Cross-Pollinate to Bloom
Cross-pollinating is all about leveraging what you have in one area to benefit another. Often big companies have siloed teams working to merchandise, price, market, promote each product – knowledge in one area is often not shared across the organization. Without cross-pollinating they will never leverage their own strengths. Research at Harvard shows that the more distant the relationship between the fields the more likely they are to achieve breakthrough innovations.
You, like me, may not be a multinational - but 18 years of successful communication facilitation and coaching across industries means, I have depth of experience, good networks and business knowledge. However, I recently started a new business in which I have no existing credibility or track record. So why not cross pollinate? Use more of what I’ve got in order to get me further, faster.
My work as an artist gives Australian native flora centre stage. I want to bring art into our daily lives so I made my paintings into lightweight Australian Wildflower Placemats and Coasters for the international gift market. I could have gone the retail distribution method store by store but I don’t know retail – I know corporate. So before the stock was delivered to line my hallway, I had orders to brand it with corporate logos for international gifts. Those of you who travel for work no how hard it is to find easy to transport beautiful Australian gifts. So within that niche of corporates who do lots of international travel, of which my existing client base is populated, is another need I can help them with. They are absolutely thrilled with my product. It’s infectious. Almost instantly Celia MoriartyArt is all over the globe and that feeds me new ideas and contacts that I would never have thought of.
You have expertise skills and knowledge that you could use in different ways. Innovation could unlock some of your skills and increase your engagement with life.
Always find a way to build on what you’ve got so that you can leverage your hard won experience - even if it seems to be in a totally unrelated field. Give it a go…