The first principle of integration seems to be that the story I create to explain the integration might not make sense to anyone but me. You just had to be there at the 'point of integration' for the story to provide full impact, to experience that ah-ha instant. I got to experience it first hand. My story is inevitably used goods. What's well integrated for me might not seem very well combined to you.
Integration involves combining previously separated distinctions in such a way that their differences seem less important than their now obvious similarities.
There's always an Elephant Factor involved. What's an Elephant Factor? Drawing on my book, The Blind men and the Elephant, and the Hindu parable upon which I based it, the Elephant Factor is the degree to which the blind men are convinced that their differentiating experiences are definitive. "The elephant is obviously a Fan!" exclaimed the blind man touching the elephant's ear. This assertion alone is no barrier to integration. The certainty about what 'this fan' could not also be, or also be a part of, seems the real Elephant Factor at play.
Elephant Factors can be huge, such as the EF separating terrorist from pacifist, or tiny, such as the EF between me, myself, and I. But even small EFs can be troublesome, blinding, disintegrating.
We are fortunately integrative by nature. Gordon MacKenzie in his Orbiting The Giant Hairball recounts that when he asks a class of kindergardeners how many are artists, every single one of them raises their hand. By the time these same kids reach third grade, only one or two will admit to this, and they are chided by their fellows. Of course we are all artists, creators, and creative by our very nature. What could have convinced us otherwise?
Many things that are not things. There will be more, much more coming on this topic.
I might have never yet touched the face of any God, but I've shaved my share of them; bare blade barely separating achievement from ideal. These experiences were at least as humbling as elating, and no one else, no matter how close the shave, could feel the turbulence this perennial test pilot always feels.
My best work always scares the Hell out of me, and should. I might wake up under the bed, curled into a fetal coil, questioning my sanity along with my deeply suspect authority. Just who in the Hell did I think I was? And who in the Hell must that leave me being?
If my reading of history has taught me anything, I've grown to understand that there are no carefree geniuses. And those of us that occasionally glimpse some distant evidence of a tiny bit of our own genius do not dance away from these experiences, but slink. We are as exhausted as we've ever been. Drained. As if instead of shedding mere skin, we'd shed the inside out. Those of us that have done this in private are plenty breathless. Those who do this in public, on a stage, before a room filled with unavoidable strangers—inevitably intimate friends—are excused if they feel the compulsion to peek over their shoulder for a few days afterward.
I remind myself as I remind everyone who reads this prose. The geniuses you revere, fear. They hear a crazy horn and just start dancing, or singing, inflating always another trial balloon; their soul's inheritance, their sole legacy. They grow to expect bi-polar feedback, but never to comfortably settle beside it. One cheese never pleases everyone, and someone always expects Velvetta and just has to complain about the bleu, though nobody ever blew anything.
Adieu.
According to an official in a company closely related to the organization, the Project Management Institute will announce next week the creation of a totally new professional certification, CCI™, the Certified Complete Idiot designation.
The statement found on PMI’s Web site asserts, “since its founding in 1969, Project Management Institute (PMI®) has grown to be the organization of choice for project management professionalism. With over 80,000 members worldwide, PMI® is the leading nonprofit professional association in the area of Project Management. PMI® establishes Project Management standards, provides seminars, educational programs and professional certification that more and more organizations desire for their project leaders.”
“This CCI™ program is a natural extension of our traditional focus,” reported a PMI executive on the condition of anonymity. “We’ve been in the certification business longer than many organizations have been in existence. We’ve had an increasing number of requests from our certified members for additional certification programs. Further, member organizations find the promise of additional professional certifications to be a highly valued perquisite among their professional staff. They tell us that those we’ve already certified are among their most loyal and dedicated employees. Unlike software engineers, who jump ship on the promise of the tiniest increase in salary, most never leave once they become certified as a Project Management Professional.”
“We think of the Project Management Professional designation as a professional handcuff,” disclosed one client company spokesperson. Details of the new CCI™ program were sketchy at the time of publication, but one person close to the decision-makers at PMI® reported that an outline was nearly finalized. The program seems to closely map to the present PMBOK, or Project Management Body of Knowledge, with one important distinction. The CCI will be centered around a CCIBOE, pronounced “See Sigh Bow”, or Certified Completely Idiotic Body Of Experience. Unlike the PMBOK-based PMP certification program, however, the CCIBOE-based CCI™ certification’s course of study will include neither extensive reading nor rigorous testing.
“We’ve learned some things in our thirty plus years of certifying professionals,” disclosed a recently departed member of the PMI® executive board. "Our present Project Management Professional certification program requires extensive reading of the usual irrelevant materials and rigorous testing based upon rote memorization of inconsequential details. This program has attracted many who want to know about project management and many fewer who seem to have any desire to actually manage real world projects.”
“Our largest complaint from our client companies,” continued the ex-PMI board member, “Was that after certification, our project managers were so pumped up with theory that they didn’t have a clue about how to manage real world projects. So we decided to try a different approach this time. Since real learning seems to require making mistakes, our new program focuses upon accumulating a body of experience, rather than memorizing a body of knowledge. Accumulating a body of experience usually means engaging in ways that might lead an unenlightened observer to conclude that they are dealing with a certified complete idiot, hence the program’s name and focus.”
One PMI®-certified Project
Management Professional reached for comment was enthusiastic.
“With this certification, I might be able to actually engage
with my project’s community instead of manipulating them from
the isolation of the project office. With
the
PMP, I always felt
like I was supposed to make the project turn out the way it was
originally envisioned, which often left everyone worse off. If I
can be pre-certified as a Complete Idiot, I won’t have to
watch my every step. More important, if my community understands
from the beginning that I’m a Certified Complete
Idiot™, they won’t judge my stumbles as
harshly.”
Spokespeople for several PMI® client companies were similarly enthusiastic. It appears to this reporter that PMI® has another solid professional program on their hands.
Interested parties may phone
PMI’s Newtown Square, Pennsylvania headquarters at
610-356-4600, fax them at 610-356-4647 or E-Mail them at
pmihq@pmi.org.
Note: PMI, PIMBOK, PMP, CCI, project, the®, and® and are® registered trademarks of the® Project® Management® Institute® and® are used here against the® author’s better judgement.
