Yesterday I had the privilege to attend a meeting of the key economic network for south central Oklahoma.  The primary goal of the meeting was to bring together a cross functional group from the private sector, government agencies and educational institutions to begin an important dialog that will lead to recommendations as to how Oklahoma can fill the workforce skills gap that exists between our student educational attainment and economic demands.  During the conversation, many communities and individual organizations shared how they have made a difference.  They shared what is working well within their particular area of expertise.

This morning I presented a review to a member of my sales team.  I set a goal for them to develop a best practice in one specific aspect of the sales process.  This element sets the priority for the work and as such the better information we receive from our customers, the better we can prioritize to maximize effectiveness.

In both instances, the real value is in the transferability of the learning.  The ability to scale these concepts and best practices holds the real potential.

With my sales team, if the individual I challenged masters this particular aspect, its important because his work will be prioritized well and his production maximized.  If we can transfer that to the whole team, it will be multiplied by 4 immediately and beyond that as new sales people join the team in the future.

With educational programs, it is critically important for each and every student impacted to get the best experience possible.  If a program impacts one student and leads them to a better career or more fulfilling life, it is incredibly important.  What if that program could scale across the state?  Instead of impacting maybe 25 students whose future is truly changed by an enhanced educational experience, that could be magnified by 75 or 100 or beyond.  The scalability and transferability of an idea is what takes it from important to impactful.

These are just two simple examples of a critical concept.  The true value or quality of an idea being measured by its total potential impact is often different than how we might typically evaluate them.  One idea may truly be better in isolation, but if it cannot scale, then its total value is diminished.  What if we evaluated ideas by conceptually running them all the way through to the end or their useful life?  I bet it would lead to the selection of some very different programs and objectives than we choose today.

An idea might be measured based upon its greater good instead of its individual merit.