The Other 95%

Nonverbal cueing involves 95% of human communication efforts.

Professional speakers and presenters realize, at a professional level, what many people know at an amateur level:

What you say with your face and body matters more than what you say with your mouth.

In a dispute resolution process, nonverbal cueing is far more important to coming to resolution that anything that either party may say.

Mediators’ nonverbal cueing can protect the agreement process, or reveal doubt about either the participants or the resolution itself.

Eye contact, micro-expressions and body language are the grout in between the tiles of conflict resolution processes that can either ensure that an agreement remains adhered to by either party—or can ensure that no matter how many “yeah, yeahs” are given, the agreement will fall apart.

-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/

Arbitrary Colors

Railroad engineers decided in the 1830’s that red meant “stop,” white meant “go” and that green meant “caution.”

Now, the idea of red indicating danger goes backward in history, beyond the Roman Empire itself and no one is really sure whether natural or social evolution is the driver here.

So, it’s arbitrary. We could just as easily have decided that green meant danger.

Well, wait a minute:

When we are angry we talk about “seeing red.”
When we are talking about conflicts we sometimes use the term “blood on our hands.”
When we talk about war, the banners of war tend to be the color red.

Even our blood is red.

Humanity has embraced the color red in an arbitrary manner that is indicative of how we embrace conflict. It is no coincidence that our language around conflict is colored red.

Marketing is the most arbitrary practice in any organization, though the outcomes can be objectively measured through analytics and metrics.

Just as the metrics of stoplights and “go” lights can be measured in the reduction of traffic accidents at a particular intersection.

Conflict communication management—and it’s unmentioned cousin, reconciliation—is considered equally arbitrary, but the outcomes of training, workshops, interventions, discussions and feedback, can be objectively measured through sophisticated analytics and metrics.

But, too many organizations would still rather arbitrarily pick a color for a stop light at the intersection of their workplace conflicts, rather than purposefully pick a series of solutions based on measurable, agreeable outcomes.

The hard work in an organization is not picking a stop light color. The hard work is agreeing that there should be a color for the light at the intersection in the first place.

-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: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Unbundled Civility

Let’s have an honest talk about the good old days.

And, please bear with us. This is going to go a little long.

Civility and discourse seem to be on the wane as the instantaneous nature of communication becomes more and more ubiquitous in our everyday lives.

It appears as though society has traded civility, good manners, good breeding and other elements of moral and Godly character, for an increase in perceived authenticity, the freedom to air our “dirty laundry,” and unload embarrassing baggage, not only on social media, but increasingly in the workplace, the church and the school.

Along with this comes the exchange of grace and forgiveness for the freedom to judge any mismatch of words and deeds, to take measure and revel in spectacle.

Thus, incivility becomes a new form of pornography—briefly gratifying when we are being “true to ourselves” and emotionally “authentic” at the workplace meeting table–but leaving behind a wake of emotional, psychological and moral damage upon others.

George Washington diligently copied in school 110 maxims for proper behavior, that were initially hand written and passed down from Jesuit scholars in the 16^th century and were titled Biensance de la Conversation entre le Hommes (Decency of Conversation among Men).

They come from a time before the 21^st century, when social conduct was considered more than just a sign of good breeding. Proper social conduct then, was part of the pavement on the road to success, along with grit, conscientiousness and perseverance.

But what about now?

Culture is changing because of three things:

The speed of our communication
The irreverence of our communication
The disruption of long standing social mores

The conflicts of the 21^st century in organizations of all kinds, will be between the vocal minority (also composed of the silent majority) who will hold to the rules of civility in discourse, no matter what the platform.

And those who will appear to be the majority (who may in fact be in the minority) who will throw the rules out in favor of the illusion of freedom, authenticity and the easy path.

-Peace Be With You All-

Most Valuable Battleground

Is anyone listening?

Reading well, listening thoroughly and responding appropriately are the hallmarks of working through the minefield that is adult interaction.

However, our brains are changing demonstrably through intersection and interaction with the internet, social media and mobile devices.

The brain already processes information twice as fast as a human being speaks it, and thus attention wanders and multitasking becomes a way to keep the brain engaged and to avoid boredom, rather than to actually accomplish tasks of merit.

Listening well and maintaining eye contact is critical, but as face-to-face communication has degraded, eye contact becomes the hallmark of a valuable conversation.

The bunker that we have built inside of ourselves is cracked through eye contact, listening well and responding appropriately, but attention—true attention—becomes the most valuable battleground in the 21^st century.

-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: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Christian Peacemaking in a Fallen World – Bully Edition

Bullies are everywhere it seems.

They are at school. They are at work.

Have they always been around or are we only now becoming sensitive to their presence and their impact?

From Donald Sterling to the workplace bully to the disaffected school shooter, modern Western culture seems to be turning up more and more of the disaffected and the dysfunctional.

Eventually, the societal call will come to violate the inviolable in order to ferret out and better address the impacts of bully pathology.

The conflation between the everyday bully and the societal scourge will become easier and easier as time progresses and peace will become harder and harder to attain.

There will be less understanding, less forgiveness and the road to reconciliation will be even tougher.

The hard work of #BuildingForTheFuture is just beginning…

-Peace Be With You All-

Authentic Teaching

Authenticity has become synonymous with credibility.

Consistency has become the new currency.

Yet, in the world of content development (and the entrepreneurial base that it begins from), the “old” rules of marketing, advertising and sales still apply:

The audience doesn’t really care what you know; they only care about what you can teach them.

-Peace Be With You All-

Top 3 Tactics for Avoiding Performance Improvement

We are sure that we aren’t the first corporate training firm working in the area of conflict resolution to hear either one–or all three–of the following statements:

Multiple Symbols

“The people who really need this information to have better approaches, won’t be attending these sessions.”

“The people who are causing all the problems and could use this workshop to improve aren’t going to come.”

“The people who could support us up the chain in changing our approaches, can’t come to the workshops due to scheduling issues.”

Just in case you’ve ever said any one—or any combination of the three—above statements, we here at HSCT have a few suggestions to get “buy-in” from the people who aren’t showing up, learning, or otherwise growing in your organization.

For the people occupying positions above your position, find out if they like to look good. Attending a conflict resolution workshop will make them look good to their bosses. It will also help them save money on recruiting and retention.
For the people occupying position parallel to your position, find out if they want to get promoted. Attending a conflict resolution workshop will make them promotable. Which means more money for them.
For the people in conflict with you, or those creating conflict in your organization, find out how they view the organization and their place in it. Once you do that, then you can tap into their inner work based ego.

Which we’ll cover the work based ego in another blog post later this year, but we have covered emotional illiteracy, workplace anger, being concerned about employees, and the depth of the “conflict question” all of which relate directly to using these tricks.

Employ the above tactics and the next time we’re invited into your organization, you’ll come up with a different statement for us.

-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: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

3 Ways to Work on Your “Infinite Game”

We here at Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT) love the old school E.F. Hutton commercials (link here http://youtu.be/sc2GpmLx82k).

The tagline, which our parents always used on us, of “when EF Hutton talks, people listen,” seems not to apply in the noisy media world in which we live.

But, when you’re developing a business with the anticipation of long-term equity, how do you cut through the noise so that at the key moment, as in the iconic commercials, people immediately stop—and listen.

Now there are three strategies that can help you work toward attaining your own voice:

Be consistent—even in a world of social media, the “Impermanent Web,” and Snapchat for business, nothing beats creating a voice by showing up, day after day, on a blog, on Twitter or on your website. Nothing.
Be bold—there are so many ways to spin a phrase that boldness in speaking, delivery and tone can be achieved through the use of a thesaurus, a dictionary and by molding an idea. And, really, if you’re controversial, what are “they” gonna do? Snoop on your emails?
Be quality—it’s hard to be a noun so often used as an adjective, but the fact is, quality counts. When developing a voice, quality is a hard target to hit, seeing as how people are often playing the “short game,” rarely ever playing the “long game” and almost never playing the “infinite game.”

In a world of impermanency, untrustworthiness and fly by night claims, implementing consistent, bold, quality strategies to develop your voice is the only pathway to success.

[Thanks to Seth Godin for bringing these distinctions to our attention.]

-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: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Advice] Caucusing Arete

Caucusing in a mediation happens when a mediator takes each party aside and talks to them privately about issues and concerns that the other party may not be open to hearing.

In a divorce mediation, it could be about issues of infidelity, emotional abuse or unresolved anger.
In an organizational mediation, it could be about issues of pay structure, proprietary information, or that there’s a personal problem with the other party.
In a church mediation, it could be a about an interpretation of Scripture or a moment of clarity.

No matter what it is, however, the phrase heard most often within a caucus is “I don’t want [insert name of party here] to know this, but…”

A mediator’s virtue then shows, because she has a choice about addressing the opposite party with a concern that could tip the mediation one way—or another.

Arête is the Greek word for the idea of living up to your potential with excellence. And when a mediator navigates a caucus with arête, it can make all the difference.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Opinion] Would You Like a Side of Mediation with That?

Mediation and sales have several things in common:

They both involve establishing trust right away.
They both involve starting from a referral from one or more of the parties.
They both involve establishing a relationship between the two parties and the mediator/s.

The key place where sales and mediation differ is that a sale is usually closed: Either the salesperson gets the order and gets paid, or the prospect gets the salesperson to go away.

Mediation relies on both parties having the autonomy to walk away. Sales involves parties being pressured (whether lightly or heavily) into making a decision to “buy” or “walk-away.”

The big takeaway form all of this is that if your career is in mediation, learning where to put pressure on versus where to ensure autonomy will ensure that each participant has a satisfactory outcome.

And that you get paid.

Active listening is a huge driver for both sales and mediation.

If you aren’t listing to what your customer is saying that they want—or the parties in the dispute are saying that they want—you’ll wind up going home.

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/