Sorting Flowers from Weeds
BNET Australia Contributors
Aussie Rules
Biography
BNET Australia Contributors
Brian Haverty is editorial director for CBS Interactive Australia and is responsible for the company's BNET and ZDNet Australia sites.
Robert Gerrish is a coach, author and professional speaker and the founder of Flying Solo, an Australian online community for solo business owners.
Melissa Lourenco is the HR manager for CBS Interactive in Australia.
Chris Golis is the author of The Humm Handbook: Lifting Your Level of Emotional Intelligence. He runs seminars and workshops on EQ.
Suzi Dafnis is Community Director of the Australian Businesswomen's Network.
Yvonne Adele helps organisations build a culture of ideas by teaching people at all levels to access their untapped creative thinking skills.
What say we give a horticultural metaphor a run round the block?
When we conceive new ideas and concepts we rarely know whether each will grow into a flower or a weed. It could grow, blossom and be beautiful, or it could spread and become a nuisance.
In the same way that every plant needs sunlight and water to really show itself, so our ideas and concepts need a degree of exposure if we are to make a judgement.
In some instances, far too much time can be spent dreaming, pondering and busying when it’s patently clear that what’s getting all this attention is a weed. No amount of nurture will turn a weed into a flower.
Similarly something that looks potentially attractive can turn out to be the opposite. What’s important is that we recognise that point and be brave enough to pull it out of the ground and move on.
For that we need to set stages of measurement — clear milestones where we stop, review what we see, compare that with what we expected and determine the next course of action.
Equally an idea we held out little hope for can flourish into something unexpectedly wonderful and it’s worth remembering that one person’s weed can be another person’s flower.
So what are your observations and experiences when it comes to sorting the flowers from the weeds?
Post a comment and we can all get green fingers.
