Behind every great mind there are others

Recently I submitted an article entitled "Are You An Effective Knowledge Leader" for publication in this year’s conference papers Knowledge Leaders for the New Millennium: Creators of the Information Future. (I am also scheduled to speak on this topic on June 8 at the conference.) The learning process involved in writing this paper created afterthoughts on the nature and nurture of knowledge, in particular what constitutes original thought and what is "stolen".

Treading where we have not trod before

As I read the paper for the last time before sending it off, I had a feeling that can best be described as the opposite of déjà vu.It was as if I was learning what I wrote for the very first time. Not that the ideas were totally foreign to me or that I copied them from someone else. I believe in everything I wrote. Every concept and expression of it was an outpouring from the heart and mind. However, reading this deluge as a complete entity afterwards was like reading the work of some new but other philosopher.

I relayed this experience to two of my friends who are professional writers and both confirmed it had happened to them. One said she had outlined a novel, written the synopsis and drafted several chapters before putting it away to go on to other things. When she picked it up a year or two later and read it, she did not even recognise it as her work and thought "wow, this is brilliant but I don’t remember reading anything like this before or by this author." As she continued to read the words she recognised them as her own.

The other friend agreed. She said "When I am really into writing and the ideas are flowing, I lose myself and a different persona takes over. When I read my work in its entirety after I’m done, it seems like the expression of the ideas or turn of phrase belongs to someone else and I say ‘gee I wish I had written that’. Then I realise I just did."

I am glad I am either not odd or, if odd, in good company. However, why do we experience this unknowing of our works? I believe it is because we have learned as we have been writing. The ideas and knowledge we have acquired up to the day we completed the written text has germinated new thoughts and new knowing in us as we worked. As we have been writing we have found new ways of expressing our newly evolved knowledge. Our minds have grown and we have evolved as a person. If we were to write on the same topic tomorrow, probably new thoughts and new learning would arise and our evolution as a knowing creature would continue.

There is also the process of forgetting which influences our slow recognition of what we knew before. When I re-read the essays of my university days, there is new knowledge I could add today. Yet there is knowledge within the text that has been long forgotten and I think, "wow, I knew that back then." It is almost as if we do learn from ourselves, from the person we were then and now and will be.

Readiness to learn

We also learn from the words and deeds of others but there is a phenomenon or process that overtakes or envelops us as we read or listen. As others’ words start to make sense to us and they convince us of their convictions, these words and ideas become our own. In fact, even if we become convinced the concepts are wrong, we also think thoughts we do not recall thinking before. We have learned almost by osmosis or spontaneous generation. It is as if we learned on the spot from some magical wave of the wand in our mind.

What we learn at a particular moment, perhaps could not have been learned at any other. The other day I read a review of a new book and the application of it to this article I will demonstrate later. If I had happened upon this book review long before or long after it may not have had the same meaning or connection to me. This is due to "readiness to learn" as educators call it.

All the information at our disposal is the compilation of the knowledge of others but is not part of our knowledge until it has meaning to us. We can read or hear the words but until we ingest it and it becomes part of us, it is not our knowledge. However, once we do learn it, it is truly belongs to us no matter how many others knew it before or for how long it has been known by others. The information must come to us at the right time in our development, state of readiness or stage of cognition. Then the ideas or facts coalesce with whatever else we believe to be true and it becomes part of us.

Stealing or borrowing knowledge of others

I write by forming a thesis statement, often then the title comes and next I draft an outline. However, when I begin to flesh out the details the outline changes. At completion of the work, the outline bares a resemblance to the original but never is it 100% the same. As I write, the work and my mind seems to grow by leaps and bounds with new ideas or remembered "stolen" ones.

It is not that I intentionally break copyright laws but suddenly I remember an idea or an expression that is particularly appropriate. If I can find the quote or the passage again, I will gladly give credit to the originator of the idea but this is often not possible. I read and listen so much that it would take too long to find every such idea or expression. However, it has also become part of my convictions or beliefs. It has become part of me. Do I then own it?

For example in the article for the conference publication, I write about knowledge being the DNA or genome of a company and, if one could completely copy the knowledge of a company, it would be the worst brain drain of all. I knew this idea arose from something I had read but searching through the books and articles on hand did not produce the originator of this idea. Well actually, none produced the person from whom I learned it, but was he or she the actual originator of the idea? Where did he or she learn or happen upon this idea? After all as the Bible says, "nothing is new under the sun. Even that of which we say, ‘See, this is new!’ has already existed in the ages that preceded us" (Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, 9-10)

Knowledge as highly contagious and ever mutating

I also wrote knowledge should be contagious. In fact, I believe it is whether we wish it to be or not. Knowledge reproduces itself. Most of our ideas and thoughts have probably been created or thought before in some way, shape or form. Certainly we recognise this when we quote old masters of philosophy and current thought leaders.

However, knowledge may be old or always existed but it does not stay the same. Like living matter, it is not static and it is never destroyed. It undergoes the same life cycle as all evolutionary creatures: it is born in our minds, reproduces, evolves and, although it may decompose through forgetting or the cessation of individual minds, fertilises the next generation. Knowledge thus may have existed before in someone else’s mind, but it is always new in the sense it replicates and mutates in ours. As long as there are minds in which it can be implanted and evolve, knowledge will never die.

The reverse is also true. There is no knowledge without minds in which it can exist. Minds must exist for knowledge to exist and as long as minds exist, knowledge will mutate.

Usually we consider the "eureka" phase of knowledge as creativity. Yet is it creation or mutation? I believe it is one and the same. In the "eureka" phenomenon the floodgates have opened and a new idea, expression or application of knowledge bursts forth. We can be immersed in reading or listening and suddenly an ember of what we heard or read sparks a thought or expression in our minds that we have not, to our knowledge, read or heard before. It has become a new creation of ours but is also a mutation of existing knowledge.

Green and brown knowledge

I read an article where the author stated we needed not just old knowledge but new or green knowledge to continue growth. "Aha" , I thought "old knowledge is brown and new knowledge is green. Just like old plant matter, brown knowledge is recyclable and also fertilises new or green knowledge."

I "stole" the expression "green knowledge" but expanded on it. In fact, in my mind this expression or thought germinated new ideas of old, former or existing knowledge as "brown", "recyclable" and "fertiliser".

Is it true there is really nothing new under the sun? Is everything we say and believe stolen from someone else? Do we not have an original thought in our heads? Probably someone, somewhere also used the concept of brown knowledge as old or recycled, but when I created it in my own mind, it was an original thought to me.

To whom is credit due?

Stealing or borrowing knowledge is not a new phenomenon and giving credit wholly where it is due is not a new problem. The review to which I previously referred was about the new book Mr. Darwin’s Shooter by Roger McDonald. Although it is a novel, the concept upon which it is based is that Syms Covington, Darwin’s assistant, was responsible (or believed he was) for much more of Darwin’s work than for which he is given credit.

Shakespeare’s works too are said not to really have been the creation of William Shakespeare. The claims are either it was another person using his name or Shakespeare was the greatest literary thief of all time. Those who proclaim "the brilliant author was someone, anyone else," say, "how could a poor little educated actor be such a prolific knowledgeable writer?"

I have sympathy for Shakespeare because I too have experienced not being credited for my own work though on a much smaller scale. The first example I recall was when as a high school student writing my first essay for a new history teacher, I used the terms "extinct" and "extant". He decided I could not possibly know the word "extant "since it was not commonly used. Also since the calibre of the rest of the writing was the same level, he decided it all must have been copied from an encyclopaedia or book.

Students were not very enfranchised in those days so challenging him to produce the book from which I supposedly plagiarised resulted in my being sent to the principal’s office for impudence. Appealing to the principal, who knew me from teaching me himself and from my repute as an honour student, was fruitless. "Give him time", the principal said "and he will see you are capable of this level of work." This proved true but the credit was not retroactive, so to this day I feel cheated because the essay, all of it - including the word "extant", even though influenced by what I read, was mine.

The extent of my stealing the word "extant" was reading it in a book, looking it up in the dictionary and making it part of my own vocabulary. Yes I stole it in the sense I did not create the word, but it was not plagiarism. My essay was not copied word for word and did not remain meaningless to me. Rather understanding and using this word changed me and became part of who I was. That is what learning or knowledge does.

Can stealing be good?

We are instructed to think of plagiarism, copyright violation, stealing ideas of others and taking credit for them as "bad" or wrong. However, today’s knowledge gurus are saying stealing ideas and adapting them for your or your company’s use is brilliance and behaviour to be rewarded. Some companies employ the NIH (Not Invented Here) or Thief of the Year (or month or week) awards to encourage the theft of bright ideas which can be applied to their company.

Certainly, if you use the idea or fact, and create a unique way of expressing it, it is not recognised as copyright violation. However, if you as a leader do this with the ideas of your employees, it can still create problems of what credit is due and how to give others their due. You may have created a unique expression of the original idea or even taken the idea further but how do you distinguish where the employee’s contribution ended and yours began?

Many times I have planted a seed in my leader’s head and saw it blossom. When the seed finally bore fruit, it may or may not have benefited me directly. I felt less wronged though if it was only a seed I planted which was borne out of my reach by the winds of my leader’s mind as he or she took it further to fruition. This was not as frustrating as the theft of an entire harvest handed over on the platter with very little effort on the leader’s part.

However, the best leaders took my ideas, planted them in their own brain, watered and tended them until they gathered support at the temples of the upper echelon who then funded the harvesting of the product. One leader who did this once said to me "what I value about you is that you convince me something is a good idea, allow me to believe it is my own and encourage me to take it forward. I get credit for my brilliance but I also recognise it arose from the spark you lit."

The only unfortunate aspect of this is the upper echelon still may never have realised the extent of my role in my leader’s success. Did they regard me only as a "doer" or "implementer" of my leader’s ideas or a co-creator?

This is one reason my thesis statement in the conference article was to "be successful in knowledge leadership, we must be perceived as ‘thought leaders’ by our organisation." It does not help us, if we hide our light under the bushel and let others shine brilliantly with our bright ideas. Thankfully in many organisations the hierarchical structures are breaking down allowing us to present ideas directly ourselves and be visible for our part in the process.

In the meantime, we must be cognisant not to violate the trust of others, especially those we lead. The Golden Rule still applies - treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves. If you steal the ideas of others and do not give credit where it is due, how can you complain when it happens to you? Even if it is hard to distinguish what everyone contributed, acknowledging their role in the germinating and reaping of the harvest is imperative.

Isn't stealing really just sharing?

Yet isn’t what others claim is stealing of intellectual property really just sharing? Is it possible for anyone to lay claim to any ideas as completely his or her own? We have all been influenced by and probably all influence the thinking of others. The ideas we stole or borrowed from others have probably in turn been stolen or borrowed. As we have questioned before - where does one’s own thoughts begin and end? Perhaps there is no fine demarcation line – perhaps all thoughts are part of a continuum or a continuous circle. Certainly in an organisation any useful knowledge becomes part of one whole – part of the corporate body of knowledge.

The success of acquiring and utilising knowledge within a company requires sharing of ideas. If we become so possessive about what we think that we do not express it for fear it will be stolen, then knowledge initiatives in our organisation will be stymied. Intellectual capital in this atmosphere cannot become a growing asset. For our knowledge to be of value to the organisation, we must allow it to flow freely. We must trust or as the song says "have faith and believe, … give of ourselves, before we can receive."

In spite of our almost not recognising a work of our own as coming from deep within us, it has become us from whatever the origin. Perhaps that is why it seems a bit foreign. It has just become us and it takes us a moment to recognise ourselves as a different and more evolved person.

Knowledge changes us and it changes the way we view things. We also change knowledge. We take from and give back to the body of knowledge. We may have learned the great ideas from those who came before us and if we have been knowledge leaders, we have influenced the thoughts of others. Even when we leave an organisation or group, the knowledge we contributed remains. We will have left our mark on the evolution of knowledge.

We have in a sense gained immortality even if no one remembers we were the ones who contributed particular ideas or particular knowledge. In fact, we probably do not remember everything we contributed and everything we gained. We have become part of the mulch. All contributions have fertilised the growing intellectual capital or our organisation and created the particular individual species.

The beauty of it is the individual contributions are inseparable and indistinguishable. Yet it would be a different organism, if we had not taken our genes from and left our own DNA in the gene pool. Behind every great mind there has been others and under every green growing plant there has been the brown fertiliser deposited by those who have gone before.