The Political Body

The monumental conflicts of the 21st century will revolve around who owns your privacy.

Think about it: When you engage in social sharing–and, increasingly all of the Web works because you decide to share pieces of yourself with others–you tacitly provide approval and permission to your personal life.

Carol Hanisch had it right, but not the way that she thought. The body even is going to be turned to the benefit of the social Web, collected data, and politicized privacy.

But the core question remains: Who owns you, your data and even your body? Women have a right to choose, but does everybody have a right to privacy in spite of wanting access to the social web, wearable and even methods of payment, that collects their data?

Intriguing questions, and ones that are already being asked, but not answered, by ethicists, moralists, lawyers, philosophers and others. We know this: where there are no easy answers, black and white seem to be the only ways forward.

Which leads inevitably to more–not fewer–shades of gray.

-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/

On 9-11

13 years ago today, between 8:46 am and 9:03 am two planes hit the both the North and South towers of the World Trade Center.

The ripples from that event are not done going out yet into the pool of years that will compose the remainder of the 21^st century.

The results of those events—and the consequences from our decisions in response to those events—are shaping our lives, our governmental policy and our societal responses to everything from social justice to economic policy.

Let us honor the dead, keep consideration of the living and work toward positing more questions that can be answered with peaceful conflict instead of the violent kind.

-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/

[Opinion] A Modern History For Labor Day

“Eight-hour day with no cut in pay.”

Working for a $1.50 a day, 60 hours a week, during a six-day work week is enough to make any American decide that enough is enough.

At least, it was during the last twenty years of the 19^th century.

The last major economic disruption of technology, society, culture, politics and economics occurred at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

We who are living through the second decade of the 21st century, are going through another series of major economic and cultural disruptions right now and have been for at least the last 20 years.

The history of Labor Day though, tends to be forgotten, in light of the seemingly never ending, daily stream of reportage around conflict, uncertainty and social disruptions.

What does this have to do with Labor Day and the establishment of an eight hour a day/forty hour work week?

People these days, seem to do more work for less compensation, and this is the core of the issue of Labor Day, because, inherently, more money equals more happiness, less conflict, lowered uncertainty and more peace.

Right?

Well, if that were so, we would never need a day to celebrate the end of the summer and—tangentially—the eight hour work day.

Right?

-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/

[Advice] ABC for the Consultant

If you’re a consultant, you’re going to want to know the difference between selling and marketing.

So, let’s be clear here at HSCT.

Selling for the consultant is what happens when the client calls you back, signs the check and you deposit it.

Marketing for the consultant is what happens at every step before and after those three moments.

Now, some will say that you are always closing, in the manner of Glengarry/Glen Ross, but we here at HSCT would argue that you as the consultant are always marketing.

-Peace Be With You All-

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-

[Opinion] Grains of Sand in the Human Heart

A handful of sand contains one million grains.

How many ideas does that number of grains represent?

How much untapped potential?

The conflicts of the 21^st century will more pointedly focus on the conflict between potential and potential neither realized, nor accessed.

Real wisdom and leadership will come, not from designing more fancy tools, but from accessing old knowledge and applying it to, what will appear to be new challenges.

How many grains of sand can be contained in the human heart?

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

Why We Design Systems

The human brain seeks order out of chaos. It can’t help itself.

We create systems, cultures, organizations, traditions and stories to be able to make sense out of a world that seems inexplicable, where things seem to happen without reason or logic.

This ingrained need to create order has led to the creation of roads, bridges, governments and entertainment.

Conflict also results, because the universe (i.e. other people, circumstances, etc.) seems to also seek randomness and errors, both within and outside ordered systems.

Organizations, governments and cultures recognize and acknowledge this fact, and seek to smooth out the rough edges and patch over conflicts through a combination of punishment/reward and in-group/out-group sanctioning.

However, randomness, errors and conflicts present opportunities for change, not just opportunities to preserve the status quo and the even keel that our limbic systems have required since our time out on the Serengeti.

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

Be More of Who You Are

MBTI, DiSC, Strengthsquest and multiple other personality assessments and sorters have appeared on the market after World War II, proposing to provide people insight into themselves.

But, when a person attains insight into themselves, what they do with that insight—how they change—is at least as important as the insight itself.

How we are seen and perceived by others is more of a tricky proposition and this is where Project Fascinate and Sally Hogshead come into play.

Sally has come up with an assessment that examines how the world sees you and breaks it down in an easy to read, highly accessible 16 page document.

But, what’s even better is that she promotes becoming more of what you already are, and differentiating yourself from the crowd by becoming more of what people see you being.

In a positive manner, of course.

This can create conflicts with self and conflicts with others, particularly if you’ve spent a long time (such as a lifetime) being what you think others want you to be, instead of being what they actually know you to be.

Unlearn boring and be more of yourself. This is the core of Project Fascinate.

-Peace Be With You All-

The 3 Pieces of a Bad Idea

There is a bad idea floating around out here.

It is an idea based off of get rich quick, short-term thinking.

It permeates the atmosphere of media reporting around start-up culture.

It has moved from the realm of the late night infomercial to the realm of the internet with astonishing ease.

The bad idea states that if a person just does one, secret trick that they will lose weight, gain height, and in general, improve their lives and fortunes.

The core of this bad idea really lies in three areas:

Hard work is boring, not flashy. Anything that can be done to avoid it should be done.
Consistency is unsexy and should be done away with in favor of short bursts of spectacle.
Commitment is a trap. Distract the audience long enough with spectacle and they will forgive lack of commitment efforts in work that isn’t necessarily flashy.

Individually, these areas are easy to combat and train out of an approach to anything worthwhile, from mediation to marketing.

Collectively, however, these three areas give power to the bad idea of an “easy solution” which is so pervasive that, when it takes root, in any area is almost impossible to dislodge.

-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-