The importance of skill in swimming and innovation.
Sometimes you might have the maturity, the experience, the strength, the resources … and still not be doing your best because there are skills you don’t yet have in your toolbag.
Yesterday I was at the swimming pool, doing laps with my daughter. She swims about twice as fast as me -- I know this, because of how fast she laps me when we have to swim in the same lane. I timed how long it takes me to do one length (25 yards), and it came out to just over 40 seconds. I didn’t learn to swim until I was 40 years old, so for the most part I’m just happy to be able to swim at all!
After I got out of the pool and went back to change, I noticed the record board at the pool (see photo). And I saw that the pool record for 25 yards freestyle is 17.81 seconds -- for age “6 and Under”! Now most likely, I’m bigger than that 6 year old was, stronger, know more, and have been swimming longer. But he’s more than twice as fast as me! What’s the difference? I don’t have the SKILL that he had. And the difference wasn’t 1% or 10%, it was more than a factor of 2. Again, with a 6 year old!
In the same way, I’ve worked with teams that, by learning a few skills in innovation processes, have dramatically increased the speed and value of their work, time after time. As you might guess, part of it is just making sure you’re doing the fundamentals well, and part of it includes methods that are a little more advanced. But all of it is learnable! I could learn to swim faster with a good coach. If YOU want to innovate faster, just connect with me. I’m eager to listen, and to see how we might work together. And I KNOW … that you can do it!
