3 steps to unlock your not-so-hidden superpower

I recently visited Phuket. In Phuket they have pineapples - lots and lots of pineapples. Here’s the thing about pineapples - they’re kinda spiky, bulky and heavy, and they’re perishable. There’s only so many pineapples you can ship as food. Believe it or not, having too many pineapples has actually become a problem in Phuket. So what do you do when having too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing?

Having too many pineapples is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. PKRU is a local University that’s been working with the Thai government on an innovation initiative. Their mission has been to reimagine how pineapples are used in industry. What they discovered is that they can use the antioxidants from pineapples to create a whole series of acne treatments - creams, serums, spot treatments and the like. Essentially what they’ve done is they’ve river-jumped pineapples from the food industry to the booming cosmetics and beauty industry that has blown up thanks to the growing middle class in Southeast Asia.

A solution in search of a problem

Of course Thailand is simply following a well worn playbook. Lots of companies have also successfully reinvented themselves using this technique.

Astalift was Fujifilm’s innovation when they discovered how to repurpose their chemicals process from the dying film making industry to cosmetics

Fujifilm

Fujifilm reinvented themselves back in 2006 when they entered the cosmetics space. In a world where film and copiers had been replaced with digital photography, their core business had been decimated. The breakthrough came when they realised that the same chemicals they were manufacturing to preserve realistic colours and protect photographs from the sun’s rays could similarly protect skin from the ageing process. The result was Astalift, a cosmetics brand that is sold across China, Japan, Southeast Asia and some parts of Europe.

3M Post-It Note

The “solution in search of a problem” scenario is also what led to another household name: the post-it note. Spencer Silver famously invented a new type of glue in 1968 that could be stuck multiple times. No one knew what to do with it, and it actually took 12 years before a colleague at 3M tried to use it for a restickable bookmark in his hymnbook at church. Maybe it was divine intervention, but the sticky squares of paper soon found their way from the Sunday service to stationary cupboards around the world, selling 50 billion units a year.

Whether it’s pineapples, photochemicals or paper goods, there are lessons we can all take away from these stories to help reinvent ourselves.

Guitar or Bass?

When I first started playing in rock bands, I looked around and noticed there were about 100 people holding guitars, and about 5 holding basses. So of course, I picked up the bass guitar and to this day I’ve never lost an audition.

This is a classic tactic used by innovators to create a disproportionate advantage. They look at areas where they have surplus skills and capabilities and reapply those in unexpected places. The result is often one of the easiest ways to create game changing innovation.

Minari illustrated the difference between hard work and strategic leverage

Korean water celery

One of my recent innovation heroes is actually a fictional grandma from a foreign film.

Minari is a 2020 film from Korean American director Lee Isaac Chung that won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. The movie follows the Yi family who move from Korea to rural Arkansas. The film primarily follows Jacob, the father of the family, who is hellbent on establishing his own farm; his thinking is if he can grow Korean vegetables in middle America, he’ll have a monopoly on selling produce to the growing number of Korean migrants.

While his family struggles to adjust to the isolated lifestyle on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Jacob proceeds to plough all of his time and the family’s savings into the farm. Despite his best efforts, he just can’t seem to catch a break. He has to spend money on hiring help, and ends up paying for the expensive water supply from his own pocket. Finally, his buyer backs out at the last minute, leaving him with an expensive crop of Korean vegetables that no one wants.

During all of these events, Jacob’s elderly mother-in-law, Soon-ja, quietly plants a crop of her own: a small plantation of minari seeds, a type of Korean water celery. She doesn’t rush into the decision, opting to plant minari only after discovering a small creek bed nearby that she thinks would be well suited to the plant. With minimal maintenance or effort, the minari crop flourishes. At the climax of the film, as catastrophe strikes the family and all seems lost, the minari crop proves to be the only thing they have left to show for their year of hard work on the farm.

The lesson is clear: no amount of hard work could make Jacob successful in turning a patch of Arkansas dirt into a fertile Korean vegetable farm. But by simply choosing to plant her seeds of effort in a different playing field, Soon-Ja was able to unlock a superpower that had been hiding in plain sight.

Three steps to reinvent yourself

So let’s talk about you for a minute. You came to watch this video because you want to know how to unlock your inner gamechanger. Here is a three step process that just might help you discover your superpower that’s been hiding in plain sight all along:

First, do a stocktake of your skills

Much like the Phuket Pineapple dilemma, the first step is often just recognising what you have in your arsenal that’s currently undervalued.

Are there hobbies that you pursue in your personal life that don’t seem to be relevant to your work life? Do you enjoy creative pursuits on the weekends like writing or photography? How could you bring those to work to improve your presentation or storytelling skills?

Are you the one in your friends group who is always super-organised and the one making plans to bring people together? Could these be hidden talents and tendencies that could help make you a superstar program manager at work?

The goal in this step is pretty simple: it’s just a process of jotting down all the things people most often tell you you’re good at, without any kind of judgement or looking for a solution at this stage. For now, just make a list.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams advocates for combining two or more complementary skills rather than seeking excellence in just one

Second, dive into some river jumping

This step is about looking externally - what are the situations where your unique skills could be applied in ways that you haven’t thought of before?

Think of it as turning a weakness into a strength or a bug into a feature.

Is there another role, project or team in your company where your skills could be a gamechanger? Or would your skills be more applicable in an industry or company where there is less competition than your current role?

The real sweet spot here is if you can identify an unexpected situation where more than one of your unique skills can be applied. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert said it best in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big:

“Successwise, you’re better off being good at two complementary skills than being excellent at one”

Finally, purge and diverge

While the last two steps are very logical and will make you feel good by writing things down on paper, this final step is where the real magic happens.

Have you ever noticed how your best ideas come in the shower or while you’re driving? That’s because your brain’s motor neurones are engaged, lowering the barrier to free thought that apply when you’re actively thinking about something. I do my best thinking going for long walks with my headphones in.

Now is the time to think divergently. It’s critical to get up from your desk and go and do something else.

As Don Draper once said:

“Think about it deeply, then forget it, and an idea will jump up in your face.”

By the time you get back to your desk, chances are you will have had your Eureka moment where all the dots join together and your disproportionate advantage suddenly jumps off the page when you look back at what you wrote down in the first two steps.

Be the pineapple

Over the last 20 years leading teams and mentoring executives, one of the most common things I’ve seen that holds people back is undervaluing and even dismissing the very thing that eventually leads to them being a superstar. Bringing your whole self to work is one of the simplest ways of differentiating yourself in a crowded market - but of course we know the easiest advice to give but the hardest to follow is “just be yourself”

Maybe the words of David Zeng, a former product lead at Meta work best here:

“In order to create unusual results, you either need to do unusual things, or do usual things in an unusual way”

And if that sounds like too much, just remind yourself: be the pineapple.