[Strategy] The Cultural Bleed

During our time when technology is flattening the formerly meaningful differences between people and systems, and turning—what once used to be a disk that was thicker at the center than the edges, to one where the edges are getting sharper and sharper—culture still matters.

Competency in how to handle the steep decline from the comfortable center of cultural assumptions to the bleeding edge of cultural competency, should be one of the most sought after skills by employers.

But it’s not.

Mainly because employers are people first and positional titles second, and people tend to lack the courage and self-awareness to break their own frames, in order to attain competency.

Any kind of competency.

The distance between the thick comfortable center and the scary bleeding edge (which is as sharp as it sounds) is not a straight line. It’s curved, with switchbacks, dead ends, false starts and bad beginnings.

But the courage to break our frames and skate toward the bleeding edge of cultural competency, is a core leadership trait that any employer should alwasy be in the process of creatively destroying and rebuilding, before looking to develop it—or hire it—in others.

-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/

[Podcast] Earbud_U Episode #2 – Jared Campbell

[Podcast] Earbud_U Episode #2- Jared Campbell, Crossover Musician, The Blue Project Founder, Chris Farly Impersonator

[powerpress]

Very rarely does a creative individual cross over successfully from one genre to another.

Musicians rarely do this going from Christian music to secular music. Jared Campbell is amazingly talented and gifted musician who has moved seamlessly through performing in Christian venues all the way through producing children’s albums.

He’s also on a path to prevent bullying in high schools and middle schools by striking at the core of the bullying issue: the interior of people.

Jared is doing the most transformative work possible: He’s changing the world through his talent, his message and his calling to a Higher purpose. This is the greatest, most difficult challenge possible.

He’s doing great work in a number of different areas, but please connect with him about the Blue Project and via his website, by following the links below:

The Blue Project: http://jcblueproject.com/

Jared Campbell: http://jaredcampbell.com/

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/artist/jared-campbell/id283111388

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcampbelltweet

The Myspace Page: https://myspace.com/jaredcampbell

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

Check out the interview below!

Or, check it out on Soundcloud here–>https://soundcloud.com/jesan-sorrells/earbud_u-episode-2-heyitsjaredcampbell

Download the Latest Episode of Earbud_U!

The Courage to Bleed

It’s thicker at the center of a disk.

It’s thinner towards the edges.

That thin edge is called the “bleeding edge.”

The bleeding edge is the place where lack of common consensus, low chance of adoption and a high level of risk, meet to ensure there will be a conflict between the thick, comfortable middle and the thin, dangerous edge.

However, if you turn the disk on its side and look at the down slope, from the height of the thick center to the valley of the thin edge, it appears to be a gentle decline.

But it’s really not.

It’s more like a steep slope where speed increases the closer you get to the edge and the further you get away from the center.

The distance between the thick center—where every organization wants to be—and the thin edge—where every organization starts—can only be negotiated one customer, one conflict, at a time.

Galaxies are shaped like this. So are societies. So are communities, organizations, and families.

Get to the bleeding edge.

-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/

Advertising Drowning

These days, advertising is flashy, interruptive, and mostly tuned out by an organization’s target audience.

Sales are harder because the distance from initial engagement to close has never been more tenuous.

Marketing, ironically enough, is easier than ever before because the tools for creativity, engagement and growth have never been more accessible than they are right now.

The individuals, organizations, associations and corporations that get this are thriving.

Those that don’t are either treading water—or are drowned already and don’t even know it.

-Peace Be With You All-

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/