Standing out in a crowded market isn’t always about having a completely unique product or service to sell. Take RPO, for example. All RPOs work with their clients to forecast staffing needs, drive candidate exposure to jobs and employer brand, source and engage talent, and provide candidate assessments and care. Yet, the best talent acquisition leaders have found ways to differentiate themselves and become experts in what they do.

There are many paths to get to differentiation, but what it all boils down to is this: It’s not how unique your approach is, it’s how unique people think your approach is. And according to Rob Navarette, how people view you—and your approach—depends a lot on how you see yourself.

“All creative, talented people recognize the value of process, and have no concerns about revealing to others that it takes many bad ideas to obtain good ones.” So says Scott Berkun, speaker and best-selling author of multiple books on design including The Year Without Pants about his time with Microsoft, and his latest, How Design Makes the World.

When Berkun first started at Microsoft, he was embarrassed to share (or even document) what he considered his bad ideas. But he kept a notebook filled with them and along the way discovered something that has served him well throughout his career: each bad idea revealed some other way of thinking about the problem. And eventually he learned being transparent about his bad ideas with others created a collaborative environment that encouraged good—or even great—ideas to emerge.