Casting a Wide Net.

With the warm summer weather, it’s fishing season here in Michigan and the idea of ‘casting a wide net’ has been on my mind as it applies to business, people and even innovation. Casting a wide net basically means that when you are searching for something, you should cover as much area as possible in order to give yourself the best chance at finding it.

As leaders in our respective fields, there is often this idea that we have all of the information to make the best decisions but most of us know that just isn’t the case. None of us are the all-knowing, all-seeing Kreskin. I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage about the things you know, the things you know you don’t know and the things you don’t even know you don’t know. As leaders and experts, we know a great deal and we even have a pretty good understanding of what we don’t know, I’d say much better than most. But no matter how much we know and how good we assess what we don’t know, there will always be that blind spot, the area we can’t even anticipate not knowing.

That’s where the idea of casting a wide net comes in. Say you are looking for a great person to run your growing sales department. You identify a few up and comers in your industry that might be a good fit. But you cast a wide net and ask a bunch of people about great sales people they know. A vendor happens to mention a person they know in a related but different industry who has a great reputation and happens to be ready to make a move. Perhaps this candidate needs some core knowledge of your specific business but is an incredibly motivated, successful salesperson. Casting a wide net can help you find great people to add to your team you might not have even thought about.

Maybe you are trying to grow your business and looking for new revenue streams. Casting the widest net possible from things like brainstorming with your teams, asking your current customers what would make their work lives much easier, looking at how other companies in different industries are innovating or doing it better than their competition can give you many more options than if you just looked at your direct competition or pondered the idea on your own.

Where real leadership comes in is the leadership superpower discernment. Discernment is a kind of wisdom that involves going past the mere surface of something to make nuanced judgments about its properties or qualities. So as a leader, you cast a wide net bringing many things into your sights, and then you use your discernment to understand and choose the best path.