How Ideas Spread at Work

Editor’s note: This essay sits within the Cultivated Library as a core articulation of the Idea → Value spine: ideas become valuable only when they are made visible, shareable, and actionable. It reframes creativity not as inspiration, but as a practice of turning thought into artefact – that others can interpret, extend, and build upon. In the Cultivated canon, this piece anchors the principle that value is not created in the mind, but in what travels beyond it.

How Ideas Spread at Work

Most of us, at some point in our working lives, wonder whether our ideas actually matter.

We have a thought.
We notice something that could be better.
We see a small improvement, a different way of doing things, a new approach.

And then the doubt creeps in.

Is this worth sharing?
Will anyone care?
Is it really good enough yet?

Here’s the thing: ideas don’t create value on their own.
What creates value is what happens after the idea.

This film is part of Creative Soul Projects — a story-led video series exploring how ideas become valuable through lived experience and creative practice.

Ideas don’t spread — artefacts do

An idea in your head is fragile, fleeting.
An idea turned into something can travel.

A document.
A prototype.
A short video.
A new way of working.
A simple improvement that helps a team do their job better.

Once an idea becomes an artefact, it can be picked up by others. It can be interpreted, reshaped, improved, and built upon. It can move beyond you.

That’s when ideas start to spread.

A simple example

Recently, I was reminded of this through a small, creative chain reaction.

An idea turned into a podcast.
That podcast inspired a poem.
That poem became a handmade zine.

Same idea.
Different forms.
Growing value.

None of this was planned. None of it was optimised. It happened because the work was made — and then shared.

And this is exactly how ideas move through organisations too.

What this looks like at work

Inside businesses, ideas often die quietly.

Not because they’re bad
— but because they’re never made visible or the right climate doesn't exist to turn them into something valuable.

A useful improvement stays inside one team.
A better way of working never leaves a conversation.
A small innovation is treated as “just part of the job”.

When good work isn’t shared, it can’t travel.

But when we shine a light on useful things
— a new process, a smarter decision, a clearer way of communicating
— we create the conditions for others to build on it.

Ideas spread in many directions.
They jump teams, departments, sometimes entire businesses.
They morph into something new.

And often, we never see how far they go.

You may never see the full impact

One of the quiet truths about creative and organisational work is this:

We rarely get to see the full downstream impact of our ideas.

A seed you plant today might become someone else’s starting point months from now. A small change might quietly influence how decisions are made long after you’ve moved on.

That doesn’t make the work less valuable.
It makes it more valuable.

The only ideas that truly go nowhere are the ones we never create from — and never share.

A note of balance

Of course, not every idea will be brilliant.

That’s part of the deal.

Creativity produces volume before it produces value.
But if we wait for certainty or perfection before sharing, we dramatically reduce the chances of anything useful spreading at all.

Generous sharing isn’t about broadcasting everything.
It’s about making good, helpful work visible.

The simple principle

If you take one thing from this, let it be this:

Make something from the idea.
Share it generously.
Let it travel.

That’s how ideas grow.
That’s how value spreads.
And that’s how work gets better — one visible act at a time.