HIT Piece 02.24.2015

I was sitting in a room the other day and heard someone in the room next door talking about launching a “buy-now” button.

They are doing it for their business to continue to remain relevant in the 21^st century with a population of buyers for their products and services, whose perspective has changed on how to buy.

Turns out, that people, and industries, can 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/

Seduced by the ZMOT

There is a zero moment of truth.

Google researched this a few years ago, and the upshot of the idea is, that, due to the amount of content we are consuming on a daily basis, the modern Western consumer has so many more options to try and research before they buy.

There are other elements that tie into this, including the brand being what customers says that it is and advice to brands on how to avoid interruptive advertising, but the idea remains relevant for us in the conflict fields.

For practitioners and participants in the process of conflict, the nature of change and attaining the skills to be successful at managing conflict and change, there is a zero moment of truth as well.

We talked a little bit about that in this post here, but it remains indicative of our modern day that the zero moment of truth—the moment at which we decide to pre-shop our notions, read and get advice from others, watch a conflict video on line, or ask questions of other individuals—for conflict practitioners, is a moment of great impact.

But for participants in conflict, there seems to be a dearth of materials and resources, leading to the ultimate moment of truth, where conflict participants attempt resolution themselves, and may succeed, fail or just surrender.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 02.17.2015

Making a mistake is not that hard.

As a matter of fact, we do it all the time as human beings.

But the importance of mistakes, failures, or only accomplishing part of our goals, is not always acknowledged positively because, we fear vulnerability as adults.

In the business and corporate world, we still give lip service to the idea of the importance of failing, but the majority of us still work in systems, dedicated to the process—and following it to never fail.

I fail all the time.

I am also struggling to be vulnerable and authentic in this blog, when I present and facilitate and when I work through interviews with guests on my podcast.

But I’m not there yet.

And yet, like many of you out there, I am still making mistakes.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 1.27.2015

I’m a pusher.

I see everywhere the potential in other people to be greater than the sum of their parts, and I see the possibilities in other people’s situations to improve and advance that they sometimes don’t see themselves.

I want them to be the best that they can be using what God gave them.

Sometimes this is interpreted as me being domineering, controlling, a “Type A,” confrontational or even obsessive.

I get frustrated when I see people, organizations and even communities, not living up to the promise of their talents, abilities and skills.

It breaks my heart—and confounds my mind—to see all the potential in others that they don’t know they have.

It’s been 15 years since I legally became an “adult” and almost 25 years into my Christian walk, and I keep being taught a long, hard lesson.

I think that I’m going to have to keep relearning it until the end of my walk on this Earth.

I’m going to have to evolve into a puller, rather than a pusher.
-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 1.20.2015

Someone told me the other day that I was scaling Human Services Consulting and Training horizontally in a way that has never been seen before.

The projects, the marketing, the sales, the personal relationship building; apparently I’m going in multiple directions at once, spreading the tentacles of my project far and wide.

Just thought I would pass the observation along.

-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/

We’re Going To Win

Nonviolent resistance is fetishized through cultural memory as being easy, but it’s really not.

There’s a story in Malcolm Galdwell’s book David and Goliath that he takes from Diane McWhorter’s book Carry Me Home, where a man is giving a speech and he is attacked. The crowd at the speech at first believes that the attack is part of the speech, but quickly realizes that it is not.

The man giving the speech, instead of responding with violence toward his attacker as a form of defense, became his assailant’s protector, singing him songs and wrapping him in an embrace. Eventually, the attacker is introduced to the crowd as a guest.

The man whispers to his attacker before introducing him to the crowd “We’re going to win.”

How many times in our lives do we respond to an attack with aggression, passive resistance, apathy or even outright violence?

Responding to an attack with nonviolence—and following that response all the way to its logical conclusion, which may involve the potential for death—is the single most courageous act David can perform against Goliath.

“We are going to win.” But, Martin Luther King knew that nonviolence unto death was the only courageous way to accomplish that win.

-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/

HIT Piece 1.13.215-Thoughts About Distribution Models

Content development is not the hard part.

Getting attention for the content through social is not the hard part.

The hard part is finding platforms and venues (or, if you’re in sales, “funnels”) through which to send my content.

I am approaching 400 articles on the HSCT #Communication Blog, but no one asked me to distribute the content I created until they saw me distribute it—consistently—through other places.

And, by the way, everything is content—images, videos, podcasts, and the blog.

But, building a distribution model from scratch?

Well…that’s like building Rome inside of ten years…

[For more on how to starts this process, look here and here.]

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 1.13.2015

I am fascinated by diagnostic instruments.

These are tools, such as DiSC, the STRONG Inventory, the MBTI, the Thomas-Killman Instrument and others, that purport to help people understand what’s going on inside of their own motivations.

Unfortunately, these diagnostic instruments have not evolved over time to reflect advances in neurobiology, psychology, sociology and even anthropology and linguistics.

I believe that this is a problem, particularly as leap-frog advancements in high tech, computational fields have allowed people (at the individual and group level) to integrate more and more reacting and responding with their prosocial tools.

I think we should take apart some of these old diagnostic tools and test some assumptions, before foisting them on a generation who’s brains and responses have been socially molded by advancements that weren’t even dreamed possible at the time of their creation.

[Shout out to Sherrill Hayes for turning me onto this.]

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 1.06.2015

I am wondering about the allure of false peace.

You know the kind of “peace” that comes from accommodation, rather than effective confrontation.
You know the kind of “peace” that comes from quiet acquiescence to the outcomes of the process of conflicts.
You know the kind of “peace” that people seem to favor, when they shrug their shoulders, and seem to passively accept a false outcome, rather than doing the hard work of actively pursuing a different choice.

I wonder if the presence of false peace makes it harder for real innovation and change.

There is a marked difference between real peace and being “just left alone,” or, vainly hoping that the lion of conflict will consume your emotions and spirit last rather than first.

I wonder, do people really want change in their hearts, or do they just say that they do with their mouths?

-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/

[Opinion] The Cranberry Sauce Has Stuffing In It

On Thanksgiving Day in America, it’s tempting to look at the whole thing as merely a set-up for the coming commercialization and endless marketing of Christmas.

However, the first Pilgrims didn’t look at it that way and neither did the Native Peoples who helped them celebrate the day.

Individually, Thanksgiving is wrapped up in visiting family, traveling to the table and avoiding conversations about things that matter, in favor of things that don’t.

You know…to keep the peace.

Papering over conflict in life didn’t work for the Pilgrims (they transitioned from a commune based system of economics and social ordering to a market based system after a hard winter of near starvation where no one worked) and it won’t work for you in 2014.

Acknowledging differences with respect, maintaining traditions and honoring symbols are at the core of the Thanksgiving tradition.

Let us also remember, that the triumvirate of holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years’—are positioned on the calendar to remind us that thankfulness, redemption and new beginnings are due to everybody, not just those who are part of our immediate tribe.

-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/