Great People of History

There used to be a lot of talk about great people in history.

Books, philosophies, ideas, inventions, and other movements in the past were lionized by being included as part of an overall “canon” of history that people in a present age dutifully memorized, internalized, and regurgitated to the next generation, creating a virtuous circle.

This memorization was designed to educate, inculcate, and to inspire. It was done with the best of intentions and was meant to join people’s current struggles (even if they weren’t great struggles, just mundane ones) to a past perceived to be great.

This “canon” of great people of the past primarily included political, social, and military leaders (and yes, the majority were men, and–in the West at least–white) but this was designed to pass along to future generations the idea that certain people have the ability to “stand astride history” and that conflicts, disagreements, and disputations could be solved by examining successful best practices (and failures) gleaned from large examples.

But now, sixteen years into the 21st century, all of that is over.

The philosophical, political, and cultural movements of the 19th, 20th and 21st century have sought first to expand the “canon” of who can be included as “great” (i.e. women, minorities, etc.) and then to expand the “canon” of what ideas can be considered “great” (i.e. Marxism, religious atheism, feminism, historical determinism, etc.).

With this expansion two things have happened concurrently:

The glorious historical past has become untethered from the inglorious day-to-day present. Along with this, the lessons from the formerly glorious historical past have become untethered from the inglorious problems and concerns of the day-to-day present.

The glorious historical past has become an object to be examined through the lens of current events, and day-to-day struggles, in an ever more frustrating search for pure meaning and linkage.

Both of these expansions underlie our current cultural, political, and moral anxieties, which manifest in conflicts and disagreements between people, institutions, nation-states, and even philosophies and ideas.

But these expansions also form the basis for generating the solutions to conflicts, disagreements, and disputations. And to ending our modern anxieties about seemingly intractable problems.

Because, as the present has become more and more democratic, individuals have the opportunity, the power, and the need to ascend to being great people in, not only our own personal histories but also, in the history of the world.

[Strategy] Barns and Mangers

An all knowing, all seeing, all good God, sent His only begotten Son to the Earth to save sinners.

Just writing this line, at this time of year, at the end of such a year as 2016, is considered naïve and near-sighted by many people.

However, as a statement of faith, particularly during the season of what used to called Advent, they are an acknowledgment that the season goes past materialism or doctrinal belief and goes directly to something humbler.

This line, this statement of faith, is about acknowledging the presence of something bigger than ourselves, acknowledging the need that humanity must be saved from our own problems and choices, and acknowledging our desire to be closer to something ineffable that takes us out of ourselves and unites us to each other.

Without human technology.

Without human misunderstandings.

Without human friction, conflict, or interruption.

An all knowing, all seeing, all good God, sent His only begotten Son to the Earth to save sinners, and his Son was born in a barn and was laid in a manger.

There are fewer places (even back in the bad old days) more humble and nonobvious for the person who is the object of such a radical claim to be laid in, than a manger.

The long realized, but rarely remarked upon, true revolution and revelation (that equally confounds the atheist, the agnostic, the follower of another set of religious beliefs, or the rational philosopher) is that omnipotence and omniscience would deign to descend from heaven to earth and into a manger.

During this time of the year, humility is at the core of the Christmas season. Not necessarily humility from accepting (or rejecting) a statement of faith, but humility coming from the awe that such a proclamation could be made, backed up, and continuously defended and propagated for over 2,000 years.

The strategy point is here:

Humility can come from staring at the world built by rational evolution.

Humility can come from being overwhelmed by not being sure about the meaning of the season.

Humility can even come from realizing how much forgiveness, grace, and reconciliation we have in ourselves.

Humility can come from accepting the statement of faith and acting on it.

But, the humility that lies at the core of this season (and yes, I’m well aware of pagan rituals, Catholic Church history, and humanity’s general inhumanity to man) is the humility of coming to the realization that the One True God outside of humanity, outside of time, and outside of our lived experience cared about us enough to send His Son here to this earth, to be born in a manger.

And from there comes the only question worth exploring through the renewal of the New Year:

What must the true nature of such a God be?

[Opinion] Show MBA’s the Way

MBA’s have a responsibility to save the world.

But they can only do that if the door is opened to them to believe that they can save the world.

For that door to open, someone must show them the way.

And then, when the way is shown, the door opens and the long process of saving our organizations begins.

Don’t believe me?

Well, this fall I had the honor of teaching Conflict Management Strategies for the Corporate World to a cohort of MBA students at Binghamton University in Binghamton, NY. While it wasn’t always comfortable, for the 34 students who attended the class, their lives (and perspectives) around conflict, peace, and strategy were change.

This is feedback in their own words:

 

“This class has taught me a lot of content that I would have not been able to learn in other classes especially the art of negotiation and how to properly apply it. I never would have imagined a class like conflict management would allow me to gain a new perspective of the kind of person I am and how I can apply myself in the business world.

I was actually able to apply some things I learned in class to my friends who were in a toxic environment at work and showed them videos that were part of this course.

To further elaborate on this story, my friend eventually was motivated enough to leave the company and landed an offer at a better company with a flat culture and a director that has an external locus of control as compared to his old manager. The structure of this class gave the students the opportunity to engage with each other and grown to be comfortable enough to speak and discuss different topics openly. In addition, the interactive simulations such as, the quarter negotiation and the Chestnut village, were exercises completely different from the traditional learning style. Not only was I learning how to negotiate, but how to better communicate with others and read non-verbals. The readings were informative and were further elaborated in class lectures.

I would highly recommend this class. This class is a great mix of lectures and interactive simulations. It has definitely brought me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to better understand the person I am in terms of conflict management culture. I now understand the significance of conflict culture in a firm and how that may affect my future decisions in my career path. I just wish I had the opportunity to take this class earlier. In addition, this class is about becoming agents of change for the generations to come and break the barriers of the norm.”

 

 

“This class was very interesting and very informative for me.  I took Negotiations last semester with [professor name redacted] and when I switched into this class I was afraid there would be a lot of overlap in the class content, but there honestly has been little to no overlap.  The biggest similarity was our Chestnut Village negotiation, obviously.  I learned SO much more from you about negotiations, conflict, etc than I did from my previous class, so I am very happy I decided to take this course.

Everything about the class content was beneficial and was designed to make me think.  Your teaching style makes the class extremely comfortable.  I think that the class structure was great.  I really enjoyed the open forum feel, where everyone was building on each others ideas and opinions and although there were clearly some tensions between the students, the structure allowed for everyone to still put forth their opinions.

The content was delivered really well and even though you are not requiring us to take long tests based on memorization, everyone is always ferociously writing, which shows that we want to know what you are saying and internalize it.

I really enjoyed the negotiation, but I think it would be great if you also required us to partake in a conflict type simulation.  It would take on the same format, but would require us to respond with how we would handle the situation- it might be cool to provide a conflict to us on the first day and then provide that same one to us on the last day and see how the answers change.  It would be interesting for us, but I also think you would really enjoy seeing how much of an impact you have had on our way of thinking.

I would 100% recommend this class to someone else in SOM.  I personally think it is the first class that critically made me think about the way I handle every situation in my life. I am also taking a leadership class and I learned and absorbed close to nothing in that class, whereas in your course I have become more self-aware and understand why I act the way I do in the workplace.  I really feel as though this should be a required course for everyone before they graduate, whether it is undergrad or grad.”

 

 

“Literally everything worked for me in this class. I usually prefer to just go to class and not participate because most classes are boring and quite useless, however this class is the complete opposite. Content, structure, direction; the class is set up perfectly to engage students and force discussion, although I don’t feel discussion was forced as multiple students in the class actually were interested and learned a great deal (including me).

My friend [student name redacted], who literally hates class and school, has said on multiple occasions that this is the best class he has ever taken, and I agree. If you got him to come to class and be engaged, you are doing something right.

Definitely best class I have taken, useful, intellectual, meaningful. Also I think papers are the best way to go about grading this class and the group discussion quizzes really took out the stress factor and enabled people to think critically and share ideas.

Other students might complain about having to participate, the simulations, etc. but I would take the criticisms with a grain of salt. This class is great and I feel the only criticisms are going to come from students who don’t see the value in what you are saying and how incredibly intelligent the discussions we have are.

We just had to register for classes for next semester and I recommended this class to every person who was talking about registration, not realizing that the class was not being offered here next semester :(. A couple of them texted me on registration day asking where the class was and I then realized I had gotten their hopes up for an awesome elective. But yes, I certainly would recommend this class as an elective. The School of Management should be begging you to teach this class every semester; it should actually be a required class in the graduate curriculum.

Best class I have taken at Binghamton [University] by far.”

 

Show the MBA’s the way to save the world, and they will run with it.

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 10 – David J. Smith

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 10 – David J. Smith, Peace Builder, Consultant, Speaker, Educator and Author

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode #10 – David J. Smith

[powerpress]

Some things, ideas, and even spaces are hiding in plain sight. Like the idea of walking in peace. Or building a career in helping people walk in peace.

The big question is (to paraphrase from the film The Prestige): Are you paying any attention?

Our guest today, David J. Smith is the author of many books on teaching peace. He most recently wrote the book Peace Jobs: A Student’s Guide to Starting a Career Working for Peace.

And he has come on at no better time than now, to talk about what really matters.

Look, I asked a podcast guest recently, “Why aren’t peacebuilders paid more?” and she gave that question an honest and thought provoking answer which you’ll have the pleasure of hearing next season.

I assert that the reason peacebuilder’s struggle to get appropriate compensation for the emotionally draining work that they do, is because we live in a conflict comfortable and peace skeptical society and culture.

David answers the question in another way on the podcast today.

Look, this is the last episode of our penultimate 4th season of the podcast, and I for one, could not be more grateful and appreciative of your ears, your attention and your focus this year.

Your feedback, as always, has been tremendous for a podcast that runs no advertising other than mine, and where I don’t come on the mike and ask you to donate to my Patreon page, or to rank me in ITunes, Stitcher or on Google Play.

Though the Earbud_U Podcast is available for download and rating on all those platforms.

Thank you for all your support in this self-funded effort, and we’ll be back in January 2017 with a new year, a new slate of guests, and even a new opening I’ve been working on.

Connect with David J. Smith in all the ways you can below:

Website: https://davidjsmithconsulting.com/

Peace Jobs Book Link: http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Peace-Jobs

Facebook (For Peace Jobs): https://www.facebook.com/PeaceJobs1/

Facebook (to Connect with David): https://www.facebook.com/david.j.smith.54584

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidjsmith2013

[Advice] Conspiracy Theories

The standing rule is that people tend to most easily believe in conspiracy theories that they create; and tend to reject the conspiratorial thinking of others.

The trouble with our concerns about fake news, is that they come from a place where critical thinking has been reduced in favor of playing to (and supporting) audience attention spans that rival those of hummingbirds.

The long read, the long form content, the long movie; the challenging idea, the scientific journal, the complicated path to learning a new language; these are all in competition against TL;DR (too long; didn’t read), the 30 second cat video on YouTube, the 6 second looping Vine video, or the easily shareable click-bait article.

Audiences have been convinced by both marketers, and journalists (just marketers in another way) that their thinking and content consumption choices are sophisticated. That they are able to sift through biases consciously (without relying on assumptions and inferences from facts not in evidence), come to rational conclusions, and then act on those conclusions to co-create an orderly world.

Oh, but were that so.

When audiences can pick their own personalized access to “knowledge” and can choose their own “facts” then news that comes from sophisticated marketers (some former journalists) and content creators, becomes the coin of access to the conspiratorial realm. And social cueing, confirmation bias, and attribution activates individuals in the audience to create their own, publicly viewable, and socially shareable conspiracy theories.

Not about aliens landing at Roswell.

Not about the Illuminati running the world.

Not about a rising one-world government.

Not about a coming cashless society.

But conspiracies about stolen votes, illegal voting (and voters), racialism, economic injustice, Big Pharmaceutical companies poisoning vaccines, Big Agricultural companies poisoning seeds, Big Banks ceasing to be allowed to failed, Big Governments seeking to curb natural rights, Big Faith seeking to curb libertine tendencies, and on, and on, and on.

This type of conspiracy theory mongering is particularly subtle and insidious, because it plays on the mistrust and biases audiences already have built in to their world-view and thinking, but it does the play at scale, and one-to-one. This creates a feeling of community (we’re in the know) while also creating a feeling of persecution (we’re on the outside of everyone else).

And people should have expected it. As more knowledge, has become more accessible to the common individual (if you have a smartphone in your pocket with Internet access, you have a supercomputer) we have been encouraged to embrace the conspiracies we like, share them with our friend circle, and then sit back and wait passively for reality to match our frames and worldviews. And when that doesn’t happen, we go back, double-down, and start the conflict cycle.

Mass media (led by the collapsing and panicking journalism field) is complicit in this as well, seeking to drive audience attention to ideas and concepts that are spurious, but that also generate clicks. This is because mass media content production can’t figure out (at scale) how to get audiences to pay for something they can get anywhere for free, but it’s also driven by the ego-based desire to be seen, be acknowledged as an expert, and to grow the network and personal brand of the content creator at the expense of the market, and the audience, gaining new knowledge, or being challenged in any meaningful way.

Fake news—and the environment that allows conspiracy theories to metastasize—is not going to go away. The echo chambers of social platforms are too powerful, with too many voices, too many passive audience members, and too many exclusively self-interested actors.

What is going to have to change is, as always, the hardest piece: Individuals are going to have to decide what they will absorb, what ideas they will believe, and they critically reject other ideas, based on objective evidence and proof.

But if individuals (and audiences) could do that effectively, the placebo effect long-ago would have ceased to be effective.

[Opinion] Mental Infrastructure

There is a lot of mental infrastructure from the Industrial Revolution still laying around.

And most of that infrastructure can be seen on display in organizations:

Employees who are at the bottom of an organizational chart, believing that they are the foundation on which the organization rests, yet feeling as though they are treated as basement dwellers.

Managers and supervisors who are squeezed in the middle, believing that they are the glue that keeps the top of the organization from flying away, and keeps the bottom of the organization in line. Yet the reality is that they are asked to care about something that they did not initially build, and asked to give positive lip service to ideas that they know will have a low chance of success.

Upper management and executives who are at the top of the organizational chart, believing that they deserve the status that they have. And that preserving that status is the only thing that matters. Yet feeling as though they are in a constant battle with forces (i.e. governmental regulations, organizational ennui, etc.) that the people in the organizational chart below them could never possibly understand.

Work matters in the 21st century, because of two reasons:

The first reason is that as the jobs that used be done by humans migrate more and more toward the computer, the mobile phone, and to whatever hardware innovation comes next (probably the cloud, virtual reality, and A.I.) the only question worth answering is: Can a computer do your job?

When the “yes” answers to that question outstrip the “no” answers, the Industrial Revolution based infrastructure of our assumptions, ideas, and even opinions, about work will change. If they don’t, if we bitterly cling to past notions, continually hag-ridden by reimagining a past to which we cannot return, we will fail to take advantage of the positive parts of our remaining mental maps for a future we cannot fully predict.

The second reason is that as individuals and companies become human centered rather than technology centered, the only things that matter are the Long Tail, emotional intelligence, leadership ability, courage, and resilience. Organizations of the past century said that those traits weren’t that important in light of where your job was placed on an organizational chart. But that is no longer true.

The work that matters will be that which values these traits above all else. And there are some fields (the human services most of all) that are poised to take advantage of this shift in what is valuable in the future, from what was valued in the past.

The infrastructure that needs to be torn down the most is in the minds of employees, managers, executives and others.

The true tragedy is that the demolition work is plentiful, but the workers are few.

[Strategy] Crossing the Chasm for the Peacebuilder

For the innovative peacebuilder, the truly important switch must happen in how thinking about products and services cross the chasm.

crossing-the-chasm-for-the-peacebuilder

Most of the time, processes (such as mediation, negotiation, or dispute resolution) are confused with products.

A process is, in essence, a service.

Sure, there are sometimes opportunities to grow a process past a service and into a product, but this is rare.

The idea that content focused around “how-to” can be a product, is supported by the digital reality we live in now. With digital platforms, developing digital components for processes we already think of as services, should become second nature.

But for many it hasn’t.

At least not yet.

There are four ways to cross the chasm in thinking, from a strong consideration and focus on services, to a strong consideration and focus on products.

  • Deep listening requires surveying clients (formally and informally), compiling that data, and executing on the results of that listening. By the way, deep listening is beyond active listening, and is something that peacebuilders are increasingly seeing as a tactic for clients at the table.
  • Deep understanding is the corollary to deep listening. Deep understanding requires accepting that crossing the chasm is the only way to scale. Plus, it requires accepting that one-offs, workshops, seminars, and more of the traditional ways of engaging with audiences, clients, and scaling a “lifestyle” business, have changed irrevocably.
  • Deep advice requires accessing the wisdom contained in the organizations peacebuilders may already be working in. It also requires listening to, and reading, advice that comes from non-traditional places. Accessing, and considering deep advice is strategic and tactical. Deep advice not only comes from outside the box, but also it comes from looking in another box entirely.
  • Deep courage is the last way to cross the chasm. Execution is about courage, and many of the reasons that serve to “stall out” the crossings peacebuilders attempt, is less about not doing the other three things listed above, but is more about the lack of courage to pull the trigger and execute on a truly scary idea.

Philosophy first, tactics second, and courage always to change how peacebuilding happens in our digital world.

[Opinion] The Listicle is Simple and Seductive

Three points need to be emphasized at the beginning of any training, workshop, or seminar.

Your way of thinking about conflict, communication, and persuasion must shift before anything else can happen.

Your way of consuming information, your attention span, and your level of caring about the content you are about to hear, must shift before any deep learning can happen.

Your way of listening to the delivered content must shift from passive to active, for without that shift, nothing else can happen.

The desire, of course, from some of the participants is for these three things to happen. And these points being made out loud makes those participants relieved.

But there are other desires in the room.

The desire to get the tools, get the skills, get the listicle version of the information, and then to leave.

The desire to get the lecture, get the knowledge, but to not engage in any deeper change. After all, such change is challenging, and if there’s no support in the environment from which you came for change that needs to happen, well then it’s easier to ignore the calls to change.

The desire to not care. This is reflected in the phrases, the questions, the statements, and the observations that spring forth from the participants. Typically framed by some participants as “I hope that you can keep me awake,” or “You kept me awake more than any other facilitator I’ve ever sat through.”

The desire for the listicle version, the shorthand, the summary, the 30-second point, is seductive. But ultimately, changing the philosophy about how we think, matters more than applying shortcut tactics to achieve an outcome we might not enjoy.

Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode #6 – Darren MacDonald

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 6 – Darren MacDonald, Investor, Film/Movie Buff, World Traveler, Local Raconteur

podcast-earbud_u-season-four-episode-6-darren-macdonald

 [powerpress]

Intercultural context, humility, and world travel.

Capitalism, expanding your worldview, entrepreneurship, one-way traffic, and the country of India.

Our guest today on the show, Darren MacDonald, is a local venture capital investor, film buff, and world traveler.  This interview stands out as a “call back” to our very first episode of the Earbud_U Podcast, where we debuted by featuring Darren’s unique, humorous and engaging point of view.

And we’re doing it again here.

In this episode, Darren talks about finding his way from the Taj Mahal to Mumbai, his travels in India, and how to expand capitalism into other areas and explore new ideas.

One idea that we talked about extensively in this conversation was about hope. Now, hope is not a strategy, but it does lie at the core of many questions, yet to be answered, in the world of entrepreneurship globally:

How do we get hope to people?

Hope to places from Mumbai, India to St. Louis, Missouri.

Hope to places where all hope–economic, social, and even spiritual–has left.

Hope is the eraser for despair. But before we get to hope, we’ve got to identify what the problems are, why they are important to solve, and who actually has the bandwidth to solve them.

This is the first part of a two-part conversation with Darren and it’s a lot of fun, while also being sobering, inspiring, and sometimes, just downright goofy.

And there’s nothing not hopeful about any of that.

Connect with Darren through all the ways you can below:

Check out our first interview with Darren here: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/blog/earbud_u/earbud_u-episode-1-darren-macdonald/

Follow Darren on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upwordz

Connect with Darren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenmacdonald/

Connect with the Southern Tier Capital Fund: http://stcfny.com/

Connect with the Southern Tier Capital Fund on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stcapitalfund

[Advice] The Fundamentals

When analyzing a problem to move forward towards a solution, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the fundamentals of the problem.

We place a lot of importance in understanding, revisiting, and honoring the fundamentals of a problem, because they come, not from conceived wisdom, or even perceived wisdom, but from received wisdom.

Of course, this wisdom is received from a past when the fundamentals weren’t fundamental, they were merely subjective reality, based upon the circumstances of that time and place.

Or, this received wisdom isn’t really wisdom at all, but merely regurgitated conventional wisdom, which has two marks against it before it even is spoken into existence—yet again.

In the now, when confronted by a problem that seems to resembles one we faced in the past, we hearken back to that received wisdom, and being trapped by hindsight bias, we demand that fundamentals be reinstituted.

But this is just a clever version of the idea of returning to a past when everybody got along, there was no strife, and the fundamentals were sound.

Here’s the thing:

Demanding a return to the fundamentals can be a callback to received wisdom, but only if the current problem resembles a past one in any kind of way. And problems involving people, rather than processes, are constantly in flux.

Creating a solution to a problem based in the fundamentals can be a foundation to work from. But they can also be the concrete that traps a person, a community, a society, or culture, in a species of cloudy nostalgia for a past that never really was. And once trapped by such nostalgia, those same people, communities, societies, and cultures, are inevitably surprised when an outlier comes along who fundamentally doesn’t care about the concrete of the fundamentals.

Advocating for fundamentals based in received wisdom can be biased, not only because they reflect the prejudices of our personal attributions to past events, our personal desire to minimize dissonance in the present, and our personal need for stability and security in the future, but also because our personal hindsight is always perfect. But in reality, getting to resolution and discovering what fundamental actually worked to solve which problem in the past, was always complicated, messy, mistake-prone, and not assured of success.

Making a rhetorical appeal to return to fundamentals is inherently flawed when the current circumstances don’t even remotely resemble previous circumstances.

And having the courage to throw the past fundamentals out and establish new ones, will always increase conflict, rather than decrease it.