[ICYMI] Organizational Climate Change – Part 2

Anthropogenic is a big word that basically means, “the fault of human beings.”

When we look at organizations built by human beings, from families to governments, there are a lot areas where anthropogenic issues combine to create a negative, toxic conflict climate.

And since conflict is a process that never really ends, there are only two kinds of environments that it can happen in, nurturing or harmful.

We all know what a harmful environment looks like, but a supportive, cooperative environment, where conflicts can happen and not leave traumatic scars that carry over into other aspects of our lives—well that’s the Holy Grail isn’t it?

Anthropogenic conflict climate change starts with disrupting the internal focus around an ancient resource that many people lust for deep in their hearts, but no one knows how to define.

Innovations around power tend to focus on redistributing the detritus that arises from the resource—such as wealth, social control or political influence—without ever really addressing the power itself.

There’s gotta be a better way…

Originally published on January 27, 2015.

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[ICYMI] Organizational Climate Change – Part 1

The presence of climate change is real. And the climate is heating up the planet.

Everywhere on earth there are objects expelling hot air, and other gases, that serve to create a harmful climate.

And the climate that’s being created is the opposite of creative, nurturing and balanced.

Changing the climate of the planet is hard, but changing the conflict climate of an organization, filled with people with their own ideas, has to be focused on disrupting four areas:

Power abuse and threats
Unhealthy competition
Endemic distrust
Defensive behaviors

And the conflict climate where the psychological atmosphere is balanced in favor of these four areas (rather than in another direction) is bound to experience negative change.

This is particularly true when the conflict management tools used regularly in an organization, are focused in areas that support power, competition, distrust, and defensiveness, such as litigation and policy regulation.

This is also true when the conflict continuum is focused on escalation, and continuing comfortable levels of dysfunction, without seeking to break apart the underlying psychological processes.

Global climate change didn’t happen in a vacuum, and neither does changing the conflict climate of an organization.

Originally published on January 26, 2015.

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[ICYMI] On Persistence

“Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.” -Tom Krause

Monday, we asked a series of questions, borne out of experiences, conversations and observations that we have made as we have been building a business here in the Southern Tier of New York State.

We went from asking “why do we quit?” to “why do we continue?” With that in mind, let us take some time to talk about the opposite of quitting: persistence.

The dictionary defines persistence three ways:

quality of persisting: the quality of continuing steadily despite problems or difficulties
act of persisting: the action of somebody who persists with something
long continuance of something: continuance of an effect after its cause has ceased or been removed.

Clearly there are some elements in these definitions that apply to building a business, building a marriage or building a diet program. But why?

Do we want to prove something to other people?

Do we want to prove something to ourselves?

When we continue steadily despite problems or difficulties, we may look on it as persistence not during the process of persisting, but after the fact of a positive outcome.

After the outcome is secured, and after the battle is won, in hindsight, not foresight, persistence is lauded from the tops of the mountains to the bottoms of the valleys.

When individuals continue steadily in spite of problems or difficulties, and the outcome is the opposite of the one that they intended or stated, others may deride their actions as failures, them personally as incompetents, or as individuals lacking in the foresight to “get out while the getting was good.”

Persistence, in these cases, becomes a virtue only after it is vilified by others as a vice.

Abraham Lincoln was only seen as persistent in a positive way after the Civil War was won and the South defeated.
Business owners are only seen as persistent in a positive way after they make a substantial profit or build a culture or brand that lasts.
Artists, writers, poets and creatives are lauded for their persistence (in this case continuance of an effect after its cause has ceased or been removed) after their efforts have been “recognized” when they are long dead.

The rarities who persist in efforts we would have long since quit at, become the Martin Luther Kings, the Jay Z’s, the Pablo Picassos, the Lady Gagas and the James Deans of the world.

So why should anyone persist in anything at all?

If individual, worthwhile efforts will not be sufficiently recognized, compensated or lauded while alive (or if the actions “fail” according to others’ estimation)…AND…If the applause for such actions deemed “foolish” by others, is only personal, and rarely public, what makes individuals, groups, organizations and even cultures, insist that persisting is the only way to accomplishment?

Could it have something to do with grit?

Originally published on July 24, 2013.Download the FREE E-Book, The Savvy Peace Builder by heading to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/e-book-the-savvy-peace-builder/ today!

[ICYMI] Bullying

There are all kinds of personalities operating in the world today.

There are the “weird” outliers who enjoy collecting odd, unusual items off of Ebay.

There are the “bosses” and the “employees.”

There are even the “nice” “normal” people who turn on their television and fall asleep in front of the Tonight Show and reality TV after putting in a hard day at work.

Then there are the people who are never talked about or mentioned.

These people are the ones who don’t get along well with other folks.

These are the people who don’t have multi-million dollar executive bonuses that serve to hide their evil ways.

These are the people who spam your inbox and send you unwanted junk mail through what’s left of the mail system.

We used to call these people “flim-flam” men (although they were also sometimes women) and matchstick men (from which the film takes its name).

There is also a more common name for them, which everyone uses now, particularly in the workplace and in the school system:

Bullies.

We all know the conventional wisdom about bullies:

Bullies are dangerous.

Bullies are angry.

Bullies are socially inept.

Bullies are misunderstood.

Bullies are just victims of other bullies.

Bullies are people who have to be taught that “that kind of behavior” is “unacceptable.”

Except…except…

Bullies have to pay the rent.

Bullies are going to continue to have children.

Bullies are going to drive cars and go to nice restaurants.Bullies vote in elections.

So the question becomes, in a world where the outlier is ever more trumpeted and celebrated and the weird is the new “normal,” how do we as a society give bullies jobs?

How do we co-opt and enfranchise bullies?

Not bullying behavior, that’s enough of a problem in and of itself, but how do we get a bully a job that will allow them to progressively be transformed into someone that is compliant, complacent and cooperative?

As you ponder this question, take this parallel into consideration:

Jerry Sandusky is widely considered to be a monster.He molested and took advantage of the system in which he was ensconced for almost 40+ years to steal innocence and trust from children and young adults. The English Tops of the Pops host, Jimmy Savile did the exact same thing in the exact same way.

However, while Jimmy is dead, Jerry is very much alive and buried in a prison where we as a society would like to forget him.But, someone is going to have to go into that cell with Jerry to talk with him, examine him and take him apart, so that his crimes against children can never take place again and so that we can ID predators early and do what we can to stop them before they become what they will ultimately be.

And that’s the parallel.

We will have to give bullies jobs in a world of niches and the “weird” so that we can gradually, societally, say, with some confidence that “Bullying doesn’t happen here.”

Originally published on July 30, 2013.Download the FREE E-Book, The Savvy Peace Builder by heading to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/e-book-the-savvy-peace-builder/ today!

[ICYMI] No

The word “no” is so compelling because it serves as both a positive and a negative.

We’ve written about this before, here and here, and it never fails to amaze us how much more there is to cover. This is because the crowning question that we asked, from clients to casual observers of our blog and social feeds is: “How do I say ‘no’?”

Saying “no” to an opportunity, a person or a situation is hard for three reasons:

It requires us to articulate the values that we hold dear.
It requires us to make judgment about those values in relation to another persons’ desires and requests.
It requires us to place a potential future best, above a present tangible good.

It is hard for people to say “no” (positively or otherwise) because we feel as though we are letting down other people. And being the social animals that we are, reciprocity and social norming exert a powerful pull upon our psyches, our hearts and even our souls.

The word “no” places a delineating marker between people, ideas, projects and purposes. It segregates, and closes off, even as it opens up other possibilities. This is why rejection is such a hard thing to overcome for sales professionals, marketers and others who engage in the business of persuasion.

“No” ultimately can feel like a rejection of persuasion, rather than a statement of preference:

Preferring the safety of nostalgia over the danger of the new
Preferring the comfort of the present over the uncertainty of the next moment over
Preferring the status quo over a change

What are you saying “yes” to by saying “no”?

Originally published on March 19, 2015.

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[ICYMI] Moving Around Deck Chairs on the Titanic

The corollary question to, “Does any of this stuff really work?” is “Does anybody really change?”

The writer and marketer Seth Godin, in his most recent audio production, Leap First, talked about how people often need to hear assurances. Assurances that everything is going to be alright in spite of organizational layoffs or familial changes, or assurances that the future (of work, life, the economy, etc.) is going to be just the same as the past, but slightly better.

He stated that the reason people need to hear assurances is that the human lizard brain turns on a jabbering, sabotaging, klaxon of alarm bells when assurances are not wrapped around threatening information. This is a defense mechanism, long developed and honed to a point that sabotages needed changes in organizations.

In relation to conflict, we see evidence of such a need in the training and teaching that we do. In the mediations that we no longer do, we used to see that clients needed assurances that there would be safety, autonomy and self-determination at the mediation table; before they even sat down to do the scary work of confronting their former partners, husbands or wives.

In the effort to educate people in how to approach conflicts, difficulties and even confrontation in better ways in their organizations, we have struggled with the practical fact of having to provides assurances to “grease the runway”—while also having to provide challenging information that will encourage audience members and clients to stretch past their comfort zones.

Comfort zones are the geographic location where the “expert” lives (whether in a person’s head or a person’s organization). The “expert” employs the whispers of the lizard brain, assuring us, even as we are stretched by new knowledge that “only minor changes need to be made,” or “that’ll never happen here, the organization is too big,” or “we’ve always done it one way. Don’t worry. That guy will be gone tomorrow and you can get back to doing what you were doing the way that you were doing it.”

The phrase “moving around deck chairs on the Titanic” indicates a person (or organization) choosing to act in a futile manner to solve a minor problem (the arrangement of the deck chairs) while a major problem (the looming iceberg) goes unaddressed.

Does anybody really change? We don’t know.

We hope (and yes, we know that “hope” is not a scalable strategy–we measure and assess outcomes as well) that every person who attends a workshop, a seminar, a corporate training, or a keynote chooses to exit their comfort zones in some small way to do the work that matters around conflict, confrontation and difficulty in their organizations.

But moving deck chairs around is the mental, emotional and spiritual activity of an organization deep in their comfort zone, being soothed with assurances, which lap upon the sides of the organizational body, even as changes loom in the distance.

Originally published on April 24, 2015.

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[ICYMI] Does All This Stuff Really Work?

Yes.

But it requires you to engage and be active, rather than passive.

How many people do you know that are passive participants in their own lives?

How many of them are in conflict with others?

Stuff doesn’t just “happen”(no matter what the bumper sticker may tell you) and active participation in choosing to be empathetic, to be a listener or to be positive is tough.

The family won’t save a person in conflict.
The workplace won’t save a person in conflict.
The school won’t save a person in conflict.
The church won’t save a person in conflict.
The society won’t save a person in conflict.

The only person who can save a person in conflict is themselves.

Originally published on November 24, 2014.

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[ICYMI] No Parking Here

“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind. Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?” – Five Man Electrical Band (1971)

In this week’s post “How to Autopsy a Conflict,” we here at Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT) addressed some of the methods which our conflict consultant (and many other mediators and peace practitioners in the field) use to examine conflicts almost after the fact.

There are many ways of communicating in the world today and a conflict communication situation came to us recently and we’d like to address it here, for the benefit of our readers.

In any conflict, both parties have three options in how they can choose to communicate:

They can be nonassertive “What good would it do to speak up?” Or, “Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
They can be passive aggressive: “I’m going to spy on you and then tell on you later to a person or entity up the ladder.”
They can be aggressive: “I am the boss. What I say goes.”

There is an apartment complex in Binghamton, NY, somewhere around the NYSEG stadium where the Binghamton Mets play. This apartment complex has on the street parking.

Typically, a friend of ours (for the purposes of this blog post, we’ll refer to him as C.) parks all the way up to the sign that reads this:

In essence, his selfish act of kindness, provides somewhere near an extra half to full space requirement for the vehicle behind his to park on what is a crowded, on-street parking, apartment living situation.

Now, one would expect such largesse to eventually be rewarded and acknowledged. And it is:

The person who wrote this…well…let’s get a direct quote from C. about this:

“This person clearly has a f—king problem.” (We had to edit that, we’ve got kids reading over our shoulders as we write this.)

Profanity aside, the head consultant here at HSCT agrees. As a matter of fact, we would call this type of communication passive aggressive at best.

Since we are about solutions to this, we have about three for you, our dear reader, our friend C., and the note leaver, that may help alleviate issues like this in the future:

In a previous post, (click here) we addressed getting to know your neighbor.

This would be our recommended course of action in this situation. You may key a stranger’s car, but not a friend’s.

Assertive, not aggressive, communication is the key. A note, left under a windshield with a message on it, provides the first, subtle message that escalation is not only OK, but preferable and acceptable.

Intimidation, fear, closed-off-ness, and anxiety are all present in this note and lay deep in the subtext of C’s feelings as well as his verbalized response.

The antidotes for all of those are collaboration through mutual understanding, clarification of perspectives and by having a rigid goal, but being flexible in the means to get there.

Finally, if you just can’t correct the parking situation on your own, call in a third party: A good friend, the police or the conflict communication and resolution professionals at HSCT.

We’ll take care of it all, from notes to nuts.

Originally published on July 10, 2013.

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[ICYMI] How to Autopsy a Conflict

How you get started with clients who need a situation resolved?

What are the steps you take to assess the dynamics?

These are great questions that, in order to answer fully, would require several blog posts covering psychology, sociology, theology, legal and other areas. However we are going to forego all of that.

Instead, we are going to focus on the post-mortem analysis of a conflict.

In the medical field, post-mortems occur when a pathologist must determine the cause of death of a human body.

Autopsies are performed either to answer legal or medical questions and tend to be either external, or the more common one that lay people think of, where a body is broken up and sewn back together.When a conflict communication consultant arrives on the scene, it feels like we are performing a post-mortem. And, in essence, we are performing a relational one.

Three steps are required to perform a conflict post-mortem:

Determine the players and their positions,
Answer questions about their motivations and goals,
Propose solutions that will benefit everybody.

Sometimes the solution involves changing an organizational or personal culture and that approach is what we’re all about here at HSCT.Here at HSCT, we deeply believe that changing your personal culture first can lead to changing your organizational culture.

A conflict consultant (or mediator) is called into a situation where the conflict is alive and well.

As a neutral third party, that person (typically us) has no idea what is going on.

Or, they may have only a tangential idea based off of something they were told by either a third party to the conflict, or a person involved in the conflict directly who may be trying to sway the third party participant in their favor.

Messy stuff.

So, us (or an organization like ours) enters the conflict. Our principal conflict consultant talks to all the parties involved and attempts to determine with at least 50% accuracy the answers to three questions. And yes, this is incredibly difficult.

Here are the three questions:

Who’s lying to us about the situation and their role in it?
Who’s telling us the truth about the situation and their role in it?
Who doesn’t care and wants the situation to “go away” so that they “can get back to their real lives!”?

And yes, in case you are wondering, we have actually had clients say that last one to us.

The answer to the first question—who’s lying— helps us determine what direction we go in to propose resolution to the issue at hand. We may propose a mediation, one-on-one coaching with the conflict participants, or outside resources (i.e. therapy) in addition to whatever else the parties may need.

The answer to the second question—who’s telling the truth—helps us determine who needs the most direct intervention first.

In the case of a conflict involving violence against children, elderly or other individuals who are at-risk, the answer to that question is always, the victim is telling the truth. Period. Once the person being victimized is removed then we can successfully manage other areas of the conflict. Or, disengage from it completely.

The answer to the third question—who doesn’t care—helps us determine who to ignore and whom to persuade as a potential ally to advocate for solutions that may benefit everybody in the conflict.

This is a tough position to take, because sometimes conflict participants say that they don’t care, when in reality they do. Or, they may be saying that they don’t care as another way of saying “I’m emotionally exhausted by this issue.” Conflict avoidance is a way to resolve conflicts, just not a preferable way.

Emotional exhaustion, apathy, victimization, disengagement, deceit, power games, these are all the energies that animate a conflict and keep it going and reproducing, like a cancer in the body.

Asking these three questions allows the principal conflict consultant at Human Services Consulting and Training to make a determination regarding the best path to take to resolution.

Originally published on July 3, 2013.

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[Advice] Caucusing Arete – Part 3

Wisdom and behaving ethically often overlap. But most often not always.

In a mediation, arbitration, facilitation or when having a transformative moment with a transgressing client, ethics can go out the window for the professional peace builder. This is because facilitators, mediators, arbitrators—peace builders all—are human.

There is the idea among some peace building professionals that advocacy, evaluation, design and decision-making are not integral to the role of a peace builder, and thus cannot be transformative acts. This idea underpins the much touted ethics of preserving neutrality and maintaining client self-determination.

Evaluation and transformation can happen together ethically between a client and a peace builder, but then what happens to identity, power and the deeper meaning and significance of the work of the peace building fields?

Bernard Mayer and many others have struggled with these questions in the field of mediation, but the real, scary questions lie far outside the field and relate directly to the underpinnings and assumptions about how to create conditions for peace making, or even peace keeping, and how to plot those points as destinations between two conflicting parties.

Is it more, or less, ethical for the power struggles inherent in conflict engagement and conflict advocacy to occur between two parties, than it is for the immediate conflict to be resolved?
Is it more, or less, ethical for clients to be allowed to engage in their personal struggles in a conflict scenario, while having a third party advocate in the room to represent the voices of those not represented by the dominant power structures at play?
Is it more, or less, ethical to allow clients to manipulate the caucusing process, thereby placing third party neutrals in the unenviable position of being co-conspirators in lying, deceit, or other forms of deception that continue, rather than end, power struggles?

The average client involved in a workplace dispute, a divorce mediation, a church power struggle or another conflict/confrontation/difficulty scenario, may not know what is ethical or unethical based on some ancient Greek philosopher’s definition of how the world works.

They just want their world, in this moment, to work.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
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