Engine For Change

It had long ago come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them.  They went out and happened to things.” – Leonard Da Vinci

Join me in a pledge:

I will happen to things in 2011.  They will not happen to me.

The world needs your action and needs you to drive the changes we need.  With so many people sitting still or worse, driving people, there is no time to sit back and let things happen to you.

Let’s go out and happen to things together.

Who’s with me?

Daniel Pink has some resolutions for us for 2011, including a new term I love: Vuja de.

We’ve all experienced déjà vu—looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve seen it before. Vuja dé is the flip side of that—looking at a familiar situation (an industry you’ve worked in for decades, problems you’ve worked on for years) as if you’ve never seen it before, and, with that fresh line of sight, developing a distinctive point of view on the future. The challenge for all of us is that too often, we let what we know limit what we can imagine. This is the year to face that challenge head-on.

Rogue Polymath reviews his 2010 and asks for feedbackforward for 2011.

Captain Soule is back with his post, “Heresy – No such thing as a “root” cause?”  I agree that there isn’t a (meaning one) root cause.  There are several causes that lead to any problem or success.

I’m going to join Daniel Pink, blogger and author of Drive, in letting you know how much fun it is to play with Google Lab’s new Books Ngram Viewer.  The Ngram Viewer allows you to search for key words amongst Google’s archived books from 1800 to 2008.  Pink compared the rates that the following words appeared: Girl versus Boy, Hope versus Fear, and Beef versus Chicken versus Pork.

I decided to take a more Engine For Change slant to my Ngram Faceoffs.  Here are:

Strategy versus Implementation. Is this evidence in support of Dr. Kotter’s claim in Buy-In that strategy has taken off and left strategy implementation academically lagging behind?

Plan versus Implement. I know this one isn’t really fair as plan is a common word and implement is jargon, but I’m not trying to draw a wild conclusion here, except that plan seems to occur nearly 90 times for every mention of implement.

Guiding Coalition. Since Guiding Coalition seems to be the sole domain of Dr. Kotter I’m curious to dig through the database to find the mentions of Guiding Coalition back around 1900 to 1910 that cause that early sawtooth.  Would any of my Input-strength readers care to do the digging for me and report back?

Finally, just for the fun of tracking my employer against the brother services, here’s:

Army – Navy – Air Force – Marines.

What great Ngram Faceoffs can you run?  If you find anything really interesting, please let us know.

This week’s quote of the week is more than a quote, it’s a whole poem by Katherine Pyle (1863-1938).  She offers a simple message of courage that I bet we could all do well to think of and act on this year.  Happy 2011!

I never can do it,” the little kite said.

As he looked around at the others high over his head.

“I know I should fall if I tried to fly.”

“Try,” said the big kite, “only try!

Or I fear you never will learn at all.”

But the little kite said, “I’m afraid I’ll fall.”

The big kite nodded: “Ah well, goodbye;

I’m off,” and he rose toward the tranquil sky.

Then the little kite’s paper stirred at the sight,

And trembling he shook himself free for flight.

First whirling and frightened, then braver grown,

Up, up he rose through the air alone,

Till the big kite looking down could see

The little one rising steadily.

Then how the little kite thrilled with pride,

As he sailed with the big kite side by side!

While far below he could see the ground,

And the boys like small spots moving round.

They rested high in the quiet air,

And only the birds and the clouds were there.

“Oh, how happy I am!” the little kite cried,

“And all because I was brave, and tried.”

Sparked (as always) by Seth Godin’s posts, here’s what happened for me and Engine For Change in 2010:

• Launched engine-for-change.com on December 28, 2009 (okay, not technically 2010, but close enough)
• Wrote 192 posts with 48 tags garnering 238 comments
• Recorded 24,000 hits
• Found 199 (+ or – a few each week) followers of Engine For Change on Facebook
• Submitted 1 paper for an international conference (remember, the paper was rejected.  I’m trying again this year.)
• Hosted one Harvard Business School professor (okay, technically
• Gave three classes on Mapping Motivation
• Answered approximately one million (or so, because I stopped counting) questions of “why are you doing this?” or “when are you going to write a book?” or “who wants to read that stuff?” or some other derivative of the general confusion my actions produce in most people.
• Didn’t add enough terms to the terms page, though finally defining the difference between driving change and driving people to change has been a watershed, at least for me.  I’ll need to work on adding more of the most essential terms everyone should know to speak “implementation” language.
• Published 40 Quotes of the Week and it all started with one titled, “Learning.” (If you didn’t see it, may I recommend you check it out now.)
• Held two Linchpin Meet-Ups and had a ton of fun at both!
• Felt lots and lots of joy in the conversations I’ve shared with you, my blog readers and change-driving friends.  You’ve kept me motivated when I hit my dips and always keep me hopeful that there are more and more people out there who are passionate about creating sweeping changes in their lives, workplaces and communities.

No one knows exactly what 2011 will bring, but until the keyboard is ripped from my hands and my mind goes blank, expect to see me here with you each week.  Thanks for continuing to stop by.  We’re going to have some fun in 2011, or at least we’re going to give it a good try.

After all, why not try?

Keep driving change!