Wild Geese: a metaphor for the innovator in you

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Poem by Mary Oliver - entitled Wild Geese

Why we love this poem:

If you’ve ever felt that the world is disrupting your cocoon, then this poem alludes to the fact that we are all one. That nature can sooth and to inspire you to try new things and even innovate. Innovation is about teamwork and geese have a natural, inborn approach to get ahead, flying in formation while allowing tired wings to rest as they navigate the skies.

Metaphor is often used in Design Thinking activities to bring across shared meaning. Furthermore biomimicry as a method for inspiration can drive new ideas and new concepts that although disruptive to the competition may help make your customers feel at home. Like a duck (or a goose) to water. So below please find some analogies we can draw between Wild Geese and innovation:

• Wild geese symbolise navigation and agility as they are skilled navigators but are able to survive in a wide variety of scenarios. Innovators need to be skilled navigators, learning to adapt and find their way (in the dark) when trying to identify new opportunities and solutions.
• Wild Geese as do many wild animals also symbolise comradeship (as rarely do they leave an injured comrade behind). In innovation one needs alliances to develop and implement new concepts that are accepted and supported by the market. Seek comradeship also for the low roads where support through failure is needed.
• They also symbolise bravery as they protect their offspring even to the death. And while it is a cutthroat world out there this virtue is necessary more in terms of the risks one needs to take to succeed during innovation driven activities.

The freedom embodied in the call of Wild Geese as they traverse the sky, represents what we seek when we create and innovate. To be at the forefront of new and exciting things. To see far and wide and choose our own direction and make our own way, leaving an imprint preferably positive and sustainable in the world.

In conclusion, be inspired for this week, this month or the rest of your life in the knowledge that you are at home on this planet, with these people and the wildlife and fauna and flora that we share the planet with. That you are one with this planet and it is one with you.

Be inspired to be wild, to call out those that are wrong, to make a difference no matter who big or how small, to try something new as you navigate your way through the world.

Robert Bloom in the founder and managing partner of DesignThinkers Group and Academy- South Africa. Robert is an experienced facilitator, keynote speaker, innovation coach. He is passionate about co-creation and humanizing the world in the face of unprecedented change in a sustainable way. Contact Robert at [email protected] for engaging conversations on innovation.