How To Be Lucky How, then, can leaders, in the words of
the idea of heat-forced ink jets by observ-
scrawny first version into a cham-
Pierre Casse, a professor at the Moscow
ing a coffee percolator.
pion. The first laser diodes made with
School of Management Skolkovo, “create
2. Avoid the herd. There is less
III-V semiconductors were famous for
an environment open to luck”? Here are
chance of being first and less chance of
failure. Now they can be found in mil-
the keys.
being unique if your research and devel-
lions of CD and DVD players as well as
opment, your business model or your
computer drives.
1. Keep an eye outside the usual channels. The physicist Sir Richard H.
new marketing campaign is similar to
Friend, whose work on polymer organic
that of others.
semiconductors is the basis of e-ink and
5. Watch out for the pitfalls of planning. Serendipity can be expected
3. Watch out for theory. “It usu-
and prepared for, but it can’t be guaran-
other serendipitously discovered technol-
ally explains things after they have been
teed. Therefore, planning that looks for
ogies, cites the example of physicists in
discovered,” Friend explained. It is better
a guaranteed return on investment will
the 1970s and 1980s who searched
to get someone’s hands dirty actually do-
never produce serendipity and may even
among known superconductors for the
ing something than to spend a lot of time
choke it off. Like an insurance company
perfect superconducting material. They
exploring why it might be possible, or im-
that knows there will be 800 accidents
failed. The breakthroughs came from
possible. Laboratory scientists like to say
over the Thanksgiving weekend but can’t
solid-state chemistry, with technology
there comes a time to “stop reading and
say whose car will be totaled, funders can
and methods unknown to the experts
do an experiment.” That’s advice that ap-
expect breakthroughs from communities
assigned to the quest. Similarly, the inkjet
plies to many kinds of enterprise. “In my
of researchers, but they can’t be sure
printer was invented in two different labs,
own field, we have regularly been assured
from which ones. A research program,
from two different insights, neither of
that what we are trying to do will not
marketing plan or long-range strategy
which had anything to do with printing.
work because literature in similar fields
that demands predictable returns on
In Japan, Ichiro Endo, an engineer at
proves that it cannot,” Friend wrote. “So
investment will be one that favors small
Canon, took note of how ink squirted
far this advice has been wrong on all
advances on what is known. And the risk
from a syringe after it was touched by a
occasions.”
in that approach is that funds for the
hot soldering iron. Meanwhile, in California, John Vaught of Hewlett-Packard got
4. Do not underestimate the power of engineering to make the
amphetamine, antihistamines, benzodiazepines, quinine, insulin, sulfa drugs, nitroglycerin, warfarin, smallpox vaccine, electromagnetism, dynamite, the phonograph, X-rays and radioactivity — were the result of accident plus a prepared mind. Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite illustrates the point. In 1866, Nobel was experimenting with nitroglycerin, the main ingredient of the explosives he manufactured for mining and construction. Then he dropped a large vial of the liquid, which should have caused an explosion big enough to kill him. (He had already lost several factories and a brother to nitroglycerin catastrophes.) But the nitroglycerin in the shattered vial didn’t blow up, because it was absorbed by the sawdust on the floor of his workroom. That was lucky. But Nobel saw what this good luck meant for his product: Testing the sawdust, he found that he could make it explode. That meant that blending nitroglycerin with an inert substance would yield a product that could be handled safely until the
Briefings on Talent & Leadership
serendipitous breakthrough will never be awarded.
moment its explosive power was needed. Nobel patented dynamite the following year. So even if leaders can’t control their environments, they aren’t really passive in the face of random chance. They can master themselves, and put themselves in the best position to make opportunity out of whatever luck has to offer. Even if Warren Buffett owes a lot to luck, he still differs from Taleb’s lucky monkey. Buffett’s success isn’t about any specific stock pick, but rather about his approach to all picks. He famously had a habit, for example, of seeing all his spending as investment opportunities lost. By building future consequences into his viewpoint — for example, envisioning the gains he could have made on saved money so that he would ask himself if he really wanted to pay $300.00 for a haircut — Buffet made himself more capable of seizing whatever opportunities came his way. He left himself open to serendipity. The best leaders do.
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