Innovation, Strategy and Serendipity
Creating Long-Term Success
Let me tell you a story about Bob, Alice, and you1.
The three of you are in a room playing with Lego bricks. You all have the same goal –to innovate the most and build as many new toys as possible.
As you play, each of you chooses the pieces you believe will help you create the highest number and best combinations. Each of you chooses differently.
Alice picks “Lego men and their firefighting hats to immediately make simple toys.”
Bob chooses “pieces such as axles, wheels, and small base plates that he noticed are common in more complex models, even though he is not able to use them straightaway to produce new toys.”
Your approach follows your gut–you arbitrarily select bricks that look interesting.
Who wins? Who will have created the best new toys with their bricks?
“In the beginning, Alice will lead the way, surging ahead with her impatient strategy. But as the game progresses, fate will appear to shift. Bob’s early moves will begin to look serendipitous when he is able to assemble a complex fire truck from his choice of initially useless axles and wheels. It will seem that he was lucky, but we will soon see that he effectively created his own serendipity. As for you, picking components on a hunch, you will have built the fewest toys. Your friends had an information-enabled strategy, while you relied on chance.” -Serendipity and Strategy in Rapid Innovation
In this example:
Bob wins because his choice of common but complex components means “he effectively created his own serendipity.” By giving himself the most flexibility and options, he was prepared for the unanticipated and was able to create things of value from the unexpected.
Alice was only able to make the toys that matched the components she selected. Once these obvious options were exhausted, she couldn’t create anything else.
You lost. Relying on luck or “chance” without any strategy or intention left you with nothing.
In real life, which are you? Which is your organization?
Are you selecting short-term, obvious pieces, or are you looking for complex components that will allow you to create endless options in the future? Or are you completely lacking a plan but still hoping for the best?
Individuals and organizations often behave like Alice and You (in this story). We seek to innovate and create value, but we make short-term, obvious choices that limit possibilities now and in the future. We also sometimes act without any plan at all. We throw things against the wall and hope something sticks.
Innovation, Strategy, and Serendipity
“If innovation is a search process, then your component choices today matter greatly in terms of the options they will open up to you tomorrow. You can pick components that quickly form simple products and give you a return now, or you can choose those components that give you a higher future option value.”
You may be reading this and thinking—BOTH! You want success now and in the future. But how? Incorporate serendipity into your practice. Allow it to help you seek, encounter, connect, and act. Use it to consider your strategy—which Legos should you select? And allow it to inform how you might use them and what you might create with them in the future.
Put yourself in a position to be prepared for the unanticipated and to create the new and novel—and win.
Consider:
How can you create the possibility for serendipity?
How can you incorporate serendipity into your strategy?
How can you use it to unlock innovation?
How can you resist the simple and immediate, and instead, pursue the more valuable and complex?
Learn more at practiceofserenipity.com and join in the conversation in the comments below (paid subscribers only).
From the article “Serendipity and Strategy in Rapid Innovation,” by Fink, Reeves, Palm, and Farr