Increasing Serendipity

In his book, Christian Busch writes that, ‘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.’

He explains that it’s possible to increase this phenomenon in your life by paying attention to random ‘signals’ – even if they don’t seem relevant at that moment – and then later connecting the dots to enable a serendipitous discovery. He believes that most of us miss such opportunities because of common – all too human – shortcomings. These include ignoring ‘odd’ information, following the majority's opinion, misremembering the past (remembering events linearly), and being fixated on previously known patterns. 

Learning from the past?

For Busch, misremembering the past is the chief obstacle to enabling Serendipity. It’s an observation reinforced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book, Black Swan. Taleb says that we all love telling an over-simplified, over-summarized, and easy-to-understand story. He dubbed this human behavior the ‘Narrative Fallacy’ and said it distorts memory, so that we tend to see past events as more predictable, more expected, and less random than they actually were. 

Daniel Kahneman, author of the bestseller, Thinking Fast and Slow, agrees. He believes our brains work with two ‘operating’ systems: 1 and 2.  System 2 calls for deliberate, rational thinking. System 1 offers effortless, automatic, illogical thinking. It makes us see the world as more tidy, simple, predictable, and coherent than it really is. ‘The illusion,’ he writes, ‘that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future.’

Connecting dots

So what happens when we use System 1 to recall past successes? We oversimplify, over-summarize, forget details, and make the event happen in a linear, tidy, coherent manner. And because we do this, we therefore never learn how to notice unexpected insights and connect all those ‘dots’ into opportunities.

Christian Busch believes that if we want to make Serendipity happen, we need to first understand and then leverage our unpredictable, unexpected observations. He writes that, "We need to see links or bridges where other see gaps. And it often take sagacity – being able to filter and see the value – and the tenacity to see it through."

At which point, you may be asking: what does this have to do with Design?

Diversion/Conversion

In the early stages of people-centered Design, we conduct research. We collect all kinds of information – both vague and specific - to build up insights into what we think customers might want, and then we look for the ideas that inspire creative solutions. This is the Diversion phase. 

It’s followed by the Conversion phase, when we cluster, connect, merge, and prioritize all the information we’ve gathered to make a briefing for the ideation stage. And we do this over and over again. For most ideations we usually create over 400 ideas, each of which is subject to Diversion and Conversion phases.

Hard to find

But what I’ve noticed in recent years is that it’s harder to find designers skilled in Conversion than it is in Diversion. While you can train people in the processes, methods, and tools required for Diversion activities, Conversion requires talents outside processes, methods and tools.  It needs individuals who can observe, digest and imagine. It requires individuals who can make the leap needed to connect the dots.

Please don't misunderstand me; Diversion experts are scarce too. But the talent we need for Conversion is difficult to educate or improve simply through experience. It’s something more instinctive. And it’s these scarce talented people that are the KEY to connecting dots – dots most ‘ordinary’ people can’t see at all. 

So when you come across anyone in your organization who can see links or bridges where other see gaps, who can filter what they see and find value others miss, and who possess the tenacity to connect the dots – cherish them. They are highly unique and crucial to your success in generating people-centered concepts.  

NOTE:
‘Serendipity’ definition, www.oxforddictionaries.com.