Is finding strength in unity the best way to weather market storms?

In meteorology, rapidly rising air causes a vacuum, which is quickly filled by rushing wind and, often, rain. Perhaps the most famous and certainly the most disastrous manifestation of this phenomenon is the so-called Perfect Storm of 1991: in which three extraordinary weather conditions collided to create the storm of the century.

In business, vacuums aren’t caused by the rising of air in the atmosphere. Rather, they’re caused by the rising of need in markets or industries. And those vacuums are often filled by startups that emerge in response to the recognition of those needs.

But those vacuums don’t have to be filled by startups.

What if we — established organizations within the insurance industry — recognized those needs before startups do? What if we identified needs and/or prospective needs and collaborated in their fulfillment before start-ups, like storms drawn into low-pressure systems, have the chance to develop and emerge? What if we created strength in preemptive unity instead of weakness in reactive disjunction?

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote, “Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.” It might be immodest, or at least premature, to call ourselves geniuses for recognizing the potential power of collaborative unity. But it’s neither immodest nor premature to recognize the possibilities when we work together.

If two heads are better than one, a team of intellects is better than two. And if that team comes together to engage in a creative response to need and opportunity, then we might be on to something that could make geniuses of us all.

We might not create the proverbial Perfect Storm. But we can definitely create a perfect storm of new, perhaps unexpected, and industry-transforming opportunities together.

Before you doubt it, let’s try it. Since nature abhors a vacuum, someone else will fill it if we don’t.