I was sent a review copy of Innovation You, by Jeff DeGraff. A couple of excerpts:

p. 181,

Ask a family systems therapist what happens when a family member gathers the clan and says, “We have to be honest. Dad is an alcoholic, and if he goes on this way, he’s going to die.” Do the other family members praise the truth-teller for bravery and honesty? Not usually. Usually, they call the person an ingrate and act as if the only problem is the terrible way that person talks about Dad. They shoot the messenger.

I thought of substituting “government budget” for “Dad” and “Tea Party” (or S&P) for the messenger.

p. 34:

People don’t marry when they’ve found perfection because there is no perfection. They marry when they’ve found someone they love whose faults they can accept, and who can accept their faults in return.

This did not inspire any political or economic analogy. I just liked the quote.

Back to p. 181:

Jonas Salk…famously said that if you do work that contradicts prevailing ideas, the response from the establishment comes in three stages. First, they say you’re wrong. If you keep going, they say you’re immoral. And if you still keep going, they take credit for your work. That’s why I tell innovators who tell me they’re hitting resistance: Well, sure! What did you expect? You say members of the organization are suddenly being mean to you. You’re the one traumatizing them!

When I was pushing innovative projects at Freddie Mac, I would say cynically that the last phase of the effort to convince the company to try something new was “handing the project over to the credit-takers.” The aphorism attributed to Salk reminds me of that.