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“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Plato

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“A person who can think differently and truly on his feet will always find it difficult to sit and fit as an employee in a workplace, for his attitude & approach towards the work will often hit the ego of most co-workers.”

Anuj Somany

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“If u want to work in Corporate, then u should know how to play Chess.”

honeya

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Ok. I was asked recently about a past job I had where I had struggled to be successful. After hemming and hawing a little <I have never really been sure what hemming or hawing was> I answered “the position required a dedicated navigator with navigator skills and I am a sledgehammer with some navigator vision.”

<note: I didn’t understand that until actually into the role & assumed responsibility>

Yeah.

I am a sledge hammer. Always have been and I assume I always will be.

I respect navigators, but they are too slow for my tastes, far too often worried about political correctness and always too skewed toward what is important politically versus ‘what is the right thing to do.’

Ok.

Let me explain navigators and sledge hammers.

In business, there are just some people who see office politics <which all organizations have whether you like it or not> and they have the skills and vision to navigate them to get shit done <they also tend to benefit personally with this skill>.

In business, there are just some people who want to get the right shit done and believe if it is right then … well … it is better to just say ‘damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead’ rather than screw around with navigating people’s feelings and politics.

Now.

That doesn’t mean that sometimes a navigator isn’t more effective and that a navigator, which is tightly associated with someone who can play office politics, is always a corporate whore.

That also doesn’t mean that there aren’t navigators with good moral compasses because there are a shitload of ‘navigator managers’ who are skilled organizational politicians who do not showcase questionable behavior or even distasteful ‘sucking-up’ behavior.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that pretty much any leader worth a shit takes a realistic approach to managing around workplace politics. This does not mean they are ‘political’, per se, or want to play the political game it’s just they understand that you have to navigate competing interests, whatever resources may be available, the nuances of what is viewed as authority <and who has the authority which is most typically “enough to hang yourself’>, the bendable organizational rules and whatever information is available.

And, to be clear, the best of the navigators have a sledge hammer in their tool box <and use it on occasion>.

And, to be clear, the best of the sledge hammers have either some navigational skills or, at minimum, navigational vision <i.e., they can ‘see’ the politics and organizational rubble affecting your path>.

Me?

I am a sledgehammer. I like to get shit done.

Always have and always will.

Okay. I like getting smart shit done. And I really like getting smart ‘right’ shit done.

The nuance between that stuff is clear because if all I did was get shit done, smart & right being set aside, politics and navigating would become almost irrelevant. Because then you are simply a doer <not a thinker or a thinker/doer>. But even as a sledge hammer you recognize that whether you hate it, admire it, practice it or avoid it, office politics is a fact of life in any organization. And, like it or not, it’s something that you need to understand to insure not only your professional success, but the success of the good shit you want to do.

Yeah. Sure.

“Politics” certainly has a negative connotation. It most often refers to strategies people use to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater good. In this context, it often adversely affects the working environment and relationships within it.

<and sledge hammers abhor this type of politics bullshit>

I hesitate to suggest there could ever be something called “good office politics”, but some organizational expert asshats believe that is the kind of crap you do which helps you fairly promote yourself and your ideas <they call it networking and stakeholder management – I call it the ‘necessary bullshit you just have to suck up and do in order to get good shit done’>.

As a sledge hammer I realized that there were some things that a navigator was good at and I should learn if I wanted to be a more effective sledgehammer.

About the only thing I truly value in a navigator is “social astuteness.” This is the ability to read and anticipate situations – allows you to prepare, adapt and tailor your behavior based on the people and conditions around you.

In my words this is being aware of the people and what they believe in combination with understanding the context and the situation and, ultimately, bending all existing resources to the situation at hand.

Let’s just call this “360degree context” <at least that is how a sledgehammer views it>.

Now.

Being aware is different than acting upon it. Being aware meant that it prepared me, and my groups, to manage the carnage or consequences of slamming your way straight thru a maze.

As a sledge hammer it pays to understand the real map, or maze, of the organization. I believe we all know that internal politics, more often than not, has little to do with the real organizational chart they give you when you sign on. Informal networks are usually the engine, the real power, that makes any organization work.

Someone outlined this important crap to be aware of really well:

    Who are the real influencers?

    Who has authority but doesn’t exercise it?

    Who is respected?

    Who champions or mentors others?

    Who is “the brains behind the organization”?

As a sledge hammer I realized there were absolutely some things that were in my control as I bashed my way through the middle of the maze getting to where I believed an idea, or the business at large, should go.

But, as a sledge hammer, I also recognized I needed to manage my own behavior <this lesson took some time … and learned thru some painful trial & error>. Through watching others and some painful trial & error you learn what works in your organization’s culture.

But you learn really fast … as in REALLY fast … that as a sledge hammer you invest exactly 0% of your time and 0 energy on:

• Gossip & spreading rumors: you learn to shut up and even when you hear something you wait and assess the credibility
• Interpersonal conflicts – you avoid “like/dislike people” discussions and certainly do not get sucked into arguments
• Integrity above all: this is a sledge hammer mantra … be professional, do not cut corners, do things right and always remember the organization’s interests
• No complaining: a sledgehammer accepts it will not be easy and you don’t whine about the tough path you have chosen <because it is the path you have chosen>
• Confidence: a sledgehammer is assertive not arrogant, proactive maybe edging on aggressive without ever sneaking into aggressiveness
• Never personal: a sledge hammer has only one thing in focus … the good of the organization and business outcomes <it is NEVER personal>
• Transparency:  assume everything is gonna be seen anyway so you may as well share it all

Look.

Here is what I know.

When you are a sledgehammer and everything goes right it is not only the best in the world for you but organizationally everyone kind of goes “whoa, that was something.”

<which is kind of cool and makes it all worthwhile>

I will admit.

Being a sledgehammer is a lonelier way to conduct business than being a navigator. It isn’t that you are not liked nor does it mean you aren’t viewed as a team member at the table, but navigators, I tend to believe, are just more social human beings & employees.

But sledge hammers have one thing in common — we are all homesick for an organization where we can not think about anything but getting good smart shit done.

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“I am homesick for a place I am not sure even exists.

One where my heart is full. My body loved. And my soul understood.”

(via lipstick-bullet)

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“You’re not like other girls.”

“Shut the fuck up … don’t ever compliment me by insulting other women. That’s not a compliment; it’s a competition none of us agreed to.”

(via aussie-with-glasses)

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This is about competitions we don’t agree to in Life, in a society that creates them and a sense of “self” in which we are constantly trying to find meaning in the competition of ‘doing’.

So. Most of us can go through life doing the best we can trying to get along and, in general, view most things in life as a journey and not some race and … well …, unfortunately, sometimes people, things and society have a different view.

What this means is you are demanded to compete in some competition you really never agreed to.

Let me explain. There are absolutely a bunch of people out there who define themselves by competition. They seek to find validation and actualization through some comparison versus what others are doing <this, basically, is competition>. And then there are people like me <I do not know how many there are of us but I imagine it is a fairly significant %>. While I like winning and, on occasion, a good competition gets the heart rate up and ‘ups my game’, the majority of the time I don’t view Life when I wake up and go to work as a competition with anyone and anything but myself. I simply want to do good things <epic shit if possible> do the best I can and better than I did yesterday. I guess my competition is my yesterday not other people. That said. I am not naïve. I know that everyday I wake up and go to work I am entering into ‘the Thunderdome’ and entering into some competition that I didn’t really agree to.

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“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.”

Steve Maraboli

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I don’t like it. But I recognize it. As often as I can, I avoid the competitions I don’t agree to.

By the way, if you google “how to deal with competitions you do not agree to” you will get zilch, zero, no results on that topic.

None.

Ponder that for a second.

All that said.

What this does mean is that you receive compliments, as well as criticisms, based on competitions you didn’t agree to.

And that is aggravating. Incredibly annoying in fact.

It is like you are being judged by the Race Walking Olympic judges, with scores you don’t really care about, because you were just out jogging that day. Day in and day out people who really do not want to compete, other than with their own standards, are faced with having to accommodate competition they didn’t agree to.

What a fucking pain in the ass. I would also point out it sounds incredibly inefficient and time wasting.

Look. I am not suggesting some competition isn’t bad. I am suggesting that we go fucking overboard with regard to ‘forcing competition’ into all threads of Life & society & culture.

I do believe it is healthy for young people to understand that in competition some people win and some people lose and that some people get trophies and not everyone gets one <although getting a trophy is not all there is to success & Life>.

I do believe it is healthy in youth to understand that some people are smarter than others, that some have skills you don’t have and that some people more easily learn some things than you do.

I do believe it is healthy for young people to learn how to compete and that competition can be healthy.

But at some point I think it would be good for society and culture to either turn that switch off or maybe learn how to turn on the dimmer switch because I think part of being an adult is knowing what you are good at and what you may not be good at and deciding for yourself <some would call that personal responsibility> how you want to achieve the best version of yourself.

I am not convinced that society, and business, creating some false versions of competition which almost encourages me to compete in some competition I really didn’t agree to, let alone really want to compete, is a good thing.

I tend to believe people like me think our competition is harsher and more challenging than any competition society can create for me and because of that I tend to want to dismiss outside competitions.

Yeah.

That choice is fraught with peril. Suffice it to say just knowing that there is peril in not wanting to compete in some competition I didn’t even agree to is aggravating. But that is the world we currently live in. We are asked to compete against other flowers when all most of us want to do is bloom.

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Pro Humanitate

“For Humanity”

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“Pro Humanitate calls us to consider what we are as human beings and what constitutes genuine human flourishing.”

James Powell, Wake Forest University

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This is about the interconnectedness between intentionality and existential issues. By existential issues I mean the nuanced relationship between the individual, the community (public and in business) and society. I don’t believe it is hyperbole to suggest we, humanity, is facing an existential moment <not a crisis> on a number of issues at exactly the same time. Now, this may feel like a crisis, but I’d suggest its more that it’s a number of issues, many of which feel unsolvable or unstoppable, all occurring at once. This leads me to intentionality. In order to meet the moment, we need to shed the thinking that (a) we need to deal with one at a time, (b) they are unsolvable, (c) I can do nothing that will have any real impact, and, well, implement some intentionality at an individual level, a community (collective) level and societal level. Yeah. I’m suggesting intentionality can bend the arc of existential issues away from stagnancy (or regressive behavior) and actually toward progress.

Now. That said. Let me begin by suggesting intentions begin with perception. Neither the individual, the community (a public one or a business one) nor society can begin to shape intentions without perceiving something of interest. This interest can be shaped or it can be reactive or it can be the natural arc of events. But all demand some attentiveness to be able to not only shape intentions, but also to invest the energy to bring intentions to bear. These are the forces that affect the future of the individual, the community and the society. It is within this battle of, well, intentional wills in which the present and future is shaped and any existential issues are addressed.

Which leads me to progress and people.

Progress always occurs faster than we imagined and slower than we want. What I mean by that is progress is not one single solid mass moving in one direction. It is more a bunch of different pieces of confetti getting blown around with some falling, some rising and some seemingly lost in circular motion floating aimlessly in the air. All this movement is crafted by the clashing of intentions and intentional actions. I imagine the point I am going to try and make today is it is within that clash progress is found – within the battles of skepticism, criticism, pessimism and, yes, optimism, intentional resilience forges ahead. But maybe I should begin with people because that clash is more often people pitted against people. And while I believe that has always been so I also believe it has sharpened in recent history and the present.

The easiest place for me to begin is hypocrisy – possibly the most misused word and idea slowing down progress. A fundamental cause of any disaffection with regard to intentions is the contradictions between what one says and what one does. These confusions can be real <which reflect disingenuous intentions> or parsed reality <less than helpful criticism of real progress>. This split reality is actually real contextually. We say we believe in integrity – except in business. We preach morality – except if you have money. We encourage hard work as the path to happiness – except we see empty of meaning success and dubious economically rewards. All of these things have elevated skepticism so that even when one genuinely has good intentions there will always be another person to point out where the intentions fall short. Yeah. Person versus person. It’s as if someone is always lurking to point out isolated events as failures of intent. This is a false or certainly poor use of ‘hypocrisy.’ I can claim intent, make progress, and still never be able to meet everyone’s judgement against those intentions. This is even worse if you are in the public eye. What I would suggest is that the ones with the best of intentions, and the most resilience, ignore the false hypocrisy claims. But. The larger damage is done to societal and community progress. The constant attack on good well intended intentionality blurs not only the good versus bad, but progress in general. What I mean by that is the objective-making gets so diffused that any progress attempts seem hypocritical and progress itself becomes a joke <skepticism reigns>.

Yeah. From all sides intentionality is barraged by skepticism, desire for real progress and actual disdain for what is perceived as unhealthy/unneeded progress. There has always been a rebellion against progress, but in today’s world that rebellion is fought in an asymmetrical fashion. What this means is that mindset and attitudes can be completely unraveled by one instance of behavior amplified by one person against another.

Which leads me to the existential unraveling.

A central belief, expectation, of every middle class is that no matter where, and how, you grew up you could become president <not that it is such a desirable objective these days but you get the point>- ‘poverty to president’ is kind of the ultimate vivid metaphor. Simultaneously, there was another belief that if a wealthy family made the same mistakes that one in poverty makes they, similarly, would not not prosper. There was a belief in some equity mostly grounded in fairness, hard work and education. Even aspirations were grounded in fairness.

These beliefs are challenged not only by the realities of the existing system, but by skepticism and skeptical people. Yet. Some protect the ideas by highlighting the few who exhibit the beliefs. And then some attack the ideas by highlighting the many the system has failed. Within the wretched hollow in-between are people with good intentions and ill-guided intentions. The ill-intended are intent on protecting that ‘expectation belief mindset’ for fear that if the mindset is challenged people will inherently stop doing the things that nudge luck out of the way on occasion and actually help someone intentionally craft their own fate <this wretched hollow is embodied McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y>. The well-intended seek to fix the system or improve it. This dissonance makes society dissonant. I would argue this is an existential issue.

And within this dissonance individual intentionality crashes into community intentionalities and chafes against some societal intentions. Intentionality falls apart. Doubt seeps in and skepticism overwhelms optimism. The smelly underbelly of this is ‘lack of responsibility.’ If intentionality has no or little reward than responsibility shifts only to ‘zero-sum’ individuality, no collective greater good <or smallish head nods to collective good>. This, in turn, feeds a sense of accumulation as an objective. Let me be clear. Intentionality of accumulation as a sense of success is hollow, soulless, meaning. Anyway. The complaints against someone’s intentionality can seem endless, because they are. They are because mindsets don’t appear to have a sense of commonality which means sensemaking has no shared ground.

And while we talk about how the internet and social media creates an existential issue, let’s take a moment and reflect upon how television has affected intentional mindsets. I would argue that if television reflects our values, principled behavior and what we stand for, the whole system is rotten. And if that system is rotten, we need to think about how we are bound to a system. That is most likely the greatest existential issue, yet, we never seem to discuss it nor discuss it existential nor discuss the intentionality one must take to ‘unbound’ a system and from a system. Systems are bound by mindsets. Oh. We may talk about fairmindedness or equality (or equitable), or meritocracy or any other cage we have built that is a system within which we do and think, but existential systems are sneaky bastards. They establish a foundational mindset which colors everything else in hues that are always a derivative of that mindset. Suffice it to say, I believe we are in the midst of an existential unraveling with regard to societal expectations and aspirations.

Which makes me circle back to television.

I don’t buy into the belief we are now a ‘video/visual’ world, that said, what we see day-in and day-out is so banal, so cheap, so shallow, all it can really do is drag down perceptions. Oh. Yeah. Remember I said upfront, intentions are tied to perceptions <as well as mindsets, attitudes, expectations and aspirations>. If we seek a world of public intelligence, one of the greatest communications tools ever invented is doing nothing constructive to further intelligence. I say that because anyone with genuine good intentions has to be intentional within that context. In a world of empty platitudes real depth of intentions faces a gauntlet of emptiness. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that gauntlet has different dimensions. The television dimension is one of establishing mindsets and attitudes while the social media dimension is one of verbal harpoons and harpooning.  Intentional behavior ignores any and all at its own risk.

Anyway. One not need be a futurist to have a sense there is, and will continue to be, a continuous destabilizing grinding down of the social structure. It will demand intentionality to slow the grinding down and reverse it to building up to what we believe we could, and should, be.

Which, finally, leads me to technology.

The battle between technology, algorithms in particular, and humans is quickly becoming an existential crisis. This existential crisis will demand some intentionality – from tech people and people in general. Now. Some people will suggest this is an ‘accountability issue’ and focus solely on people. I can’t. I can’t because I think that’s wrong (but still part of the equation). A number of really smart people like Daniel Schmachtenberger, Mike Walsh and Jaron Lanier have all pointed out algorithms are smarter than us. I would add that not only are they smarter (an ability to tweak our dopamine and engagement vulnerabilities), but they are relentless.

I, personally, didn’t fully grasp the existential aspect of this until the 2016 USA presidential election. It was the first time I felt (a) the onslaught of algorithm driven messaging and (b) the dogmatic view of a large group of people that they could never have been influenced from an algorithm driven message. The combination gave me pause. I knew from my experience in the advertising world that people generally believe only other people are susceptible to advertising. But advertising is often fairly subtle in its attempt to veer you toward thinking some stupid shit to buy their stupid shit. But 2015/2016 was such an onslaught of obvious lack-of-discernable-reality I thought people would never be duped by it. They were. In fact. I knew it was existential when I actually had an advertising professional suggest there was no way people would be duped by “7000 Facebook ads.’ Someone who should know better, did not.

Anyway.

This isn’t about the 2016 election; this is about existential issues and the intentionality that is necessary to address them.

Social constructivism, the art of constructing our collective fate, demands intentionality at all levels – individual, community and society. It demands a coherence of resilient intentions because diffusion in environment – all these existential issues – quadruples the challenge for any intentionality. One must assume the mantle of responsibility and responsibility requires intentionality. Inevitably this intentionality is the weapon against disorientation. Intentionality gives is a ‘sense of agency’ in which we no longer simply get buffeted by asynchronous waves of skepticism and obstacles to progress but rather we become ships on a sea of progress. We become responsible and accountable and gain at least some semblance of control. But that is just your part. Communities must work together, the collective needs to accept both individual and society as part of the grander narrative and society needs some common sensemaking. I would argue the trick is to mix and match strategies in response to the nature of the opportunity and the behavior, actual and desired, of the population. We need to stop attacking genuine good intentions and intentionality with false cries of “Hypocrisy!!” toward all moments where someone’s intentions fall short of some dubious judgement of someone else’s behavior.

“Usually, one doesn’t not even know the dynamics of the system that one wants to control well enough to program a computer to simulate them, let alone how to control the system in the presences of perturbations.”

Seth Lloyd

The truth is that all the systemic issues I highlighted earlier are human-made and, therefore, can be unmade. But the larger trouble with parsing intentions and having people versus people with regard to existential attacks is that any semblance of control of our current systems, or even just navigation, requires insightful awareness – of self, community and society. This means the capacity to know what to pay attention to as well as what to selectively ignore becomes of significant value. And maybe that is my larger point, we should not ignore existential issues, but selectively ignore some individual asymmetrical behavior tied to symmetrical objectives – i.e., genuinely good intent toward objectives (symmetrical intent) ignoring ill-intended criticism on any asymmetricity found in effort.

In the end.

If we seek humanity to flourish, on a meta or mesa level, at some point you stop feeling sorry for being powerless among a variety of existential issues and begin to understand you are here for some purpose and that humanity needs to be actively engaged and intentional. You learn the powers/skills you have must, or should, be intentionally used to inspire and activate progress. You learn whatever your skills may be are simply keys and no matter how useless you may feel, or the world attempts to make you feel, or even other individuals in your community make you feel <the pessimistic, skeptical and critical>, sometimes the biggest difference you can make for the world is to figure out the right door to open with your key. I would argue that last line and thought can only be achieved if you are intentional.

All that said. As I began, coherence between individual, community and society is what enables progress and even if you open the right door with your intentional key, that doesn’t guarantee that another door needs to be opened. I remain optimistic with regard to people, humanity and society. I believe if we increase our competence with regard to, well, everything, the demand for competent people will always remain and will always be needed to enable progress. Now. I am not speaking of technical competence. Doctors, engineers, software designers, etc., are fairly easy to train to competent levels. I am speaking of competence in moral leadership, ethical thinking and integrity in actions which are a bit more difficult train for. And maybe that is my point. We need to intentionally train for critical thinking competence, moral competence and ethical competence if we are to ever meet the existential issues at hand.

Look.

Amidst this clash of existential issues, it becomes just as easy to tune everything out as it is to obsess over a splinter of a skeptical criticism. It is the diffusion of ‘what matters.’ What this, in turn, elicits is a general rejection of the underpinnings not just of values, but what is valued. A good education gets valued less because it seems to pragmatically mean less. Doing the right thing gets valued less because it seems to pragmatically get less. Being honest, kind and fair gets valued less because it seems to pragmatically mean little. All of this belittles the idea of happiness and assaults our sense of what true meaning is beyond, well, some simplistic pragmatic view centered on “winning” or wealth. All of this suggests societal hierarchy is not something to be climbed, but something inevitable as it currently exists. There are no common values, simply shared false values which are only selectively valued. That means the tug of war between progress and stagnancy tilts toward stagnancy, if not regression.

Ponder.

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Authors note:

This piece had a couple of key inspirations. The first is David Amerland and his book, Intentional, for making me think about being intentional and intentionality more than I have ever before. The second is just television itself. I don’t have a lot of free time and do not watch a lot of television. The other day I had a bit of time and scanned the programming available to me, Netflix and HBOMax included, only to find with few exceptions, the most vapid choices. It made me realize that unless you were quite intentional with your TV viewing the mindset TV portrays with regard to our system in totality suggests everything is pretty rotten.

I think we all know that not all errors are created equal. That said. Some errors are sneaky. Some errors are simply annoying in the moment, passed over as ‘it is what it is’ and, yet, they lurk gaining velocity as times passes only to rear its ugly head years later.

Yeah.

I know.

I have written about persistent setbacks and how not all setbacks are created equal. Compounding errors are different.

I have written a number of times to suggest Life offers you gobs of opportunities and almost every moment, while important, is simply replaced by more other significant moments. And I still stand by that. Yet. There is still such a thing as a compounding error. Well. I think there is but if you google compounding error you don’t get diddleysquat except in reference to pharmacies. If you dig a little deeper, the google machine will suggest compounding errors is “error propagation” and associated with the propagation of uncertainty.

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Error propagation (or propagation of uncertainty) is what happens to measurement errors when you use those uncertain measurements to calculate something else. … When you use uncertain measurements to calculate something else, they propagate (grow much more quickly than the sum of the individual errors).

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While all of this is interesting it isn’t what I am talking about. Compounding errors, to me, fall into the category of “additive and multiplicative damage”.
Some errors we make are transactional which simply incur an additive damage (if left alone). Transactional errors are fixable and tend to be isolated events which incur little future value damage.

Multiplicative errors are unfixable and their cost in terms of damage occurs in an exponential fashion.

** note: the rate of the multiplication has no universal norm and is indicative of the universe context in which it resides

Additive errors are painful, but don’t really create structural damage (unless, once again, you do not address and the splinter festers)

Multiplicative errors seem less painful in the moment, but create structural damage so the true cost is in its future value.

For example, here is a compounding multiplicative error:

When I was 27, I shifted jobs. At the time I cashed out a small IRA investment of maybe $3,500. Small decision in the scheme of a quickly rising career.

5+ years later, due to an error I made on my easy form income tax return, I was paying the government $12,500 (that’s the penalty for making an honest error). On the face of it this is a $9,000+ (taxes came out of that 3500 as they were reported as income). Painful, but, seemingly of little structural financial personal impact.

But this is a compounding multiplicative error.

That $3500 then, using the Dow Jones average, would have about a $370,000 value today.

If I had invested just half that $12,500 in stocks (I sold some stock to pay it) in 1994, using the Dow Jones average, that would be over $450,000.

Heck. $25,000 in stocks in 1996 would have a value of $1.4 million today.

This was a painful lesson from which the consequences of the error didn’t really matter until, well, it did.

That is a compound multiplicative error.

The type that lurks, not really mattering, until all of a sudden things shift and it steps forward.

Yes.

Many of these errors remain in the background. They are simply lost opportunities within a world usually offering a healthy diet of opportunities to you. But lurk they do. In fact, to use a Taleb term, they are a fragile aspect of your life that lurk within a larger complexity of your life. It is only when that complexity gets rearranged in a way that the fragility gets exposed that, well, the compounding error screws you.

Maybe another way to think about compounding errors is to make sure you think about Life as consisting of multiple strands – maybe like Life, career path, relationships, living responsibilities (what underpins, materially, your Life), financial, etc.

For example. You can move 4 times in the same city, all of which cost money, demand some shedding of items (call those lost investments) and demand some adding back on items (filling space or refilling what one gave up at some point). This can be as simple as owning a barbeque, giving it away when you move, and then buying another when you get somewhere else. Sounds little, but compounding.

But the larger point, within the multiple strand theory, is all the while your career could be progressing, you are gaining some valuable Life experiences within the moves and you add some valuable relationships.

All that said.

I would suggest compounding errors are kind of like boomerangs. You see them when they happen. They seem aggravating, some waste, but not major. Just a stick of wood you toss away in frustration. And you move on. It is only later on when you either reflect, or have the need, the boomerang comes back and smacks you with the consequences & repercussions.

Philosophically, I could suggest compounding errors are a reflection of lack of understanding the finite and the infinite and complexity. You can even understand that everything is connected with everything and, yet, still see the parts as isolated from the whole. But they are not. and the inverse is true. As Ackoff pointed out “you rarely improve an organization as a whole by improving the performance of one of its parts.” What this means, as a corollary, degradation of one part is likely to degrade the whole.

Anyway.

Life often appears to be a luxury of infiniteness even though parts of Life seem very very finite. As we face a seemingly endless array of to-do’s, tasks, work assignments, responsibilities and whatever else pops up in the everyday life of what happens – all compounded by the additional random unforeseen stuff that inevitably gets layered on top of what you expected and planned for – we all start making choices trapped in the wretched hollow in-between finite and infinite.

I will admit. While I was good at managing this in business, with businesses and doing business, I was not good at this with myself. My point on that, going back to multiple strands in life, is that someone can be very very good at some strands and very very bad at others. But because everything is connected with everything that formula is fraught with peril and compounding errors can seamlessly weave their way into the strands of life without anyone really noticing – until they demand being noticed.

And that is where what you learn from business relates to Life. By the time an error is noticeable, it is typically too late. I am not suggesting they cannot be resolved to stop their compounding, but compounding errors, by the time they become noticeable, have created irretrievable losses.

In the end.

As I have pointed out a number of times, Life does not come with a “how to” manual. For the most part we figure it out, by ourselves, as we go. Yeah. It is possible someone could suggest there are gobs of resources available to assist but the truth is many compounding errors are oversights, not ignorance, and many of the best resources cost money so while offering multiplicative future value have a present cost barrier.

So, ponder. Ponder because compounding errors are real and have very real consequences.

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“When leaders and organizations develop skills without cultivating energy, the result is organizations (and schools) filled with spiritless specialists.”

Zach Mercurio

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Bastian Lehman, the CEO of Postmates:

No competitive advantage should come at the expense of workers.

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Leda Glyptis wrote this in one of her pieces: “It took me a long time to admit to myself that hard work delivering results is not the same as work that has an impact.”

Early in your career you are demanded (pressured) to show you can get things done. Results is the key to unlocking pay, respect, promotion and even some independence (getting your boss of your back). I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that early in your career getting things is mostly tied to some specialist role (although if you pay attention you learn that getting things done well incorporates a lot of generalist, and relational, aspects).

That said.

I was slightly different than Leda in that I always sensed impact was more important than simply generating results. It made my career tricky, or, as one co-worker said to me later in Life “you always liked to do it your way.” The difficulty in focusing on impact is that most people want to focus on process with regard to creating impact. To be clear that process does not have to always be efficiency. Business, if you generate results, can be quite accommodating to an effectiveness ideology. Regardless. Business, in focusing on results, tends to encourage spiritless engagement. Now. They would never tell you that. They speak of culture, passion, caring about your work, etc. ad nausea in fact. But. Deliver results and business can overlook a lot of shit. The problem is, well, inevitably you cannot overlook that shit. If you are really honest with yourself a career of results can feel a bit hollow. It will feel a bit like you missed something. You may not know exactly what you missed but if nudged a bit you’ll most likely speak of some missing engagement aspect.

Simple doing only contains, and retains, a certain amount of value. And when you assess that value, while it does have value, it doesn’t quite measure up to the highest value you may see when you look around. And, well, for a results person, this may feel like assessing your results and finding them wanting a bit.

** note: on specialists and specialism. To be clear, I am not anti-specialist. In fact, specializing can be quite rewarding. In fact, being a spirited specialist can be incredibly rewarding. I would argue to be a spirited specialist one would be a craftsperson with their skill. I believe it is Jackson & Jackson, “How to Speak Human”, who pointed out the shift from craftsmanship to professionalism (where we went from being a profession, and having a profession, to creating an industry of professionalism. This distinction is most likely the difference between spirited specialist and spiritless specialist. I am a self-proclaimed generalist, loving knowing some about many things, and yet I can be quite envious of the specialist who sees their specific skill as a craft and wield it as a craft. Ponder.

Now. It would be silly to not admit that the internet, or technology, hasn’t played a role in this.

All the internet has done is tightened the gap between mediocre professional experience and talented young learner.

Oh.

In addition, it has blurred the value in true professional experience <what to do with what you actually learn> and learning.

Oh.

In addition, the internet <and our generation in its insane focus on simplifying everything> have blurred the contrast between what is truly complex and what is truly simple.

Oh.

In addition, the internet, in combination with an insanely stupid focus on short term results defining a decision/choice, has created an impression speed has more value than, well, anything else. In other words what experience truly brings, ‘slow down a little to speed up’ skill, is more challenged than ever before.

All the digital age has done is commoditize experience perception-wise and it is up to someone with experience to decommoditisize it in reality. It is was true yesterday, true today and will be true tomorrow. Not everyone can do any job and a complex job can never be simplified.

All of this leads me to the fact Zach Mercurio, author of The Invisible Leader and the best speaker on Purpose I know, talks about impact all the time. Sometimes people miss that as they navigate their own visceral response, and biases/opinions/attitudes, as he speaks about Purpose.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while. How do so many extremely talented people become so miserable in organizations?”

Zach Mercurio

Impact, from a personal perspective, once you get your head wrapped around something other than results, is fairly easy.

Impact, from a business perspective, is trickier – but rather simple and easy.

When I was doing strategy work for businesses I kind of became known for my ‘better’ strategies and questions.

How does this make a person better?

How does this make a life better?

How does this make the society better?

How does this make things better for a person in making the world better?

While, yes, products and services are inevitably problem solvers and people buy products & services to solve problems, that simplistic value equation/assessments provides the opportunity for that product and service to:

• Absolve itself for any accountability beyond simply solving that problem
• Miss the opportunity value of not being spiritless (while I do not believe Purpose adds value I do believe when embedded there is a halo effect of intangible value)

‘Better’ forces a business to ask some hard questions.

Now. While Zach and I would most likely have a healthy debate on how tightly I attach value to impact, in my view, a business has to. This, in my opinion, is not to the detriment of individual assessment of impact (in fact I think it can often create a healthy layer). Better is an easy thing to grasp. Yeah. Maybe too easy in its ability to morph into some possibly not-really-that-better things but, in general, it provides a compass toward good, not bad.

Business, being business, has always wanted to quantify ‘better’ inevitably seeking to shift it into the results category.

** note: this is why I almost always balk at empathy, authenticity, mindfulness in business because I believe they are embedded and not objectives, but business will always seek to quantify (assess results)

If you decide impact is more important than results, you are in for a rocky road. If you don’t believe me, just watch Alain de Botton’s Tedtalk “Gentler philosophy of Success.”  Impact is intrinsically more satisfying, yet, society (and business) inherently embraces extrinsic results. If you generate the results, society rewards you, yet, it still sometimes feels like a hollowish satisfaction – that there must be something more or, well, better.

Look.

If I am honest, I am sure I played the role of a spiritless specialist at some points in my career. It was probably uncomfortable, but I did it. It’s quite possible I was within the generation navigating the change from “industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education,  mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, combine[d] with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization and organizational bureaucracy” ( Toffler) to, well, a shift to the opposite and this puts certain demands on people to ‘do’ to bridge from an old way of doing things to a new way of doing things.

If I am honest, part of my career impact has been navigating this shift.

** Note: I am willing to place navigating this shift in the ‘impact’ category because I believe this was a positive shift for business, people and society, albeit, it’s a work in progress.

If I am honest, analyzing oneself on impact is hard. Its hard because we are hardwired, with some real reasons, to results. Therefore, some days, even if you write down how you made an impact each day, you will find yourself holding pencil above the paper not really sure what to write. Some days you will find no real victory, just the attempt.

And this is where results, impact, purpose and mattering all come crashing together. Results, impact, purpose and mattering are not typically short-term actions. What I mean by that is you do something, or somethings, ‘feel’ like you may have made some positive impact, but not see any direct correlation (ever) or correlation is ambiguous or correlation is days, months, years away. In the end impact is simply feeling like you have done something to make something, or someone, better in some way (but results can provide a short-term dopamine hit).

And maybe that is also where I land on Purpose (with a capital P). I believe Purpose is an outcome, not an objective. But I also recognize people like objectives. Maybe if everyone would center some Purpose objective on something simple like ‘better’ – better today than I was yesterday and ‘somehow making things better for someone’ – I believe you will attain the objective of Progress. And I would argue that if you attain Progress, I am fairly sure you will have positive impact which, in my pea like brain, should fulfill some Purpose.

In the end.

Results and impact. Parents, school, society, even peers, will bludgeon you with results judgment. From an early age we are taught this is how to not only assess yourself but assess yourself versus others. I am not going to suggest that, in a whole cloth way, this is wrong because at some point you do need to assess some truths with regard to your skills or even your own behavior. But we need to get a grip on how we view results. We need to understand that results are often a means to an end – the end being impact. Maybe we should ponder Viktor Frankl from Mans Search for Meaning:

“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

Results have consequences not just to ourselves, but to others. And maybe that is where I will end. I think we all know this; it just takes some awareness to become truly aware of it. We all know the world is bigger than “I”; it just takes some choice to do something about it.

========

“And so shines a good deed in a weary world…”

—

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

========

“We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favorite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers. Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections.”

—

Henry B. Eyring

=========

We, as a society, are brutally negative.

We find fault and find any number of ways to find proof that bad things happen, people do bad things and people seem to only rise to the occasion in bad times and bad moments.   In fact, it almost seems like we go looking for the imperfections and the bad every time we have an opportunity.

But whether we recognize it or not, good deeds happen all the time, even in a weary world, if we were to only shine a little light upon them.

That said. Let me share some numbers to make my point.

2997.

34599.

2861.

11,209.

88,001,

What do they all have in common? They are one more than what actually happened.

One more death on 9/11.

One more suicide annually.

One more death in a fire in a year.

One more homicide annually.

One more alcohol related death in a year.

What I am suggesting, in a weary world, maybe we should think a moment about what did not happen — the additional “1” that never occurred and why.

The September 11 attacks killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 others. Because of someone’s good deed that day, and maybe even many little deeds never recognized most likely, there were not 2,997.

Each year, about 47,173 people die by suicide, an average of 129 completed suicides every day. Every year, 864,950 people attempt suicide, which means 1 person attempts suicide every 38 seconds <Emory Hospital>. There is 1 suicide for every 20 attempted suicides. Males make up 79% of all suicides, while women are more prone to having suicidal thoughts. Because of one moment, one person, one deed, there was not 47,174.

In 2019 there were about 481,500 structure fires causing 2,980 civilian deaths. Because of a good deed, most likely on the part of some firefighter, there were not 2,981. (NFPA’s 2019 Survey of Fire Departments for US Fire Experience)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 16,425 homicides. Because of a good deed, most likely on the part of some police officer, there was not 11,209. (Statista)

88,000 deaths (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) are annually attributed to excessive alcohol use. Because of a good decision to talk instead of drink, one good deed, there was not an 88,001th alcohol related death.

In each case someone somewhere chose to do something which made a difference. Someone somewhere decided to accept the responsibility to do a deed.

Which brings me to responsibility or ‘personal responsibility” because that is what ‘so shines a good deed in a weary world’ is truly about.

I will note that no marketer/company uses the phrase in communications. No politician uses this phrase. It is typically the kiss of death because people just do not want to hear it.

The truth is that nowadays, more often than not, personal responsibility gets transferred to someone else with some other title which implies they have the responsibility <a firefighter, a police officer, a politician, a government employee, a social worker, a doctor, etc.>. Well. Here is the truth. Personal responsibility cannot be transferred — even to someone significantly more qualified than you.

Uh oh.

But others are more capable then we are!

 

Aren’t others being paid to do these things?

Yeah.

We pay taxes. And it is painful to do so, but we ease that pain by assuming someone assumes the responsibilities we do not want. And we even pay people to do many of the deeds I am discussing.

But the deeds I have outlined today are the responsibility of all of us. Not just some fewer qualified more capable people.

The “1 that doesn’t happen” I pointed out is an ongoing “we” thing.

The “1 that doesn’t happen” represents that despite a weary world someone, somewhere, does a good deed.

We assume the personal responsibility not in terms of self-interest, but rather because most good deeds are just deeds that should be done. The deeds come in all shapes and sizes including deeds that maybe simply put a smile on someone’s face and sometimes even just a smile saves a life.

Deeds that maybe simply are a moment in which someone stops because common sense suggests they should turn something off or put something in its place … and in doing so saves a life.

Deeds are enablers. Enablers for … well … stopping bad in its place and says ‘no more for now and in this moment.’

These are deeds all of us can do.

These deeds are not just for those paid to do them or others we deem more capable to do them. We are enablers of good deeds. All of us. Shit. All of us are certainly capable of a good deed.

We just need to assume some personal responsibility for good deeds.

Is there a reward? Sure. It is that whole “shine in a weary world” thing.

And we do it not because it is our job nor do we do it out of any real conscious effort. We do it, well ,maybe because of something like this:

“He simply couldn’t bear the idea of one less smile in the world.”

<gene wilder’s nephew on why Wilder told no one about his illness>

One less than what could have been. One less death and one less loss.

That is the reward for a good deed in a weary world.

================

“Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.

Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”

=

Miguel Angel Ruiz

———

Ok. I have been think about plagiarism a lot lately. In fact this is actually a followup to my ‘black, white and gray of plagiarism‘ piece.

Today this version of plagiarism is ‘similarities’ to things other people have written. Let me refer to one of my favorite thinker/writers, Fareed Zakaria, who was skewered for plagiarism.

Now. In his situation we are not talking about plagiarizing ideas or thinking, but rather background to support his points/ideas. 

===

Several blogs, such as conservative media watchdog Newsbusters and the National Review online, spotted similarities between parts of Zakaria’s column and a piece on the same topic in an April issue of the The New Yorker. The paragraphs in question largely involved descriptions of historical events and context about gun control in America and do not seem anywhere near as serious as other famed plagiarists – such as Jayson Blair at the New York Times and Stephen Glass at the New Republic who made up entire quotes, people and incidents. But as media websites picked up the story and asked Time for an official comment, Zakaria issued a statement and confessed to his error: 

“Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker.

They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault.

 I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.” 

————–

Ok. Here is the deal. The harsh Truth as it were.

If you write a lot and share thinking, it is extremely difficult to not plagiarize.

Let me say again. Extremely difficult to not plagiarize.

Now. I am not talking about copying someone’s ideas or thinking. And I am not talking about not sourcing a huge gob of research or writing done by someone else.

I am talking about the snippet or paragraph.

How does it happen <you may ask>?

When you research a topic you will inevitably review a large number of articles, some research, certainly some other written pieces and maybe even some blog thoughts from people.

Sometimes in building your draft you will copy some of the content into a draft document so you don’t lose the thought.

Sometimes you write a thought down using your own words <although sometimes another writer says something so well it is difficult to say it any better>.

Sometimes the words get used as is. Sometimes you source and sometimes <without thinking about it too much> you think the thoughts, and words, are so common sense they become almost a ‘public domain’ type thought in your mind.

Sometimes in writing your own thoughts in the final piece you know you will publish you lose track of what is your words and what may have been used by someone else not with bad intentions, but simply because the thoughts seem so unoriginal it just seems like ‘shit anyone and everyone would say or know.’

** note: I cannot tell people how often I have seen words I have written, often a decade or so ago, appear in things written today which I do not view as plagiarism – the odds they ever saw my words would be worse than playing in Vegas – but rather common thinking expressed in common words.

I say all this not to justify any sort of plagiarism. I say this simply to say it is sometimes very very difficult to NOT plagiarize <in some form or fashion>.

Here is what I do know for sure.

It is extremely difficult to say something in an original way. Suffice it to say if it is even a semi-smart idea or thought, assume somewhere someone has articulated what you say … in almost the exact same words.

I know that may seem extremely difficult for some writers to accept, or believe, but it is true.

I struggle to think of completely original use of words when someone writes shit like I do on a blog or for thought pieces <or even some semi professional writing if you do a lot of it>.

Well. At least original in a consistent way.

I think anyone who writes a lot stumbles across a unique grouping of words to articulate a thought on occasion.

I also tend to believe other writers take not of that momentary flash of word brilliance … and credit you.

But that’s not what I am talking about.

The common is easily ‘plagiarized.’

That’s it.

I was thinking about it.

I take plagiarism seriously <always have>.

In addition, I personally, studiously avoid plagiarizing.

That said. I am also quite sure that I have at some point <unintentionally>. Hence the reason I wrote and published my caveat on images and words on my site: “I steal words and images“.

There is no excuse for plagiarizing. But. Everyone should note how difficult it can be to NOT plagiarize.

===

“… these appropriations matter. If the poets don’t assert the value of their words, who will?”

–

Sandra Beasley is the author of the poetry collections

===

Well. I have been thinking about plagiarism a lot lately because I have been finding some fabulous sources of inspiration to leverage my own thoughts from. To be clear. I have always been a thought renovator. Okay. What exactly is a thought renovator. I have my own thoughts, have my own ideas, even have crafted my own composition of words, but I have found they are better when framed by either a contrary thought or *leverage* thought.

** note: leverage thought is when you find a paragraph or passage someone has written, or spoken on a podcast, which offers some framing for your own idea or thinking

I pluck a paragraph, passage, phrase and place it within something I am writing – and source it or credit it. That all seems safe and honest. And then there is the creep of what I call ‘the gray of Plagiarism’.

Before I started writing a of of my own things I had a very clear point of view on what plagiarism is.

Today? Whew. There is a lot of gray area. I have always believed that original ideas and original thinking are fleeting at best. And I have always believed that 99% of the time if you were thinking something, someone else in the great big world of ours was thinking it at exactly the same time.

Before the worldwide web that was just a theory. In today’s world it is a truth.

A tough truth for people who have convinced themselves they are original thinkers, entrepreneurs or ‘disruptors’.

Now. Sometimes plagiarism is so glaringly obvious that it sends a shiver down your spine. The poetry world offers the most vivid examples. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are saying ‘who cares about poetry?’ <answer: an obscure few>

But it permits me to make a point and discuss plagiarism.

In one poetry scandal one bonehead <a guy named Christian Ward> lifted lines and slightly paraphrased another published poet. The accused poet, Ward, defended himself by saying:

“I had no intention of deliberately plagiarizing and suggested he had used the original poem as a model and had submitted a premature draft.”

And another British poet has been lifting lines <actually entire poems> from numerous poets in the U.S.: 

Publishers and magazines have been working to take down poems and suspend sales of collections by David R Morgan after the American poet Charles O Hartman realised Morgan’s poem “Dead Wife Singing” was almost identical to his own, three-decades-old “A Little Song”. Assiduous digging by the online poetry community, led by the poet and academic Ira Lightman, then discovered that Morgan, a British poet and teacher, had lifted lines and phrases from a host of different writer.

Those examples are clearly plagiarism. This example helped me because I have always felt like I have had a pretty firm grasp on what constitutes plagiarism.

Well. That is until I began writing a lot and publicly on enlightened conflict.

Writing is easy, but writing skirting other people’s ideas and words is difficult. I know I have a method to avoid <or slow down> plagiarism.

I write down my basic thoughts and thinking before I even go online to do any research.

Always.

Do not pass ‘Go” before doing this basic writing.

It also helps in that I find myself in a somewhat enviable position in that I have never faced the seemingly oft-discussed strain of coming up with new material <called ‘writer’s block’>.

I may write about bad ideas or silly things or inconsequential things, but I have never, never once, not had something I didn’t want to write about. What this really means is that I am in the enviable position of not having, never in fact, to cruise the web seeking inspiration for writing ideas.

Now.

That said.

I do seek inspiration <and additional knowledge> on thoughts I have.

Uhm. And, well, correspondingly, who hasn’t wanted to steal words from a better writer? Even a somewhat clever mind and clever writer can give into the temptation to be a cheating plagiarist <borrow some words>.

Sometimes this plagiarism is simply a sentence.

Sometimes this plagiarism is stringing together quotes from other writers.

Sometimes this plagiarism is just laziness because you cannot envision ever being able to write the thought any better than it was written.

As one writer <I am stealing from> suggested:

‘Until very recently, most scholars have been happy to simply chalk these up as “allusions” to the work of other authors. For a long time, it was regarded as something poets just did, as a way of honoring their influences.’

This is a slippery slope.

And even slipperier <that is not a word> because even if you do what I do <write before research or the search for additional inspiration> you can still find your own words in what someone else has already written.

I cannot tell you how many times I have thought I was brilliant only to find that my own words, the words I salivated over with sheer joy over their taste, had already been used by someone else on some obscure blog in Europe or in some obscure town in North Dakota.

I recognized this was going to be an ongoing slope I would find myself slipping on all the time and I even published a post clearly stating “I steal images” because I realized that with at least that one component <images> I was going to be constantly at the fringe of straight robbery.

But words? Here is exactly what I wrote in my ‘steal images’ post:

—-

Words I use.

I seriously doubt I have consciously plagiarized anyone’s thoughts or words.  I have seen some well articulated thoughts that are components of what I write about and while trying to avoid using the same words … a well articulated thought is a well articulated thought and, frankly, it’s difficult to find better words if something is well articulated. I have found things that I have written appear somewhere else (even though I know they have never seen what I wrote).

That is the way of the world.

If people have the same idea and they know how to articulate it, it will often look very similar in verbiage. When I do actually use something that someone else wrote I either italicize or credit it.

—-

So. I also know <going back to poetry> that when I write my own bad poetry it is littered with small phrases I have scribbled down that inevitably were coined by someone else. Similarly my blog writing is littered with wonderful two or three word phrases and words, in general, I have picked up here and there.

Were they used in the same context as what I write? Nope <99% of the time>.

Is that still plagiarism? Well. I assume it is.

It certainly constitutes some level of ‘not an original work’ and serious professional writers refer to this as ‘textual rape.’

I am certainly not rewriting whole documents. And I have found inserting copied words <citing the source> helpful to provide context for my own thoughts. And I try and be generous with regard to admitting I did not create a thought or actual words <even if I am horrible at sourcing and citing>.

All that said.

Plagiarism is tricky <when it is not clearly black & white>.

Now. There is plagiarism technology out there.  And technology can help but inevitably it really <mostly> comes down to human analysis. It is a judgement call. In addition <to be philosophical> … if a tree falls in the wood and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound.

Huh? If I write something on enlightened conflict and no one reads it, but someone else 6 months from now writes the same thing are they plagiarizing?

And … trust me that kind of stuff happens all the time. ALL the time. People have the same ideas & thoughts at the same time … all the time.

We don’t like to believe that, but it is so. In fact. I would suggest it is a Life truth. Well. It is certainly a writing truth.

Here is an additional fact. No one knows everything, and I must research in order to write on a topic I know nothing, or little, about. I have opinions and points of view on just about anything, but not supporting it is lazy, therefore, I need to do some research on what other people think (and know) when I write. And, once again, I absolutely suck at formally citing sources if I use them.

Although, once again, I freely, informally, give credit where credit is due.

It’s an interesting challenge I face every day in detecting and slowing/stopping plagiarism when I write.

When your work is posted and reposted online and the simple publishing of a blog post enters into a global community I imagine <hope> all writers struggle with a somewhat flexible definition of intellectual property.

Regardless. It comes down to 3 things for me.

–          1. The obvious steal

This one is easy. I began with the poetry example because that is plagiarism at its worst. Worst? Because it is not simply copying words … it is copying thinking & creativity.

It is the full alignment of plagiarism at it’s worst.

Copying words simply to get some words down on paper is bad. And it is the obvious steal. Thoughts & creativity may be slightly more difficult to assess, but, an obvious steal is an obvious steal.

–          2. Simultaneous originality

Sometimes I get really lucky in distilling an insight, or something relatively smart, into nicely crafted gathering of words <rare … but it happens>.

Sometimes I am simply early in the sharing of an idea and thought <I cannot tell you how many times I have seen one of my post ideas published in a viable credible publication maybe 2 weeks to 2 months after I wrote mine … please note … typically written better than how I wrote it>.

Sometimes, actually most often,  what I consider a quasi-original thought on my part is simultaneously <or close> not only being thought by someone else, but actually being shared somewhere on the world wide web. Here is where working for a while in a creative industry helps me mentally.

What do I mean? We all are accessing the same stimulus. With the world wide web even more people are being stimulated with the same information and background and news than ever before. If you put the same material through the same filters inevitably similar thoughts/things are going to be generated. In the advertising world everyone realizes in new business pitches that the final creative ideas presented will be very very similar throughout four disparate agencies simply because the initial strategy and research <the input to the development> is very similar.

Ideas and thoughts on the web are the same. We are all absorbing the same stimulus inevitably a number of us will generate similar responses. Ponder that.

–          3. The inspiration

There are gobs of beautifully talented writers out there and even the quasi talented can craft a beautiful thought on occasion. All these beautiful words serve as inspiration.

But inspiration ‘borrowing’ doesn’t have to happen on the web.

John Fogerty says about Proud Mary.

In 1967 he sat in his apartment in San Francisco and says “I began playing a song intro I had been working on which was based on the opening of Beethoven’s 5^th symphony. I didn’t like how Beethoven had composed it and preferred hitting the 1^st chord hard for emphasis and not the 4^th. “

Margaret Mitchell took the title of “Gone with the Wind” from a beautiful lyrical poem called “Cynara” written Ernest Dowson:

== 

Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,

Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;

Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;

But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 

When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,

Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,

Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;

But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 

Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,

But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,

Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;

And I am desolate and sick of an old passion, 

Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion 

==

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … is that plagiarism or is it simply inspiration?

Words I see inspire me to think all the time. Sometimes someone’s words inspire me to write. Sometimes their words become the cornerstone with which I build my thoughts and words around.

My larger point is that the internet has made the random beautifully crafted thought more accessible than ever. It’s not just published literature anymore, Beethoven or poetry, but now it can be a blog in the Philippines with a readership of less than 50, a tween on tumblr or some obscure thesis from a graduating student.

We have access to more thoughts and thinking and words than ever be for and all of it can be used for inspiration not to be plagiarized.

Ok. Those are my three. Experts & professional writers <of which I am not> have others.

In the end?

While some people suggest ‘it has become common on the web to ignore the basic courtesy of giving others credit for their idea’, I don’t agree.

Original ideas are few and far between.

Original words, and wording, probably even rarer.

That certainly doesn’t absolve anyone from citing or providing sources or even sometimes sharing credit for inspiration but originality of thought is a myth.

Anyway.

All I know is that plagiarism has entered into a big massive humungous gray area. I struggle with it every day when I write. To me, its kind of like trying to make sure the taste of words is palatable:

“With every draft I read aloud, I tasted the words in my mouth. Salty, sweet, fatty, lean, velvet, metallic, mean. Mine. What does it feel like, tasting words you’ve stolen? Like sand, I suspect. Sand that a man dying of dehydration drinks in the desert, never slaking his thirst.”

Sandra Beasley is the author of poetry collections

Sandra is 100% correct.

My own words taste like the most indescribably good taste in the world. The perfectly cooked steak, the sip of a cool drink on a hot day, the robust blossoming of a super Tuscan red wine on your palate or the hamburger straight off the grill, you can savor each word as you read them.

Others words can taste great also, but they don’t taste as good.

Why? I didn’t cook them up. And words that I am tempted to plagiarize? Taste like sand.

I spit ‘em out.

That’s how I keep myself out of the gray. That said. There are times I look back on things I have written and sense a taste of grit in my mouth and that’s when I wonder – “did I plagiarize something by mistake?” I believe anyone who writes is uncomfortable in the gray and wonders on occasion if that gray is black or white.

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“In the course of your education you’ve always been taught to look for the right answer but you must also know that in life sometimes the right answer is that there isn’t one.”

–

Mr. Feeny <Boy Meets World>

===

So. I almost called this “when there is no right answer.” Here is what I know for sure about ‘right answers’ having been in the business world for too many years to count — there is rarely one answer to the question, or challenge, or whatever. There are multiple “right” answers to just about everything. Shit. Sometimes they can even all be wrong answers (or degrees of wrong), but you still have to pick one.

That said. If I want to get philosophical, that makes me wonder if anything is certain or concrete anymore.

I will say that, well, maybe I really am getting old, but black & white seemed clearer to me years ago. In fact, some of my past team members may remember the “McTague good – bad scale.” I would often simply sum up something by saying “well, on the McTague good – bad scale, well, that would be good.”

<or bad when appropriate>

Maybe that was simply the delusional less experienced youth speaking.

These days I would shift the scale to a rating instead of an unequivocal good or bad.

Is there truly an unequivocal non debatable good and bad?

Or a right and wrong?

How about truth or lies? <where omission can be deemed a ‘lie’>

Or is it all just mixed together and upon us to decide for ourselves?

And how about this. Let’s say we decide for ourselves, judge our own actions, but another person, or people around you, has a different judging scale.

Uh oh. What happens then? Who is right or wrong?

<thought: maybe there is a new business idea here where everyone carries a little card they can hand someone before speaking which outlines the boundaries of their ‘personal right & wrong’ scale>

Anyway. Does the end really justify the means when it comes to good or bad or right or wrong? Is it your end or ‘their end’ that really matters in your own black or white judgment?

It all certainly makes you discard almost any thought of ‘is everything either black and white’, but possibly worse is that you sit back & think: ‘is anything black or white’? Or is everything somewhere in the middle, in the gray?

Wow.

My head hurts.

While I believe we all know some things, or something, is black and white it certainly starts making you understand the world is built in shades of gray. That in the world everything becomes negotiable, flexible or left to interpretation – including knowledge, truth & facts.

Maybe that is life. Because the reality in day to day life is sometimes we are forced to bend the truth or sometimes transform it because we’re faced with things that we did not choose to happen, but are demanded to deal with it. We attempt to bend what we know to fit into whatever new context we are in. Unfortunately, the past, nor knowledge, doesn’t bend very well.

Therefore, sometimes, ‘bending the truth’ simply catches up to us – we see that it isn’t black & white and we are faced with a gray not of our own choice.

So.

If we face ‘ethical’ in our day, where is the line drawn? Is it simply, if what we feel is right … well … then it really is?

And if we are forced to do what we think is wrong, should we do it anyway or reap the consequences that come with refusal to go along with the way life pushes us?

Ok.

All of that makes my head hurt.

I know one thing for sure. I would like to be certain of one thing. That somewhere there really is an absolute truth.

Somewhere.

Tricky to find, but there.

Maybe that is the truth.

That it is a journey for truth.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … I like that <although that is a gray answer isn’t it?>.

Maybe the best way to think about black, white and gray is this way:

—

“Dawn and sunset are the times when Nature herself is unstable and in flux.

The nocturnal world and the daytime world are meeting, and for a brief time coexisting.

It’s not a neat hard cut, but a blurred, irregular dissolve.

These moments are the seams in existence through which we can get a glimpse of the deeper, fundamentally random, chance workings of a system in which we are only a small, insignificant player.”

Bill Viola

—

Is it possible we can find solace in this question through some poetic thought like this?

Shit. I don’t know. Most of us would seek to find some more clarity then this. But maybe he is right. Maybe truth coexists in day and night. Blurred by the edges of right and wrong.

Look. I do know no one will ever get “black & white” right all the time. But I imagine that is not a reason I shouldn’t try for the absolute at all times by constantly seeking ‘truth’ whatever that may be.

Make the attempt to find the black or the white.

Avoid accepting the grey even though you know all you will end up ‘buying’ is some version of gray (or some version of black or white).

And maybe this is the best reason of all:

===

“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”

–

Ayn Rand

===

Maybe that is what we have to learn with – gray is evil and we are simply choosing the least evil possible.

——

“There are tiresome people who say that if you ever find yourself in a difficult situation, you should stop and figure out the right thing to do.

But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible, and then you must do something else.”

=

Lemony Snicket

——

 Well. When I saw this I had to sit back and think. Why? First & foremost I am an unequivocal do the right thing person. And the thought of not doing the right thing galls me … makes me shiver to the core.

Sure.

From a realistic point of view that doesn’t mean I always do the right thing … just that first & foremost I begin with decision making from a ‘what the right thing to do’ place.

And before anyone throws out the infamous ‘how can you know the right thing to do?’ or even the ‘in a harum scarum world it is sometimes difficult to discern what the right thing to do’ is.

99% of the time.

Yeah. Ok. Maybe 98.863718% of the time … figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple.

Uhm.

But, yes, sometimes … doing the right thing is simply impossible.

That is where I pause.

I pause because Lemony Snicket, a silly fictional character, nailed something that has subconsciously haunted me throughout life and my professional career. And I imagine it has haunted a large group of well intentioned, relatively bright, ‘do the right thing’ people.

Because in the end Life, and the business world, will not stand by and say ‘that’s okay … your intentions are impeccable … we know you not only want to do the right thing … you actually know the right thing to do”, it actually says … “okay … you must do something else.”

<in other words … “you gotta do something.”>

 Ouch.

Truth hurts.

This also becomes exponentially more painful to me because I am also one of those people who unequivocally has a willingness to accept responsibility for the consequences of my choices. The good ones <happily> … and the unfortunate bad ones <unhappily>.

Damn.

This also means I have to assume responsibility for actually purposefully NOT doing the right thing.

Whew.

I have a few very close friends who will read what I just wrote and understand how painful that was for me to write.

But you know what? I think that’s part of what growing up businesswise is about … understanding that doing the right thing is impossible … sometimes. And that ‘doing something’ is better than ‘doing nothing’ <almost always>.

Now.

That doesn’t mean you throw the ‘right thing’ compass away. In fact … it may even harden you to ‘do the right thing’ even more so in the future.

I think the realization that doing the right thing was impossible sometimes didn’t weaken me in this regard it actually strengthened my resolve to do the right thing whenever possible.

It strengthened my understanding of where the North Star of ‘the right thing’ resided even on the cloudiest of nights.

I say that because this is one of those infamous slippery slopes in business.

I imagine some people who actually recognize the right thing to do <and oddly enough … that is actually a skill … not something that everyone is born with> and find it impossible to do could very very easily acquire some cynicism which eats away at the hope which resides within the desire of ‘doing the right thing.’ Little by little those people lose hope in being able to actually do ‘doing the right thing’ and begin simply ‘doing what is easiest to do’ <although none will ever suggest it was an easy task … and fairly … I imagine it wasn’t easy>.

Luckily … I am not one of those people.

I do recognize that doing the right thing is impossible … sometimes.

I do recognize that seeing the right thing to do is possible … always.
And seeing the right thing to do is half the battle.

And I also imagine … in my own pea like brain … that when we are discussing ‘doing the right thing’ … if there was ever a time that ‘the impossible is possible’ … this would be the time.

Or at least that’s the way my own pea like brain thinks about it.