Idea Pollination

Ideas are like plants. In isolated patches, they grow well enough. But the magic really happens when the bees get involved.

We’ve been talking with subject experts, training providers and other expertise-based businesses for many years now, and we’re still surprised by the disparity in some of the benchmarks across sectors.

Some of this relates to how people run their businesses, others to the quality of their product and service.

Businesses and organisations tend to pay most attention at those closest around them. It makes sense – they are the easiest comparison and form the competition. And if that’s how the competition does it, then I just need to do it a little better.

Yet the ideas that’ll change your outlook, set a new standard, or even the inspiration for your business, may reside beyond your usual sources.

When you explore unrelated fields, you invite new perspectives into your work.

Think of the engineer who looks to biology for design solutions, or the artist who draws inspiration from science. That’s where the real breakthroughs come from.

It’s tempting to stay in your own lane, relying on the familiar. But true innovation doesn’t come from what you already know. It comes from what you don’t.

Buy a magazine, once a month, for a topic you’ve never read about before.

Pop along to that conference that initially seems irrelevant.

Have that conversation with the people you think you have little in common with.

Don’t wait for the obvious connections, discover them.

The most powerful ideas don’t thrive in isolation. They’re out there, waiting to be captured and cross-pollinated.

It’s your job to spread the pollen.