Imitation without discernment

You can taste a fake.

– Chewy, not flaky.

– Bland, not buttery.

      

Not all croissants are the same. Even if they go by the same name in the frozen food aisle of the grocery store, at the ever ubiquitous Starbucks, or in the local boulangerie.

After 10 days in France I’m left wondering, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and learning, how do we imitate what matters? The substance and not simply the shape?

I ask because I’m seeing more and more imitations.

• Of policies. Like personalized budgets, case management, co-location.
• Of organizations. Like change labs and centers for social innovation.
• Of processes. Like ethnography, co-design, and prototyping.

In the innovation sector, we call imitation ‘diffusion’. And we see it as an unabashedly good thing. After all, we want widespread adoption of our methods and ideas. We’re after a tipping point. Where the marginal becomes the dominant.

Everett Rogers, in his often-cited book Diffusion of Innovations, describes the five stages leading to a tipping point: (1) knowledge, (2) persuasion, (3) decision, (4) implementation, and (5) confirmation. Once 10-25% of a social circle embraces a new idea, the rest follow suit fairly quickly. An imitation contagion…

But, what happens when the majority adopt the idea for extrinsic reasons? To keep up with a trend, to profit from the bandwagon effect, to not get left behind? Do motivations matter for implementation?

When the motivation is trend and profit, the question facing the implementor is: how do I imitate the idea as inexpensively as possible? Without losing the very idea itself?

It’s this question that’s behind one of my go-to stores. Zara opened up its first location in Spain in the 1980s, copying high-end fashion for cut-rate prices. It’s now the largest fashion retailer in the world. Zara demonstrates that the act of imitating an idea – within significant cost constraints and at significant scale – can spawn its own process and product innovations.

But, what if our goal isn’t in terms of volume, but in terms of depth? The depth of change, that is? Then do intrinsic motivations matter? 

Dr. Ernest Lash would say yes. He’s the psychotherapist protagonist of the terrific teaching novel, Lying on the Couch, by clinical psychologist Irvin Yalom. Following Carl Jung’s (real life) admonition to “invent a language of therapy for each patient,” Dr. Lash sets out to test a hypothesis. To help his patients’ heal, he’ll break professional convention and radically self-disclose. Meaning he will “humanize the therapeutic procedure, “form an “authentic relationship” and engage in “double or mutual analysis.” In other words, to prompt change in others, the good doctor will have to change himself too. 

It’s this mutuality I see missing from much of the imitations of late. Whether it’s Australia’s copy of Mindlab, the Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Design; Deloitte’s copy of concepts like co-design; or the myriad of consultants who are copying the language of prototyping. Without necessarily copying the social values underpinning these words.

And yet it’s the values – it’s the mutuality – that, I would argue, makes a French croissant so darn delicious. A good croissant is unapologetically demanding. It takes hours to make. And years to perfect. Baking, for France’s 200,000 artisan bakers, is a way of life. Requiring commitment, and yes, passion. Sociologist Daniel Bertaux spent a year interviewing 100 artisan bakers and documenting their life histories. He writes, “It takes the daily struggles of all of these individual lives – each with its own purpose – to maintain the bakeries we know.”

Whilst quality and scale are often in tension with each other, France’s artisan bakeries have proved otherwise. There are 40,000 artisan bakeries operating countrywide. The artisan baker learns, first, through precise imitation. Of multiple master bakers. And only then, re-invents their own baking language. Bertaux explains, “Old bakers describe [the traditional apprenticeship] in a slang term you cannot find in the dictionary: On apprenait par voir-faire (to learn by looking-and-doing).” Re-doing, in other words, demands a deep understanding of history.

The innovation field’s bias towards what’s new too often neglects, or shows disrespect for, history. There’s a lot of learning by doing. But not so much learning by looking – let alone looking back. Unless you count looking at each other’s websites.

What you probably won’t learn by looking at InWithForward’s website is the difference between a good ethnography and an average ethnography. Or between a good prototype and an average prototype. Because we haven’t figured out how to codify the subtleties. The art of asking open versus closed or leading questions. The balance between quiet observation, small talk, and probing conversation. The slow progression of building trust – and gradually peeling back the stories people always tell, the performances they are so used to giving. The masterfulness of visualizing an idea with enough concreteness to be believable, but enough sketchiness to be honestly co-developed. The courage to zero in on what’s not being said, and identify what is not being asked for. The humility to call into question what you think you know.

(An ethnography in 2012)

(An ethnography in 2014)

I’m not sure I fully appreciated the difference between good and average ethnographies until last year. And that was nine years into doing ethnographic fieldwork! Indeed when I look back at the fieldwork I co-led in Australia, before launching InWithForward, I see how many of my biases went un-acknowledged, and therefore, un-critiqued. Particularly in the aged care space (the subject of project work in 2012) where my own hang-ups about loss, regret, and nostalgia undoubtedly influenced the questions I asked, and the things I chose to observe.

It’s common for psychotherapists – including fictional ones like Dr. Ernest Lash – to have a psychotherapist themselves. To put themselves under the microscope, understand how their own reactions can help or hinder others’ change, and explore which techniques to try or tweak.

We’re not psychotherapists – our role is to prompt systems change, not just personal change – but perhaps the risk of replicating our own perversions at scale is even greater? Who and what, then, are our guides through the process? How do we draw on pre-existing theory & historical practice? Where do we intentionally deviate, and why? Are our motivations around profit, around trendiness, around deep change, or some combination?

These are some of the questions I would love to see government agencies, social service providers, foundations, and other project partners ask. But since we’re offering a product & process that partners haven’t encountered before, how do we enable them to be discerning buyers and collaborators?

Indeed, it’s only because I’ve experienced a French croissant, that I know when I order the Starbuck’s version, it’s another kind of product. Purchased because it sits within the hunger, convenience, and taste nexus. Had I only grown up only with the Starbuck’s version, I wouldn’t have the same basis for discernment.

Discernment underpins critical thinking. Social critic & teacher bell hooks writes, “Critical thinking requires discernment. It is a way of approaching ideas that aims to understand core, underlying truths, not simply the superficial truth that may be most obviously visible (pg.9).” Read her whole article here.

What’s obviously visible in the social innovation field is our rhetoric. A real convergence of the same terminology, tools, and process diagrams. All of this is the superficial outer packaging. Perhaps that’s why for all of the linguistic imitation, few results are being imitated. If we count results as a change in both the lived world and the system world, it’s going to take a lot more than good sales. It’s going to take deep practice, and a heck of a lot of discernment.

1. Why those activities and those products? What’s the link between doing those things, and achieving results? What constitutes a good result – and why?
2. What specifically about the activities will prompt the desired results – in other words, what are the posited change mechanisms, and how does that inform the way in which those activities are designed and implemented?
3. What are your reference points for these activities and products – both good and bad? Historical and contemporary?
4. How are you going to measure results – and for whom? Why will you measure in that way? Using what instruments? When?
5. Can you show us (rather than tell us about) the science and the art of your approach? What’s the source of rigor? Of creativity?
6. Who are you learning from – and how? Where do you get critique and constructive feedback from?