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Lessons From an Unlikely Superhero

Lessons From an Unlikely Superhero

Drupal, vision, and change management. Keynote presentation from DrupalSouth 2014 in Wellington, NZ.

Emma Jane Hogbin Westby

February 15, 2014
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  1. Lessons From an
    Unlikely Superhero
    Emma Jane Westby
    @emmajanehw
    www.drupalize.me

    View Slide

  2. Open Twitter Now.
    #dsw2014
    Pull out your phones. Turn on Twitter. Create a new tweet. Add the hashtag #dsw2014. Get
    ready to talk.
    The title of this talk is “The Unlikely Superhero”

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  3. The Hobbit
    An unexpected bit of research
    Our unlikely super hero is Bilbo the Hobbit.
    In the plane on the way to New Zealand I decided to re-watch The Hobbit. Ben, the airline
    attendant, asked what I was watching. I jokingly said I was doing research.
    We both had a chuckle and I went back to watching the movie. It was the beginning of the
    movie and the dwarves were descending on Bilbo's house. As I watched it all unfold, I realized
    that I might have been telling more of the truth than I'd realized when I said I was doing
    research.
    Let me set the scene for you.

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  4. Everything had its place
    and
    every place had its thing.
    Bilbo is at home, surrounded by the things he'd come to cherish. Mostly family heirlooms:
    things he'd inherited from his mother and generations before her. Everything had its place
    and every place had its thing.

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  5. “That’s not a dishcloth!
    It’s a doily.”
    Slowly at first, the dwarves barge into his house. Uninvited. They begin eating his food. All of
    his food. Piles and piles of food. Bilbo watches in growing horror as his beautiful home is
    invaded and destroyed.
    At the end of the meal the dwarves begin the cleanup process. "That's not a dishcloth, it's a
    doily!" Bilbo cries. He is barely able to contain himself as the dwarves begin throwing his
    mother's good dishes. The dishes are literally bounced from one dwarf to another as he
    watches in horror.
    Finally able to look into the dining room, Bilbo is greeted with a pile of washed, piled, and
    perfectly intact plates.

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  6. Bilbo
    chooses adventure.
    The next morning the dwarves are gone, and his house is in exactly the order it was before
    the dwarves arrived (minus some food, of course).
    Bilbo now must decide: should he follow the dwarves into a grand adventure, or stay at
    home, where there is more history than future?
    Bilbo chooses adventure. And hopefully you will too.

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  7. Change is
    business as usual.
    In today's business world, massive change is business as usual. Any time you build a new
    Drupal site you are effectively becoming a mini **change agent**.
    I'm going try to balance my remarks to include lessons that can be applied to:
    - the Drupal community as it undergoes the transformation from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8;
    - non-community projects you are working on.

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  8. Change Agent.
    I used a term just now, change agent, which you might not have heard previously. It's only
    recently that I've come to know there is an entire stream of business consultancy focused on
    change, called Change Management.
    To be honest: change fascinates me because transformations are difficult.
    Those who know me won't be surprised if I say that I'm a little bit addicted to stress.
    Implementing change in large organizations, or communities, is perhaps one of the most
    stressful things you can put employees through.
    I have watched, and been part of, several massive organizational transformations. None of
    them were without tension and staff anxiety.

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  9. Help someone transform
    their relationship with a
    piece of software.
    This interest in transformations is a big part of what draws me to adult education.
    Yes, I like to teach people things, but what I really love is helping someone transform their
    relationship with a piece of software from anger and frustration to acceptance and possibly
    mastery.
    I hate it when people feel enfeebled by the technology they are forced to use; I want people
    to feel in control and confident when they sit down to use their computer.
    Change management resonates with me because of the transformation element.

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  10. Change management
    is an approach to transitioning
    individuals, teams, and organizations
    to a desired future state.
    wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_management
    Change management. It’s an actual thing. You can get an MBA in “leadership and change
    management”.
    Change management is an approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to
    a desired future state.

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  11. Crux.
    Vision.
    Implementation.
    Review and Monitor.
    Transformations are a four-step process.
    Change management transformations generally are a four-step process:
    - identify the **crux of the problem**;
    - **create a new vision** for what the future looks like, and plan the steps needed to get
    there;
    - **implement the steps** necessary to reach the desired future state;
    - **review and monitor** progress, making refinements to the process as necessary.

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  12. By design, there is no
    single vision of Drupal.
    By design, Drupal does not have a single vision.
    Dries has road maps, names initiative leaders, and shares cat herding duties with core
    maintainers.
    We have core principles, but there is not a single definition of what the mission statement is
    for Drupal. Each initiative lead has a mini vision, but time and dependencies sometimes get in
    the way.
    Having an overarching mission would be almost counter to how our project is run. We don’t
    have a dictator leading the project; our lack of a single, unified, community-owned vision is
    by design.

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  13. Change
    requires vision.
    The problem is that change requires vision.
    We can have a goal to simply move away from things, but it’s difficult.
    Moving away from something looks a little like this:
    “Stop doing that.”
    “What shall I do instead?”
    “I don’t know; but not that.”

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  14. Change
    is hard.
    Change _is_ hard.
    And “hard” can often mean that emotions seep in.

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  15. Denial. Anger.
    Bargaining. Depression.
    Acceptance.
    The five stages of grief.
    The discipline of change management acknowledges the role of emotion for the people
    undergoing a transformative process.
    Indeed, there are many references in change management literature referencing the Elisabeth
    Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief:
    Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
    Perhaps some of these stages feel familiar to you.
    The model is contested, but my point is that emotions happen.
    Change management does not ask us to put away our emotions, but rather, asks us to
    provide the support necessary for those who are undergoing the transformation.

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  16. Why.
    Successful change management is more likely to occur if the following are included:
    - the change benefits the leaders
    - stakeholders understand **why** the change is necessary
    - training is included in the roll-out plan
    - resistance is acknowledged and countered to align employees with the overall strategic
    direction of the organization
    - personal counselling is provided to alleviate fears
    - monitoring and fine tuning is applied

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  17. Drupal is a friendly,
    supportive community.
    I think the Drupal community does a good job of many of these pieces.
    We are an incredibly welcoming and friendly community. We support one another. We talk
    through our differences in the issue queue, and on IRC.
    (Although if you're new, it is overwhelming.)
    I think we do a particularly good job of acknowledging resistance (the Developer Experience
    initiative); personal counselling (private conversations in IRC); monitoring and fine tuning the
    roll-out.

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  18. What’s missing?
    But as I've watched the anxiety around the Drupal 8 changes, there are pieces which change
    management tells us we must have, which I think are missing. Each of the pieces resolves
    around a single point.

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  19. A shared vision.
    For change to succeed, you must have a single, clear vision of the desired future state.

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  20. Modernization of the
    infrastructure.
    My mission statement for Drupal 8.
    There is so much stuff happening that I think it becomes easy to forget the vision for what
    Drupal 8 will be.
    To me: Drupal 8 is the modernization of our infrastructure. All of the work that I've seen is
    about bringing our product up-to-date by modern web standards and best practices.
    Others may have a different vision though. I went looking for a Mission Statement for Drupal
    and I couldn’t find it.
    (I could insert a joke here about how $mission was removed in Drupal 7, but I won’t.)
    I found core principles of Drupal; and the tag line “come for the code; stay for the
    community”.
    The mission statement should be our mantra. It should be the thing we all raleigh behind and
    believe in from the inside out.

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  21. Overcome resistance;
    fuel motivation.
    The single vision must answer the question "why?".
    “WHY” helps us to overcome resistance.
    “WHY” helps us to stay motivated.

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  22. I am proud of Drupal.
    We have done so much right in the creation of Drupal 8.
    - We have maintained transparency in our communication.
    - We have responded to resistance with the Developer Experience initiative.
    - We have moved our deadlines to accommodate our community, and to ensure the software
    is the best it can be.
    There is so much good, that I can can be only proud of the work that's been done to date.

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  23. Start odd; stay odd.
    But not everyone will make the leap instantly to Drupal 8.
    Indeed, the larger the site, the more likely it is that the site will skip a version of Drupal (start
    odd; stay odd).
    The roll-out will come with time, but to gain the greatest advantage, we must be ready for
    everyone. We would be wise to look at established processes on how to implement massive
    change.

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  24. Leading Change.
    Earlier I mentioned the phases of change management:
    crux; vision; implement; review and monitor.
    Those who are responsible for leading change have a few more things to consider.
    Kotter gives us the following steps for leaders:
    1. Create urgency.
    2. Form a powerful coalition.
    3. Create a vision for change.
    4. Communicate the vision.
    5. Remove obstacles.
    6. Create short-term wins.
    7. Build on the change.
    8. Anchor the change in corporate culture.
    Let’s take a look at each of these stages individually.

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  25. Create urgency.
    **Create urgency** I believe we've done this.
    People know that Drupal 8 is coming and they will need to skill up. As the rollout begins,
    implementors will need to decide if now is the right time to upgrade or switch to Drupal. The
    better prepared we are, the easier it will be for people to want to implement their own
    changes.

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  26. Form a powerful
    coalition.
    **Form a powerful coalition** I believe we've done this.
    We have a wonderful core development team. We have an amazing core mentoring program.
    We may not have all of the education pieces in place yet, but we do have our subject matter
    experts, and community leaders.

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  27. Create a vision
    for change.
    **Create a vision for change** I think this is where we start to drift.
    People are becoming fearful of the upcoming changes because they do not yet buy into the
    vision. Developers know they need to make changes to their code. They may even have
    started digging into **how** to upgrade their code.
    But the **why** is missing, and has left a void which is being filled with Denial and Anger.
    Their anxiety has spilled out into other areas, where it threatens to become FUD which
    spreads wider than the Drupal community into our users and implementors.

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  28. Communicate
    the vision.
    Until we have that single vision, we cannot proceed with the **communication of the vision**.

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  29. Remove obstacles
    for people.
    Interestingly though, the Drupal community already has experience **removing obstacles for
    people** through the Developer Experience Initiative. There may be more obstacles as we roll
    out the software to the larger community. Providing training will help to remove some of
    these obstacles, but we cannot provide training without a system to build the training for.
    It is a Catch-22, but it demonstrates we have a culture of iteration and constant
    improvement.

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  30. I am hopeful.
    The final three stages
    - Create short-term wins.
    - Build on the change.
    - Anchor the change in corporate culture.
    will come with time for the public roll-out, but we have already shown the capacity for them.
    I am hopeful.

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  31. Why should you
    stick around?
    Let's circle back around to the most difficult piece, which I think is missing: the reason why.
    The "why" is important because the more clearly you tell me where you are going, the
    easier it is for us to figure out how to get there.
    In other words: the vision must come before you pick the direction to travel. (If you know you
    want hot beaches, don't head to Wellington in June.)
    The small wins are necessary for change management to succeed are impossible if you
    cannot recognize them as wins. And without small wins, you are unlikely to retain your
    volunteers.
    If, every time you sit down to work with Drupal, you feel like you're losing, why *would* you
    stick around?
    Why would you? Because ... it’s rewarding to work towards something.

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  32. "
    Average companies give their people
    something to work on. In contrast, the
    most innovative organizations give
    their people something to work toward."
    Simon Sinek
    "Average companies give their people something to work on.
    In contrast, the most innovative organizations give their people something to work toward."
    Simon Sinek

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  33. What
    How
    Why
    The Golden Circle
    Simon Sinek has a great TED talk, and book, about discovering your Why. He calls it The
    Golden Circle.
    Why => the cause
    How => the value proposition
    What => products and services

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  34. What
    How
    Why
    My **why** is to understand, transform, and remove obstacles to achieve a state of flow.

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  35. What
    How
    Why
    **How** I do this when I teach:
    I put the learner first by asking them what their obstacles are.
    I focus on outcome-based lessons,
    and adult education best practices.

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  36. What
    How
    Why
    **What** you can buy from me:
    My products and services are related to Drupal education,
    and the creation of exceptional experiences for adult learners.
    My topic is Drupal because there are a lot of "easy" obstacles I can help people to
    overcome.

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  37. What’s your WHY?
    #dsw2014
    What is your "why" for being involved? Why were you motivated to attend this conference?
    #dsw2014
    If you're feeling shy about participating because you're new to the community, let me remind
    you of a lesson from our superhero Hobbit, Bilbo.

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  38. Bilbo's WHY is “home”.
    “You don’t belong anywhere.”
    Bilbo's why ... the reason he stays on the quest is his commitment to home. "You don't
    belong anywhere," he says to one of the dwarves. Bilbo first sees where the dwarves live
    now, and realizes they don't belong "anywhere" because they have lost their home,
    something Bilbo cherishes. This is both an observation of the group, and of himself.

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  39. What do you need to do
    to be happy?
    By discovering your own **why** it becomes easier to see how you might help others on
    their quest. It becomes not just "what would you _like_ to do" but rather a much more
    powerful "what do you **need** to do to be happy".

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  40. What
    How
    Why
    Drupal’s WHY
    Now that you've started to think about your why, let's come back to Drupal and our change
    management challenge.
    https://drupal.org/principles
    Modular & extensible; quality coding; standards-based; low resource demands; open source;
    ease of use; collaboration.
    “Come for the software, stay for the community.”
    If I were to create a Golden Circle for Drupal the community, it might look like this:
    **Why** => ???
    In Drupal 7, I'd say the "why" had to do with the community and participation; but in Drupal
    8, I feel like the modernization of the infrastructure came before the community...and the
    community pushed back.
    To grow the capacity of web developers.
    My **why** is to understand, transform, and remove obstacles to achieve a state of flow.
    **How** => Drupal attracts new developers and users by providing modern web developers
    with an open, easy-to-use, scaleable framework.
    **What** =>
    mobile-first, standards-compliant, programming best practices
    If we cannot define the why, how can we effectively create a vision for the future, and a

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  41. This is what my notes for the WHY slide look like. To be honest, I still don’t think I have it
    figured out.
    ... but let’s give it a try. You can disagree with me on Twitter if you like.

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  42. What
    How
    Why
    Drupal’s WHY
    If I were to create a Golden Circle for Drupal the community, it might look like this:
    **Why** => Drupal believes that growth is good, and must be supported.
    **How** => The Drupal community supports growth by creating an infrastructure which can
    scale for its users needs. Drupal grows its own community by soliciting help in developing a
    modern web framework.
    **What** => We release new versions of Drupal to attract new interest, and especially new
    developers.
    But what if my “why” for Drupal isn’t your why for Drupal?
    If we cannot define Drupal’s WHY as a community, how can we effectively create a vision for
    the future, and a corresponding implementation plan? How can we roll-out success, when we
    can't even define it for ourselves.
    Why are you here. Why are you giving up your weekend to be part of this thing called Drupal?

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  43. “People who come to work with a
    clear sense of WHY are less prone to
    giving up after a few failures because
    they understand the higher cause.”
    Simon Sinek
    Don't tell me what Drupal does, tell me why Drupal 8 is being created.

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  44. The WHY has changed.
    When I stopped working with any other CMS, around 2007 this is why: I believed in the
    companies I was build web sites for. I believed in their ability and capacity to scale, and with
    Drupal's ecosystem of contributed modules, I believed that Drupal was the only platform
    which could support the speed and breadth of a company's ability to scale for small
    businesses.
    I don't believe this is the right "why" for Drupal leading into D8. I think the infrastructure
    requirements will be greater, and the learning curve steeper. I don't think that makes it a
    good or bad product, I simply think the why has changed.
    But maybe the WHY is right.
    I said the WHY was: Drupal believes that growth is good, and must be supported.
    - The infrastructure requirements have grown.
    - We are modernizing the framework to attract more developers.
    Growth before stability. Growth does not mean standing still.
    (Limits to growth is a completely different rabbit hole that I’m not going to go into now.)

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  45. Are you the dwarf?
    or the hobbit?
    Let's come back around to The Hobbit example that I started with.
    The scene where the dwarves are throwing dishes is the perfect analogy to me. The heirlooms
    are being thrown around. We know they are brittle. What is happening to our history?
    - Ask yourself: are you a dwarf, or are you a hobbit?
    - Are you looking for your home?
    - Is your WHY transparent to the hobbits?
    - And if you are a hobbit, do you know your own WHY?
    - How can you use your WHY to help the dwarves to achieve theirs?
    Time for a little bit of radical imagination.

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  46. Radical imagining
    is a skill.
    If all of this seems a little bit exciting, but also hard, I don't blame you. To be honest, I'm
    more of a HOW person, myself.
    I'm good at micro changes, and processes to get from a defined state to a desired future
    state.
    But I'm not very good at radical imagining.

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  47. Let me show you how.
    If you're struggling with radical imagining, and discovering your WHY too,
    let me show you HOW.

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  48. Discovering your WHY.
    I’m going to ask you a series of questions.
    You can tweet the answers, or email them to me, or just write them down for yourselves.

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  49. What
    makes you smile?

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  50. When you
    lose track of time,
    what are you doing?

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  51. What are your
    favourite things to do?

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  52. Is there anything you
    don’t feel gifted at, but
    love doing anyway?

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  53. When people ask for
    your help, what do they
    want help with?

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  54. If you had to
    teach something,
    what would you teach?

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  55. Who would your
    students be?

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  56. When you quit,
    what’s typically your
    “last straw”?

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  57. Accountability
    Accuracy
    Achievement
    Adventurousness
    Altruism
    Ambition
    Assertiveness
    Balance
    Being the best
    Belonging
    Boldness
    Calmness
    Carefulness
    Challenge
    Cheerfulness
    Clear-
    mindedness
    Commitment
    Community
    Compassion
    Competitiveness
    Consistency
    Contentment
    Continuous
    Improvement
    Contribution
    Control
    Cooperation
    Correctness
    Courtesy
    Creativity
    Curiosity
    Decisiveness
    Democraticness
    Dependability
    Determination
    Devoutness
    Diligence
    Discipline
    Discretion
    Diversity
    Dynamism
    Economy
    Effectiveness
    Efficiency
    Elegance
    Empathy
    Enjoyment
    Enthusiasm
    Equality
    Excellence
    Excitement
    Expertise
    Exploration
    Expressiveness
    Fairness
    Faith
    Family-
    orientedness
    Fidelity
    Fitness
    Fluency
    Focus
    Freedom
    Fun
    Generosity
    Goodness
    Grace
    Growth
    Happiness
    Hard Work
    Health
    Helping Society
    Holiness
    Honesty
    Honor
    Humility
    Independence
    Ingenuity
    Inner Harmony
    Inquisitiveness
    Insightfulness
    Intelligence
    Intellectual
    Status
    Intuition
    Joy
    Justice
    Leadership
    Legacy
    Love
    Loyalty
    Making a
    difference
    Mastery
    Merit
    Obedience
    Openness
    Order
    Originality
    Patriotism
    Perfection
    Positivity
    Practicality
    Preparedness
    Professionalism
    Prudence
    Quality-
    orientation
    Reliability
    Resourcefulness
    Restraint
    Results-oriented
    Rigor
    Security
    Self-
    actualization
    Self-control
    Selflessness
    Self-reliance
    Sensitivity
    Serenity
    Service
    Shrewdness
    Simplicity
    Soundness
    Speed
    Spontaneity
    Stability
    Strategic
    Strength
    Structure
    Success
    Support
    Teamwork
    Temperance
    Thankfulness
    Thoroughness
    Thoughtfulness
    Timeliness
    Tolerance
    Traditionalism
    Trustworthiness
    Truth-seeking
    Understanding
    Uniqueness
    Unity
    Usefulness
    Vision
    Vitality
    What Are Your Values?
    Accountability
    Accuracy
    Achievement
    Adventurousness
    Altruism
    Ambition
    Assertiveness
    Balance
    Being the best
    Belonging
    Boldness
    Calmness
    Carefulness
    Challenge
    Cheerfulness
    Clear-mindedness
    Commitment
    Community
    Compassion
    Competitiveness
    Consistency
    Contentment
    Continuous Improvement
    Contribution
    Control
    Cooperation
    Correctness
    Courtesy
    Creativity

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  58. Tweet out
    five of your values.
    #dsw2014

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  59. What do we have in common?
    As a group, are we
    lacking in some areas?

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  60. Share your WHY to serve
    the Drupal community
    and its code.
    Your task for the rest of the conference is to find out how you can share your WHY to serve
    the Drupal community and its code.

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  61. Push for a shared
    vision of Drupal 8.
    And through your discussions, to think about, and push towards a definition for a vision of
    Drupal 8 which we can share with others.

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  62. “Thank goodness!”
    said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco jar.

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  63. Tweet Questions With:
    #dsw2014

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  64. Stay in touch, eh?
    @emmajanehw
    www.drupalize.me

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  65. Resources
    Change Management
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_management
    Books
    Leading Change, John Kotter
    On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
    Start With Why, Simon Sinek
    http://www.startwithwhy.com/

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