“No Thoughts of My Own…” You think I say that like it’s BAD THING! I assure you it’s not.

Many years ago, I was taught that I’m probably never the smartest guy in the room, and the smartest people in the world probably don’t work for me. I’m an engineer, and that creates another problem. We engineers are born with DNA that convinces us that we can always do it better ourselves. Why use another existing solution if we can invent a new one? Why did we go to engineering school if we are not going to invent and design? As most of you are aware, this is the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome, where engineers refuse to accept or use a design that they did not develop themselves. NIH is a big problem because a new design, or program, is untested relative to quality and performance. It is more expensive, since it is one of a kind, and it takes time to design, validate and manufacture. Now don’t get me wrong! There’s a time to invent solutions to both new and old problems, but I’m suggesting a slightly different approach to innovation before we resort to the “clean sheet model”. Take the time to think about who has already conquered your initiative. What companies or organizations have faced this issue? How are they dealing with it? Take their solutions and spend your time adapting these best practices to your application.

Innovation is searching for the best existing solution and adapting it to your application. When I decided to start my executive coaching firm after 25+ years of corporate leadership, I assumed that I knew the traits and behaviors of an executive coach. I also believed that I possessed these traits and was ready to go. Being the highly disciplined person that I am (Yeah right, Tom!), I followed the process that I grew up with. I took an inventory of attributes found in highly effective executive coaches. One of the top attributes I identified was the ability to build deep and trusting relationships quickly. Although I work to maintain a relationship with my clients long after our formal engagement has ended, the initial assignment is 6 months, thus every interaction counts. Recognizing that I am not the smartest guy in the room, I thought about who the best people or organizations in the world might be when it comes to building these trusted relationships.

After some thought, at the top of my list were hostage negotiators! These people build deep and trusting relationships quickly, or people get hurt. Certainly, the stakes are not as high with executive coaching, but why not leverage the best practices in the world for building relationships and reuse them for my executive coaching process? One of my colleagues introduced me to the head of hostage negotiating in New York. We had a discussion beyond my wildest expectations. He was fascinated with what I was doing and how I wanted to take bits and pieces of his process and apply them to developing leaders. He had great suggestions for me on how to apply very effective hostage negotiating techniques. In addition, after learning more about my process, he recommended an interrogation course, so that I could ask better questions to ensure that I was getting the best, quality feedback from my client. Conversely, he was fascinated with some of my learning from talent development and wanted to utilize some of these with his hostage interface program. The key point is that although the smartest people in the world don’t work for me, I try to find them, given my problem of the day. I want to be the best at building relationships quickly, and I get to use best practices from one of the top hostage negotiators in the world. Rather than invent my own process, I spend my time implementing his best practices to my application.

In a recent coaching engagement with a major insurance company, one of my client’s objectives was to champion a major initiative for the company. He chose to lead the development of a new information management system. Allow me to provide some background.

He told me that he and his team were underwriting a huge insurance proposal, very important to the company. Fundamentally, it involved insuring a drilling company, protecting them if the neighboring city fell down while they were drilling nearby for gas and oil. Did you hear what I said? They were writing an insurance policy for a company if while they were drilling, buildings fell down! Kind of like a manmade earthquake! But I digress…

My immediate reaction was, “How can you possibly predict something like that? Aren’t you just guessing?” He informed me that they had great engineers and that there is much science that goes into this prediction, much like actuarial science predicting human life spans. He added, “We have some of the best subject matter engineers in the industry when it comes to analyzing these situations. That’s not the problem. The issue is that we re-invent the wheel every time we get a new project like this. We start over each time. We have no system of information management, but I’m personally championing it.” The reality is that they were working on it for several years and making little progress.

Leveraging the “reuse of best practices”, we pulled a few people together to brainstorm and identify the best information managers in the country. We ended up identifying the Library of Congress and Homeland Security as top organizations that know how to manage information. When I last spoke with my client, he had identified contact points and was looking forward to their meetings to learn about best practices in information management. It’s important to note that I’ve found companies to be eager to meet and share processes, provided it is reciprocal and non-competitive.

No matter what you are struggling with, take time to think about who has faced a similar challenge. Meet with them to find out how they deal with it. Break it down into parts and find the best practices for each part. Although everyone is busy, professional colleagues are as eager to teach as they are to learn. Before embarking on a clean sheet design process, have your team take the time to identify who has solved this issue. Spend your time adapting these diverse solutions to your application rather than reinventing. The smartest people in the world may not work for you, but you know where to find them!