Sometimes it’s too easy to just squeeze into a group photo and join a victorious team that just swept a basketball championship in the region to grab some credit for the feat. One just has to fly in from a sixth place finish somewhere else in the world and give the team already headed for a gold a pep talk — hey guys I need this reflected glory, so go for the gold. An interview afterwards with a friendly reporter does not hurt, even giving the actual coach a little nod: what’s his name, again?
Basking in other people’s triumphs takes some chutzpah.
Anyway, glories and ideas are not always subject to ownership rights. Thus is the legal study on intellectual property rights like patents and authorships often the subject of litigation and settlements.
Claiming other people’s ideas as one’s own is considered more than a simple breach of etiquette. While words set on paper or blogs are properly dated and attributed, fleeting insights and ideas in a business discussion are more abstract and often not always properly recorded and attributed.
There is no accepted process in place that allocates credit where it’s due, like those who thought of an idea or insight first. Even e-mails are not reliable records of chronology and authorship, as what is written down may be based on something already transmitted by someone else. Perhaps, insights cannot be claimed as intellectual property at all. It is not an object that can be defended against other claimants, and thus easily stolen.
Even when someone thought it up first, another person may have made it work. Who gets the credit?
It’s not always desirable anyway to be identified as the author of an idea. When the CEO wants to pin the blame on something that goes wrong, he is likely to ask — whose bright idea was that? No one meets the accusing gaze. Does anyone own up to an untraceable fart in a crowded elevator? (Don’t look at her, Sir. It was me.)
Credits for ideas, performance, and achievements may formally be rewarded with recognition and a bigger paycheck. So, this is not just about bragging rights.
Individual honors like “Most Valuable Player” are sought and treasured, even in team sports. True, the recipient of the trophy feigns modesty in his acceptance speech by saying he couldn’t have won the award without his team mates. Yet he alone gets to bring home the prize. The others have to be content with a class picture, trying to look adoring.
Recognition can be sought as an end in itself. In the corporate world, the quiet worker who does his job without any chest-thumping just gets more assignments as the credit goes to others. The meek usually inherit a place in the redundancy list.
Corporate culture highlights individual achievement as a basis for bonuses and promotions and thus encourages credit grabbing as a way to the top. An idea is considered as much on its merit as where credit for it will go, or not go.
The attractiveness of winners and the eagerness of many to be associated with them seems a cliche. Paternity for success, however, is not that easy to establish as it requires a combination of knowing the mother (and more importantly the mother knowing the claimant) as well as a combination of opportunity, intimacy, and the confluence of factors synchronized with the gestation period. The movie, Mamma Mia handles this conundrum of the bride’s rightful father among three men. All three sing their claims to the right ABBA tune. In the end, it really doesn’t matter who the father of the bride really is as long as there is a nice finale number, like “Dancing Queen.”
Is it really appropriate to take solo credit for an idea? Aren’t the best ideas the result of collaboration and brainstorming? Isn’t it more important for a concept (like ride-sharing) to be nurtured and turned into reality?
An adviser may opt to hide his influence, cherishing his anonymity even as powerful people seek his counsel. When queried on his seeming influence, he may just shrug off the perceived power with a demurrer — we just had coffee and chatted about old friends.
The corollary of the famous Murphy’s Law about things going wrong states that “when things go right… the wrong person gets the credit.”
A. R. Samson is chair and CEO of Touch DDB.
