Steal And Let Steal
“I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to use tactic I stole from you in my upcoming TED talk…”
A former student-turned-CEO reached out to get “permission” to borrow a tactic he’d seen me use in a keynote. Apparently, he’d been watching one of my talks, and had been inspired by some turn of phrase, but he felt the need to clarify with me first.
How do you think I responded?
Instead of simply giving him permission, I told him all the things I’d noticed recently, and shamelessly stolen:
“There are so many cool tactics we can pick up and put into our bags of tricks. One I saw in an email exchange recently is ‘Promoting you to bcc.’ I thought that was so much better than ‘Moving’ someone off the conversation!”
The truth is, everything I know, I learned from someone else! Everything I do is a patchwork compilation of all the things I’ve seen! I’m sure even that idea isn’t new. The reality is, some of the greatest innovators of all time — from Steve Jobs to Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos — have made a habit of borrowing liberally.
After all, innovation is really just recombining existing parts in unexpected ways.
My intent by sharing my own real-time examples with my former student was to normalize being inspired by people. To normalize incorporating bits into one’s act. To normalize growth. I do not think it is important for him to ask me for permission, and would cringe if he “credited” me in his talk. Instead, I hope he pays it forward by inspiring others in his own hodgepodge, patchwork kind of way.
Related: Borrow Liberally
Related: Recombine Existing Parts
Related: Normalize Growth
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One of the defining contributions the d.school is helping teams ask themselves, “What kind of thinking is appropriate, when?” We call such clarity being “Mindful of Process.” And it can seem like semantics until you realize we need to show up in different ways.