When McDonald’s announced it was re-releasing its much beloved Szechuan sauce, it also announced it was releasing a three-part investigative podcast called “The Sauce.” “The Sauce” is modeled in the style of “Serial,” a podcast series that first aired in 2014 and quickly went viral—amassing a huge following and revolutionizing the podcast format. Borrowing from “Serial,” the new McDonald’s podcast provides a dramatic examination of the controversy and fallout that surrounded the Szechuan sauce’s initial release the year prior.
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“[T]he show offers a vivid illustration of how companies are increasingly using the tropes of popular podcasts in their own audio projects,” David Yaffe-Bellany wrote in The New York Times. The popularity of “The Sauce,” which included an appearance in the iTunes’ top-100 podcast chart, led Matthew Quint, a brand expert at Columbia Business School, to call it “a very good player” in the world of branded podcasts.
Besides the surprising reach of “The Sauce,” it is noteworthy that McDonald’s, a fast food company, saw such success by emulating a completely different industry. While not every leader should strive to create the next “Serial,” every leader should appreciate McDonald’s willingness to break boundaries in the name of innovation. Leaders should never hesitate to borrow ideas and strategies from other industries — here are three best practices for doing so.
1. Broadly Define the Challenge
Accompanied by two other researchers, Marion Poetz, an associate professor at Copenhagen Business School, asked three separate groups — roofers, carpenters, and in-line skaters — to offer insight about “workers’ reluctance to use safety gear because of discomfort.” Each group was “significantly better at thinking of novel solutions” for fields other than their own, leading the study’s authors to conclude in the Harvard Business Review that “[b]ringing in ideas from analogous fields turns out to be a potential source of radical innovation.”
When leaders are determining which external industries to consult for ideas, Poetz and her colleagues said it is first essential to broadly define the challenge at hand. “[C]arve out the deep-structure elements of your problem,” they wrote. “Clear away the details and ask yourself: What is the essence of the problem?” If a leader is seeking traffic solutions for a city, for instance, they might say they need to “coordinate a smooth flow of elements in a complex system.”
An illustrative example comes from the analogous industries of aviation and NASCAR. When United Airlines determined one of its challenges was increasing the speed and efficiency of its ground operations, it sought out a group of individuals who addressed that issue every day: race car pit crews. United sent its ground leaders to pit crew training in 2007, and again in 2019 — a decision that resulted in significant time savings (and more airplanes in the sky). "This is very analogous work to what we do," Joni Teragawachi, director of training design for United, told ABC. "They're all about safety, efficiency, and speed in the box where the car is. Same thing for us."
2. Utilize Existing Frameworks
Another advantage of borrowing from other industries is it creates an initial layer upon which businesses can build and adjust. As David Kord Murray wrote in Borrowing Brilliance: “Constructing an idea foundation involves: identifying a problem (choosing a site); determining root cause (laying the footings); and understanding the scope (pouring the foundation).”
By utilizing existing frameworks from external companies and industries, leaders can give their teams a head start in the construction of that foundation. “There are few things in life that come as a ‘lightning bolt’ of creativity,” Josh Linker explained in Forbes. “Rather than starting from scratch, awaiting your lightning bolt to strike, try studying trends and other best practices in differing fields. Then take what you’ve learned and try applying these ideas to your own business.”
Linker offered Uber as an example. The startup’s complex backend system is based on the technologies of FedEx and UPS, companies that already had experience determining and assigning the closest driver to send for a package pickup. Uber also borrowed the concept of dynamic pricing from airlines and hotels. “This idea wasn’t a reinvention of the wheel – it simply translated its application into a different industry,” wrote Linker. Though Uber’s financials are strained, there is no doubt the company has revolutionized transportation: It has powered more than 10 billion trips across the globe.
3. Strive for Simplicity
When pursuing innovation, whether on a small or grand scale, it is wise for leaders to avoid the temptation of overcomplication. “In business, simplicity is critical because the competition for solutions is fierce,” wrote Murray in Borrowing Brilliance. “So you have to provide the world with a simple idea, something easy to understand and pass, or else it gets lost in the shuffle. Unnecessary complexity kills it.”
Across history, examples of borrowed ideas that were simple — while also transformative — are plentiful. The most famous comes from Henry Ford and the assembly line. In the early 1900s, when Ford Motor Co. needed to increase production rates for the Model-T, it sought inspiration from an unlikely source: meatpacking plants. It applied the concept of assembling and disassembling parts along a moving conveyor belt to its automotive operations — a straightforward, borrowed production technique that, according to PBS, “allowed Ford to thrive.”
An even less complex example is the World Health Organization (WHO)’s surgical safety checklist, which was created with the goal of reducing errors and improving team communication during surgeries. “The logic of using a checklist was borrowed from aviation — pilots use them to prevent avoidable crashes,” explained Greta McLachlan in the BMJ. “WHO’s list contains 19 checks to be read aloud to the whole team, some at each of three stages of an operation.” The results of this simple shift have been impressive, reported McLachlan, with surgical complications falling from 11% to 7%, and in-hospital deaths from 1.5% to 0.8%.
From McDonald’s to Uber to Ford, many of the most famous companies in the world have borrowed best practices from other industries while building their empires. Indeed, it is, perhaps, this willingness to seek external influence and inspiration that has made them successful. “When looking for ways to innovate, many people and organizations will first turn their attention inward to what they are most familiar with: their business and industry, their direct competitors, and their customers,” José Resendiz wrote at Fast Company. To succeed, however, he said: “we often need to think from the outside in.”
