about the future. This orthodoxy of nostalgia is a poison, particularly in the context of a conflict. When we mythologize the people and situations of the past, because the future is unknowable—and thus scary—we hand over power to the worst impulses inside of us.

However, there is a way out, but we have to do a very scary thing first: We have to jettison the orthodoxy that mythologizes and infantilizes past decisions, people, and situations and realize that we will, in turn, more likely than not, be mythologized and infantilized by future peoples as well.

Pride and vanity—in our accomplishments, our technology, our knowledge—are pathologies of the current age. In the age of the present, people elevate themselves over the populations of the past, and become anxious and fearful about how they will be judged and categorized by people yet to be born. The humbling thing to realize is that such pathologies are no more pervasive in people now than they were in people of the past.

Pride and vanity—along with a courage deficit and a need for safety—go a long way toward ensuring that conflicts we thought were over—in our families, our organizations, our societies, our cultures— continue on into the future.

Humility in the face of past, faith in the face of the future, and peace in the situations of the present, lead to not worrying about the future, rather than expending mental, emotional and spiritual energy on trying to predict it, control it, or prepare for it.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] What Will You Do With That Freedom?

The two natural processes of erosion and corrosion are long-term, insidious and the body being affected by them does not observe the effects immediately.

Erosion happens from the outside in: It’s a slow, steady, grinding down of the earth by the massive structural forces of wind, water and ice. It takes hundreds of thousands of years to complete and is never really over.

Corrosion happens from the inside out: It’s also a slow, steady process, where natural—or man-made—materials interact at a chemical level with the oxygen in the air. It takes less time to finish its work and is also never really over.

We underestimate the power of corrosion and erosion as entropy based systems that affect the earth, its properties and the things that humans create. But the circle of life—birth, maturity, death—continues inexorably forward.

On this July 4^th, the day that celebrates the United States of America’s founding with the signing of the most revolutionary document ever written (birth) let us ask two critical questions:

Where is our country, politically, ethically, morally, spiritually, and economically, at in the circle of life?
What social, moral, political and economic processes—either erosion or corrosion—are moving our country inexorably forward along the timeline of entrophy?

Countries, nation states and collections of people (tribes, if you will) also erode, and corrode, in their quest toward entrophy. This holiday weekend, let’s take some time, look around, and consider where we are at.

And what got us here.

-Peace Be With You All-

[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] Mediator’s Own Rumplestiltskin

Poltergeists can present a problem, whether they are intending to come through your television or spin straw into gold.

Poltergeists these days come through social media, offering multiple spinning wheels, promising to turn the straw of engagement and trust, into the gold of long lasting revenues.

For mediation professionals, trust is the only currency worth having, whether at the table with conflicting parties, or blogging about strategies and approaches to conflicts.

Trust goes directly to relationship in the overall mediation process as well and the revenue generated from that trust should appear as referrals on the trusted mediator’s bottom line.

Or, mediators can just wait on Rumplestiltskin to show up…

-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/

[Opinion] Who Will Hire the Bigots: Sigma Alpha Epsilon Edition

In a world where proper outward social conformity is often conflated with the presence of internal, moral character, what’s a young man in a fraternity to do?

Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members, who are students at the University of Oklahoma have been either suspended or removed from school, for creating a chant with racist lyrics, and then having it filmed and plopped on the Internet and TV.

These students are about to have their future employment fortunes changed, because, the Internet neither forgets—nor forgives.

Should we be surprised that students in this fraternity seemingly happily chanted along with lyrics that might not have been above board?

No.

Social pressure to conform to group norming is still more powerful at the human, physical, person-to-person, individual level, than Internet shaming ever will be at a larger societal level. And ignorance of history and facts is not merely the provenance of the young and impressionable.

But, here’s the thing: These students have now been impacted far beyond the actual impact of their words and enthusiastic chanting in the video. Yes, it went viral. Yes, many people have played it, talked about it, linked to it, and written about it (heck, even we are). But has anyone asked the larger culture what the societal impact of such an outburst actually was?

No.

No, we haven’t.

Opinion polls are gradually being replaced by instant reactions through immediate outlets (like Twitter, YouTube comments, etc.) to stimulus events. This rarely commented upon cultural shift has created a “firebombing” mentality that has scorched the personal, business, emotional and financial earths of many people, both public personalities and private individuals. All the way from former Mozilla Firefox CEO Brendan Eich and former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling, to the two police officers who were shot in response to the death of Eric Gardner and shooting of Michael Brown.

Forgiveness and grace are gifts to be given out of a sense of compassion and empathy (are the fraternity members at OSU not human? Do they not bleed?). But the larger social desire for lockstep conformity prohibits this. And when proper outward social conformity is linked exclusively to the assumption of character, forgiveness and grace are hard to come by.

We are sure that the OSU students who have been suspended (or removed from school) as a result of this incident, will attain employment in the future and will move on to living as full lives as they possibly can, but what deeper lessons have they learned from this incident, from culture, society and from institutions of higher learning, about race, character, conscience and forgiveness?

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