Be like the Ben 10 upgrade alien. Be the Mechamorph. But for intellectual pursuits and projects, be them Organizations, research papers, or even just job sites.

Be able to seamlessly integrate easily into existing systems, making them better. Adding new editions to increase efficacy, efficiency,* or any other metric relevant to the situation; then seamlessly separate when you leave. Doing no damage.** The goal is to make things better mot worse. Leave a piece of yourself in The Project a little labor above and beyond that will be a permanent part of it. In its betterment you will often find you've grown better, more competent.

However, mistakes will be costly. Sometimes to The Project, sometimes to yourself, sometimes both****. It's all about maximizing the chance of success and minimizing failures. Stacking the odds in your favor, without overstepping and leaving yourself vulnerable and resultantly, more likely to make mistakes.*****

Notes:

Integrate some of the comments by Saul Alinsky about maintaining a hearty level of detachment. should cross link to the summary and analysis of Rules for Radicals by him. I should also cross-reference articles to minimize the need for tangential (nested) footnotes.

Footnotes:

*partiness <------ what fucking word was this supposed to be impaired me???? it was immediately after efficiency

**This always makes me think of the book A Demon's Story by Michael Siemsen.***

***Another Wonderful book I plan to summarize and and say why it's so wonderful and what I learned from it.

****This reminds me of an anecdote from Every Tools a Hammer by Adam Savage where he assumed he could do everything all himself to set up a set for a movie with a talking ATM. Long story short he literally ruined everything.

*****YeeHaw