The Power of Looking Again
Series: Boundaries That Reveal Hidden Value (1 of 3)
By Sheri Jacobs | Innovation & Leadership Speaker
Two weeks after returning from Botswana, I reopened a folder with more than 30,000 images—elephants crossing the river at sunset, a lilac-breasted roller mid-turn, lions in a tree. On my first pass I moved quickly. Too quickly. I grabbed obvious winners (and they are beautiful), flagged a few “maybes,” and left the rest for “someday.”
“Someday” finally arrived after I had hand surgery and found myself with a little extra downtime. I took a real break, came back with fresh eyes, and—most importantly—set three simple conditions for what would count as a good shot. Suddenly, the keepers I’d missed were hiding in plain sight. The images didn’t change; my conditions of attention did.
This is a lesson leaders and innovators need right now. When inputs are overwhelming, boundaries aren’t constraints—they’re signal amplifiers. They clarify what “good” looks like so value becomes visible.
Why Our First Passes Fail Us
First passes through anything large—image libraries, product backlogs, brainstorm boards—are biased toward speed and novelty. The brain cooperates by favoring easy-to-judge attributes: loud colors, familiar ideas, quick wins. We mistake “visible” for “valuable.”
Meanwhile, nuanced options get crowded out: the quiet photo with patient composition; the customer insight that challenges a running narrative; the small experiment pointing to a big shift. We discard gold as gravel.
A Field Lesson From Botswana
What changed my review?
I stepped away. Not five minutes—two weeks. Distance interrupts the inertia of first impressions.
I named three conditions (more on these in Post 2). Making quality observable turned a vague hunt into a precise search.
I applied the conditions consistently, then allowed intuition in last.
Nothing about the shots changed—only my criteria. The same holds for teams. You might not need more time or budget. You need clearer boundaries and a second look.
What Boundaries Are (and Aren’t)
Boundaries are selection devices. They narrow the field so signal emerges. They’re not bureaucracy or creativity-killers. Think of the frame around a photograph: it doesn’t diminish the art; it draws attention to what matters.
Where Leaders Can Start
Pick one domain this week:
A backlog full of “important” features
A research repository with interviews, surveys, NPS comments
A parking lot of shelved ideas
A content queue that’s grown sideways
Name the overwhelm. Timebox a second look. In Post 2, I’ll share the Re-View Method—five steps and the exact three conditions I used in Botswana—and show how to apply them to product, research, and innovation sprints.
Next up: Post 2 — The Re-View Method: Five Steps, Three Conditions, Clearer Decisions.
Table of Contents
