The Serendipity Mindset: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck

ISBN-13: 9780593086025

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Publication Date: 06-09-2020

Pages: 384

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

Christian Busch, PhD, is an internationally known expert in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship. He is the director of the Global Economy Program at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, and also teaches at the London School of Economics. A cofounder of Leaders on Purpose and the Sandbox Network—and former co-director of the LSE’s Innovation Lab—he has worked with senior executives around the world. He divides his time between New York and London.

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Chapter 1

Serendipity

More Than Blind Luck

Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. -Friedrich Hayek, winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics

Serendipity: A Brief History

When King Giaffer, ruler of the ancient country of Serendip (an Old Persian name for Sri Lanka) became concerned that his three sons were too sheltered, privileged, and unprepared for the challenges of ruling the kingdom, he decided to send them on a journey on which they would learn some important life lessons.

In one tale, the princes come across a merchant who has lost a camel. From observations they have made during their journey they describe the camel so well that the merchant believes they must have stolen it.

The merchant takes them to the emperor, who asks how they could possibly have given such a clear description of the camel if they had never seen it. They explain that they knew the camel was lame because they observed tracks showing the prints of three feet and a fourth being dragged, and that they knew it was carrying butter on one side and honey on the other because flies had been attracted to the butter on one side of the road and ants to the honey on the other side of the road, and so on. Suspicions that the princes might have stolen the camel-given their detailed description of it-are rebutted when another traveler enters to say he has found a camel.

The princes did not yet know that a lame, honey-bearing camel was missing when they made their observations. But when they learned that one was missing, they connected this information to what they had observed earlier-they connected the dots.

In 1754, the British writer and politician Horace Walpole wrote to a friend about an unexpected discovery, which he compared to the story of the three princes. In doing so, he coined the word serendipity, describing the princes as people who "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of."

Thus, the word entered the English language, and while it has been reduced by many to mean simply "good luck," it is clear that Walpole had spotted its subtler meaning. There are other definitions of serendipity, but most demarcate the phenomenon as chance interacting with human action, leading to a usually positive outcome-which is the definition I use here. This action-focused perspective allows us to understand how to develop a space that we can control in which serendipity can happen-a serendipity field.

By definition, serendipity is not controllable, let alone predictable. However, there are tangible, achievable ways to develop the conditions in which serendipity can happen, and to ensure that when such potentially transformational coincidences occur, we can recognize them and grab them with both hands. Serendipity is about seeing what others don't, about noticing unexpected observations and turning them into opportunities. It demands a conscious effort to prompt and leverage those moments when apparently unconnected ideas or events come together in front of you to form a new pattern. Put more plainly, it is about connecting the dots.

From Volcanoes to World Champions

On a sunny Saturday in April 2010, an erupting Icelandic volcano with an unpronounceable name (Eyjafjallajškull) entered popular culture after its resulting ash cloud had grounded thousands of flights across most of Europe. That same morning, an unknown number popped up on my phone. On the line was a stranger, who started speaking self-confidently:

"Hi Christian. We don't know each other yet, but a mutual friend gave me your number. I'd like to ask you for a favor."

Sitting at brunch after a long night out, I was still a little bit sleepy, but nonetheless intrigued.

"Ahm, tell me more," I replied.

This is how Nathaniel Whittemore, an entrepreneur and blogger, entered my life. Nathaniel explained that his flight from London to southern California had just been canceled and that he was stuck in London along with many of the attendees of the Skoll World Forum, a major annual conference for social entrepreneurs and thought leaders held at Oxford University. Most of them did not know many people in London, and had their schedules clear. "So why not organize an event to bring them all together and make the best out of the situation?" he asked. By then, Nathaniel had already written an email along those lines to the TED team, whom he had briefly met a few years earlier.

To my amazement, within thirty-six hours, Nathaniel organized the first ever-and probably last-"TEDxVolcano" conference, a spontaneous version of the popular TED conference. With absolutely no budget, over a weekend, and with few direct contacts in London, Nathaniel turned a challenging situation into an event with two hundred top attendees, hundreds more on the waiting list, speakers including eBay's first president Jeff Skoll, and a recorded livestream that was watched by more than ten thousand people.

While this was amazing in its own right, two questions occurred to me: How did he do this? And what can we learn from it?

Nathaniel, like all of us, had encountered something random and unexpected in his life-in this case, an unforeseen and unplanned-for period of time in London. But he had the sagacity-the perceptiveness, the creativity, and the energy-to turn it into something positive. Most of us may not have seen the potential trigger for serendipity in such a situation. Nathaniel realized not only that exceptional people were stuck in London, but also that their experiences could be great stories to tell in the context of TED. And where many may have been deterred by the lack of resources, he used his enthusiasm and negotiation skills to convince a local coworking office to donate space for the event, used the innovation community Sandbox to recruit volunteers, and enlisted top people like Larry Brilliant, the former executive director of Google.org (Google's charitable arm), to give extemporaneous talks. Nathaniel's ability to connect the dots produced a world-class event with no budget within a day and a half, in a city where he previously had a limited network. This precis is only half of the story, to which I shall return later in this book, but the important point to make here is that encounters such as these happen more often than we realize.

For example, Dr. Nico Rose, a German organizational psychologist, was on a business trip in 2018 when he ran into former world heavyweight champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko in the gym of a Boston hotel. Though he was jetlagged and had gone to the gym to battle it, Nico nevertheless immediately recognized Klitschko, one of his idols. He hurried back to his hotel room to fetch his cell phone, planning to ask for a selfie if he could do so without disturbing Klitschko's training routine.

The ideal moment arose when Klitschko's manager entered the gym and spoke to the boxer in German. Nico gathered that the pair did not know where breakfast was served in the hotel. He took the opportunity to explain to them in German where it was. The resulting chat led to a selfie, and off they went to do their separate workouts. When they had finished, Klitschko couldn't find the elevator-so Nico walked with him and they chatted further. At the end of their time together, Klitschko asked Nico to introduce him to the corporate university where he worked for speaking opportunities. In turn, Nico told him about his upcoming book, for which Klitschko ended up agreeing to write the foreword.

Did Nathaniel expect to encounter a volcano that spewed an ash cloud across Europe? Did Nico expect to bump into his idol in a hotel gym? Did they expect they would ever organize a global event in London or find a writer for their book's foreword from one of the world's foremost sportsmen in Boston?

Certainly not. But both of them had laid the foundations for them to happen well in advance.

Does Success Really Come Down to Luck?

A lot of life makes sense only when you look at events in the rearview mirror; we tend to connect the dots in hindsight. When we do so, we often turn random life choices and chance happenings into a convincing and logical story that we tell others.

Which one of us hasn't presented their CV as if their life was, in fact, a coherent, rationally organized plan? In truth, we might not have had a clear plan for our careers at all. The reality was almost certainly different, often driven by coincidences and accidents, by an unexpected idea, encounter, or conversation.

But what if we can learn to start to connect the dots, not only with hindsight but also with foresight? What if we could prepare the ground ready to take advantage of these coincidences, creating a field where they could germinate and thrive? What if we knew how to nourish and cultivate them? And most important, what if we could make sure they flourished into better outcomes?

While few of us can engineer a seismic event or running into Wladimir Klitschko, we can, by being attuned to opportunity, shape an outcome that develops and takes advantage of serendipitous conditions.

What we often fail to realize is that successful people have often not just "been lucky," even when it appears that a chance event has played an important role in their achievements. In fact, successful people have often, either consciously or subconsciously, done the necessary groundwork to create the conditions that have brought them such "luck."

Not only is it the Oprah Winfreys, Arianna Huffingtons, Richard Bransons, and Bill Gateses of the world who are lucky and who can set up equally lucky environments for others-all of us can be part of nurturing serendipity for ourselves and for others.

Serendipity Is Everywhere

It's true. Inventions such as Nylon, Velcro, Viagra, Post-it Notes, X-rays, penicillin, rubber, and microwave ovens all involved serendipity. Presidents, superstars, professors, businesspeople-including many of the world's leading CEOs-credit a big part of their success to serendipity.

But serendipity isn't just a guiding force in great scientific discoveries, business achievements, or diplomatic breakthroughs. It is present in our everyday lives, in the smallest moments and the greatest life-changing events.

Imagine that your neighbor rents an industrial-sized ladder to climb in order to cut down some overhanging branches in her garden. You spot her working away and suddenly remember the loose tile on your own roof. It's not serious so you weren't going to bother fixing it, but hey . . .

You pop outside, start chatting with her, and help her drag away the branches. You invite her in for a beer, and the next thing she's holding the ladder while you fix your loose tile. (Before you've drunk the beer, of course!) What's more, while you are up on your roof, you realize the guttering is loose and about to fall off. It's too big a job for you, but now you know you need to hire some professionals to fix it-which might well have saved someone in your family from an injury had it fallen at the wrong time.

Perhaps you had a similar situation recently yourself?

It's the kind of situation that happens all the time. We might not recognize it as serendipity, but it has all the characteristics: A chance event appears, we pay attention to it, and link it to an unrelated fact that we're also aware of. We connect the two and then follow through with a bit of determination, leading to a solution to a problem that often we didn't even know we had.

Even love may be said to be the child of serendipity. I met almost all my romantic partners in coffee shops or airports, often because of a spilled coffee or a laptop that needed to be watched, sparking a conversation that unveiled common interests. Many of the most famous love stories-including that of Michelle and Barack Obama, who met when a young and impossibly tardy Barack joined Michelle's law firm and was allocated to her as a mentee-were born out of the unexpected. (And as we will see later, tenacity is often crucial in turning potential serendipity into a positive outcome: When Michelle kept Barack at bay by suggesting that, as his adviser, she was not supposed to date him, he suggested he would be ready to quit-there was some back and forth and the rest is history.)

If you're in a relationship, how did you meet your partner? Even if you met them "randomly," it probably was not blind luck. That would imply you had no role in it at all. It may have sprung from a chance encounter but you spotted a powerful connection, an empathy, or a shared outlook, and crucially you worked at it. You nurtured the connections and found ways in which you complemented and inspired each other.

That was not just luck. It was serendipity.

Types of Serendipity

Every case of serendipity is unique, but research has identified three core types. All involve an initial serendipity trigger (something unexpected), but they differ depending on the initial intent and on the outcome. It comes down to two basic questions:

Were you looking for something already?

Did you find what you were looking for, or did you find something entirely unexpected?

What are these three types of serendipity?

1. Archimedes Serendipity

Archimedes serendipity occurs when a known problem or challenge-a broken bathtub, or trying to get a dream job-is solved, but the solution comes from an unexpected place. You have a destination in mind, but the way you get there changes. Take the story of when King Hiero II of Syracuse asks the Greek mathematician Archimedes to find out whether a sneaky goldsmith had substituted silver for some of the gold meant for the king's crown. The crown weighs the right amount, but how can anyone tell whether it was made of pure gold?

Unable to find a way to solve the problem, a flummoxed Archimedes heads for the public baths to relax and idly watches the water level rise and pour over the side as he lowers himself into the tub. And then-Eureka!-he realizes that a crown mixed with silver, which is lighter than gold, would have to be bulkier to weigh the same. Therefore, when submerged in water, it would displace more water than a pure gold crown of the same weight.

This type of serendipity is common in our personal lives as well as in organizations of all sizes. What is natural for entrepreneurs-they often change course based on random encounters or unexpected user feedback-also occurs in the biggest of companies. David Taylor, CEO of the multinational consumer goods company Procter & Gamble, told me in an interview that he likes it when an approach changes, because it opens up possibilities that his team did not envision before. In his words: "It still solves the problem we wanted to solve, but it does it in a different way than we thought of. You can't plan all that, but you need to have an idea of what you want to try to solve. There is a magic in this, and it often happens when you have access to different sets of experiences, of people who fall in love with the problem and are open to the unexpected."

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Serendipity: More Than Blind Luck 13

Chapter 2 Becoming Attuned: Breaking Down the Barriers to Serendipity 33

Chapter 3 The Open Mind: Reframing Thoughts and Learning to Be Alert 61

Chapter A The Stimulated Mind: Acting On It 107

Chapter 5 Enabling and Spotting Serendipity Triggers-and Connecting the Dots 145

Chapter 6 Turning Serendipitous Encounters into Opportunity 185

Chapter 7 Amplifying Serendipity 227

Chapter 8 Fostering the Conditions for Serendipity 249

Chapter 9 Evaluating Serendipity 289

Chapter 10 The Art and Science of Cultivating Serendipity 307

Acknowledgments 313

Glossary 317

Notes 319

Bibliography 343

Index 367