Ethics vs Innovation. Competing commitments?

What a strange story!  I recently read on a blog an article about the tension between innovation and ethics and all I could think after reading it was that clearly I had missed something.  The author referred to an article she had read elsewhere that had caused her to make the intellectual leap that perhaps there was a tension between the two - innovation and ethics.  The trigger article is: If You Think It's Unethical It Probably Is,  written by Eileen Zimmerman which appeared in the NY Times on October 23, 2010.  You should give it a look. It's quite interesting.

Now that I've read Ms. Zimmerman's article though, I think I really must have missed something and I have to say that I don't quite understand where this tension between innovative thinking and ethics became an issue.  Ms. Zimmerman's article spends a lot of time talking about how to push back (without killing your career), if you think something you've been asked to do, crosses ethical lines.  Never does she suggest that there is a tension, nor indeed does she ever refer to innovation either covertly or explicitly in her writing.

To innovate (per dictionary.reference.com), is to "introduce something new; make changes in anything established".  Implicit in that definition is an understanding that that which is created is rooted in truth.  Perhaps that isn't implicit to anyone but me, but I fail to see how lying could be considered innovative, unless we are talking about taking an innovative approach to the facts.  An old choir director of mine used to joke about people who didn't know the music but would sing their own 'impressionistic renderings' of the songs.  That's innovation too I guess except it was greatly discouraged in the choir, as it should be in business.  Harmony easily becomes cacophony when people play fast and loose with the truth be that musical truth (the notes) or business truth (the numbers).

I am a big believer that innovation is the only way for an organization to stay relevant but I question whether anything that involves lying or otherwise misrepresenting the true facts of business performance could even be loosely categorized as 'innovation'.  I am also not sure that even on the keenest cutting edge of innovation it is necessary to compromise one’s ethics. I am certain that there are areas of scientific endeavor where the ‘edge’ goes beyond anything I can imagine, but where innovation challenges prevailing ethical constraints, processes usually exist to challenge those ethical lines.  Think back to the first IVF and the ethical debates that raged then.  Think now about stem cell research and the raging ethical debates in that field.  Innovation is all about challenging the status quo, but for those wishing to do so ethically, there are ways to challenge without stepping all over moral and/or legal boundaries.

In most businesses, it seems to me, where ethical lines are crossed it is not because of some wonderful, business-saving innovation that runs afoul of prevailing ethical norms (creating some mythical tension), but rather it is usually because of a blind and dangerous (just ask Wall Street) focus on a profit motive.

Once business people take their eyes off ethics and focus wholly and solely on profit margins, P/E ratios and market capitalization, trouble surely follows.  Innovation is not the enemy of ethics, greed is.  The tension really is between money and ethics.  Don't blame innovation.  She wasn't even there when the bacchanal began.

Chaos and Calm

So I was reading this article some weeks ago in which the author posited that leaders need to be both 'clarity agents' and 'chaos double agents'.  I heard what the author was saying, but I really didn't quite agree.  Basically the author was saying that good leaders should create both clarity and chaos in their organizations as circumstances merit.  According to Mr. Dunbar the author of the article Clarity Agents and Chaos Double Agents, when we live in an environment of "volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity" (VUCA as he calls it), we need our leaders to create chaos when there is too much calm.

My problem with this notion isn't the philosophy of it, so much as it is the language of it.  It's great marketing/branding to have this almost alliterative title, but I reject the idea of 'chaos'.  Words have power and alliteration aside, another word (one with a less pejorative connotation), might just make for a deeper understanding of what the author is trying to convey.

Here's what my favorite online dictionary says about the word 'chaos'.

1. state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order
2. any confused, disorderly mass: a chaos of meaningless phrases 
3. the infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe.

Synonyms offered for 'chaos' include: disarray, jumble, turmoil.  Related words include such lovely choices as bedlam, pandemonium. Who really wants to be associated with 'pandemonium' or the creation thereof?

To suggest that a leader deliberately create this thing called 'chaos' in her organization, implies that there is no other way to avoid becoming mired in a comfortable status quo.  According to Dunbar, "the enemy of improvement in performance and enabling the ability to innovate is being comfortable and allowing the status quo to maintain. In the future, successful organizations will be defined by leaders that are disruptive and creative."  While he will get no argument from me on the underlying premise of his thought, it is the use of those last two words together that makes me nervous.  Disruptive and creative?  Therein lies the very pejorative connotation I'm talking about.

I don't think it's playing semantic games to say that to use the word 'chaos' is to lend further credence to the notion that those who would seek to challenge the status quo (that's a better 'c' word right there), are necessarily being 'disruptive' (per dictionary.com = causing trouble, confusion).  The problem with this thinking is that it automatically presumes the transcendence of the existing state and subtly suggests that any challenges to same are necessarily mischievous in their intent.  Isn't there sufficient evidence abroad that status quos need to be challenged?  Moreover, the idea of leader as challenger of settled states also subtly reinforces the age old idea, that only leaders may challenge.  Other sources of challenge, from persons not granted fiat to do so, can be viewed as 'disruptions'.  That's the kind of thinking that entrenches stable states and leads to the eventual demise of previously thriving businesses.

In my response to the author, I wrote that the status quo is to be feared and that organizations and their leaders would do well to entertain ideas from everywhere and anywhere - both within and without their organizations.  Yes, it would be wonderful to have a leader who saw the stable state as problematic, but that isn't always the case.  Further, sometimes it is the leader him/herself, who is least interested in changing the way things are done.  Rather than look to the leader for challenge, an organization needs to create an environment where everyone from top to bottom, is seeking improvement all the time and feels comfortable offering a different perspective.  When the only lens through which different perspectives is viewed is the lens of 'creating chaos', you can be pretty sure there won't be much chaos created.

Words harm, words restrict and ultimately, words can kill action....and organizations.

Cogito ergo sum

I've taken to saying that arch conservative Republicanism is a treatable ailment.  I'm working on a treatment protocol which I will roll out to market as soon as it's ready.  Here's the preview.

FIRST: Conservatism is not a free pass to speak hatefully.  By this I mean you cannot go around appealing to the lowest part of man - the troglodytic part - that needs, yearns even, for a person or group to point to as the cause of all their troubles.  While this may work in the short term, it will yield untold consequences.

It is said that in a court of law, an attorney never asks a question to which (s)he doesn't already know the answer.  The same should be true in politics.  Don't set something in motion unless you know exactly what it is you're setting in motion.  In short, don't be sowing the wind unless you are ready to reap the whirlwind.

SECOND: Underlying principles always rule. 

I certainly understand the worry about the deficit, but let me see if I get this right.  Deficit for war = good thing. Deficit for universal health care = bad thing?  When these ideas are juxtaposed, the underlying principle seems to be simply this: some lives are simply more important than others. If you can't afford or through some unfortunate series of events, cannot receive insurance then, tough, sorry, you lose.  If conservatives have a different argument they should really bring it but right about now, this is all I've been able to draw from what I've heard to date.  No one has said anything that makes sense and that doesn't sound like there's some human utility litmus test which some of us have failed abysmally.  Conservatism is not a free pass to deem some people less worthy than others.

In short: 'Conservative' cannot become a euphemism for 'hater'.  

I'm recommending that conservatives try and come up with some reasoned positions that appeal to thinking people - people like me who are ripe for the picking.  It is far too easy to fall back on traditional 'them vs. us' thinking and speech.  That's pretty much what started the ugliness in Germany and gave rise to Nazism.  Since we know how that turned out, perhaps we shouldn't try that whole "it's their fault we're in deep doodoo" approach here?   That's an approach that encourages hateful behavior which, quite frankly, is beneath thinking people and a thinking nation.

I am myself, fairly conservative fiscally, though you probably wouldn't guess that from anything I've written thus far.  I too believe in responsible spending and in spending what you have and no more.  Debt has its place, but great gobs of it only create stress.  At the same time though, I believe in the sanctity of life.  This means that if I have to balance debt against death, I'm going to have to grit my teeth and live with the debt.  A right to life necessarily means that people also have a right to health care.  If that means that something else has to give (maybe a war here or there, particularly one entered into on spurious grounds), then that's how it has to be.

This political system is, unfortunately, built on a two bookends premise.  Either you're a 'this' or you're a 'that'.  Even Independents are either 'thises' or 'thats' in the voting booth.  If you don't like how the 'thises' are functioning, you vote for the 'thats'.  It seems to me, that there's a middle ground, where people want responsible (not reprehensible) representation; a middle ground where representatives appeal to our highest aspirations for ourselves (which should also mean that our aspirations for each other are equally high); a ground where we spend what we have, make hard choices about what gets cut and each take on our share of the burden for what's left.  That's a pretty conservative credo if I say so myself, and not once did I say, "Death Panel".  See how easy that was?

Home Makeover: Very Extreme Edition

I'm wondering if anyone else is as horrified as I am, at the level of excess being thrown about on Extreme Makeover Home Edition these days.  I have nothing against helping a family out of their difficulties, but the conspicuous consumption gone wild is just too much.

In Sunday night's episode, a lovely family (aren't they all), was given a house 6 times the size of their previous home. Now, I certainly appreciate that perhaps the old home was too small for a family with 4 or 5 daughters.  I get that, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing being good for nothing.

My real problem with Extreme Makeover, is kind of the problem I have with a lot of things in this culture. There seems to be a need to bathe, drown even, people in largesse and then, if it turns out that they don't know what to do with all these gifts, the press (and the public) sit on the sidelines and malign people for their bad choices.  Is this a uniquely American phenomenon? I can't be sure, but it really does beg the question: when largesse is being handed out, for whose real benefit is it? It's the old question of the underlying motivation behind altruism.

To what extent, I wonder, do we give and then have expectations of the receiver?  I've been told that a number of Extreme Makeover participants have had much difficulty with property taxes subsequent to the show.  I don't know whether this is in fact the case, but if it is, are we really all that surprised?  Once you go from a broken down house worth nearly nothing, to a monstrosity worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, obviously there will be tax implications.  I guess no one wondered even briefly, how the home owner would manage to pay said taxes.  Hm.

I'm all for largesse.  I'm all for giving.  But clearly there is a need to give judiciously.  I guess that's my underlying problem with all this.  The idea of judicious giving seems to have no home here.  Kinda like the idea of judicious spending has few fans.  Maybe it's just judiciousness that's not a terribly American concept?

The Power of Lack

A week or so ago, I was talking to a friend about various things, and one theme that emerged from our discussion was this idea that lack, shortage, challenge - primarily financial in nature - can be a source of great growth and self-discovery. So as we were chatting about various 'lacks' in our respective Universes, my friend used this turn of phrase, "the power of lack" and I realized that in  my life, for all the stuff I have been denied through an absence of disposable income, I have been given so much more.


In my family, we rarely had the latest outfits, but we had all our school books.  An opportunity to be educated = Abundance.  We didn't get a ton of Christmas presents, though we certainly got many, but many Christmases, our grandmother had a Christmas Eve dinner party.  An opportunity to share even the Widow's Mite = Abundance.  Everything on the menu was home made including the menu cards themselves.  I'm sure if I ask my sister, she can find one of the menu cards with the little turkeys Granny made us draw one year.  Every item on the menu was named for a person attending the party.  An opportunity to share one's creativity = Abundance.

Our Granny also insisted on having her lady friends over to tea periodically.  I don't know that there was ever a particular event (no anniversary or other celebration), it was just Granny entertaining her friends.  We rudely referred to these events as "old lady tea parties", but we attended gleefully all the same.  We were required not only to serve but also to be the entertainment.  These were my first (unpaid) gigs as a singer and this gift, the ability to sing for others, which my Granny inculcated, is a gift that keeps on giving abundantly.  My sister and I sang, my cousin recited poetry and Granny and I played duets on the piano. 

We may not have had endless pretty new clothes or fancy shoes aplenty, but there was some serious emotional, personal and spiritual abundance in my home.  Perhaps this is what makes it possible now for us to see only opportunity even in the face of myriad challenges.

The question I have to ask myself now is: was there really any lack?  I'm sure my mother and aunt can list bills that they struggled with and things that they wanted to do for themselves that they were unable to do, but in truth, it would seem that all we had was abundance.  It just goes to show, that once you take your eye of the 'stuff' of life, you can find yourself overwhelmed by how much 'life' you really have.  I know I am, overwhelmed that is, by the abundance in my Universe.

Win, lose or draw, I'm leaving it all on the field

I've determined, and I've said this before, that the voices in our heads have to be heard.  On my first Friday at home, I attended a friend's church where the Pastor preached on exactly that.  His title was something of the order of "Listening and responding to the Prophetic Word".  Whether you're a believer or not, I think we have to accept that ideas - whether crazy or brilliant - come to us in a flash and that it is in the response to the flash that we sometimes lose our way. What happens next depends on a number of things, not the least of which is our belief in ourselves and the level of support we feel coming from those around us.

For more than 20 years, I've had this one recurring idea.  It hasn't been my only idea, but it is the one that drives and needles me most. I finally had opportunity to give it voice 12 years ago.  The reason for the lag was that I had had the idea when I was about 20, but was too low on the family totem pole to be allowed a voice (a story for another blog entry altogether).  At 33,  I was able to have it received and acted upon.  It is entirely possible that the fact that I'd been to university and was a successful professional by that time, made my voice *clearer*.  Whatever it was, there was a confluence of unhappy events that made it possible for me to be heard. It's been more than a decade since then, and my subsequent series of ideas have not be welcomed with nearly the same fervor as there has been no confluence of events, sad or happy, to support my insights.

Having finally grown weary of waiting to be heard, Waiting for Godot as it were, I've decided to do my thing without family blessing (again, a blog post for another day!).  When we believe in ourselves and our ideas, we do what we must to make the visions in our heads reality.  We talk to whomever we must, we needle, we cajole, sometimes we shout and then finally, someone hears and we are able to do.  This I have done.

I heard a joke/story recently of an older wise man asking a youngster if he wanted to succeed as much as he wanted to breathe.  [Given that the youngster had just had his head dunked and held underwater, he understood the level of commitment that would be required if success was to be his.]  That's me with this recurring idea: I want it as much as I want to breathe.  I recommend that kind of commitment highly though I'll be the first to tell you it ain't easy, I'll never say that it is, but it is worth it.  My current exhaustion attests to that fact.  I'm just back from the field of play and I'm worn out.  My exhaustion is honestly earned though because I've given it everything I had in me.  I've left it ALL on the field.  Win, lose or draw, I went out and played hard.  I'm bound to get some points for that.  As a matter of fact, I think I already have.