Why do elephants migrate to high ground days before a tsunami and goats know to flee volcanic mountains hours before an eruption? Why is it that some innovators repeatedly find themselves in the right place at the right time with the right thing in their hands?
It starts with what elephants, goats, and all life have in common: antennae. Not just physical antennae like those of insects. All our senses — physical, emotional, intellectual — absorb signals from the environment that help us sense the disruptions and opportunities that are coming, if we are paying attention.
We live in a time of increasing uncertainty. Environmental, economic, social, political, and technological disruptions coming from all directions. At the same time, we live in an age of echo chambers. Information is plentiful but highly curated. Couple that with education systems that start with memorization and end in specialization, and the result is that most of us develop a very narrow set of antennae, automatically tuned for specific signals that elicit limited responses.
But not the repeat innovator, the serial entrepreneur, the prescient leader — they have developed a broader and more sensitive range of antennae. Just as important, they also surround themselves with others who have done the same. In doing so, they can sense signals earlier and from more directions. By combining and amplifying those collective signals, they're better able to generate holistic renderings of the future.
Take writer and biologist Rachel Carson, for example. She's credited with spurring the environmental movement that we know today. Rachel grew up on a small farm in rural Pennsylvania. While she had a lifelong appreciation for nature, her real passion was for writing. These two worlds converged when she took a job with an educational radio program called Romance Under the Waters. By combining her exhaustive knowledge of nature with her gifts as a storyteller, she was able to do what other writers couldn't: translate scientific material for a lay audience, making it both comprehensible and interesting.
As Carson added physiology, genetics, and chemistry antennae to her array, she was able to arrive at her groundbreaking book Silent Spring in 1962. Marrying her divergent interests in writing and scientific research, Carson exposed the damage caused by pesticides, not only to wildlife but to humans as well. Today, Carson is credited with starting the movement that ultimately led to the banning of DDT, as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
How to prime your innovator's antennae.
This is not an innate ability. Just as the baby elephant cannot yet sense an impending tsunami, we, too, start off fumbling through the world, reacting instead of acting. But just like the baby elephant, we can learn our way.
Some describe the practice of developing antennae as having a growth mindset. I prefer the more active term of priming, like priming a pump. Developing your antennae and abilities enables you to receive, interpret, and respond to signals as they arise. With time and effort, these antennae become more sensitive, so you can detect more subtle signals and respond earlier.
What does priming look like in practice? For me, it's a map I keep of my favorite areas of exploration and how I believe they relate to each other. Ask another innovator to draw their own diagram and I'm sure it would look very different. In fact, if you were to ask me to draw mine again a year or two from now it might be very different. The world is constantly changing, so our ability to sense and respond to it must do the same.
Your earliest priming will likely not be by choice. My journey started in art, music, and construction because my mom is an artist and musician, and my dad was a general contractor. I grew up drawing, playing the piano, and building things. And because I chose to continue my exploration of these things throughout my life, my antennae in these environments have had four and a half decades to expand and mature. It's no wonder that I apply my creativity to the built environment. So strong was the priming of a family-run construction business that both of my brothers are entrepreneurs in construction-related fields too.
That's not to say we must end up on a path that traces straight back to our beginnings. I use the many tangents and off-road adventures I've taken in philosophy, finance, and other bubbles of the map just as often as I pull from art, music, and construction. Each has expanded my array of antennae and responses, creating unique abilities in the intersections and the whole.
How to develop your antennae.
The good news is, we don't need to be experts in all the domains we explore (as if that were even possible). But we do need to understand the core concepts, language, and tools of those domains so we can ask good questions of the subject matter experts.
We also don't need to develop an antennae array on our own. When we combine our signals with those of our teammates, we amplify our chances of success.
On their own, the signals we receive are often faint or diffuse. Our task as innovators is to bring them together, synthesize them, and turn them into strategic action.
By sensing future disruptions early in the innovation cycle, we can intentionally move to higher ground — or catch the wave.