[Opinion] The Infrastructure of Our Assumptions

The infrastructure underlying our assumptions about work, the material world, and the digital world, and even how people get paid for work, have to change.

One assumption people still struggle with accepting is: If it’s not physical, then it’s not worth paying for.

Another assumption people struggle to change is: If I can’t see you physically doing the work, you must not be actually creating anything of value.

And yet another assumption people struggle to change in the face of shifting technology is: If it’s in the digital world (work, products, infrastructure, etc.) then there must be a physical corollary or else it’s not “real.”

All of these assumptions are being upended, moment-by-moment, bit-by-bit, by software companies (Google, Facebook, etc.) product companies (Tesla Motors), and digital goods companies (Amazon, Zappos, Netflix, etc.) and there are no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, in the “real” world, the debates that rage in our public discourse are over basic income, wealth distribution, race and gender, and the nature of public policy, regulation, and laws in the face of rapid change.

We insist on using 20^th century language and 20^th century approaches to resolve 21^st century problems. The solution to this is not to slow down, change, or push back machine learning, software development, or even physical and digital integration. Instead, the solution to this comes right out of the world of conflict resolution: Developing and sustaining the environments that will allow people to be creative, be generous, be courageous, and be truthful in a world that will increasingly reward by revenues of connection, referral, and relationship, those people who can successfully relationally connect with other people.

Rebuilding and reimagining the educational, social, and community infrastructures that will empower people to be their best, most ethical selves over the long stretch of their lives and creating and sustaining the systems to reward that growth—that’s the hard work.

Assumptions undergird work and the value of human labor. Assumptions undergird emotional labor and the value of that labor. Assumptions undergird adoption of technology, systems, and even the design of physical infrastructures.

But, the thing about assumptions is that human being make them.

Which means, with courage, and without apathy or defeatism, they can be unmade.

Even in the face of conflicts over change.

-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/

[Opinion] Philosophical, Strategic, Practical

There are three conversations that you can have at any given time.

Philosophical—This is the 50,000-foot, “big idea” conversation. Not many people are capable of connecting together big ideas. Nor is everybody capable of (or interested in) exploring the ramifications of the implementation of those big ideas to their lives, either at work or at home. Many people would rather not think (or talk) in 50,000-foot terms and instead would rather seal off the considerations, thoughts, and even ideas, that a 50,000-foot philosophical conversation brings up, and never think about them ever again.

Strategic—These are the 10,000-foot conversations that occur every day between members of middle management inside of organizations. These are the conversations people think they are having inside of brainstorming sessions at work. These conversations are about ideas (ostensibly) but they quickly move to being about people (gossip) or about repeating a personal story as if it were a public truism (storytelling). Many people like the feel and the tenor of a strategic conversation, because conversations like these usually wind up with someone else doing the hard work of formulating a plan, developing next steps, and implementing a policy or a change.

Practical—These are the “How do I deal with what’s 5 inches in front of my face?” conversations. Practical conversations are about getting to the point, getting past the “fluff,” disengaging with emotion (if at all possible) and making a point forcefully and persuasively. Practical conversations don’t typically involve discussing facts—just impressions that the facts left behind as they floated up into the strategic conversation realm. Most people enjoy practical conversations because they allow for a focus on “getting things done.”

The three conversations—just like the three feedback conversations—happen almost simultaneously in meetings, face-to-face interactions, and most notably, in conflict communication scenarios.

If you want to communicate beautifully, know which conversation you’re having with which audience.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Getting Everyone On Board

When the internal marketing organizational change efforts doesn’t match either the lived organizational culture, or the culture that happens to be stated in quotes on the wall (or the masthead) you’ve got a problem.

The issue isn’t that executives and middle management don’t see eye-to-eye. That will happen in any organization where goals are not transparently shared. The issue isn’t that entry level/front line employees are asked to do more with less. That will happen in tough economic times, particularly if your organization is a nonprofit, or it has been a bad quarter. The issue isn’t that middle managers feel as though they are placed in positions of authority where they can always say “no” but where they can rarely say “yes.” This has been happening ever since the time of Hammurabi.

The issue is your organizational culture, your internal marketing structure (or lack thererof), and the fact that your executives are not operating inside a metric of trust and openness, but instead are measuring success one quarter at a time.

There are just as many ways out of this as there are into this bind, but here are three from a conflict engagement/management perspective that could be helpful:

Your organizational culture needs to change intentionally—I don’t hold to the idea that culture is fine and that products, services, or processes just need to be overhauled. The culture of the organization is either fragile (but believes that it is robust), is robust (but has elements of fragility in it), or is antifragile (with no elements of fragility or desire to go toward robustness). The fact of the matter is, when the culture that’s lived deviates too much from the culture on the masthead, or in the external marketing, the gap between lived reality and fantasy gets filled with competition, low morale, low motivation, high conflict, and constant storming. All of which lead to an eroding culture, as surely as rain washes away the sand.

Your internal marketing structure needs to change intentionally—How you market change efforts to the people being impacted most directly by those efforts (i.e. the employees) matters more than the efforts themselves. Without buy-in, the outside trainer, or consultant, comes in, makes recommendations for changes, and works closely with the people and hears “We don’t have the power to implement that change here.” Or, “The people who should be hearing this information and getting these recommendations are not in the room—and we can’t talk to them.” Internally marketing organizational change to the people being impacted by that change, has to go beyond a Friday afternoon/Monday morning notification email, followed up by a supervisory conversation whose tone and direction is that of a mandate.

Your executives need to “buy-in.”—Optics matters more than employees, managers, supervisors, and even executives think that it does. Role modeling may be the foundational aspect of all leadership, but if the people with positional authority aren’t actually engaging in role modeling the discrete and obvious, changes they desire to see in the people tasked with responding and reacting to their authority, then all the change talk is merely that. Talk. People follow who they see leading.

When middle managers are driven to tears, frustration, thoughts of quitting, and even more, because they feel powerless to implement the changes they can observe are desperately needed, organizations need to change their cultures, not by changing who is in positions, but by challenging the organizational process that got them to that point in the first place.

Accomplishing this takes open communication with courage, curiosity, and compassion. And those traits are what fill the gap between what’s on the masthead and what’s lived in reality.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Fixed Mindset Peace Builder

Peace builders often spend a lot of time trying to shift the worldviews, shape the mindsets, and break the frames of clients, systems, and processes in the world. This is reflected in much of their marketing materials, business development practices, and their overall approaches to sharing information in the world about making peace.

Peace builders often spend an inordinate amount of time trying to shift their own worldviews, shape their own mindsets, and break their own frames around the esoteric differences between transformation, evaluation, and facilitation. This is reflected in the majority of trainings that are offered, conferences that are attended, and speakers that are lauded in all the fields for peace making, from litigation to mediation to negotiation.

But this is where peace builders are comfortable.

Mediators will work on Bob. If Bob feels as though he got screwed in his last mediation session out of assets like a boat or a pile of money, his world view of the mediation process is different than that of his ex-wife.

Conflict coaches and consultants will work with Ann. If Ann sees her job I’m human resources as determining policy and keeping people in line, she’s going to take a different view of conflict management training than Jill who sees her job as being an agent of change in the organization.

Church litigators will work with Dave and Melinda. If Dave sees his role at church as being a person who keeps the boat from tipping over rather than as a person who is there to lead a flock to Christ, his approach to internal church conflict is going to be different than Melinda, who sees her role as a Deacon as one who is there to lead people to a relationship rather than through religion.

Peace builders inherently know that the worldviews of their clients around conflict matter. This is where they are most comfortable, feeling as though they are doing work at the edges. When in reality, this work, while unpleasant for some, is not the core hard work.

Peace builders inherently know that their own worldviews matter. This is where peace builders are less comfortable, but still not as uncomfortable as they need to be to truly be doing work at the edges. This work, while easy for many, is not the most unpleasant thing.

The hard, unpleasant, and edgy work lies at the edges of worldviews: The work involves going into places where the peace builders’ knowledge level and expertise may not be appreciated and doing the courageous work of digging in with people who have only even known conflict. The work involves designing products and services that are truly cutting edge—in technology, in mindset, in worldview—that match what clients, consumers, and the market is demanding, in the language that it’s demanding it. The work involves creating relationships at a global level with professionals in other fields and publicizing that interdisciplinary work in a cutting edge way, not for the field, but for a conflict comfortable public.

To go all the way to the edges, to be a champion of work that matters, and to design a life and career of meaning, peace builders must challenge inherent, field based assumptions loudly, rather than quietly, and have the courage to go to the furthest end of where those challenges lead.

Otherwise, the growth mindset necessary for peace builders to grow and make a revolutionary impact will remain far away from many peace building professionals. At the outer edges, of a field that will become more embedded in a fixed mindset at the chunky center, deep in the very conflicted world it seeks to impact.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] “Why” is the New Black

“Why” is the new black.

I keep saying this, in trainings mostly, and what it means is that–what lies at the core of most problems, disputes, disagreements, frustrations, and “differences of opinion” in the workplace—is the inability of adults to ask other adults the question “Why?”

The reasons for not engaging in this way are numerous, but the largest on is that supervisors, managers, and even fellow employees, have been trained subtly through the power of social proofing and liking—along with groupthink— to believe that asking “why” as a way to explore motivations (either intrinsic or extrinsic) is the province better-trained, more highly compensated “others” higher up the hierarchical ladder.

Supervisors, managers, and employees also want the reassurance that if they ask exploratory questions in a Socratic manner, that such questioning will lead to resolution in their favor and against the other party. This is, of course, an unknowable outcome, and so it’s just easier to avoid the whole thing and adopt a “Do as I say because I told you to” position. One that leans on authority and extrinsic motivators.

Unfortunately, (or if you are a person of courage, fortunately) the Industrial Revolution is over. The era of supervisors, managers, and leaders merely leaning on authority to get widgets made faster and cheaper has passed as well. And the era of calling everyone’s bluff is now upon us.

Increasingly, people are returning to the idea (that was rampant in the world before the Industrial Revolution brought prosperity to the masses) that labor has to matter. Jobs, work, and labor are all discretely different and we have spent 150 years muddling the boundaries. But, in a 21^st century where more and more people who would have been tagged as merely “employees” are asking “Why?” to get to the meaning and mattering behind widget based tasks, the boundaries are only going to become sharper.

For supervisors, managers, and employees struggling within the transition from the brave, old, familiar world to the brave, new, unfamiliar world, getting rid of the desire for reassurance, developing patience, and exploring motivation Socratically by asking “Why?” is the only way forward.

Otherwise, a lot of middle management in a lot of organizations will be hollowed out and replaced, because performing emotional labor will become secondary in value to the immediate revenues that lower paid, more compliant people, algorithms, or robotics can provide.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] My 6 Biggest Mistakes…pt.2

I had turned back to the computer and was working again, when the ramifications of the first three of my six biggest mistakes came down upon me like a whirlwind.

Or, at least that’s what it felt like.

They came in a group (my Grandmother and my martial arts instructor years ago used to warn me that was how they always come at you) and they were angry. They started yelling at me across the lobby of the big building, and fortunately, since it was late at night, I didn’t attempt to meet them halfway, to exit the safety of the desk area, or to engage them in any way. I watched them walk over quickly, not quite understanding what I was about to experience.

That was my fourth mistake.

I stood up and took a power stance. I spread my legs (they could only see me from the waist up) and crossed my arms as they approached. Then I heard the yelling:

“Why did you come inside and talk to us that way!?”

“What were you talking about in there!?”

“There were other people in that room making noise hours ago and you didn’t come in then!!!”

I started to respond—not thinking at all—as they approached, yelling. Then, both they and I realized something at the same time: We (the two men and the two women and I) both shared the same skin color. I was dressed in the assigned outfit from the company though. And they were dressed—well—however…

“I can only address what I’m actually told about,” I said as they approached. “I was told a few minutes ago that there was a disturbance going on in the room, and the person wanted me to address it. The person also indicated that you were in the general area and had been making noise all night.”

By this time, the inside of my head felt like it was on fire. I was watching their body language, trying to determine if they were going to really be a REAL problem (i.e. an “I gotta call the cops” problem”) or if they were gonna be a SOLVEABLE problem (i.e. an “’I gotta call my manager in the middle of the night’” problem.) Well, with that statement they already made a determination about me, and they proceeded to escalate.

The two men immediately yelled out “Oh! This Uncle Tom is gonna do what the white people say! C’mon (and he used the word you’re thinking of here) get with the program!!!”

Now, a person like me, who does what I do, and who grew up the way that I grew up, has heard this term before. But, my internal response was to flash like a fire. And once the inferno began raging inside me, the adrenaline started, my pupils dilated and I was ready to fight. And the two men and both the women, sensed it. One of the men immediately started jumping up and down with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, staring me dead in the face, egging me on.

This was my fifth mistake.

And we hadn’t even approached addressing the topic at hand.

Everything began to slow down, from my point of view. And everything became sharply clear.

I visualized my options, and in turn, the outcomes of exercising those options:

Fight and lose my job, possibly my freedom, and probably my life, because I had no idea if the men (or the women) were armed.

Or, call the cops or my manager and “firefight” until they showed up.

Or, get them out of the building as quickly as possible and not worry about pride, or personal offence.

I had those three clear thoughts, and even as I laid out the options for myself in my head, I chose the last one. At the time I was working at that place, the third option was our way of “de-escalating” a customer. But you weren’t supposed to tell the customer you were doing that. I threw that policy out the window when I turned to them, raised my voice, and said “I guess I’ll have to get you a refund on your tickets and your food then. And I’ll get you passes for the next time you come back.”

My heart is pounding, the inside of my head feels like jelly, and as I made my sixth mistake, I looked at their faces, reading their nonverbal expressions—a mixture of surprise, disappointment, elation, disgust, pride, victory—and I didn’t have a clear thought other than “Turn to the computer and start the process.

As I did, these words—still two octaves too high in the open lobby, began to ring out from the group:

“Oh yeah, YOU go and get us our refund!”

“You ain’t nothing! Who do YOU work for around here!”

“Damn right we’ll get our money back. This entire place is RACIST!”

“You gotta CALL somebody to get me my money!?”

And on.

In reality the entire refund process took about three minutes. Find the file on the computer, print the documents, walk to the printer, put the documents on the counter in front of the desk, have them sign, collect the passes, give them the passes, watch them walk out of the building.

It felt like it took ten years.

As they walked out, triumphantly waving their free passes and their refunds above their heads, they cried out “We’re NEVER coming back here! We’re going to Regal!!!”

I didn’t care. I sat back down in the chair in my office, and as the adrenaline left my body, and the incident passed, I trembled and shook. I was relieved t have them out of the building, with no police, or managerial, involvement.

Thinking back on the incident, there were many things at play in the confrontation: perceptions, emotions, ideas, thoughts, motivations, goals, history, biological responses, and even cultural issues. All of which, if handled differently would have put me (and them) in a different place.

As it is, our lives are only entwined in the story that I tell. A story they have probably long forgotten. And a story, now here for you all to read.

The Bible tells us that knowing the right thing to do –in thought, in word, and in deed—and then refusing to do it (or choosing to do something different) is sin. The secular world tells us that sin is just a poor environment, the result of bad parenting, or just a set of bad decisions.

But at every step in making my six biggest mistakes, I was triggered in a conflict cycle toward another reaction, by other people who were in relationship with me, and also triggered in that moment, by my responses and reactions. The conflict cycle is not sinful. The conflict cycle is not just a product of environments. The conflict cycle—just like our lives—is a complex, gossamer – like, combination of ourselves, our world, and our choices.

And breaking all of that apart, and learning from it, so we don’t repeat the mistakes in our lives, is a critical process for us to grow and change.

-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/

[Strategy] My 6 Biggest Mistakes…pt. 1

The first mistake I made was not verifying the claim.

The second mistake I made was walking in the room.

The third mistake I made was confronting inappropriately.

When the customer came and got me, I was busy doing another task and I was switching back and forth. With the small gaps in between the thoughts and the switching. The customer who came and got me said “There’s been disruptions all evening from these people and you and your staff haven’t done anything about it.”

And then, the customer stared at me.

Nonverbal communication drove a lot of this, and with one look, I was prodded into action. But, instead of verifying the claim of disruption (my first mistake) I instead reacted and sprang into action. I hustled down the long hall, into the dark room, where the light from the images flickered across the faces of the people staring in rapt attention. I walked down a poorly lit aisle (my second mistake) and knelt down in front of the people in the general area where I had been informed that the disturbance was occurring.

I said something to the effect of “I’ve gotten a report about a disturbance in this area. I’d like you to quiet down so that other people can enjoy the show.”

The third mistake was confronting inappropriately.

Then, I turned around and walked out of the dark room, into the light of the hallway. I proceeded to head back to the office, feeling a vague sense of self-satisfaction. I tasked switched back to the work I had been doing before the customer initially approached me, and continued to believe that all was well.

I often tell groups that, even though I am a trainer and conflict engagement professional, and even though I can tell you what the right response is, and even though I can tell you how you should respond and manage other people antiseptically, I’m often confronted with the results of my own poor choices in my own life.

At the time that I made these three mistakes in a row, I had the same education and knowledge level that I do now. At the time that I made these three mistakes in a row, I knew much of the literature on response, reaction, and how to navigate both.

At the time that I made these three mistakes, I knew the path, but I was far away from getting committed to implementing walking the path, 1% better every day.

And then, to compound my problems, I went ahead and made three more mistakes.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The Candy Coated World 2

Advice based on principles is the chocolate candy missing underneath much of the candy coated knowledge and information on the Internet these days.

Principles aren’t really that compelling though, and talking about them leaves no room for entertainment, spectacle, or fame.

Positions are much more compelling, because they can shift with mores, styles, and trends. Talking about positions is entertaining, but not really relevant.

I keep pressing this point in various ways: Wisdom cannot be distilled into just one blog post, one podcast interview, one live streaming video feed, one impermanent interaction at a time. Wisdom comes from developing relationships, but it seems that our human tendency on the Internet to favor our dessert over our vegetables has begun to creep into our real-time, real-world interactions.

Advice based in principles, relationships, lived experiences, as well as theories and ideas, leads to innovation, progress, and development. But it can all seem like gossamer when your relationships with other people don’t work out like they seem to via your social media platform of choice.

There are ways to accumulate this advice: solitude, mindfulness, focus, respect, deep thinking, writing, and listening without arguing in your head with the person speaking are the tools (in the Frederick Winslow Taylor mode, they are the 22lb shovel) you can use to acquire wisdom.

Style over substance used to be a negative, but that era is long since passed. And in our rush to get to the next innovative hill, we forget the time tested tools, insights, and advice that come from hard-won wisdom.

And we risk being increasingly unfulfilled by a candy-coated shell.

-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/

[Advice] On Doing What You’ve Always Done

Intentionality is the watch word in conflict.

If you know how you will respond (rather than react) and you have an understanding of your conflict style (controlling/competing, accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, or compromising) then you can be intentional in how you deal with other people in conflict.

And since conflict is a process of change—even though it feels like a process we’d rather avoid (or define as a disagreement, a fight, or a “difference of opinion”)—we can change out responses and behavior by being intentional.

Supervisors, mangers, and others in positional authority in organizations must do the hard work of deep diving into themselves—and gaining awareness of themselves—before sending employees to training to get awareness.

This is a time consuming proposition that reads like therapy, but in reality is about gaining effectiveness, strengthening ability, and ensuring future success and supervisory outcomes.

But, you do have an alternative choice.

You can always keep intentionally doing what you’ve always done and hope that changes will result.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] The Life Long Learning Myth…Busted

Implementation, coaching, mentoring, and supporting through experiences matters more to adult learning in a corporate setting, than sitting in a room for four hours listening to a facilitator.

The drop-off in retention after such an experience is 50% after participants leave the room, and without immediate changes, immediate implementation of the learning outcomes, coaching along the path of uncomfortability, and supervisory mentoring through the tough times, the retention drop-off is 75%.

So why do many organizations still offer corporate training opportunities in all kinds of topical areas, within a formalized “sit down, and absorb” learning structure, syllabi, certificates, and experienced trainers and facilitators who drone on and on for—at most—half a day?

There are three reasons:

Most organizations—whether corporations, training organizations, or higher education institutions—are unwilling (and many times unable) to do the hard work of challenging, breaking, and remaking the foundation of learning established through the last 150 years of K-12 schooling. Schooling which was designed in conjunction with corporate leaders and influencers, and codified with the support of intellectuals and educators, to produce compliant workers, who would sit (or stand) all day and do widget based, industrial work, while leaving the thinking and innovating to others up the chain. The kind of work that was hollowed out by those same individuals starting 40 years ago and now no longer matters much in America.

Many supervisors, managers, bosses, CEO’s, COO’s, and others in the hierarchical structure of many organizations, have come from a background of schooling that they either internally rejected because it was too rigid, or found comforting and conformed too. Such engrained mindsets around the value of learning (and education) do not advance and innovate organizations. Instead, they continue to produce leaders who believe that training (and life-long learning) is either a “nice to have” (rejection mindset) or a “necessary evil” (acceptance mindset). Either way, the mentality shaped through that rejection or acceptance, is reflected in buying, internally developing, or advocating for models of learning for employees based in an Industrial Revolution K-12 schooling model.

Trainers, facilitators, consultants, and others in the wide and deep field of corporate training (myself included) aren’t doing enough of the hard work, often enough, of breaking our own mindsets of how information, experiences, and content is delivered to audiences (online, F2F, etc.). We also aren’t engaging with the hard work of breaking institutional, corporate mindsets from the outside by creating offerings and client deliverables that will transcend the dying model of K-12 education. This means having the courage to stick to our principles around peer-to-peer learning, advocating to organizations that we serve for mentoring and coaching for our learners, encouraging accountability, and at the furthest end, treating adult learners like adults in the training room, rather than continuing to train them (i.e. treat them) in the K-12 learning mold they’re familiar with.

The feedback I always get when I write (or talk) in these three areas typically focuses around the inability of organizations to change, the unwillingness of employees to actually be motivated to do the hard work of working on things that are hard (i.e. engaging with emotional labor) and the inability of trainers, consultants, and others to feed their families based on selling what the market is not progressive enough to demand.

These are all legitimate concerns, but the facts of the 21^st century are clear for anyone with two eyes to see:

The workplace, jobs, labor, and other tasks that people need to be organized into groups to accomplish, must still be done, or else there will be chaos in the world. Hard work—manufacturing work, “blue collar” work, etc.—will still be done in the world, but increasingly due to automation and algorithms, that work will be either outsourced or done by machines. And when it’s not, the people who will do it, will charge an even higher premium for it, to support their continued learning to become better artisans.

An acknowledgement that work matters, that tasks should be meaningful, rather than meaningless, and that employees should be treated like adults rather than like children in the workplace, is growing rather than going away. Calls from researchers, thought leaders, influencers, advocates, and others for more pay transparency, flexible family leave policies, and “flat” hierarchical structures, are only the tip of the iceberg.

The rewards to organizations in terms of prestige (Top 10 Best Places to Work), revenues (The World’s First $2 Billion Company), and public goodwill (Anyone See What Apple Made Today) in America, are drivers for success (or determinants of failure in a transparent media market) more now than ever. And these drivers become outsized to organizations that are willing to take risks, to supervisors that are willing to challenge the status quo, and to vendors who are willing to sell with courage.

Unrest will continue among employees who believe that they are not getting paid what they are worth, are increasingly mobile, and are calling the bluff of the industrialist mindset that has dominated every sector of life for over a century now. This unrest will grow in continued calls for a basic income, the cries against income inequality, and the accusations of a new “Gilded Age” of wealth and prosperity for some.

Wihout meaningful changes the conflicts that will arise if life-long, continuing, robust education is not increasingly, innovatively, and creatively integrated into the work lives of employees in all organizations in all sectors (from small businesses to the Fortune 1,000 companies), will be massive and unmanageable.

And bosses, managers, supervisors, shareholders, CEO’s, CFO’s, communities, civic leaders, politicians, business owners, corporate training organizations, and others will have to explain in plain terms to their constituencies, employees, followers, and others, the reasons (and their mindsets) for why they rejected or ignored the golden opportunity to implement, coach, mentor, and support in order to transform corporate learning into something meaningful and valuable, in the early 21^st century.

-Peace Be With You All-