Look Outside Your Industry To Spark Breakthroughs

Forbes

3 days ago

Ryan Gray is Co-Founder and CEO of SGW Designworks, a product engineering and design firm featured in The Lean Startup.
If your product development team is feeling stuck—turning out small iterations instead of big breakthroughs—it might not be a talent issue. In fact, your people may be doing exactly what they were trained to do: follow industry best practices, stick to what's proven and solve problems within familiar frameworks. But sometimes, that's the problem. When teams go deep in one industry, it's easy to miss solutions that are emerging, or even mature, in other industries. That's where cross-pollination comes in—borrowing ideas, tools and strategies from other fields and applying them in fresh ways.
Why Tunnel Vision Happens To The Best Of Us
No matter how sharp your team is, working inside the same set of assumptions day after day can limit creativity. Industry constraints—what's 'normal' or 'expected'—start to feel like hard rules. People stop questioning them. Sometimes, they don't even notice them. Add in internal politics or risk aversion, and bold ideas can get sidelined before they're even voiced. An in-house engineer might have a hunch about a radically different approach, but hesitate to share it if it means challenging legacy processes or ruffling feathers.
That's why bringing in outside perspectives can be so valuable. A fresh set of eyes—especially one not rooted in your specific industry—can challenge norms, ask different questions and spot patterns that others miss.
The Power Of Lateral Thinking
A few years ago, a major U.S. medical device manufacturer came to us with a problem. One of their high-value products took way too long to build. They'd spent years trying to automate the process, sticking with tools and techniques common in their industry, but nothing really worked. So, we looked elsewhere.
Instead of treating it like a medical device challenge, we treated it like an industrial automation problem. That shift opened up new possibilities. By borrowing methods from other manufacturing sectors, we created a proof-of-concept system that cut production time by over 80%. The company went on to replicate that solution in its two manufacturing facilities that produce the product in question. It wasn't magic. It was just a willingness to look outside the constraints of their own industry.
Building A Team That Thinks Broadly
One way to make this kind of thinking the norm is by hiring people who've seen a range of problems, not just the ones you deal with every day. We call these people Swiss Army Knives. A manufacturing engineer with experience in aerospace may handle thermal issues differently than someone from consumer electronics. A designer who's built agricultural gear might suggest more rugged designs and materials for a fitness product. That kind of experience diversity doesn't dilute your core expertise—it enhances it.
Creating Space For Cross-Pollination
Innovation doesn't happen just because you hang posters about thinking differently. It happens when you make room for it. Some ideas:
• Ask your team to study how completely different industries approach similar problems.
• Bring in outside research and development teams or product development teams—even for short sprints.
• Encourage questions like 'Why do we do it this way?'
• Make it safe to propose unconventional ideas—even if they don't always pan out.
This isn't about throwing out structure or process. It's about giving your team the freedom to explore paths that aren't on the usual map.
The best ideas don't always come from inside your industry. Sometimes they're hiding in plain sight—in a different market, a different product category or a different manufacturing process. The companies that thrive in changing markets aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest R&D budgets. They're the ones willing to look sideways, ask new questions and apply old tools in new ways. So, if your team feels like it's running in circles, maybe it's time to step out of the circle. The answers you're looking for might already exist—just not where your product development team is used to looking for them.
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