Christy Pettit: Pollinate Networks INC. Makes It Easy To Match People for Agile and Effective Mentorship Programs, Teams and Ecosystems

Pollinate Networks Inc. makes it easy to match people for agile and effective mentorship programs, teams and ecosystems. Our CrossPollinate AI™ matching technology eliminates the guesswork and complexity of putting the right people and organizations together – at scale – for fast traction and results.

Tell us about yourself?

For 30 years, I have focused on developing new approaches and best practices for agile, effective organizations worldwide.

My career is shaped by my quest to understand and accelerate how people grow and work together professionally. And I’ve found that mentoring is the highest yield medium that we can use to develop ourselves and our organizations.

My accomplishments include the development of the algorithm-based Cross-Pollinate AI™ matching technology, and the validated Knowledge Transfer Index (KTI) collaboration style assessment.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Take lots of vitamin C and D! (but seriously) Continue to work hard to get to the root of what makes the organization different, what the core offering should look like and get a faster, better process in place to get to a product/market fit.

What problem does your business solve?

Pollinate’s Cross-Pollinate AI™ technology makes it easy to match people for agile and effective mentorship programs, teams and ecosystems. It eliminates the guesswork and complexity of putting the right people together – at scale – for fast traction and results.

The matching methodology uses insights from Pollinate’s validated Knowledge Transfer Index collaboration style assessment and other customizable intake data for remote and hybrid initiatives. It helps individuals, teams and organizations connect, collaborate and cross-pollinate ideas, knowledge and projects.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

Studies show that one to one or small group learning transfer is up to 1000 times more efficient than course work on its own and is 3 times as likely to be applied.

When we’re in that one to one or small group relationship, we can adapt to each other’s tendencies and preferences much faster than we can in other modalities.

The process naturally enables us to accommodate, understand, acknowledge, and adapt to the style of our learning partner.

This enables us to be extremely effective and efficient when we’re transferring knowledge but also applying that knowledge. The key to good mentoring is that we have applicable knowledge that we can put into action. Once knowledge is put into action, it becomes our living wisdom.

What is your magic sauce?

Cross-Pollinate AI™. An algorithm-based matching process developed over 12+ years that puts people together based on a validated psychometric assessment.

It creates relationships that trigger a cascade of positive benefits, including increased engagement, productivity, knowledge mobilization, employee retention and career mobility.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We want to help solve the world’s largest problems by supporting change makers to find and share expertise when they need it and how they need it.

We want to see mentoring become a more deliberate way that work gets done. In 5 years, Pollinate will host many network collaborations that support a diverse group of organizations, people, and purposes.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

There are always lots of challenges in business – sales troughs, financing, data security. The biggest challenges we’ve faced so far have been the tragedies that have befallen our team members. We love and need our team and when bad things happen, we have to heal together.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

Mentoring is the most effective way to create change in the workplace. Visit pollinate.net to learn how to harness mentoring for your organization or workplace.