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“It is perchance without reason that we attribute to simple-mindedness and ignorance to the readiness to believe and to be convinced.

For it seems to me that I once learned the belief was, as it were, an impression that was made on our minds, and that, the softer and less resistant the mind, the easier it was to imprint something on it.

As the scale of the balance must necessarily sink when weights are placed upon it, so the mind must yield to clear proof. The more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more easily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument.”

—-

Michel de Montaigne

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Murphy’s Third Law

Nothing is ever so simple as it first seems

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Ok. As we near what I hope is end of a one term presidency I still cannot believe we are discussing whether Trump is actually a competent president. He is a stupid, narcissistic, incompetent person. Period. I know junior business people smarter and better managers than he is. Now. I will not begrudge the people who can rummage around among the things that have happened within hist presidency for things they like or thought were good, but, I would point out they happened despite him – not because of him.

……….. listening to Trump nonsense ………..

While I have always known Trump was a crappy business person with crappy instincts <he only has one gear & cannot adapt>, let me tell you how I got to where I am thinking now and some things you should know.

Yes. There are times I listen to something Donald J Trump says and I am torn between laughing so hard my sides hurt and banging my head on the table. The recurring ‘somethings’ we keep hearing are his statements that “no one knew it was this complicated” or the other version … “its not that easy.” I remain mystified on how he can so consistently sound like he is actually learning something for the first time <even though a high school sophomore knows it>.

Look.  I am not the president and I cannot even fathom the sheer weight of responsibility & decision-making. But in my fairly common career I have seen the inner workings of the complex healthcare industry, the inner workings of what it takes to make a global organization set standards & meet standards, the inner workings of a complex energy grid industry delivering electricity across the country, the inner workings of complex manufacturing, the inner workings of a successful complex customer service initiative in a global hospitality brand … shit … even a small business is complex and, well, almost every industry between sales, service, production, financial management, operations, regulatory, multi-channel distribution and management is complex with complications keeping it from running as smoothly, and as well, as it should on a daily basis.

Suffice it to say there is never ‘one part’ you can focus on. There are always lots of moving parts — some in your control and some not in your control, therefore, there is never simplicity.

So when he gives us a smug look of concern and says “whew, this shit is complicated” … I say … well … no shit Sherlock <and think of Scooby responding to something Shaggy said>.

Look.

99% of business leaders know everything is complex … nothing is simple.

80% of people, everyday schmucks like me, are fairly sure everything is more complex than it often appears to be <and how we talk about it>.

But apparently our 1 president is convinced that everything is straightforward, simpler than others were making it out to be and he is not only the “only one who could solve it” but also the only one who has the smarts to simply snip the Gordian Knot of complications associated with, well, running a country.

What a stupidfuck thing to say … and think.

As I noted in my “last stand of the old white men’  piece, I know we have had most of the intelligence & critical thinking in us scraped out by the ”simplicity is everything” knife, but you would think that the creators of this ‘hollow communications initiative’, the 60 & 70somethings, would not really believe the shit they’ve been selling us for years. You would think that they wouldn’t really believe that everything can be communicated in an elevator speech or three bullet point or some PowerPoint slide.

Ok.

Ok.

Maybe most do know that, but Trump seems to have missed the message.

He is an immature idiot.

————–

Communication.

Effective communication has been, and always will be, complex and complicated … and a good thing for society. Effective communication inevitably feeds into the minds and enlightenment of the listeners. If you dumb down communication inevitably you dumb down the listeners.

Old white men hollowed out communication. I imagine as they hollowed out everything else they found it inherently more productive to gain their objectives by hollowing out communication. Everything became soundbites, powerpoint bullet points and ‘elevator speeches.’ Effectively communicating complexity took on less importance than puncturing the mind with a quick sharp stab <and then walking away>. Old white men mastered the art of emptying communication to a point where businesses end up walking on the slippery surface of irrelevance <cloaked in a beautiful robe called “what is important for you to know.”>

That is Trump in a nutshell.

—————–

Anyway. I don’t need my president to be a Mensa member. Shit. They don’t even have to know big words or have a good brain or even be a stable genius. But I do need them to be intellectually curious, interested in learning and have at least a passing interest in history <or historical precedent>.

If I were generous toward Trump I could suggest much of what we are watching, in painful real time, is that he simply didn’t know what the hell he was talking about <the facts of the issue> and now he does.

** note: (after 3+ years) who the fuck am I kidding

If I were less than generous, I would hearken back to the Montaigne thought I shared upfront the softer and less resistant the mind, the easier it was to imprint something on it. The more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more easily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument. I offer that thought because  one could quite easily be convinced someone who publicly states “no one knew it was this complicated” <when pretty much everyone already knew> would be someone who had a ‘more empty and without counterpoise mind.’

If I had lost all my generosity I would be tempted to suggest that Trump is a double whammy <a> a blank slate mentally and <b> only sees round holes where he looks.

Huh? Simple minds see problems as simple ‘holes’ to be filled by jamming in whatever peg is at hand.

I am sure Trump has no real policies <let alone an ideology>, just a bunch of pegs he has had in hand for the past 40 years <yes, the same pegs> to jam into holes. But it gets worse. The pegs are so poorly constructed and so weakly held that, literally, one would assume the final decision filter is really the only thing he holds dear – his ego, his ‘brand’, his wallet.

People should ponder that last thought as they discuss a scary, possibly misguided,  belief that Trump’s tendency is to take up the position of the last person he spoke with on any given issue – because that is too simplistic.

His dazzling combination of little knowledge, no practical organizational management experience, a lack of ideological commitment to anything and an ongoing puzzlement that things just aren’t as simple as he believed <or he believed anyone believed> suggests America is in for a rough ride <short term and long term>.

Why? Because the empty mind will sink against the weight of <a> the first argument which <b> meets his ego/brand.

Sigh.

“No one knew it was this complicated.”

I am at a loss for words … so … the more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more easily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument. <Michel de Montaigne>

I used to try to not call Donald J Trump an idiot out of business respect <you assume anyone who has run a business knows something you don’t know> but, whew, he made it more & more difficult every day so I stopped trying and now just call him an idiot.

Here is what I know <and I am not the president>.

The world is a complex place and all Trump does, and has done, has made it a complicated place. Ponder that as you vote this year.

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 “There is always a ‘but’ in this imperfect world.”

—-

Anne Brontë 

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Ok. When I saw this quote I said … “yeah, there really, always, is a ‘but’ in today’s world.”

I sat back and wondered why.

I have a theory.

‘Buts’ are created by a never ending doom-looped “it’s your perspective versus  someone else’s perspective” world.

Think about it.

What you see as normal looks maybe not exactly normal to someone else. To you, your normal is a solid unequivocal fact and because of that belief, naturally, you say it is ‘so’. It is your normal.

Uh oh. You receive … “but” in response.

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“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

Charles Addams

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Now. This doesn’t mean your normal is abnormal or un-normal or even weird, just that it receives a caveat from someone else because it doesn’t sinc up exactly with their normal. Yeah. It receives a “but.”

To be clear. This is significantly different than the infamous “yes, but” issue <what I call “but debating”> because that suggests you are wrong.

This ‘but’ is simply a reflection that the world is imperfect <and you are doing just fine>.  All this ‘but’ does is to suggest that we normal people normally view the world through so many different eyes that perfection is impossible. It suggests a reality in which normal has a number of rich & royal hues to it depending on what eyes you view it with.

And you know what? That’s okay.

Sure. That makes clarity between people and ‘alignment’ of people a little trickier. But the truth is that if we don’t get too hung up on the ‘but’ aspects we all pretty much agree on the core normality of everyday life, what people think and what people do.

Ah. And maybe that is where we run into trouble. How do we stop getting hung up on the ‘but’?

We inherently like no ‘buts’ when it comes to something like ‘normal.’ We inherently think of normal maybe not as perfect, but certainly something smoother & a little less ragged edgy.

I cannot figure out if we, as people, just haven’t figured out how to accept two diametrically different thoughts – individuals are individuals <and we should celebrate that> which is not smoothing in interactions versus things go a shitload more smoothly if we think and act a little more like each other.

Or.

If it is we conceptually understand that the world is imperfect and that people will not fit perfectly together with regard to beliefs & attitudes, but that realistically we believe we have hammered out ‘normal’ in our own heads so well that we just think that the other people just have not rigorously hammered away on their own beliefs and thoughts enough to get to where we are.

Either way. Both thoughts I just shared can only have one destination — a ‘but.’

Well. Full disclosure: I tend to believe I am a little unusual in that I like hearing a ‘but.’

I tend to believe most people would much rather that the other people just nod their heads wisely, agree or just say nothing, and everyone moves along happily unaware that there was actually a ‘but’ left unsaid.

Me?

A ‘but’ makes me cock my head a little.

Makes me think.

I like to think my view of normal has some chinks in it. Has some flaws. Some imperfections.

In other words. My normal has some places that it can be improved. I am not sure 90% of people like to think something like “normal” can be improved. I mean … what the hell … normal is supposed to be normal, right?

Kind of some standard upon which 90% of people kind of stand on, right?

And you know what? They are correct. 90% of normal truly is normal.

The ‘but’ resides in one of two places:

1) in a crack within the 90% which actually may be improvable in some way <let’s call that the natural imperfections within normal>, or

2) in the 10% which represents the true individuality each of us represents.

Holy shit.

If you look at it that way, a ‘but’ doesn’t seem so frickin’ bad. It kind of seems to make sense… not as aggravating.

Anyway. That’s just my theory. And maybe that’s why I just don’t think a ‘but’ is that bad. I would argue ‘but’ has a tough time in today’s world because it seems to grapple with an unhealthy relationship with perfection. My guess is my theory falls apart if everyone would embrace imperfection a little more. Ponder that before you say ‘but.’

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“To understand another human being you must gain some insight into the conditions which make him/her who they are.”

Margaret Bourke-White

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Theme:

The pandemic is different than the financial driven recessions. In those people simply came out of it clearly in one of 2 groups (the haves and the have nots) and this crisis while the institutions may come under responsibility, or structural, scrutiny this will have more of an attitudinal or ‘out of any human control’ halo effect. That said. It would be a mistake to assume an even dispersion of impact (there will be haves and have-nots as well as winners & losers).

** note: This is a political/societal issue, not a brand issue. Brands/businesses should focus on their specific segments within people impacted.

The Narrative Collapse:

In this case all we learned was the fragility of life – in totality. This creates an overarching impact (a structural aspect to 100% of people) that we are now living within which could be described as a Narrative Collapse. We have conceptually lost the plot.

“During narrative collapse, everyone temporarily abandons attempts to reach narrative consensus even within their smallest default groups, such as family. It’s not that we don’t trust narrative sources when we lose the plot. That’s a simpler problem for normal times. It’s that the narrative sources are temporarily at a loss and don’t know what to say.”

Venkatesh Rao

The larger global narrative all the way down to the individual narrative has collapsed. Not unlike shaking an etch a sketch, the narratives have been derailed and a new narrative has yet to take shape. This deconstructs a variety of myths – we have it better than we think, systems protect us, personal responsibility, self reliance is the key to success – and doesn’t really offer us a cohesive narrative to take its place yet. As society, globally, faces the collapse of the narrative during the Covid phase the pieces of the narrative to come, the post Covid phase, are assembling. This will most likely not appear as some totally original narrative but rather an adaptation of what was before – a morphing of practices, systems, attitudes, beliefs & old with new.

The new narrative will carry the same theme – ‘meaningful progress is that which brings us closer to future relevance/success’, yet, will be framed in a different context and environment in which to progress. People will subconsciously, and sometimes consciously, recognize the relationship between antifragility/fragile systems & life and the importance of an overarching narrative (even with dissonant aspects) are inextricably linked.

It would also appear that a narrative collapse creates a sense of ‘flattening’ in which the haves mean less than the have nots if but for a period of time.

** note: power dynamics will certainly shape the what remains of the old and what is created anew in the post-Covid era

When the larger narrative collapses the traditional ‘have-nots’, the people who we see as working-class people, like the FedEx guy, the server in the restaurant, the check-in person at the hotel and even the person who cleans the rooms, will actually know more than anyone else on what the real ongoing narrative is. It will be these people who will see the patterns that remain within the collapse as well as the pieces/parts which will help craft the future narrative.

** the fragile dissonant narrative

The patterns of an aligned narrative are complex, not linear. In an infinite loop of accepted truths, accepted fragility, accepted imperfections balanced by needs, desires, aspirations in which different individuals create a coherence without consistency between segments. In its imbalance there is a fragile balance.  In fact, it is within the dissonance in which can be found the ongoing progress necessary to improve upon the narrative. The larger narrative has to have enough common elements among the larger public in order to permit individuals to live their own narratives within the larger narrative.

Environmental Contextual shift- Sociological dynamics post-Covid:

The effect of the pandemic on individual attitudes and behavior will arise in a complex mix of self, interdependence, control and impact.

A pandemic doesn’t necessarily destroy the underlying construct of how life is conducted (economically, infrastructure, essential services, etc) but it does shift the contextual view of how life is lived within that construct. In other words, people will view the environment in which their lives, successes, progress and future resides within. The pandemic has amplified interconnectedness, need for social (proximity to people), importance of communication, sheer randomness/uncertainty of life (even if you work hard and do what’s right) and, from a 30000 foot view – made people reflect upon what they can, and cannot control.

While, pragmatically, many people will come out of this with less money – individuals who had nothing will most likely have even less, young people who have struggled to gain traction will have been set back even more, retirements will look farther away and governments (who spent lavishly to fortify a business world that most likely, in hindsight, will show didn’t need it) will have no money to invest in future initiatives (climate change, infrastructure, arts, etc).

** note: contrary to perception the working class people may actually come out of this phase relatively unchanged financially because they don’t have 401ks & they have remained working.

Control

Simplistically, even if someone comes out of the Covid phase unscathed personally they will recognize that it is partially because of a simple luck of the draw. It will not undermine the belief if you work hard and focus on doing the right things that you increase the likelihood of success but it will increase the belief that Life is, at best, a gambler’s game.

Ultimately it will make people reassess control – what they can, and cannot, control. This will most likely bifurcate along lines of “extreme self-interest” (a zero-sum game mentality) and “high recognition of interdependence” (mutual dependency). While this attitude currently exists, the pandemic will most likely shift the proportional mix, I.e., more segments (each of which will assume their own identity) will view the importance of interdependence on their individual interest as more important than sole self-interest. This most likely will translate into “coherent communities can control things better than just me doing what I can.”

** note: this increases the importance of self to community dialogue alignment.

We will most likely find that ‘control’ will have to be through individual action connected to a likeminded community because we will find the money to take control difficult to find.

The money

Setting aside the questioning of effectiveness of capitalism and globalization, government has mortgaged addressing future issues by spending money to address the current issue. In other words, there is no money. This has always been a subconscious default to absolve one of aspects of personal responsibility.  Post Covid attitudes will partially be shaped by there is no place to hide from the responsibilities that impact our future (big & small).

** note: this will vary among the haves and the have nots and those who worked while others didn’t work

Money has always been as aspect of our individual sense of control. If I have enough money I can ‘control’ my own destiny (needs & happiness). If government has enough money, they should be able to ‘do’ certain things to insure a better future. This may not all be actually true but it framed attitudes. With no governmental safety net incremental monies and individuals more protective of their own money, individuals will seek to do things that don’t cost (directly). Maybe said another way, money outlays will consider making a statement at the same time (e.g., if I buy a car, I will most likely think a bit more about what it says about me and what statement it makes). The lack of money actually increases the larger sense of self and interdependence.

Independence/interconnectedness

It sounds trite to say “we live in a global world now” and “we’re in this together”, but the pandemic will buttress up understanding of that and, more importantly, attitudinally imprint the fact ‘everything is connected with everything’.

The evolution of human ethics and personal responsibility can be seen as the expansion of a sense of identification with an ever-widening scope: individual, between two individuals, community/organization, between two nations, global. As the narrative holds, even within wax & waning, our concerns include the needs and interests of a larger group. We recognize the survival and wellbeing, of people and the narrative, is linked to our own.

This generates a sense of interdependence where all progress is not a burden but rather an expansion of who and what you are. We are not responsible for coronavirus but we can be responsible in the way we act moving forward. This all leads to ‘individual meaning’ as part of mutually assured development. we neared an edge (no one actually thought it would lead to extinction) where we saw a world situation beyond our capacity to affect the arc and the outcome. We lost any semblance of control of our own fate. Yet. At the exact same time in doing so we also near the edge of any breakthrough – an idea of how we, as individuals, can affect outcome. There is actually an individual/self empowerment found within the recognition of interdependence.

Self

1. Social

Self-isolation, the behavior that is now required of us, is reminding everyone how much they actually like being with other people. While in social environments we tended to focus on the dissonant, and dysfunctional, aspects of it and now extricated from that environment we have the ability to view that dysfunctionality as functional dissonance with positive impact on our well being. We have a deeper sense of the co-relationship between self-choices and greater consequences. We have a deeper sense that humans are not meant to be alone (there is a general craving for ‘social’). Even introverts, while not becoming extroverted, seek the random social interaction of the proximity of other human beings.

2. Meaning

Maybe more importantly is people will seek to self identify some ‘meaning’ or a relevance realization (the cognitive machinery of a person in dynamic relationship with its environment). As the larger narrative collapses individuals struggle to understand how they fit (they lose context) and therefore start seeking better understating of their own narrative (meaning and realization of relevance). This will most likely arise in terms of tying themselves to visceral choices to frame their own personal choice (a search for ‘relevance realization’ which will most likely be embodied through personal statements – purchases which reflect personal relevance) tied to some smaller behavioral choices. People will seek to find their ‘fit’ within the larger narrative as it is reestablished. Psychologically the individual will be faced with an uncomfortable paradox – a period in time when without a larger narrative they will seek to identify their own narrative to find traction toward controlling their own fate/destiny during a period of time in which they have recognized much of what Life contains is out of their control.

** note: relevance realization is purposeful decision-making, choice making, to embrace statements reflective of ‘meaningfulness’ to a larger world

Impact

This will split between have and have nots. I don’t believe the haves will veer too far from a pursuit of “things”, but the have nots (those who lost things in this crisis) will veer toward a pursuit of impact.

While we cannot control the future we can create, and co-create, the conditions of the future we want. This demands an artful balance of self-interest and public good (self interest cannot be separated in the long run from the interests of the world).  Someone once called this ‘mutually assured development.’

People, finally freed from the grip of a global pandemic, will never forget the difficult period that made them see the precariousness of the human condition. We have learned there is no place to hide from responsibility to our own fate.

For the most part people, even within tighter budgets, will seek to address issues that can no longer be ignored (including environmental/social issues). Thousands of people will eye everyday life with a newfound respect and seek, sometimes creatively, to create some resilience to their lives (just in case planning) as well as seek, sometimes creatively, to embrace some futuristic-like aspects.

Where do we go from here – rebuilding the narrative:

Its not a negative view of reality nor positive, but rather a grasp of a pragmatic view in which personal statements become more important. That each personal statement embodies an identity aspect (in viewing a larger societal/global issue).

** note part 1: this can translate into positioning brands as a personal statement. A reflection of self identification. People are creatures who seek meaning and in the aftermath of a crisis in which many people reflected upon their meaning they will most likely see that meaning does not come by chasing anything but rather dedicating themselves, or a part of their identity, to  something larger than just their narrow concerns.

Once through the Covid phase the larger global narrative will most likely take shape in quite a similar fashion to what the narrative was before. The frame and framing may look similar, but it will now take on a stronger sense of fragility – people will accept the narrative in a looser way. Within that ‘looseness’ the individual will build stronger personal narratives WITHIN the larger narrative. With a dimension of acceptance that there are some things out of one’s control people will seek to make stronger personal statements on what they feel like what they CAN control – their identity tied to beliefs. If we had appeared to shift away from brands as personal statements events have moved people closer back to wearing, buying and investing in things that stand for what they believe in.

There will be a higher level of dissonance as individuals struggle to find a reestablished narrative. We should not confuse this with ‘change’ or ‘things will never go back to the way they are’ it is simply the mechanics of creating a new narrative within a new attitudinal context.

Conclusion.

It is difficult to judge the meaning of events in our lives until we come to understand the outcome, or consequences. The answer awaits the unfolding of future historical events and human responses. Whether we judge this event, or phase in time, as fortunate or unfortunate is a function of how the human race, people, responds to the pressure of the moment and challenge that this threat exerted upon our life, lives and narrative construct. Peace, calm or dissonant, resides in the restructuring of a narrative in which we can all fall into a rhythm again.

“Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. Continue to contaminate the bed you sleep in and you will one day suffocate in it.”

Chief Seattle, Nez Perce – 1850’s to President Pierce

From an individual perspective I just don’t see large-scale change, i.e., ‘things will never be the same’ shifts. The current Covid crisis amplified beliefs in the fragility of systems and attitudinal dissonance (all the things I wasn’t happy with). Any ‘change’ in individual behavior will most likely be tied to attitudes/beliefs and not due to ‘large scale change.’

From a larger systemic “how we do business” perspective (including businesses), I just don’t see large scale, i.e., future of work will never be the same, shifts. It is more likely:

• Self isolation reminds business how much social interaction matters (the randomness of connectivity)
• Remote working highlights selective distant interactions yet limitations on a larger scale.
• Systemic failures will be seen as poor planning of existing systems rather than old ineffective systems (scenario planning may increase, supply chain/JIT inventory will be reassessed, agile aspects of an organization will be explored).

It is more likely people, as individuals, will not make radical changes, but rather morph attitudes and behavior to a revised context.

It is more likely any business changes will not be reflective of “learning that improves the way we do business” but rather “selective learnings that make our business less fragile/more resilient.

Look.

I’ve been arguing with futuristic pontificators and ‘this is going to change everything’ & ‘no normal’ people for weeks. I am not a futurist nor a predictor, but try this prediction. This pandemic will not completely change the ‘world order’ or even people attitude & behavior etch a sketch. Yes. it will have an underlying attitude effect mostly because it has made most people realize control is an illusion.

But. The narrative construct will remain intact.

On the ‘power deck’ (the captains & owners) the seating order may shift a bit. But. This was already happening because of populist/isolation leadership. The world ‘order’ was already shifting. power holds on with ragged claws.

On the engine deck some parts may be replaced, pieces updated, but the same engines will remain in place. Yes. Some new ships, with new engines, will seek to enter the market. But the old engines & ships will not go away.

On the passenger deck I think it’s a mistake to see systemic change, everyone still wants to go on a cruise of Life. But. We should seek to see *segments* change attitudes/behaviors & maybe some ‘lily pads’ of change (selective change). recognizing those lily pads is key.

And in the bilge (the people who have been screwed forever) they will laugh at the concerns of the passengers & captains as the musings of indulged people who fear losing what they have because if you have nothing you don’t fear losing things, you only fear losing hope.

I imagine what I am suggesting is that the narrative didn’t really collapse, we just have lost the plot. And that is not the same.

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“Of all the things created and built by humankind, nothing in my mind is better or worthier than bridges.

They belong to all and treat all alike; they are useful, always built for purpose, at a spot where most human needs entwine.”

–

Ivo Andric

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Well. When I saw this quote I thought “wow, I have the companion piece to my Liminal space post”.

Liminal spaces tend to make people feel uncomfortable as places of transition <neither here nor there>. They are kind of the fascinating, interesting, but oft wretched, spots where you have left what was but have not entered into what will be. It is the intangible that create the niggling discomfort or unease <or anticipation>. You are kind of disconnected from any of your real comfort zones.

Bridges make people feel comfortable. They are tangible. They show the clear path from where you are to where you can go. With a bridge you know you can always be connected with a comfort zone <even if you never go back>.

Regardless.

These two things are companions in crime.

Liminal spaces, voids as it were, tend to serve to refocus and remind people of what is at stake and what is really important.

Bridges offer a place to focus. They offer us … well … some pragmatic hope that you can actually get somewhere <even if where you are is kind of unclear>.

Connecting spaces, which is really what bridges are, are invaluable to us physically and mentally.

Almost everyone’s minds excitedly explore uncertain forays into interesting things and, at exactly the same time, get lost as they get snagged on the edge of unexplored thoughts or even those mischievously evil second guesses that are inevitably associated with the uncertainty in much of our lives, thoughts and growth.

And this can make us feel uncomfortable and our mind wrestles with this discomfort as well as dealing with the uncertainty of, well, this liminal space.

Here is some truth.

Ignorance is boundless.

Knowledge is limited <only in terms of time>.

Learning, and unlearning, often contains more uncertainty than it does certainty.

This means our minds are always grappling with the hollow spaces of our lives, i.e., the empty spaces in which we know we have to cross, but just aren’t sure we can see how to cross.

That, in a nutshell, is why we love bridges.

Look. I am a strategy guy or maybe I could be called a “here to there” thinker guy. I like liminal spaces AND I like bridges. While I like navigating liminal spaces I don’t like going back again and again to the same, therefore, I also like to build a bridge in ever liminal space I visit in business.

Not all strategy type people do that.

Some like (just) the theory – the larger ‘trend.’ They are called futurists. I tend to call them relatively worthless <or maybe just misguided in their self title>.

Some like navigating the liminal space, seeing the web of the trend itself and doing the mental gymnastics to weave your way through, leaving some bread crumbs for others to follow.

Some like the practical step-by-step plan of getting from one place to another <the places are less relevant the bridge is all that matters>. I would argue they weren’t traditional strategists but rather strategy implementers, but, call them what you may they play an incredibly important role in getting people from here to there and what is to what could be.

Me? I am a pragmatic strategy person.

Identifying “what could be” is all about navigating liminal spaces and deciding which door to open and walk through … what path to choose and what rivers to cross. It gets the heart pumping, is not for the faint of heart, and is fraught with peril.

I say that because building a bridge seems to help not only tangibly show the ‘rightness’ in deciding the ‘right what could be’ but it also gives people a path. A path in which they have less uncertainty and can focus on … well … getting from here to there.

To me not building a bridge just seems like leaving something incomplete. Like maybe offering someone a map while I could have shared a map AND built a road.

Let me say I don’t think the world needs more of me <god no>, but I do believe we need to appreciate the pragmatic bridge builders in our midst.

Bridges are not typically built willy nilly in some random place. More often they are placed in useful places constructed with connection of those in one place and those in another.

What was and what will be <as it were>.

I am a business guy. But, I admit, I stop and admire well-built bridges all the time. I admire the bridges with character and wear & tear as trains rumble across them.

I do so because they remind me that a well-built bridge may be one of the worthiest things in the world.

While I wish more business thinkers, and strategy people, would think about this kind of shit more often I will lower my wishes and just say everyone should stop and admire a bridge on occasion.

They may be one of the worthiest, least appreciated, things we encounter.

Plus. In a world that seem increasingly uncertain where the intangibles & unknowns seem to outnumber the tangible & certain, well, bridges can be quite tangible, quite certain … and quite comforting. Great reminders that we humans have always been quite good at figuring out how to connect here to there.

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“We’re just a bubble in a boiling pot.”

———–

Jack Johnson

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“There’s an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. “

———–

Stefan Zweig

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Every once in awhile you find that someone has articulated an idea in such a simple wonderful way you have to stand and applaud. 212 is an example. While 212 is a marketing agency’s name it is the actual number and what it means that speaks volumes.

212 degrees is water’s boiling point.

The agency creative director (one of my best friends) of the agency I referenced earlier states it perfectly:

“we can be the difference between 211 degrees, when all you’ve got is water, and 212,or between something happening or not happening.”

That, my friends, says it all. Not just for a business, but pretty much frickin’ everything. This also has everything to do with the difference between speed & velocity.

You can spend your time and life sitting around somewhere between 0 and 211 degrees.  And it doesn’t really matter if you are freezing your ass off at 3 degrees or be hotter than shit at 198 degrees — nothing is happening (other than you are uncomfortable or maybe fooling yourself into believing something is happening). Shit ain’t happening until you reach out and figure out a way of getting to 212.

That, in a nutshell, is speed.

Then something truly happens.

Life boils. Action happens.

That, in a nutshell, is Velocity. A real change happens in that you have shifted from speed activity to velocity activity. All in one measly little degree.

Couple points:

Between 0 & 211.

Don’t fool yourself into believing that something is truly happening in your life simply because you feel something (cold or hot). You may be running hard (speed) but, for the most part, you are still just water in the pot. Real change happens when it boils (velocity). The tricky part is somewhere above 120 degrees or so you start feeling comfortable. In that comfort zone you can easily be speeding along or just be comfortably stagnant. Be aware. They can look & feel very similar.

Anyway. I purposefully use heat as the indicator for 2 reasons.

Uncomfortable. While velocity itself is exciting & challenging the shift from non boiling to boiling CAN be uncomfortable. Its a shift. Some people feel the discomfort as “uh oh bad” and some feel it as “yeah, now the action occurs.”

Action. Placid water to boiling water. That is when you know something is truly happening in your life. You shift from just water in a pot that is something someone could take & drink from to something that people approach warily & can actually use to cook something up. Speed makes you feel like you’re cooking, but velocity actually permits the action of cooking. In my terms, you have achieved the velocity tipping point.

One degree.

Life is tricky. Heck. Velocity is tricky. How tricky? The difference between speed & velocity is often one degree. Its not really a tipping point its more along the lines of applying heat properly for the appropriate amount of time. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out you can be speeding along at 205degrees for a long time and it will feel hot but you will not be able to boil diddleyshit. Speed can feel like Velocity. Oh. And. My real point is one degree can make a helluva difference.

About that difference.

There is no “about to boil” sign. The shift from speed to velocity just happens. There is no warning sign. There is no dopamine hit just prior. Nothing. It just happens. I point that out to remind everyone you are never really sure if you are 183degrees or 205degrees. It boils when it boils.

Not all velocity is good. Unfortunately we don’t always make the best decisions and best choices. Therefore, you can shift from speed to velocity and vector quickly into the bad or the good. I point that out because velocity, in & of itself, feels great so you have to be careful the velocity feeling doesn’t mask the truth you are speeding off on a bad tangent. 

Anyway. 212degrees. Ponder. Ponder because it is the difference between speed & velocity.

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They say it all breaks down to keeping your feet on the ground

My sole intention is keeping my head in the clouds

They say that I can’t last a day in the real world

I say you wouldn’t survive one night in mine

—

Asking Alexandria

===

I get businesses unstuck  (90% of the time that simply means helping them get out of their own way). That’s what I do. This discussion most typically revolves around Taleb’s concept of Antifragile. And while I find Nassim Taleb whipsmart trying to explain Antifragile in a pragmatic business sense, and business environment, is semi-impossible (or at least beyond my intellectual capabilities).

Suffice it to say almost every business I have ever interacted with has struggled with balancing, or applying proportionate effort, pragmatism and possibilities – standardized process and agility/vision to meet opportunities. Most businesses see them as binaries where I see them as malleable. Most businesses see them as an organism and I see them as molecular. That said. While I love conceptual discussions (and actually believe the future of business will be owned by the ones who can think conceptually) my job is to frame in the abstract and deliver in the concrete – balancing idealism and realism. I call it ‘’pragmatism and possibilities’ and suggest its all about having your feet in the clouds and head on the ground.

Suffice it to say that 99% of the best businesses have figured out how to successfully keep their feet in the clouds and their head on the ground.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it looks like I got it twisted around, but I did not. Good businesses are always walking with the future in mind. Always traveling toward possibilities. Always seeking ‘what’s next.’

Good businesses are always closely listening to the drumbeat of the feet of what is happening around them. Ear to the ground insuring everyone in the business is keeping their head in the game today. I have called it mastering pragmatism & possibilities. But, in reality, it is the ability to have your feet in the clouds and head on the ground.

I tend to believe if more people thought about it this way businesses would actually manage their pragmatism better (i.e., maximize existing resources in an agile way), would have more hope (i.e., maximize opportunities that arise better) and achieve more possibilities than they could ever imagine.

You have to admit the current definition – feet on the ground & head in the clouds – just ain’t working that well these days. Businesses seem to be more woefully stagnant <albeit always ‘talking’ change> and have more despair and lack of hope with regard to actionable possibilities than ever.

Why? Well. I am sure I could invest dozens of pages sharing thoughts on why, but instead I will focus on what I would consider the intellectual aspects, i.e., what is going on in with our attitudes that affect our heads, how we think and how we approach these things.

** note: if one were to need a playbook on how to discuss pragmatism & possibilities with a business this is as good a place to start as any – deconstructing each issue.

• Issue one. over-simplification

Suffice it to say we have devolved into a society of sound bites. This is true in business even moreso. In business it seems to be all about simplicity. In everyday Life it is ‘summarize it for me’ or ‘oh, it’s simple <insert some explanation here>.’ In the end I can’t figure out if should be pointing the finger at us or them.

Them <management & leadership> because they think we are not capable of understanding some form of complexity and therefore they only offer up simplified versions of what needs to be communicated.

Or us <the employees> because we either:

<a> demand a sound bite under the guise of ‘we only have time for the headline’

<b> we only latch on to the fragment of the whole which we believe summarizes the whole.

Therefore I will point the finger at all of us and them. Here is a Truth.

Most things are just not that simple, in fact, they are complex. An effect can have multiple causes and a cause can have multiple effects. I say this despite the fact, naturally, we would like all the dominoes to line up one after another and when one falls the next naturally is impacted and falls. Causality is just an easier thing to grasp.

Well. Things don’t really work that way. Especially in a business environment. Maybe in a controlled test environment but, in business, events are typically bombarded from a variety of directions and while not all causes are created equal <some can impact more than others> most things are too complex to be simplified into ‘one thing.’ And, yet, we oversimplify again and again and again.

Over simplifying simply means ignoring complexities.

Over simplifying simply means being consciously ignorant.

Over simplifying … well … just doesn’t work in the long run.

It eases you through the moment only to have to doubly <or exponentially> invest energy later on. Let me put this as simply as I can: over simplification just doesn’t work.

Instead of dumbing things down to some simplistic sound bite we need to raise the level of general understanding & knowledge to the level of complexity of the ideas & systems in which a business works – in other words, unravel the complexity into understandable components. Factually, seconds of involvement <sound bites> versus minutes of involvement <deeper complex discussion> leads to degrees of real knowledge, i.e., seconds leads to shallow knowledge or let’s call it ‘less knowledgeable.’ Over simplification will not demystify uncertainty and cannot help us do what we really need to do — reconcepting & rethinking that which is (which is the portal to unlocking potential).

What I am suggesting is difficult and uncertain work. But certainly more satisfying and inspiring when we solve and recreate and it certainly is a more effective way to keep your feet in the clouds and head on the ground..

I can unequivocally state that the fate of possibilities for a business, any business, lies in balance if we don’t invest in the hard work of ‘non over simplification.’

And worse? We won’t solve any of the problems we face if we do not address this.

This leads me to …

• Issue two. being intellectually insightful is about hard work.

Let me begin by suggesting that good ideas cannot be decided by number of tweet votes in favor of. Business ideas do not compete on American Idol nor, frankly, should they compete in any larger group. We are not all judges <and probably shouldn’t be on American Idol either>.

Why? Good ideas are rarely popular; therefore, I don’t really want a business idea to win some meaningless popularity contest. If we really want to do what needs to be done to maximize both the pragmatism & the possibilities in business we have to hunker down and work hard … work hard in that we need to use what we have to rethink things … use all aspects including economic thought and philosophy and the past … all of which means dealing with ambiguity and contradiction.

And, yes, that is hard work. That is the kind of work that hones the intellectual insightfulness necessary to keep your feet in the clouds and your feet on the ground and, well, make progress. Smart progress.

Instead of dumbing things down we need to be raising the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. And while you may balk at something like ‘intellectual insightfulness’ as too far reaching or ‘elitist’ … suffice it to say we just need to be smarter … less ignorant … more enlightened <open to additional thoughts> and more involved in the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconcepting ideas and systems in which we live in and … well … just plain rethinking shit.

Suffice it to say that there is nothing simple when talking about world-changing ideas … because talking will not simply make the world change.

I read somewhere recently that ‘if you remove this boundary … the only boundary left is our imagination.’

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Imagination is important, but even imagination is complicated and difficult and tends to not offer tidy solutions. Especially if you don’t invest in the hard work.

We need to be doing more of ‘using your imagination within the box of what exists.’ We don’t need to be wandering aimlessly ‘outside the box’ but rather using our imagination insightfully and creatively WITHIN the box and expand the boundaries.

It is all hard work, but hard work will work. And in this case I mean hard thinking work.

Simply ‘doing’ aint gonna cut it. We need to be smarter. And whether you think about thinking this way or not, it ain’t about staring off into space doing nothing <random dreaming>, thinking is a blue collar job. Thinking is all about work. Hmmmmmm … it is quite possible that what I just wrote defines “head on the ground” better than anything I have ever written before.

Anyway. As a corollary to issue number two …

• Issue three. innovation is not <just> technology.

What makes oversimplification even more challenging is that for some reason we seem to be associating innovation with technology … and just technology. We can’t … and shouldn’t.

This type of thinking leads us to possibly believe technology innovations will eventually solve all problems and maximize everyone’s Life as some point. That is a very dangerous idea.

It is dangerous because in reality if we focus just on technology as the solution we are actually preventing the real change we need. It’s a very dangerous idea because it completely removes the human aspect. I cannot tell people how often I need to remind everyone technology augments humans (if you seek potential & possibilities), not humans augmenting technology.

Regardless. Minds need to innovate too. Thinking and attitudes need to evolve and innovate. New thought systems, economic systems and systems in which people live eat and breath all need to evolve and that happens through innovation <whether technology is involved or not>. Technology is simply a path that runs parallel to culture <or society> basically amplifying everything that is happening on the parallel path <the corollary to that is … with nothing to amplify the technology remains silent>.

Technology and culture and people and business are entangled. Everything is connected with everything. Technologies may enable new ways of doing things as well as thinking. This effects culture so culturally we need to innovate to structure how those technologies will be involved in our lives <so that we can dictate a little how they are incorporated> and we need to innovate our thinking and culture so that we can actually impact how technology evolves <so that we can dictate how what technology is innovated in some form or fashion>.

At the moment it seems like we respond to technology rather than proactively drive technology. Yes. Technology has certainly dramatically improved the overall quality of business but, at some point, technology is not a reason for being, but rather simply an enabler for being. The paradox is that the system we have now may make amazing new technology possible, but at same time is creating such cultural conflict that maximizing technology ‘what could be’ seems impossible. We need to innovate the systems in which technology exists.

Economically, culturally and philosophically. All systems need to see innovation.

• Issue four. adaptability does not mean ‘no strategy’.

Businesses inherently like structure. They see structure as replicable (safe, efficient & maintaining whatever level of effectiveness they have currently attained). The problem is emphasizing structure, pragmatism, actually increases the fragility of a business (source: antifragile) and limits the scope/horizon view of pursuing possibilities. With a ‘feet on the ground’ philosophy structure & construct of resources/systems/process dictate the direction, velocity and vision of the business. In other words, pragmatism is the source of possibilities. If you flip the equation, pragmatism becomes the enabler of possibilities. This does not mean a business has no strategy, all it does is maximize flexibility & agility to pragmatically apply resources to possibilities as they arise. Taleb calls this AntiFragile, Toffler called it the polymalleable organization, HBR has called it “Agile”, I call it “feet in the clouds, head on the ground” or “managing pragmatism & possibilities.” Call it whatever you want but it is the issue a business needs to address in order to be successful in the future.

<that’s it for my issues>

Look.

Hope and possibilities grounded with enlightened pragmatism abound in today’s business world if you look hard enough <and have your feet in the clouds an head to the ground>. But none of it comes easy. These types of things are rarely just given, they need to be earned mostly thru hard work.

I don’t believe simplicity is bad.

I don’t believe being optimistic or having a positive attitude is bad.

I don’t believe technology is bad.

I don’t believe hard work, smartly done, is bad.

But we seem trapped in the old paradigm of “head in the clouds & feet on the ground.” This old paradigm kind of separates work & thinking <vision> in a non useful way. And I … well … I admit I sometimes think this paradigm encourages a slightly warped version of some lazy thinking.

And we cannot be lazy moving forward. And we certainly cannot afford to be lazy thinkers. For in this type of laziness lurks ignorance and it is ignorance we should fear. Not any ideological argument or technological innovation which inserts itself into our daily lives but ignorance.

Avoid lazy thinking. Maybe have everyone should hearken to Emerson’s words:

“Consent yourself to be an organ of your highest thought, and lo! suddenly you put all men in your debt, and are the fountain of an energy that goes pulsing on with waves of benefit to the borders of society, to the circumference of things.”

In the end.

Effective business has always been about applying the right resources at the right time against the right opportunity (or challenge). Period.

Efficient business has always been about applying resources in a consistent way all the time to be applied against the opportunities that exist. Period.

Agility resides in the optimization betwixt the two. Either, alone, is fragile. The fragile mixture, proportionate focus, of the two actually makes one Antifragile (stealing from Taleb). That said. A business is most likely able to find the optimal proportion by, well, keep their head to the ground and their feet in the clouds.

Consent yourself to be of your highest thought.

And how do you do that? Keep your feet in the clouds and your head on the ground. Be pragmatic and explore possibilities.

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Originally published September 2016

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“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. 

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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.

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“… 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

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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.

————

“Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.”

–

Fyodor Dostoevsky

====

There may be nothing worse than the feeling of something slipping away from you.

Standing there just watching whatever it is slip away like water through fingers.

Okay. Maybe worse?

The feeling like it is all slipping away from you and there is really nothing you can do. And, yet, you will cling to anything … even wisps of straw hoping you can hold on to whatever it is that is slipping away.

It is a helpless feeling.

Especially the first time you drown.

Oh. Yes. I just said “first time.”

Yeah. You can actually drown many times in Life & business.

That’s the thing with Life <and much of business>.

This kind of drowning rarely kills you in Life <real drowning does>. It really only kills the moment, the ‘thing’, the feeling, the opportunity, the whatever.

Regardless.

Drowning sucks.

Here is a Life truth about why it sucks so much.

Moments, ‘things’, feelings, opportunities, possibilities – die fast .. like in the blink of an eye. In a blink of an eye what was possible simply disappears and is no longer possible.

===

“In the blink of an eye, what was possible is possible no longer.”

Nelika McDonald

===

Despite this blink of an eye timing … we see the situation as drowning. This means we cling to wisps of straws that are not really there. And we call it drowning but in reality we are already ‘dead’ <with that opportunity>.

Here is the good news.

While this feeling sucks, it is easily recognized. And because it is easily recognized , if we truly pay attention, we can avoid wasting energy and time clinging to the wisps of straws and swim away to something else.

I am not suggesting this is easy.

I simply suggest recognizing something is half the battle.

I simply suggest we should not ignore the easy part because drowning is rarely sneaky.

Let me end with where I began – clinging to wisps of straw. We all will drown. It’s just part of living Life to its fullest. Therefore I would suggest it is incredibly important to recognize that we are desperately clinging to only little wisps of straw and, instead, should be seeking to swim away to seek the next moment and opportunity to, well, fly.

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

“Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.”

=

Peter Drucker in 1999

—

Well. This is about organization change, decision-making and change & people.

Ok. When was the last time you said “This isn’t working. We need to change it.”

Yesterday? Today? A minute ago? Well. It happens every day.

To everyone.

I would suggest the idea that people are ever satisfied with what is, and what surrounds us, actually defines us as a species. We are in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. We are constantly thinking about how to change shit, improve shit and fix shit. That’s what we do and it doesn’t matter whether it is at home, in businesses or in Life.

We are thinkers, innovators and inventors and <whether we actually think about it this way> ‘changers.’

We are constantly faced with changes every day and moving toward solutions to address the changes. In fact. I could simply call this ‘adapting’ <which may be more palatable to people than ‘changing’>.

In our heads we decide whether we want to sit still and bitch & moan or decide whether we want to impact the change happening around us with something positive. That is what we do <we people>.

This seems even moreso in business where 90% of us assume change is inevitable.

In 1999 Peter Drucker said:

“ We do not hear much anymore about overcoming resistance to change, which 10 or 15 years ago <in the 80’s> was one of the most popular top management seminars.

Everybody has now accepted by now that change is unavoidable.  But this still implies that change is like death & taxes – it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm.”

—–

Reminder. He said this in 1999.

Look. We are constantly faced with change. We are constantly being forced to adapt. That said. Frankly, we are not all change agents and, frankly, the majority of our own change is not dictated by us … we are simply forced to adapt to a swirling environment in which we are simply trying to exist <and prosper if possible>. If you think about it that way, your only opportunity to make a difference in the change comes in , well, maybe two ways:

Leadership

=

Knowledge

I’d suggest those two things are connected. The more you become knowledgeable on the issues, understand the decisions being made by others, discern what society or culture is actually imbuing into the environment then ultimately you can actually be a part of the solution , and change, rather than be some frictional element slowing the change <some people would suggest the latter is becoming part of the problem>.

You need to be informed, ready to act and willing to act.

You do not need to be dynamic as an individual to be dynamic beyond your purposes.

I say that because we shouldn’t get grumpy with people who hesitate to embrace change. Shit. We all hesitate to embrace change because it means leaving some things we actually like behind. Therein lies the reason I opened with the Drucker quote.

“Abandoning everything it does.”

He didn’t say ‘abandon the bad stuff.” He said “everything.”

There is where I believe we people, and businesses, get change really wrong. We try and hold on to something. Mostly the somethings we believe is the good stuff. Yes. Some of it may truly be good, but how often does the current good look bad in the new changed environment. This often means we end up not only holding on to something that is worthless in the here & now, but most likely slows/slowed us down during the change <because we kept on holding on to it and trying to figure out how to actually keep it ‘good’> and, worse, it is now most likely gumming up the new environment in some form or fashion.

I would argue change becomes even tougher & trickier because we are just not comfortable abandoning everything if we need to.

Shit. Business book after business book and business school after business school pounds into our heads that efficiency is about consistent delivery and developing best practices and highly successful protocols & processes. All of that suggests “maintain.” Build and don’t abandon. The problem? We see them as foundational items and not as potential anchors.

Look. Some smartass asshole is going to send me an email and say “you cannot always change everything because that is chaos.”

Yes. That’s not really the point.

The point is that you have to be PREPARED to abandon everything, i.e., willing to let anything and everything go.

The point is ‘survival’ not ‘managing change.’ We seem to too easily lose sight of this survival view even when we hunker down and think about what we would be willing to do to truly survive. Regardless. We all know that young people and inexperienced people <and clueless consultants> will always be the first ones to say “throw it all out, it is wrong, begin fresh.”  Well. rather than ignore I’m always prepared to listen to them. Just listen.

And know when to abandon.

And know when to hold on.

Look. All change is confusing to people. I am not suggesting it isn’t welcome or desired just that even when desired it can be confusing with a mix of emotions as the desire rarely matches reality.

I will note this is where leadership steps in. Good leaders tend to inspire simply by bringing people together around a shared purpose and a common set of values and motivate them to create value for everyone involved. They know their ‘north star’ with regard to a moral compass and are prepared to stay the course despite challenges and disappointments and focus change (and adapting) on value creation – not change itself.

Change leadership is not easy. As Teddy Roosevelt said … “in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions … knows in the end the triumph of high achievement” that can truly only come by leading well. I disagree with some people in that I don’t believe leadership has to be great by any stretch of the imagination … just do it well. And ‘do it well’ often means being prepared to abandon everything to survive.

In the end.

Being PREPARED to abandon everything to survive is an attitude. Abandoning the right things is a skill. And all of it is change. I actually believe most people like change (but hate the way most businesses & leaders talk about it & implement it) but this version of change, “abandon everything”, well, this is the scary type of change – its about survival. That makes it essential. And essential is scary. And maybe that’s my point. Change, when its natural & tied to adapting is less daunting. It feels evolutionary & good. Abandon all to survive feels “impactful.” That’s where leadership enters into the equation. Instill the energy to abandon all, yet, instill the attitude its simply adapting. Anyway. I believe people would benefit from viewing Life with an eye toward ‘abandoning everything’ just to assess what is most important but I believe it is ESSENTIAL to business.