Change Whisperer on ProjectManagement.com

Visiting with my in-laws over the holidays is always a little like living on the edge. It’s tough to know who will cave to the holiday stress at any moment in time. Of course, given that they are in their 80s, there are also the omnipresent health issues to be wrestled with - and adapted to. And there are the usual rituals.

My mother-in-law was looking for something in her closet and it became a trip down memory lane.

She took down a carefully-wrapped package of linens and gently unwrapped about a dozen pillow cases. As she did she said, “This one I bought with my sister”. She touched the others tenderly, admiring the embroidery. “See this one? One dollar each. Whatever my sister bought, I bought.”

Her sister passed away 19 years ago.

I suddenly realized that this was not about the pillow cases. This was about remembering a day with her sister - how happy they were that day.

About remembering who she was with her sister. About who she IS.

We put the pillow cases away carefully in the closet so she could take them down and remember again another day.

I love innovation.

I have spent about half my career immersed in new product development, some in the hyper-change environment of start-ups.

I hope you are inspired, moved, by the following quotes and resources to embrace more innovation.

The world is changing around us. We need to innovate to be better to be relevant, to be competitive, make a difference.

“Fall in love with the problem, not the solution”

This quote actually came from an innovation! Brad Smith, President and CEO of Intuit, posts a blog on LinkedIn. He gets his thought leadership out into the world via a software upgrade that did not exist a year ago.

“It’s human nature to love our own ideas. But sometimes that means that we hang on to them too long. Along the innovation journey, every innovator must ask: Are we making sufficient progress to believe that our original hypothesis is correct, or do we need to make a change?

In the Lean Startup, Eric Ries talks about how innovators must decide whether to pivot or preserve. Companies hang in the balance on this very dilemma.

At Intuit, we rally our employees around this mantra: fall in love with the problem, not the solution.

If you never lose sight of the problem, how you attack the solution can remain more flexible, iterative, and ultimately, be more likely to succeed.

Recently I had an insightful conversation with Eric about the topic, specifically around when it’s time to pivot and how fast you have to decide.”

“Fall in love with the problem, not the solution” Brad Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intuit. Nov 2 2012

Don’t underestimate Eric Ries. Don’t say (like I did), “He looks so young. What could he know?” Consider the following excerpts:

“A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision…it is not giving up on the vision … it is not a change in the product. We change the product all the time.”

“The problem is that vision, product, and strategy came to us all together in a flash.”

“The reason it is so painful to pivot is because it requires us to give up some elements of what we thought we would be doing…”

• Did you watch it? What did you think?
• Did you hear the different kinds of pivots?
• Have you ever done a “pivot”?
• Did you hang in there to hear the “Innovation Accounting Dashboard?”

Embracing the chaos

Innovation has a tendency to be disruptive, messy, ambiguous, and sometimes even intimidating. Knowing that, and expecting the chaos, gives us back some certainty.

• “Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.” ?Pema Chödrön
• “Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” —Picasso
• “When all think alike, then no one is thinking.”—Walter Lippman
• “The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” —Charles DuBois

Navigating the chaos

Within the very disruptive nature of innovation, our work is about helping people reinvent (innovate) themselves—sponsors first, then change targets. What are the conditions that facilitate their innovation?

• Leadership: “Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.” —Chinese Proverb
• Curiosity: “The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.” —Anatole France
• Courage: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” —Ambrose Redmoon

For practitioners:

• Compassion: “The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.”—Pema Chödrön
• “The quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first. The quality of our thinking depends on the way we treat each other while we are thinking.” —Nancy Kline (an excellent resource here)

What’s the point?

What does the realization of innovation look like?

• “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” —Theodore Levitt
• “Innovation is the process of turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form.” —Watts Humprey
• “The purpose of innovation is to create value.” —Jorge Barba

Innovation is so important in the Pharma space that the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) put this beautiful little video (2:39 minutes) on their 26^th Annual Global Conference (2012) agenda:

“I am innovation”

Can’t get enough? More great innovation resources

• Management Innovation eXchange (MIX)—Hack Management 2.0 is “an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management for the 21st century. The premise: while ‘modern’ management is one of humankind’s most important inventions, it is now a mature technology that must be reinvented for a new age.” MIX was originally convened by Gary Hamel; MIX partners include Dell Computer, HCL Technologies, London Business School, and McKinsey & Company.
• Innovation Excellence blog: “featuring regular contributions from the brightest minds in the field of enterprise innovation—thought leaders, practitioners, consultants, vendors, and academia.”

Innovation in Change Management and Strategy Execution

Conner Partners, formerly ODR, has spent 38 years innovating approaches to change management and strategy execution (the process of expediting innovation). Thought leadership is available in books by Daryl Conner and on his blog, Change Thinking.

If you are a business leader facing a transformational change, or former client, and would like to catch up on what’s new, just give me a ring. Let’s talk innovation.

Parting thought: “Fall in love with the problem.”

“Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards of integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset.” John D. MacDonald, The Turquoise Lament

Change Management is a still-young profession struggling to establish legitimacy in the arena of the wild web. The preceding three posts in this series looked at the problems of plagiarism and intellectual property (IP) theft in change management. This post looks at the incentives of operating with integrity and of requiring others to do likewise.

Professional Integrity

What I love about the MacDonald quote above is its raw honesty. There is no guarantee that integrity provides any advantage whatsoever. In fact, it might be a disadvantage.

However, for those with high ethical standards, that is irrelevant. It is an unwavering standard and that is all there is to it.

Living an authentic life, where one’s values and actions are aligned, is the objective. Integrity is its own reward.

Aspirational

I think it’s important (at least it’s important for me) to remember that standards are aspirational. The fact that we sometimes falter should not cause us to question the standard.

It might seem inconceivable that anyone could accidentally plagiarize or steal IP, but I think it might actually be common.

I have a friend who has been known to say, “I have never had an original idea.” Now, I consider this particular individual to be one of the most insightful and thoughtful people I know, so this immediately struck me as incongruous. Yet, as I reflected on my own writing, I realized that much of what emerges from my pen is actually a re-interpretation of one or more ideas from others.

Often, my blog posts are the output of processing everything I have studied, practiced, and experienced. It is a way of making sense of complexity. I share it with the hope that it might shorten others’ journeys.

In sharing my own thoughts and experiences I hope that I remember to cite sources and inspirations. The fact is, though, that once I have internalized an idea it feels like it’s “mine.” I have to acknowledge that, despite my best efforts, I may have in the past and likely will in the future accidently forget to cite a reference.

Believing this to be true, I have to remind myself to be tolerant, actually generous, with others.

Trusted Advisors

There is no question that trust is a critical element of change management. It plays out in a variety of ways.

Why choose to stand up for professional integrity around intellectual property? Why should this level of professional integrity matter to all of us? It matters because the caliber of our work from start to end matters:

• “We live in an era where each of us copes with, modifies to, and has the opportunity to step up to tremendous amounts of change. The degree to which we are good at this affects our well-being, our personal lives, our families, our businesses, and our economies?our quality of life as communities.” The power of change management. Pay it forward.

When this matters, it then matters that we do it with the utmost commitment to quality and integrity. And when you demonstrate this, it reflects on you.

To be clear, the proper citation of all content (phrases, ideas, tools, training, methodologies, etc.) may narrow recognition down to the author that came up with the original concept, but it also speaks volumes about how trustworthy you are, about how much you know and are willing to share in service of the change.

It is important to take this position in the spirit of service. There is a high degree of diplomacy required to do the right things in ways that serve organizations and that foster and build community. This requires an investment of caring and nurturing, a mindset that says individuals will rise to the expectations of the group.

 Extreme Trust

Don Peppers and Martha Rogers published “Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage” [1] earlier this year. They make a compelling case that, in a transparent world, we don’t have a choice but to prove that we are looking out for the best interests of our clients, our organizations?our community. From their short video promotion:

• “Improve the way that you look out for customers. Improve the way that you use honesty.”
• “Consumer standards are increasing and they expect more from companies in terms of trust than they used to.”

When your clients (internal or external) see you looking out for their best interests, in diplomatic and meaningful ways, you have a unique opportunity to differentiate yourself.

When it is a reflection of what you believe, then it is an authentic representation of what you stand for.

The reward

The reward is an opportunity to align personal integrity with professional delivery.

It is an opportunity to deliver greater value in ways that truly impact the well-being of our communities.

It is an authentic life.

Reflection

I am quite happy to be out on this limb by myself. But I am also very interested in knowing if any of this resonates with anyone else:

• What do you think? Is this making a mountain out of a mole hill?
• Do you see “stolen change management” in your travels?
• Does it bother you? Is there a tipping point for you?
• If you hesitate to call it out, why?
• If you do call it out, how do you deal with it? What responses have you gotten?

References

1. “Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage”, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Portfolio Hardcover, April 26, 2012.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” —George Orwell

 There are well-established boundaries for the creation and use of intellectual property. In the age of re-mix it is important to be very clear on them. One way is by citing resources properly and identifying plagiarism (post 1). Another is by understanding the current explosion of re-mix (post 2). In this post, we’ll look at the conditions for producing and using thought leadership appropriately. We’ll begin by looking at what’s legitimate and what’s not.

Fair Game

There are four distinct areas:

Inventing

In the change management space, most “inventions” emerge from research, often conducted for Masters and PhD programs. A student candidate identifies a thesis to investigate, and then a board screens the thesis to ensure that it contributes to or develops/challenges existing thought leadership. In many cases, after the candidate earns a degree, he or she develops a commercial business around the thesis, usually based on tools and/or training.

In developing ways to apply theory in the field, it is often necessary to modify and extend existing tools and methodologies. This work should always be done under the direction of the original thought leaders. Only these individuals understand the original findings, the structure of the current approach, and its interdependencies.

Work made for hire

Within contract law, there is a concept called “work made for hire.” It stipulates that all work produced by an employee is the property of the employer (likewise, contractor/client).

This means that, even if you are employed by one company and move to another, you are not entitled to reproduce work created elsewhere. You are certainly not permitted to copy the intellectual property it was based on.

The reality of working life is that all intellectual property is produced by individuals who move from organization to organization. What they create in one organization becomes part of that organization’s intellectual property. However, what they learn goes with them. What if they re-create their work in the new organization? The law is clearly against this, even if it is rarely enforced.

Licensing

Want to use a commercially available tool, training, or methodology? Inquire into a license.

In many training courses, for example, when you finish, you get an official license to use the IP with very specific conditions. Completion of a training course is never a license to take credit for the IP or to use it as a base for building or modifying one’s own IP.

Publishing

Many of us write on the topics we are passionate about. We share our experiences and comment on what is working and what we are trying differently. To the extent that this explains, advances, or challenges current thinking it is a good thing.

Most of us can afford to be a little more diligent. If we imagine that we are writing for a Masters program or a PhD thesis perhaps we can raise the quality of our production.

At the very least, we should cite resources properly. As noted in Post 1, Plagiarism.org provides some excellent advice: “Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.”

As a reminder, they make it very clear when citation is required:

“Whenever you borrow words or ideas, you need to acknowledge their source. The following situations almost always require citation:

1. Whenever you use quotes

2. Whenever you paraphrase

3. Whenever you use an idea that someone else has already expressed

4. Whenever you make specific reference to the work of another

5. Whenever someone else's work has been critical in developing your own ideas.”

They provide an excellent section on citationhere(http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_citation.html) .

Foul Play

It is very clear what is legal and appropriate and yet, it seems, there is a lot of highly questionable activity happening. This ranges from representing someone else’s ideas as one’s own to building new methodologies on top of someone else’s IP without licensing, let alone citation.

If you do the following without citing sources (and sometimes even if you do cite them) it’s considered illegal:

• Re-write or summarize someone else’s 5, 6, 7, or 8 steps and represent them as your own
• Excerpt steps from different approaches and amalgamate them to come up with your own x-step process

Poaching content and methodology is not just “wrong,” it’s dangerous. The output is often shallow and sometimes so inaccurate as to be counterproductive.

You might say, “You’re over-reacting. There can’t possibly be such infractions. If this were so, there would surely be corresponding lawsuits.” The fact is that prosecution is time-consuming, expensive, and takes valuable attention away from present business. Many opt not to pursue infractions.

Caveat emptor (buyer beware)

We are really operating in a marketplace where being careful is paramount.

There is only a market for products that people consume. In that formula, buyers take on a symbiotic responsibility. The general marketplace includes blogs like this, as well as ebooks, Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook, webinars, seminars, conferences?basically any communication offered for marketing or commercial purposes. It also includes consulting and contracting services, in addition to training and coaching.

Remember the “broken windows” story in Post 1? What we all read, share, and buy sends a “signal.”

What can we do?

What can we do when we read something that is likely plagiarised or stolen? I propose to you that we owe it to each other to be active in our communities.

Some of the things we can do:

1. Be an informed, demanding, and responsible consumer. Ask contractors and consultants:

• Who inspired them?
• What have they studied?
• Who do they reference in their work?
• What they are licensed to deliver?

Know the reputable thought leaders whose names you will expect to hear. Recognize and ask about licensing on concepts that they don’t own.

2. Reward “the good.” When you are impressed by original thinking or re-mix that is appropriately cited, say so. This has the effect of shaping the behavior of all players on the field. If proper citing is publically respected it will become more prevalent.

• Tell the author.
• Give endorsements and testimonials for great work and note your appreciation of appropriate citation and licensing of thought leadership.
• “Comment,” “Share,” and “Like” on social media.

3. Call out the questionable. When you read something that looks like plagiarism:

• Err on the side of caution. Perhaps it is original material. Or the author might believe it so. Perhaps it’s an oversight. It happens.
• At the very least, ignore the material. Do not “share” or “like” it on social media.
• If it’s a blog post or discussion, consider leaving a comment like: “Gee, this really looks like XYZ’s work available here [LINK]. Were you inspired by this?” This allows the author an opportunity to set the record straight, sends a signal, and leaves a bread crumb for fellow practitioners who might come after you. You can even just leave a seemingly innocuous comment like “You might also be interested in XYZ’s work.” This also serves as a signal.
• If you are determined to confront someone, I strongly recommend you take the conversation offline. First, public confrontation elevates the reputational stakes for both parties. Second, if you are wrong, it is my understanding that you can be prosecuted for slander.

Personal Risk

Let’s be realistic, there is a degree of mutual-reputation risk involved here. It is possible that an author could take great offense to a question. That has not been my experience, however. I have found that the recommendations above are open and respectful enough to be both effective and benign.

In many respects, we are peers operating in public space. Some would argue that no one has either the right or responsibility to enforce their own imaginary standards. I don’t happen to buy into that?I believe that all change affects us all, and that sets a higher duty of care. The question becomes whether the personal risk is worth it to you.

Where will you take a stand?

Every incident of plagiarism, accidental or intentional, is a “broken window.” There are no police. This must be a community effort.

"In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are." ? Gamaliel Bradford

How many incidents of plagiarism do you think you have seen since reading the first post in this series? Think you have seen some key language or original ideas misrepresented as the author’s, in blog posts or even methodologies? In the first post of this series we looked at why this is dangerous for our profession.

In this post, we will explore four reasons the wave of copycat publishing is cresting now.

 Why is this happening now?

The internet has become the town square. It is now the first and sometimes only place we go for information. The control, and to some extent, the quality of publishing has been exploded. High standards of journalism (such as citations and fact checking) exist only at the highest end of the spectrum.

In the town square, reputable sites line the street, like banks in the good ole times, but in the middle is a raucous haggle of merchants. It’s pretty ugly when you think of it this way. There may be quality product (perhaps like organic butter in the farmers’ market) in the marketplace but the pressure to drive the price down also drives the ugly side of competitive behavior?cheap imitations and knock-offs.

How’s the view from up there?

We’ve all heard the expression, “standing on the shoulders of those who went before,” but this noble notion seems to be offered almost exclusively in service of academics and founding thought leaders whose seminal work was completed prior to the ’80s.

There seems to be an unspoken, jagged line in time where work published before approximately 1980 gets referenced widely (for example Kurt Lewin, Dr. Kübler-Ross, and Edgar Schein, to name a few) and anything after that is only dimly acknowledged.

I believe there are four reasons for this:

1. History meets history in the making

Post WW1 through to the early 1980s was perhaps the heyday of industrial psychology and saw the emergence of both process and consulting paradigms. For an excellent review of this period, check out Chapter 3 of “A Brief History of Organization Change” in “Organizational Change: Theory and Practice” (W. Warner Burke, SAGE Publications, Inc., 2011). Tremendous progress was made in understanding organizations, as well as in establishing the foundational models of change management that we know today.

In the 1980s, much of this foundational theory of both individual and organizational change was beginning to be codified into processes and methodologies. This is continuing, happening in real time, and the pace is accelerating.

There are many brilliant people working in this space. Some of these thought leaders are better known than others. You might think that those who are renowned professors, who have published books, done speaking circuits, etc. might be protected from IP theft by virtue of their reputation. Strangely, not so. They are perhaps more susceptible.

2. Battle of the Ego: original thought vs. marketing

Much of the public material published on change management today is actually marketing. In fact, many books are also nothing more than marketing. The agenda of this material is naturally to sell the products and services of the author. There is an automatic bias: promote the author, demote, or exclude competitors. I say, caveat emptor.

3. The deafening silence

“Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.” —Henri-Frederic Amiel

There is another unspoken dynamic at play. I think of it as my mother taught it to me: “If you don’t have something positive to say, don’t say anything at all.”

There is a deafening silence when it comes to the critique of new ideas marketed to the business community. Isn’t it strange when you think about it? We have the power to “call out” plagiarism and foggy thinking but we don’t. Something else is at work here.

On this, and maybe only this, my mother was wrong. Silence is the enemy.

As long as knowledgeable practitioners tolerate plagiarism it will continue?in fact, it will grow.

If we think of our environment as a community where we are all citizens, we all have a role in serving and protecting the community. In fact, we can only all prosper when the community prospers. No single business (not grocery store nor dentist) thrives alone. When the windows are broken on the local school it reflects on the entire community.

The difference for us, though, is that we are a very loosely self-organizing community. We do not have, nor do I think we would benefit from, from an enforcement presence. So who will do it?

I am reminded of a wonderful little story called Whose Job is This?:

4. Whose job is this?

This is a story about people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry because it was Everybody’s job.

Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.”?Anonymous

There is only one person who can do this?the person who sees it.

This might feel risky, like you are making a target of yourself. You may be. The question is, “What do you stand for?”

There are benefits to standing up for integrity and there are ways to do it both respectfully and intelligently. Also, there are ways of referencing others’ work that still inspire credibility and add value for audiences. All this is coming up in the next posts.