[Opinion] Philosophical, Strategic, Practical

There are three conversations that you can have at any given time.

Philosophical—This is the 50,000-foot, “big idea” conversation. Not many people are capable of connecting together big ideas. Nor is everybody capable of (or interested in) exploring the ramifications of the implementation of those big ideas to their lives, either at work or at home. Many people would rather not think (or talk) in 50,000-foot terms and instead would rather seal off the considerations, thoughts, and even ideas, that a 50,000-foot philosophical conversation brings up, and never think about them ever again.

Strategic—These are the 10,000-foot conversations that occur every day between members of middle management inside of organizations. These are the conversations people think they are having inside of brainstorming sessions at work. These conversations are about ideas (ostensibly) but they quickly move to being about people (gossip) or about repeating a personal story as if it were a public truism (storytelling). Many people like the feel and the tenor of a strategic conversation, because conversations like these usually wind up with someone else doing the hard work of formulating a plan, developing next steps, and implementing a policy or a change.

Practical—These are the “How do I deal with what’s 5 inches in front of my face?” conversations. Practical conversations are about getting to the point, getting past the “fluff,” disengaging with emotion (if at all possible) and making a point forcefully and persuasively. Practical conversations don’t typically involve discussing facts—just impressions that the facts left behind as they floated up into the strategic conversation realm. Most people enjoy practical conversations because they allow for a focus on “getting things done.”

The three conversations—just like the three feedback conversations—happen almost simultaneously in meetings, face-to-face interactions, and most notably, in conflict communication scenarios.

If you want to communicate beautifully, know which conversation you’re having with which audience.

-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/

HIT Piece 4.12.2016

In my life as an entrepreneur, consultant, and freelancer, perfect is the enemy of good.

Chasing perfectionism—in a project, a blog post, a speech, a podcast episode, or even in a formalized training scenario—is a sign that I’m focusing on the work that doesn’t matter, so that I can hide from making decisions to do work that does matter.

Hiding comes in chasing perfectionism, both launching and addressing the market, allowing my critics to give me shame in their efforts to give me feedback, and allowing myself to become bogged down in considering what I didn’t do well.

So, if perfect is the enemy of good, getting to good—actually doing the work—is the only way to get to great. But even great is a term loaded with assumptions, expectations, and desires that can never be met. See, great (and perfect) are all impulses that come out of human desires and emotions.

Going toward greatness—without the humility that comes from walking through good first—breeds a species of hubris and arrogance. Focusing on perfect—at the expense of making the choice that “good enough is ok”—breeds a species of fear and hiding.

Hubris and arrogance.

Fear and hiding.

Telling the truth, making a ruckus, providing hope, staying humble, giving credit when it’s due, accepting criticism—but not shame—and being informative; these are the areas that more, and more, I’m intentionally chasing.

Moment-by-moment, step-by-step, day-by-day, drip-by-drip.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] How We Talk About What Matters…

There’s no other way to sell peace to a conflict comfortable public, than for a peace builder to be champion and a linchpin.

There are two ways to become a champion:

Only talk about what matters.
Constantly iterate and reiterate your minimal viable product, which in this case turns out to be your words and your perspective. This strategy does not eliminate having principles (they are bedrock and don’t change) it does however eliminate meaningless discussion, advocacy, and negotiation around principles.

By only talking about what matters (and constantly iterating and reiterating on the how) you are opening up yourself to doing the hard, champion level work, of actually negotiation with others of good conscience and moral fiber around positions.

You are also opening yourself up to the ideas and possibilities that knowing other people’s interests (not values (which equate with principles) or positions) but interests: the “what” and the “why” underneath the how.

When you do this intentionally and deliberately over a long enough period of time, drip-by-drip, you begin to persuade people of the value of what you are selling (a perspective, process, service, or product of peace) and begin to move them away from the resistance to it.

This moving, this drip-by-drip, is how you become a peace building linchpin: A person who, if they were gone, we all would have to invent.

A person who broke the mold, even before they walked into the room and convinced you.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] How Comfortable Are You…

How comfortable are you with the word “no”?

Not “maybe.”

Not “kinda.’”

Not “eeehhh…”

But “no.”

No’s seem final, door closing, and never good. We’re told to “keep our options open” in a conflict management situation, in a negotiation around topics that matter, and when we are working with people and parties to change them.

No is a word of opening. And reframing the word “no” to mean something else in YOUR mind, has to happen long before you sit down with someone else, who has a frame of reference and a worldview that you may want to say “yes” to, but to preserve your principles, may have to say “no” to.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #6 – Mitch Mitchell

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #6 – Mitch Mitchell, Health Care Revenue Cycle and Management Consultant, Diverse Tweeter, Prolific Blogger

[powerpress]

Leadership and self-deception around diversity and social justice is at the event horizon for most organizations, but Lawrence Fishburne isn’t there to help them to the other side.

Although, our guest today is there on the other side of the event horizon. But he’s not Lawrence Fishburne at all.

Last year, Black Lives Matter rocked the social media world and served as one of those rare social media movements that actually crossed over into real life, really lived, and was talked about among real people.

But a year later, as the presidential election heats up and as the strains of the candidates fill our airwaves, our collective inability to focus on one thing as a nation, one again rears its ugly head.

And Garry Shandling is dead too.

Privacy, security, healthcare, advertising, your private data and making money all link up in this space as well. But I can’t think of how all that collapses together.

Leadership is the core thing that ties all of these disparate areas together: Leadership on the issues of privacy and security is critical for continued success in this country. Leadership in the space of healthcare is the only thing that is going to keep us all going even as getting healthcare changes gigantically in the future.

And leadership is the thing that is going to give people the freedom to engage in emotional labor in a future where more and more people may wind up doing less and less work.

This interview with Mitch is much more “ground level” than the interview that we did with David Burkus. It’s also more focused on leadership directly—but also indirectly—than the interview that we did with Ruth Henneman.

But it’s all leadership.

And that’s part of the problem, right?

Check out all the places you can connect with Mitch below:

Mitch’s Website: http://www.ttmitchellconsulting.com/

Mitch’s Blog: http://www.ttmitchellconsulting.com/Mitchblog/

Mitch’s “Other” Blog: http://www.imjustsharing.com/

Mitch’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYMVX_ehmfnV_BhvTOj-5_w

Mitch’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mitch_M

Mitch’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mitch.mitchell1

Mitch’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ttmitchell

[Advice] Getting Everyone On Board

When the internal marketing organizational change efforts doesn’t match either the lived organizational culture, or the culture that happens to be stated in quotes on the wall (or the masthead) you’ve got a problem.

The issue isn’t that executives and middle management don’t see eye-to-eye. That will happen in any organization where goals are not transparently shared. The issue isn’t that entry level/front line employees are asked to do more with less. That will happen in tough economic times, particularly if your organization is a nonprofit, or it has been a bad quarter. The issue isn’t that middle managers feel as though they are placed in positions of authority where they can always say “no” but where they can rarely say “yes.” This has been happening ever since the time of Hammurabi.

The issue is your organizational culture, your internal marketing structure (or lack thererof), and the fact that your executives are not operating inside a metric of trust and openness, but instead are measuring success one quarter at a time.

There are just as many ways out of this as there are into this bind, but here are three from a conflict engagement/management perspective that could be helpful:

Your organizational culture needs to change intentionally—I don’t hold to the idea that culture is fine and that products, services, or processes just need to be overhauled. The culture of the organization is either fragile (but believes that it is robust), is robust (but has elements of fragility in it), or is antifragile (with no elements of fragility or desire to go toward robustness). The fact of the matter is, when the culture that’s lived deviates too much from the culture on the masthead, or in the external marketing, the gap between lived reality and fantasy gets filled with competition, low morale, low motivation, high conflict, and constant storming. All of which lead to an eroding culture, as surely as rain washes away the sand.

Your internal marketing structure needs to change intentionally—How you market change efforts to the people being impacted most directly by those efforts (i.e. the employees) matters more than the efforts themselves. Without buy-in, the outside trainer, or consultant, comes in, makes recommendations for changes, and works closely with the people and hears “We don’t have the power to implement that change here.” Or, “The people who should be hearing this information and getting these recommendations are not in the room—and we can’t talk to them.” Internally marketing organizational change to the people being impacted by that change, has to go beyond a Friday afternoon/Monday morning notification email, followed up by a supervisory conversation whose tone and direction is that of a mandate.

Your executives need to “buy-in.”—Optics matters more than employees, managers, supervisors, and even executives think that it does. Role modeling may be the foundational aspect of all leadership, but if the people with positional authority aren’t actually engaging in role modeling the discrete and obvious, changes they desire to see in the people tasked with responding and reacting to their authority, then all the change talk is merely that. Talk. People follow who they see leading.

When middle managers are driven to tears, frustration, thoughts of quitting, and even more, because they feel powerless to implement the changes they can observe are desperately needed, organizations need to change their cultures, not by changing who is in positions, but by challenging the organizational process that got them to that point in the first place.

Accomplishing this takes open communication with courage, curiosity, and compassion. And those traits are what fill the gap between what’s on the masthead and what’s lived in reality.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 4.05.2016

Sometimes, but usually very rarely, an MVP won’t do in the market.

Sometimes, just interacting with the market with shoddy products, half thought through, is worse than not interacting at all.

Sometimes, the market (consumers, clients, audience members, etc.) need to see that you have actually thought through and engaged with the process of building something, in order to buy-in to the something in the first place.

The struggle is when you can’t discover—from what your competitors are doing, from market research, from just asking your potential clients, customers, etc.—what the market will bear.

Sometimes, the MVP is a question asked of the market, and the struggle is too read the tea leaves, in between the lines, and to discern what the market wants.

And sometimes, but usually very rarely (only twice in the history of the Industrial Revolution that I’m aware of), the solution is to build a product the market doesn’t know it ever wanted in the first place, to meet a need it never knew it had.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Fixed Mindset Peace Builder

Peace builders often spend a lot of time trying to shift the worldviews, shape the mindsets, and break the frames of clients, systems, and processes in the world. This is reflected in much of their marketing materials, business development practices, and their overall approaches to sharing information in the world about making peace.

Peace builders often spend an inordinate amount of time trying to shift their own worldviews, shape their own mindsets, and break their own frames around the esoteric differences between transformation, evaluation, and facilitation. This is reflected in the majority of trainings that are offered, conferences that are attended, and speakers that are lauded in all the fields for peace making, from litigation to mediation to negotiation.

But this is where peace builders are comfortable.

Mediators will work on Bob. 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.

Conflict coaches and consultants will work with Ann. 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.

Church litigators will work with Dave and Melinda. 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 Melinda, who sees her role as a Deacon as one who is there to lead people to a relationship rather than through religion.

Peace builders inherently know that the worldviews of their clients around conflict matter. This is where they are most comfortable, feeling as though they are doing work at the edges. When in reality, this work, while unpleasant for some, is not the core hard work.

Peace builders inherently know that their own worldviews matter. This is where peace builders are less comfortable, but still not as uncomfortable as they need to be to truly be doing work at the edges. This work, while easy for many, is not the most unpleasant thing.

The hard, unpleasant, and edgy work lies at the edges of worldviews: The work involves going into places where the peace builders’ knowledge level and expertise may not be appreciated and doing the courageous work of digging in with people who have only even known conflict. The work involves designing products and services that are truly cutting edge—in technology, in mindset, in worldview—that match what clients, consumers, and the market is demanding, in the language that it’s demanding it. The work involves creating relationships at a global level with professionals in other fields and publicizing that interdisciplinary work in a cutting edge way, not for the field, but for a conflict comfortable public.

To go all the way to the edges, to be a champion of work that matters, and to design a life and career of meaning, peace builders must challenge inherent, field based assumptions loudly, rather than quietly, and have the courage to go to the furthest end of where those challenges lead.

Otherwise, the growth mindset necessary for peace builders to grow and make a revolutionary impact will remain far away from many peace building professionals. At the outer edges, of a field that will become more embedded in a fixed mindset at the chunky center, deep in the very conflicted world it seeks to impact.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Minimal Viable Product

If you’re building a peace project, it’s important to understand what you’re creating in the product phase, so that you understand what you’re selling.

Many creators misunderstand the idea of a minimal viable product. The definition, created by the writer Eric Ries (he of Lean Start-Up fame), is as follows:

“A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is: “[the] version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort”

In essence, a product that doesn’t try to be perfect (what the peace builder may want) but instead is a product that “ships” (i.e. gets into the market, gets out the door, gets into the customer’s hands, etc.) so that peace builders can interact with the market, rather than think about interacting with the market, is an MVP.

This is where many peace builders get caught up:

The blog that takes you ten minutes to set-up and allows you to distribute your ideas, thoughts, and passions about peace to the market is an MVP. The pretty website around the blog that “has to just look right” is not an MVP.

The email that is a conglomeration of various links, information about peace building, and allows you to interact with fans, audience, and potential customers, and that takes you an hour to set-up and an hour to send out three times a week, is an MVP. The list of emails to send the email to is not an MVP.

The workshop on active listening that you develop after ten minutes of thinking about the problems with clients in conflict that you are seeing at the mediation table is an MVP. Continually changing, researching, and referencing to make the workshop “perfect” is not an MVP.

The interaction with social media platforms through setting up a business page on Facebook, tweeting and retweeting links to peace building producers in other areas, or the posts that you consistently write and put on LinkedIn are all MVPs. The constant worrying about perfection (or not being wrong in what you retweet on social media) cannot lead to creating an MVP.

The issues with developing an MVP is that many creators of peace building projects get caught up in the idea that a product (a workshop) a blog post, a website, an email, or a social interaction has to be perfect. But the secret of the MVP is that the market isn’t looking for perfection.

The market for your peace building project is looking for YOU. The people in conflict who need resolution, engagement, help, ideas, a process, or even just advice, aren’t looking for perfection. And in many cases, once you engage with them with your MVP, enough people are generous enough to give you help, feedback, and encouragement to develop and reiterate your MVP so that it moves from being “minimal” to “maximal”

Selling begins when peace builders have the courage to engage with the market.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] Peace Building is not a Commodity

There are commodities, massive amounts of resources, products, and even ideas, that consumers use and discard at mass. Commodities can also be traded for money and generate outsized revenues because they are so valuable to consumers and can be differentiated across so many secondary and tertiary products in the market.

An obvious commodity is oil.

Another obvious one is meat, such as hogs or cattle.

And yet another obvious commodity is metal, such as steel, copper, or gold.

The price of a commodity fluctuates over time, as the amount of it either decreases or increases. So when new oil deposits are accessed through new technologies (e.g. the hydraulic fracking process) the cost of that commodity decreases as the available amount for consumers to use increases.

There are non-obvious commodities as well. We see this in the job market when too many people trained, or graduated, from one academic area to the working world, and then they ‘flood’ the market. Currently, the legal field is seeing a classic increase in the commodity of educated graduates, followed by the commensurate decrease in the salaries that they are able to command.

Another non-obvious commodity is information. We see this on the Internet, where the search giant Google has made the ease of accessing all the world’s collected knowledge (not wisdom mind you) a cornerstone of their business model. When access to information becomes cheap (the commodity increases) then the revenues provided to people who used to guard access to that knowledge (e.g. journalists, writers, commentators, academics, social authorities, etc.) decreases.

Until the revenues generated from the exploitation of non-obvious commodities hits zero.

The reason why this phenomenon doesn’t happen with obvious commodities is because obvious commodities have a limited shelf life (meat rots if not processed), they will eventually run out (anybody heard about peak oil lately), and they become less valuable as new ways to do old things are discovered (cutting down trees for paper versus recycling old paper).

The trouble with selling peacemaking in light of this unconscious thinking and valuing in the market of obvious and nonobvious commodities is three-fold:

People in conflict value trust (a non-obvious commodity) at a higher level than process (another non-obvious commodity) and thus will ‘pay’ more to the peace builder—in terms of attention—who works on trust first rather than process.
People in conflict view disagreements, disputes, fights, ‘differences of opinion,’ and other interactions with other people as an obvious commodity. For many people conflict is something to be avoided, and they have worked out sophisticated processes in their own brains to justify, avoid, delay, or surrender, to the conflicts in their lives. The approach that many peace builders take of trying to ‘sell’ resolution as a transformative, evaluative, or even facilitative process, does not strike a chord with such people.
People in conflict don’t view making peace as a commodity. Instead, litigation, escalation, negative confrontation, revenge, ‘getting what I’m owed,’ or even ‘getting a reckoning’ are viewed as rare commodities (even though they aren’t) worth paying a premium for in time, money, attention, and emotional labor. When peacemaking as a process and a goal is not viewed as a commodity worth pursuing by people who see themselves as powerless, rather than powerful, peacemaking will not be valued by the open market as highly as all those other processes.

Understanding how peacemaking as a process is viewed and valued by an open market, can go a long way toward encouraging the development of realistic goals, timelines, and plans for the academic training, professional development, and business development of peace builders from all backgrounds and stripes in the world.

-Peace Be With You All-