Seek Folks Outside Your Orbit
“For thirty five years, I’ve been tracking down people about whom I was curious and asking them if I could sit down for an hour. I’ve had as few as a dozen curiosity conversations in a year, but sometimes I’ve done them as often as once a week. My goal was always at least one every two weeks… I never meet anyone with a movie in mind. The goal for me is to learn something.”
— Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer, A Curious Mind
Similar to the inspiration behind Ben Franklin’s Junto, I’m blown away by Brian’s lifelong practice, pursuing perspectives that can shape and challenge his understanding of the world. It's such an important part of his life that he has a full-time employee dedicated to scheduling these conversations.
One of the most outstanding CEO’s we interviewed while writing Ideaflow — who grew his company’s market cap by 10x over ten years! — made a habit of meeting external entrepreneurs every single week. He said, “90% of the time, it can feel like wasted time. But 10% is solid gold. It’s probably the least efficient process in the world, but I don’t know of a better way to get fresh input. I probably have more meetings with founders from outside the organization than I do with my direct reports.”
The outputs of our thinking are a function of the inputs to our thinking, and tactics like these ensure that innovators have the requisite raw material in the moment of problem solving. You've got to feed ideas.
We know that the best innovators set an output quota. Next level mastery is to set an input quota, too!
Related: Form A Junto
Related: Inputs—>Outputs
Related: Do An Idea Quota
Related: Set An Input Quota
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The quality of our thinking is deeply influenced by the diversity of the inputs we collect. Implementing practices like Brian Grazer’s “Curiosity Conversations” ensures innovators are well-equipped with a variety of high-quality raw material for problem-solving.