Top 8 Negative Communication Traits

Everyone is in sales all the time everywhere.

We try to persuade our family to go to the store, or on vacation.

We try to persuade our bosses to give us a raise, or more control in our division.

We try to convince others to buy whatever it is that we are selling as part of our jobs, or our volunteer work.

However, here at HSCT in our role as peacemakers, we are constantly reminded that it’s not what we say, but how we say it, that is important.

There are ways to drive these people apart

What we say may lead to escalation.

How we say what we say, will definitely lead to escalation: Particularly that escalation from merely a difficult situation or conversation to an all-out conflict that may emotionally ignite and reignite for years.

What are the top eight ways to communicate with other people that will guarantee you a negative relationship?

Passive-Aggressiveness: This is the classic “I don’t have a problem. Them folks over there have a problem.” If you don’t think that you are the problem, it’s time to get self-aware about…well…yourself.
Put-Downs: “Of course Sheila causes the problem, she’s never not been an idiot in this organization.” Or, “When was the last time Bill actually contributed anything of value?” Cue everybody laughing. Cue a difficult conversation upcoming with Bill or Sheila.
Scapegoating: “I didn’t have anything to do with the failure of this idea. I was just the middleman.”
Denial: Is not just a river in Egypt. “I didn’t do it. You never saw me do it. You can’t prove anything.”
Argumentativeness: There are people who love to cynically disagree and there are people who aren’t seeking to disagree, but to merely act as the “Devil’s Advocate.” The first type seeks to destroy for the sake of elevating themselves and dismissing others (see Put-Downs above). The second type seeks to push others to greatness in projects and ideas. It’s a simple matter of collaboration versus condemnation.
Lying: This one is simple. Just remember, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. Just ask President Nixon. Actually, no, ask former President Bill Clinton.
Slander: Slander is a false spoken statement. For instance “Sheila has to have this project succeed, after all, she’s gotta support her kids since her husband lost his job.” Libel is a false written statement. For instance, Sheila has ten kids by four men and can’t support any of them.
Gossip: This last one is particularly cancerous and corrosive because in life, while “that’s just how Bill is,” or “Sheila always takes a long lunch,” may not immediately seem to be damaging, the long term effects of such statements can serve to lead to everything other negative communication behavior on this list.

-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 page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

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

HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

My First Job

In the spirit of the blog series going around LinkedIn, featuring thought leaders and influencers writing about the first jobs that they had, some of which laid the foundations for attaining the success and influence they currently enjoy, I want to add to the noise by writing about my first job.

I started working “officially” at around age 14 or 15.Before that, I had briefly been a child actor at around age 8 or 9 in a few local commercials in the American Southwest, as well as performing in the pilot for a show that was to be produced by an Italian film company, based on the old school children’s cartoon, Lucky Luke (check the ballad out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Gm3acD0V4). I had also been an altar server in the local Byzantine Catholic church and had worked with my mother “off the books” in a janitorial capacity for the company that she started very briefly.

However, my first, official paid gig, was working in a privately owned dog kennel/animal rescue shelter in Naperville, Illinois. I went in the business in the evenings, after hours and worked from around 5pm to around 11pm.I worked with a team to clean up after the animals, move them from indoor kennels to outdoor kennels, feed them and make sure the place was locked up at the end of the night and that things were prepped for in the morning.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of dog and cat poop as well as bird and reptile poop to clean up on a nightly basis. I once cleaned up after a Kimono dragon. Some of the animals were well behaved; others not so much. One of the dogs there (who was classified as a “long-term” boarder because she was so neurotic that no family would adopt her) was consistently filthy and borderline dangerous.

And, after all of this, my first paycheck was a robust $68.55, based off of the old $4.25 minimum wage.

This first job taught me three valuable lessons that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else and that I have kept throughout the years that I have worked other jobs and other entrepreneurial ventures:

There is no legal, moral, ethical job or position that I am “above” doing. Humility is egalitarian and will take you further than pride, ignorance or ingratitude.
There is no benefit to lacking compassion. The animals were unable to take care of themselves and for 6 hours a day for three days a week, I was part of a team that could give them compassion and care.
There is nothing valuable in being greedy. To paraphrase from The Big Lebowski, “it’s not about the money!” Sometimes, to get your foot in the door, you have to be willing to play chess at about four levels higher than everyone else and realize–at an emotional and psychological level–that this too, shall pass.

Rolling up my sleeves and getting involved in cleaning up in the arena of peace, talking and writing about new approaches to doing the “same old things,” and pushing to be compensated accordingly, all began at a dog kennel/animal rescue shelter.What was your first job?

-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/

The Final Conflict

Our societal focus tends to be on the beginning and the middle of a life.

And the events that clog up the middle of a life.

You know the ones: school, single hood, marriage, kids and retirement.

But in the youth oriented society that we have unarguably built over the last 50 years in this country, we have neglected to talk about the necessity of mortality and death.

Maybe with the new federal healthcare law and it’s eponymously dubbed “death panels” we will change our societal approach, but we here at HSCT aren’t betting one it.

With the exception of the Showtime series, Six Feet Underfrom a few years ago, when was the last cultural moment of seriousness around this topic?

Death and its surrounding shoals represent the final conflict: People’s souls and Spirits fight the flesh to leave this world and the flesh (both the flesh that is dying and the flesh that is the people surrounding the flesh that is dying) has fights with the people.

We are trapped in this world, but, whether a devout atheist or a devout believer, the desire is to resolve the last conflict in our favor and to win the last argument.

And death does that.

It is the ultimate leveler. It wins all arguments and settles all debts. Google, NSA data centers, federal student loans—none of them have ever overcome–or will overcome–that final leveler.

What does death cost the living?

In terms of money and fees associated with the burial, internment or cremation of the last earthly evidence of a human being—the body—the cost can range from either astronomical to affordable.

But we the living don’t find that out until the flesh is almost at an end.

Legal documents, procedures, the medical process and all the other human—and dare we say, temporal—aspects of death are just as mysterious and shrouded in silence.

What are we to make of this equation: Youth oriented society + Silence around the topic + simple processes made to seem esoteric = death made mysterious.

We as mediators, conflict managers, coaches, negotiators and peacebuilders need to educate ourselves more around this final area, cloaked in silence, in order to expose the conflicts and generate better outcomes that will create peace for those who are left behind.

-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 page on Facebook
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

[Opinion] Rendering Unto Peace

There is nothing more capitalistic and freedom loving than making peace.

Think about it.

Two people come together to agree (or disagree) on an issue.

The issue gets resolved, gets to stalemate or gets blown up, but no matter what happens, the people involved in the process (the warring parties and the mediator) get to participate together.

Managing conflict is a place where the capitalistic principle of work = pay should rule.

The principles of freedom and republican democracy work in conflict management as well, because all parties involved can make a choice, whether they want to participate or not, and to get to resolution, everyone must learn and practice the principles of negotiation.

We here at HSCT grow weary of hearing political commentators and others talk about the fallacy of conflict resolution and of developing peace, while at the same time focusing on litigation, imprisonment, warfare and strife as the preferred way to go.

Jesus talked about peace. He also talked about money (check out Matthew 22:15-22 on this one).

When are we going to cease believing that making peace and making money are mutually exclusive?

-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/

Scarcity and Abundance

Mediation, conflict resolution, dispute resolution, conflict engagement, interpersonal communication training, reputation /relationship management, counseling, therapy and legal services are all valuable skills to pay top dollar to get in the abundance economy.

Trainers, workshop presenters, facilitators and consultants in an abundant economy are consistently looking for the edge that will make them—and the services that they offer—“scarce.”

In a traditional, industrial based economic system, this wasn’t an issue, because brands advertised, salesmen sold, and certain professions didn’t have to advertise (i.e. lawyers, doctors, etc.) because everyone “knew” that the professional expertise was locked up in a crystal palace (to borrow from Seth Godin here http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/10/our-crystal-palace.html) of scarcity.

Scarcity based on access, knowledge, education, and resources.

But, in an economy where the Internet, social media, Google searches, blogs and a thousand other media content methods have leveled the playing field, how does a professional conflict engagement practitioner get the parties to pay?

By being the only one who can show up.

The mediation process is not scarce. It’s abundant.

More education, more exposure more publication of methods, practices, tactics and approaches ensures that when a client calls XYZ Mediation Service, they are going to get the only thing that they can’t get anywhere else:

XYZ mediator.

That’s scarcity in an abundance economy.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Technical Tango & Cash

Last week our principle conflict engagement consultant, Jesan Sorrells, was asked to speak at the Technical Career Connection Class at Suny-Broome Community College in Binghamton, NY.

This was a great opportunity to talk about the importance of marketing yourself as something more than a brand and about the exciting opportunities for development and growth that access gives us in the early 21^stcentury.

As part of the “deal” the Technical Career Connections class awarded Jesan this very fine certificate and he agreed to answer questions emailed to him from the participants.

Below is a sample of some of the questions that were asked and some of the answers provided:

If someone isn’t technically sharp and doesn’t have a lot of time, what would you recommend them doing in regard to social media for professional outreach purposes?

We are the vanguard of an evolution in human communication, connection, development and society, just as important as anything that happened in the 60’s or 70’s and the difference between the people who will be left behind and the people who will be participating (remember the curve) will be thick.

Here’s a story to illustrate what I’m talking about: I was standing next to an older man at a retail store and he was telling me “I’m too old to learn new things. I can barely operate a flip phone.” I asked him “How old are you?” He said “I’m 58 years old.”

Confusion, disengagement and dismissal are luxuries that we won’t have time for 40-50 years from now, much less now. For a person who’s not technically sharp, there has never been a better time to be engaged and to get educated than now.

What are some tools that you feel people should know as they look for professional careers?

Know how to navigate multiple social media platforms (or at least talk about them) and know how they can interface with the business you are aiming at.

Know how to be an entrepreneur and actively practice building an idea, a platform or a product that will protect you, create connection, relationship and revenue and allow you to pick yourself when the economy tanks again or you are “downsized” by either a robot or automation or globalization.

Know how to navigate the tools of the future, including mobile technology and wearable techs.

Do you feel social media will change people’s day to day interactions?

Yes. It already has. And if it hasn’t hit your friend circle yet, it will. Even the laggards and late adopters in the government are going to be impacted in their day-to-day interactions by social media.

Think about it: How often during the week do you get up and check Facebook, Twitter or whatever your favorite blog is? How often do you listen to a podcast or read a blog or get a personalized email and then tell someone about it? How often do you “share” a good song from Pandora or Spotify?

Do you think becoming depended on a social media site is a good thing?

I think that “becoming dependent” is neither good nor bad.

However, I think that taking time away, unplugging and living a disciplined life that allows for being around family, friends, other activities, etc., will keep you balanced and a person who will remain engaging, funny and interesting.

For me, I have “date night” with my wife and I try to always have dinner with my kids with no phones or electronics at the table as a family. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for how we (and I) try to maintain balance. I also try to read at least four or five books a month that aren’t e-books or downloaded on my electronic device. It helps to remember that content wasn’t always on a screen.

-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/

Know Your Role…

The traditional definition of being a “creative” is dead.

Professionals and passionates in fields from nonprofit fundraising to sports celebrity, now describe themselves as being “creative.”

Being a “creative” has been co-opted by tech innovators and entrepreneurs.

The term has gradually transformed in meaning from defining those who toil at creating a sculpture, a painting, a drawing or a photograph to encompass anyone who is moderately skilled at being an outlier at what they are doing.

Marketers call themselves “creatives.” So do corporate executives.

Entertainers describe themselves as “creative” and even the RedBull Flutaug participants describe themselves as being a “creative” force for daring to do the impossible.

Well.

We might have made up that last part…

As a firm whose owner and founder has a background in the fine arts and who developed a former practice that involved design, color, line texture, emotional impact, subtlety and message, we wonder, here at Human Services Consulting and Training, how long will it take for everyone to describe themselves—and the work that they do—as “creative?”

We aren’t wondering to pick a fight or out of a pique, but instead are focused on a reality: In a world that is increasingly tolerant, supportive and mindful of the great impact of “the weird” (which is what being a “creative” used to be all about) where is the room for those who are in conflict with the “creative?”

What happens when the person who doesn’t view their role in an organization as being “creative” (but instead views it as being “just something I ‘do’ from 8-4 or 9-5 to pay my rent”) gets into a disagreement with those who view EVERY role as having the potential to be “creative?”

This is an expanded version of our article (link here) about who will hire the jerks and the bullies in a world where “the weird” is tolerable and the people who seek to limit or hold it back are socially (and sometimes legally) sanctioned.

How do you empower those who do not believe that their actions and lives have a drop of possibility of being “creative” in an organization, a society or a culture and give them the tools to describe themselves, their roles and their lives as “creative?”

-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 page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

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

Guest Blogger Ruth Gray: The Bigger Picture

In general, when we think about creative people, we often do not think about conflict.

We sometimes assume that emotions in an artist are expressed through whatever medium they have chosen, and to a certain degree this may be true. However, conflict comes to the artist and creative as surely as it does to the executive and team leader.

The fine artist Ruth Gray of Ruth Gray Images: Anything But Grey–has been among our followers via Twitter for the entire time that we have been building Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT).

Her studio, Ruth Gray Images out of Derbyshire, United Kingdom (http://ruthgrayimages.net/) focuses on landscape painting influenced by the landscapes of the United Kingdom as well as Australia.

We here at HSCT have a fondness for artists (after all, our principal conflict consultant, Jesan Sorrells has a background in printmaking and drawing) and we believe in a creative, collaborative approach to the conflicts in life.

Please welcome our guest blogger, Ruth Gray.

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Waiting for the Bus Market Place Ripley

My name is Ruth Gray I am a fine artist I have been painting for over ten years professionally and like any job, for being an artist is a job, I have to interact with many other businesses and contacts before I make that magical sale! Conflict is something you can encounter everyday as an artist and my way of dealing with conflict is to always think of the ‘bigger picture.’

The ‘bigger picture’ that I refer is the length you would like your career to be whether you are an artist like me trying to sell pictures or a newly set up retail business. You have to decide how you will handle each conflict.

For example if a rival artist in your locality decides to change their modus operandi to be similar to yours and you feel it could have a knock on effect to your sales margins do you bad mouth that artist or think of ways of complimenting each other and collaborating?

I know which I would do! Collaboration brings many more opportunities for future projects and opens doors you previously had no idea about how to unlock. I am part of a few art associations and work alongside other artists at events and exhibitions and each decision I make is a big picture decision always thinking carefully about sharing and giving rather than taking and gaining.

Projects currently:

Ruth Gray Images Fine Art Landscapes – Anything But Grey.

Flourish Exhibition airarts aid to wellbeing Royal Derby Hospital: Now until Feb 2014.

http://airarts.net/2013/09/19/flourish-exhibitions-launch-thursday-26th-september/

The Ripley Rattlers Exhibition: DH Lawrence Museum June 2014.

http://ruthgrayimages.net/gallery_570722.html

Links:

http://ruthgrayimages.net/

http://about.me/ruthgray

http://ruth-gray.artistwebsites.com/

http://facebook.com/Ruthggray

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/ruth-gray/1b/472/a17

https://twitter.com/ruthgrayimages

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-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 page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

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

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

Why So “Serious?”

Amid the theater and drama surrounding the very real conflict around the 2013 government shutdown, the Affordable Health Care Act implementation and other events in Washington DC, we are a little surprised here at HSCT to hear one word fall consistently from our government leaders’ lips:

“Serious.”

As in, “I won’t negotiate without serious reform on the table.”

“I won’t talk to [Insert name of politician/political party here] until they make a serious offer for change.”

Now, part of our role here at HSCT is to teach people how to negotiate. We teach how to navigate stonewalling, interests, judgments about the future, risk tolerance, and time preference. In addition, we cover lessons around framing, communication and the use of deceptive tactics.

We’re also not naïve to the whims and modes of American political history and realize that there have been “budget battles” in Washington DC that looked intractable, but that eventually produced workable compromises between governing parties.

However, nowhere in our training or in our experiences, were we ever taught to not negotiate until the other party became “serious” and made an offer we could live with before beginning the bargaining process.

This all kind of puts us in mind of The Joker in The Dark Night .

He didn’t want to negotiate until Batman was “serious” either. And yet, somehow, negotiations (such as it were in the film) moved forward anyway.

And that’s what has us so surprised.

After all of the bluffing, deception, and everything else, we are absolutely sure that the debt ceiling, the government shutdown and the Affordable Health Care Act implementation will be resolved one way or another.

But, when people in power harden their positions—as do their followers, the pundits and the casual observers—the chances that, to paraphrase from The Joker “everything burns,” become that much more possible.

Why then, is there such emphasis on “serious?”

-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/

Creativity Flows

6:30 am: The alarm goes off announcing the beginning of a new day. I roll over and hit “dismiss” and try to gain a few more winks. But I’m winking in vain.

Chinese Proverb

6:45 am: The legs swing off the bed and I wrap myself in a blanket and head to my prayer closet for an hour. Get The One perspective on the day before putting in any other perspectives.

7:30 am: The wife rolls over and wakes up. We talk for fifteen minutes about the day ahead, how much we love each other and then she jumps up to put the kid on the bus.

7:45 am: The shower is hot, the shaving razor’s cold and it stings. This is the time when the Android begins to shake, vibrate and blip at me with incoming messages. The world is waking up.

8:15 am: Go downstairs and start coffee. Have an apple while passing through the office to boot up the computer.

8:30 am: The coffee starts to make me vibrate as the email, texting, Tweeting, Facebooking, LinkedIn connecting and other nonsense starts in earnest on my end. I also begin my “to-do” list for the day.

9:45 am: Content creation, workshop preparation and research, speech writing begins. This will go in fits and starts, intermittently with checking email and responding to LinkedIn posts and comments, throughout the day.

11:45 am: Go to the radio and hit the POWER button. Start the talk radio going. It makes the day pass by and I get all these different perspectives from what I’m intermittently reading on Drudgereport.

1:45 pm: Lunch. And keep working on projects. Phone calls begin now. Always call in the afternoon because I hate to be bothered in the morning as a business owner and I project my neuroses on others. Monday and Wednesday, cold calling; Tuesday and Thursday, warm calling; Friday no calling.

3:45 pm: Kids start walking in the door. Whole day now enters “Swiss Cheese” mode, pockmarked by homework requests, TV requests, videogame requests, food/snack requests, wife requests, calls back from potential clients (if I’m lucky) or more work on content creation for the next day.

5:45 pm: Time to think about fixing dinner.

6:30 pm: Fix dinner because the two people under four feet tall are about to eat each other and the taller peoples above four feet tall are about to eat each other.

7:15 pm: Dinner hour. Welcome to the goat rodeo: The one time of the day where I’m a conflict consultant, mediator, father, disciplinarian, husband, Tweeter, and cook’s helper (or, depending on the day, the cook) all at the same time. And at the dinner table.

8:00 pm: Bedtime for those under four feet tall. Let the wrangling into showers, pull-ups, pajamas, beds and cribs begin.

9:15 pm: Go to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays and maybe Fridays. Or, start to catch up on what was missed during the last two hours on social media, answer late emails, create content for tomorrow and talk to my wife as she sits next to me editing.

11:30 pm: Hit the sack. Set the alarm to do it all again tomorrow.

This is a summary of a day as a conflict consultant.

The days are also randomly broken up when there are meetings to go to, clients to meet, trainings, workshops or speaking engagements to run, deadlines to follow, or crises to address.

Backing up my wife and kids becomes the most important thing above everything and sometimes this leads to nights that stretch into 1am.

Also, if there is a class, outside employment or another factor to be addressed during the day (for instance, I have to go to work at a retail store as an employee for 4, 6, or 8 hours of the day) then everything shifts back or up.

No day is the “same.”

No day is “normal.”

No day is “average.”

Creativity flows when there is no routine, but no routine.

As the principal conflict consultant here at Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT) I believe in picking yourself as a conflict professional first before a client picks you.

That way you can decide the best client to fit into your routine. Not the other way around.

-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 page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

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