Last week, I talked about how I recommend that, as opposed to simply trying to emulate someone (in your personal life) or another organization (in your professional life), you instead pick and choose specific things that others are doing and build your own system for success based on your strengths, weaknesses and resources.  Today I want to stick with the same theme but just talk about where you look for inspiration. 

It is human nature to like those who are like us.  When we are looking for ways to improve, we can easily limit our scope to just those like us.  I am not saying it isn’t important to do so.  I just don’t think that you want to limit yourself.  Think of it as “and” not “or”.  Don’t just look at those like you, or those that are dramatically different from you, look to both for ideas and inspiration.

For me personally, I love to connect with other people in the professional services and software businesses to learn what they are doing, the latest trends, and best practices.  However, I am also part of a leadership group called TEC/Vistage, where I get exposed to other business leaders from other industries like manufacturing, distribution, construction, retail, etc.  This gives me a much broader concept of business and leadership.  I am always looking for novel ideas that are more typically suited for another sector and see how I can tweak them and bring them to my team.

From a client perspective, we recommend a similar approach.  One of the benefits of having the pleasure to work with so many different organizations across all sectors of real property is that my team gets an “inside view” of many different types of businesses like higher education, K-12, state/provincial government, local government, healthcare, etc.  Additionally, working on both sides of the Canadian/US border, we also get different perspectives from two different countries.  We are always looking for ways to cross-pollinate ideas from one sector to the next, and try to connect our clients with not only those people within their sectors, but also from outside so they can broaden their horizons.

As you continually try to improve yourself and your organization’s programs or systems, be yourself, take as broad a view of the world as you can, beyond just those “like you” and take the pieces that work best for you and build a world-class program, customized just for you or your team!