Knowledge

Serendipity Innovation - planning the coincidence

December 9, 2022

Serendipity (coincidence) or planning? One of the most admired exhibits in the Palm Springs Air Museum (https://palmspringsairmuseum.org) is the F117 A stealth bomber. The development of this landmark military aircraft followed a way of doing innovation created at Lockheed Martin in the 1940s: the so-called "Skunk Works." For Skunk Works, for the first time in the 1940s, employees were removed from the normal corporate bureaucracy and encouraged to ignore standard procedures in favor of innovation. The goal at the time was to develop a high-speed fighter that could rival those produced in Germany by Messerschmitt.

The Skunk Works of yesteryear are still interdisciplinary units at Lockheed today, developing novel combat systems in the utmost secrecy, often far ahead of their time. The teams involved comprise only a few people and work outside the usual development channels. Skunk Works thus offers a vehicle for finding solutions to problems in unexpected ways. One thus unconsciously systematizes the so-called "serendipity innovation" and expects the unexpected from the innovation teams.

Unexpected events often have a negative connotation in other companies. In our perception, we give greater weight to potential losses from unforeseen events than to their potential gains. Consequently, much is done to avoid surprises through careful planning and risk assessment. However, entrepreneurship teaches us: not every outcome can be controlled. And that is a good thing.

Peter Drucker stated in 1985 that unexpected events are the simplest source of innovation. When innovations arise at a moment when one was actually pursuing a different goal, one speaks of serendipity innovation. According to Drucker, innovations are hardly the result of a deliberate search, but rather the result of a perception of possibilities. Successful innovations thus defy prevailing consensus.

Examples abound. At one point, the glass manufacturer Corning rather accidentally saw the opportunity to translate known technologies into the domain of optical fibers for data transmission. Post-It notes were developed "accidentally" at 3M after a super glue did not have the desired adhesive strength. And even in nature, there are always discoveries that do not follow classical patterns. Feathers in the animal world, for example, originally served as thermal insulation in the Archaeopteryx dinosaur before becoming valuable in a different context, namely for flying.

There is increasing evidence that a combination of planned innovation strategies with unexpected chance discoveries is more likely to achieve the goal than purely systematic innovation approaches.

Random findings can be assigned to different types

  • A targeted search solves an unexpected problem. One seeks an innovation for one problem area, but inadvertently solves another challenge. One such example is the discovery of Viagra, where Pfizer was originally looking for an angina drug.
  • A targeted search solves the original problem - but in an unexpected way. Goodyear had long been searching for a way to make rubber thermostable. By chance, a mixture of sulfur and rubber touched a hot stove top, resulting in the discovery of vulcanization.
  • An untargeted search solves an immediate problem. The sweetener saccharin was discovered by chance within a research process in which generally the properties of sugar should be investigated.

 

How can chance be planned?

Serendipity Innovation is not just luck. Serendipity requires a certain amount of preparation and effort while being open to unexpected insights. Serendipity requires the ability to make leaps of thought and not to judge occurrences according to familiar patterns. Furthermore, one must be willing to view uncertainty as something positive, because uncertainty can also protect against competition. Finally, unplanned discovery needs preceding and subsequent knowledge to transform coincidences into a positive outcome. For example, in the case of the accidental discovery of penicillin, it was necessary to subsequently investigate why the bacteria in the Petri dish had been destroyed by mold. Only an innovator who is attentive to the chances of the unknown and who can take something positive from an "accident" will recognize the significance of chance and get to the bottom of it.

In this respect, management is called upon to encourage "accidents." And in the sense of unintended results and accidental discovery processes.

This can be done on a personal level or on a social level:

  • Personally, it is important that innovators weigh the benefits of a chance discovery higher than its risks. This is done through expertise, knowledge and the ability to adopt different thinking perspectives. The promotion of cooperation and targeted training (in the area of mental flexibility and "mindfulness" as well as new playful innovation tools that leave familiar "theoretical paths") are means of choice.
  • On the social level, it plays a major role that companies bring along a culture that creates openness to chance findings and the ability to deal with them. Trust culture, fault tolerance and interdisciplinary networking are the buzzwords here. More than ever, innovation output is a matter of engagement within a collaborative network. In addition, there needs to be a discussion about how the "value" of an innvation project is measured. Is it purely about the result? Or is it more about getting the problem right - "love the problem, not the solution"?

 

We humans are capable of anticipating possibilities and adapting to unexpected innovations or applications. We just need to create the awareness and space for it. Skunk Works are a path to serendipity innovation. They follow the recognition that rules are rarely set in stone. Or as Denrell, Fang and Winter (2003) stated: "It's not just luck, but effort and luck joined by alertness and flexibility".

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