After first introducing folks to hybrid thinking via my Fast Company blog last August, the commentary started flowing in. One blogger in particular caught my attention. She noted that the notion of hybrid thinking isn't necessarily new, and thus wondered about the importance of bringing it to the forefront now. Here's my long overdue response...

Writing on behalf of The Push Institute, blogger Katherine Emmons noted that while the term hybrid thinking is new, the basic concept of hybrid thinking is not. She then aptly pointed to Leonardo DaVinci as perhaps one of the earliest and best known practitioners of hybrid thinking.

I have to say that I couldn't agree more with those two points: hybrid thinking isn't new, and DaVinci is a perfect case study in the power of using hybrid thinking to tackle ambiguity and break new ground. However, to dismiss hybrid thinking on account of it's age is a mistake. Hybrid thinking may in fact be old, but it's needed more than ever.

You see, we've created a society - particularly in the business world - that systematically pushes hybrid thinkers to the fringes. We far too often celebrate expertise and specialization in service of improving the bottom-line. And meanwhile, we ignore, at our own peril, the very unique set of skills required to tackle highly ambiguous challenges – the types of challenges that must be faced down in ever greater numbers before people and companies can truly do great new things.

So yes, humans have had the ability to act as hybrid thinkers for millennia. But, what we need to do now is promote the value of hybrid thinkers and more effectively use their skills. And that is something fundamentally new for us to consider.

By the way, The Push Institute seems like a very cool place, and I encourage you to check them out at http://pushthefuture.org/.