SERENDIPITY

Why it pays to take notice

“When I give you the thumbs up, press play!”

Those nine words were serendipity at work and were directly responsible for my next 25 years in The Innovation Zone. (I know, I know, the components of identity... next week, for sure.)

I had been asked to run a couple of two-day creativity workshops for a UK pharmaceutical company. The brief from the chief executive was simple: help my people develop their creativity, get them to work on a real business problem, and make sure they have a great time. Otherwise, he left everything else up to me.

The program for the two days was equally simple. On day one, we looked at a bundle of creativity tools and techniques. (I was very much into tools and techniques in the early days, before I discovered that creativity is about so much more.) In reality, day one was about demonstrating that my participants already knew how to be creative. They just needed a little nudge to indulge. On the morning of day two, I split the larger group into three smaller teams of six and assigned them their mission (with no option to refuse).

The CEO had explained that the business was growing rapidly, and they were quickly running out of office space. The challenge was to work out how to optimise existing office space in the short term while a team looked for new premises. So, each of the three smaller teams had to develop a solution, work out how to implement it, consider some of the risks, and develop ballpark costs. And then on the afternoon of day two, the CEO and two other directors would arrive to play the dragons in our Dragons’ Den.

All went to plan on day one of the first workshop. At the beginning of day two, I quickly reminded everybody what we had covered on day one and the challenge they would address that morning. I rarely give directives, but on this occasion, I had one: present a great pitch, but make it a real performance as well – apply your creativity to your delivery as well as to your content.

They all set to with great enthusiasm and took my directive to heart. I flitted between the three smaller teams to make sure they were happy and making good progress.

At one point, a member of one of the teams, Tanya, asked if I had “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner. This was the late 90s, and I always brought my ghetto blaster and a selection of music to all my workshops. Of course, I had her 1989 studio album, Foreign Affair, in my collection. That’s when Tanya said those nine words:

“When I give you the thumbs up, press play!”

I knew better than to ask what she had planned and went with the flow.

As lunchtime approached, I made sure that everybody was ready for the afternoon. The CEO, the marketing director, and the medical director joined us for lunch. As you can imagine, there was a real buzz of anticipation in the air.

We reconvened, and the Dragons took their positions. We drew straws to work out which team was going first. Tanya’s team got the first slot.

The team came up to the front of the room, organised themselves, welcomed everybody, and stated their objective. The first person explained the background to the problem. So far, so normal. Then, Tanya took the lead. She gave me a thumbs up, waited until “Simply the Best” was ringing out around the room, jumped on top of a table, and started dancing. To this day, I have absolutely no idea what she said while she was dancing, nor what part this played in her team’s pitch. Like everybody else in the room, I was completely caught up in the moment, my attention laser-focused on the crazy (in a very good way) woman gyrating on top of a table.

Then my rational brain kicked in and I thought, “My goodness, what is Gavin (the CEO) thinking about this?”

I surreptitiously shifted my gaze to the back of the room where the Dragons were sitting. All three were sporting Cheshire cat grins and were clearly enjoying the performance. The team delivered the remaining elements of their pitch and finished with two words:

“Follow that!”

The other pitches are something of a blur in my memory. I was still reeling from Tanya’s performance. However, I know that each team did indeed present a great pitch and deliver a real performance. I don’t even remember which team the Dragons declared the ‘winner.’ I just know the atmosphere was electric, the workshop was a resounding success, and an embryonic thought had crept into my consciousness:

“I reckon this is what I should be doing for the rest of my career.”

At that point in my life, I was working in a small management consultancy. I had, somewhat reluctantly, become the MD when my business partner unexpectedly departed. I have always felt that I make a good number two, but I’m less comfortable being in the lead. Various things came to a head that made me recognise I needed a change. I had no idea where I might go next, but I knew I had to go. Then, completely out of the blue, Tanya intervened. I have always been mildly alternative and poor at following rules and doing what I’m told. A career in creativity (and innovation) suddenly felt very appealing. The rest, as they say, is history. I set up The Innovation Zone in 2000 and never looked back.

That’s serendipity for you.

No plan. No aspiration. No ambition. No idea about the practicalities. No track record to speak of. No understanding of the risks or realities. But... a wonderful opportunity, great excitement, a deep feeling that this was the right thing to do, huge anticipation, and a strong desire to understand everything I needed to know to craft a career in creativity.

26 years and still going strong! I may have retired from paid work, but I shall continue ‘working’ on creativity till I drop. Who could have known that those 9 words would have such an impact?

“When I give you the thumbs up, press play!”

First things first

My old friend, the Oxford English Dictionary, suggests that serendipity is “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”

The APA Dictionary of Psychology gives a more colourful definition:

“The knack of making fortunate discoveries by accident. Serendipity is often considered a characteristic of the creative scientist. The word was coined in 1754 by British writer Horace Walpole (1717–1797) from the title of his story “The Three Princes of Serendip.” Serendip was an old Arabic name for Sri Lanka, whose princes were said to have had this ability.”

Dig a little deeper, and it turns out that Serendip is Persian rather than Arabic, and it wasn’t Walpole’s story at all. “The Three Princes of Serendip” is actually the English version of the story, “Peregrinaggio di Tre Giovani Figliuoli del re di Serendippo,” published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. He apparently heard the story from Cristoforo Armeno (Christophe the Armenian), who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian from a much earlier poem.

The tale tells of three princes whom King Giaffer wanted to ensure had all the princely virtues necessary to rule his kingdom. Although the tutors he chose did a sterling job, the king wasn’t convinced they were yet ready to rule. So, he sent them off to other lands to continue their education. They soon found themselves involved in the curious disappearance of a camel, and demonstrated their ability to identify and interpret subtle clues. When called to account for the camel’s disappearance, their detailed explanation resulted in their arrest for theft, for how else could they know so much if they hadn’t stolen the animal themselves? Fortuitously, the camel makes a last-minute appearance, the princes are acquitted and then appointed as advisors to the Emperor, and... they all lived happily ever after (and had many other adventures).

The deeper dive is important because it offers an insight into the contemporary meaning of serendipity: the combination of awareness, interpretation, chance, and opportunity.

• First, the princes needed to notice the clues. For example, they noticed that the grass along the roadside where the camel had last been seen was eaten on one side and not on the other.

• Second, they needed to understand what the clues might be telling them. They determined that the camel must have been blind in one eye and didn’t therefore see the grass on the other side of the road.

• Third, they were saved from incarceration (or worse) by the unexpected appearance of the lost camel.

• Fourth, they were taken on as advisors to the Emperor of this foreign land because of their wisdom.

Scholars and serendipity

Scholars and researchers aren’t entirely comfortable with the notion of serendipity. In science, Robert K Merton and Elinor Barber suggest that “scientific research etiquette requires the researcher to present their scholarly papers devoid of all the complex events that contributed to the finished work.” Ian G Kennedy and his colleagues go on to say that when scientific research is presented, “dead-ends are redacted and the order of presentation is linearised, simplified and sanitised to comply with the standard, logical order expected. The role of the researcher is de-emphasised, perhaps even by invoking the passive tense to concentrate the reader’s attention on the message.” The notion that something as random and unscientific as serendipity might intervene in scholarly research is akin to an unpleasant smell.

For many creativity scholars, creativity must be an intentional act. Something that occurs by chance is almost excluded by definition. Indeed, I came across two terms that made me smile. In their 1968 book, The Prediction of Achievement and Creativity, Raymond B. Cattell and Harold John Butcher described pseudo-creativity. This concerns surprising behaviour which springs from ignorance or lack of discipline. In addition, Gottfried Heinelt coined the term quasi-creativity, outputs that have many of the elements of genuine creativity, such as novelty and imagination, but a limited relation to reality. Both are excluded from legitimate creative output. Bah, humbug!

Yet, Emily Hargrave-Thomas and her colleagues found that over 35% of anticancer drugs were discovered through serendipity. Once again, I rest my case.

Serendipity and the creative personality

We’ve talked recently about the creative personality. Many will be familiar with the Big 5 Model of Personality, generally attributed to Paul Costa Jr. and Robert R. McCrae. One of the Big 5 traits often associated with creativity and creative expression is openness to experience. On the surface, the correlation between serendipity and openness to experience might seem obvious. High scorers are described as being creative, adventurous, and imaginative, while low scorers are considered conventional, practical, and more comfortable with routine. (Of course, both ends of this spectrum have a part to play in creative expression, as we saw in the post on creative personality.) However, research results have been inconsistent, some showing a strong correlation, others not so much. What we can probably say with some certainty is that openness to experience probably encourages what researchers have called a prepared mind, one that notices surprising and unconventional opportunities, and is happy to explore them.

Lucky people

Richard Wiseman (not a relative) researched the notion of luck. He found that luck is not a superpower or an inherited trait. Instead, it has more to do with mindset and behaviour. Lucky people create their own good fortune through four key principles:

• spotting opportunities that are literally littered around the place but are missed by the majority,

• following their intuition, when that little voice in our heads says, “Hmmm, interesting,”

• having positive expectations about the outcomes associated with the spotted opportunities, and

• being resilient, and finding something of value in failure and unexpected difficulties.

Interesting that these are all traits associated with creative expression.

Conclusion

Serendipity is clearly a power to be reckoned with. There is absolutely no doubt that it plays a part in creative expression. There is no shame in admitting that an outcome was, in some way, a result of happenstance. Indeed, admission confirms that we can spot opportunities and that we dare to do something about them.

And the link to creative identity? Well, anecdotal evidence suggests that a person with a solid creative identity is more likely to be good at spotting opportunities, following their intuition, having positive expectations, and being resilient enough to deal with the consequences of seizing the day. And that’s good enough for me!

Key takeaways

• Serendipity is a chance discovery that delivers a positive outcome.

• Opportunities are not in short supply – noticing them, and doing something about them, are.

• Serendipity is more common than we might think – its role is often understated or redacted.

• The traits associated with serendipity are also related to creative expression.

• Lucky people aren’t lucky – they’re just good at spotting and acting on opportunities.

Call to action

Make a list of all the serendipitous things that have happened in your life. I suspect it will be longer than you realise.

Next time

I know, I know... The components of (creative) identity (unless something equally interesting presents itself!)

Before we finish...

I’d just like to remind you of Tanya’s words:

“When I give you the thumbs up, press play!”

‘Play,’ of course, concerned the button on my ghetto blaster that got the music going. However, it also characterised a considerable amount of the work that I did in the following 20-odd years. My motto was, “Make everything I do a real experience!” And I took it to heart. So many wonderful people, so much laughter, so many brilliant outcomes, so much creativity, and so much serendipity.

Thanks, Tanya. You literally changed my life.

That’s it for this time round, but remember,

• A solid creative identity is all you need to be creative for the rest of your life.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you will recommend and share – they’ll love you for it!

Till next time, be bold!

Alisdair.

Notes

• Serendipity in anticancer drug discovery: https://doi.org/10.5306/wjco.v3.i1.1

• Serendipity and the sociology of science: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400841523.88

• Serendipity and researchers’ creativity: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2021.100014

• Creative personality: https://creativity4life.substack.com/p/creative-personality?r=7drlz3

• The Luck Factor: ISBN 9780099443247; http://richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf