Wars are won or lost, companies thrive or collapse, and love is embraced or shattered on the turn of the unexpected.

Whatever our ambitions – business success, romance, or finding spiritual meaning – we are prone to unexpected, coincidental moments. The most mundane encounters, such as running into someone at the gym or on a multi-person Zoom call, can change your life forever.

In fact, up to 50% of major innovations – including superglue, post-it notes, and the microwave – emerged as the result of accidents or coincidences; one chemical spills into another, cells combine in dirty Petri dishes, or there is a chance encounter between experts whose incidental conversation sparks new insights.

Covid-19 and its offsprings have been a stark reminder that, throughout history, progress has depended on humans’ ability to make the best out of the unknown. Distilleries that instead of shutting down started producing alcohol-based hand sanitiser at an affordable price. Insurance companies that turned their call centre staff into “heroes against loneliness.” And individuals who reinvented themselves and connected to what (and who) is truly important to them.

In times of crisis, these kinds of efforts tend to be driven by necessity. But our decade-long research at LSE and NYU shows that the greatest improvements and opportunities, both in the good and the bad, are often a matter of serendipity – the unexpected good luck resulting from unplanned moments, in which proactive decisions lead to positive outcomes.

This ‘smart luck’ is different from the ‘blind’ luck that just happens to us, like being born into a loving family. It is a hidden force all around us, from the smallest day-to-day events to life-changing, and sometimes world-changing, breakthroughs.

What our research shows is that serendipity can be ‘cultivated’. We can create or respond to random ‘serendipity triggers’, and we can learn how to ‘connect the dots’. Once we realize that serendipity is not just about a single event that just happens to us but the process of spotting and connecting the dots, we start to see bridges where others see holes.

So how can we develop our muscle for the unexpected and start cultivating serendipity?

1. Set serendipity hooks: Whenever you communicate with someone, cast a few hooks – concrete examples of your current interests – thus maximising the chance you and the other person ‘coincidentally’ latch onto common ground and shared passions, triggering serendipity.
   
   
2. Start asking questions differently: Imagine you are at a virtual conference and meet a new person. Many of us might go on auto-pilot and ask the dreaded “So what do you do”? This tends to put the other person into a box that is hard to get out of.
   
   Positioning ourselves for smart luck means asking more open-ended questions like “What did you find most interesting about…”?; “What brings you here”?; or “What project are you most excited about at the moment”? Such questions open up conversations that might lead to intriguing – and often serendipitous – outcomes.
   
   
3. Create random virtual collisions: Randomly match people across the organisation for a ‘quick virtual coffee’. This can be facilitated with an inspiring prompt – for example, “what challenge are you currently facing in the organization/how can I help”? – and usually not only leads to recreating ‘watercooler moment’ serendipity, but also helps develop a deeper sense of belonging towards the organisation.
   
   
4. Enable serendipity spotting: Alertness is crucial to notice unexpected events and turn them into positive outcomes. Some companies have integrated practices such as asking team members in their team meetings if they came across something surprising last week and, if so, did it change their assumptions?
   
   But if we want our employees to come up with new insights or ideas, we need to ‘de-risk’ the process of voicing them. We can learn from companies such as Pixar where, in meetings, executives highlighted that most ideas are bad at the beginning. Then, ‘imperfect’ ideas, solutions or processes are used as ways of continuous learning.
   
   
5. Accept imperfection: Accepting imperfection as part of life allows us to more easily reframe situations so that where others might see a problem (say, unexpected budget constraints), you see an opportunity, making the best out of whatever resources are at hand and thus allowing more creative outcomes to emerge.
   
   That’s also where rituals such as ‘post mortems’ or ‘project funerals’ come in, where people openly and frequently talk about ideas that did not work out. Importantly, this is not about celebrating failure – it’s about celebrating the learning that comes from unexpected places. Oftentimes, serendipity happens when people ‘coincidentally’ realise that an idea that didn’t work in one context might work in another.
   
   
6. Leverage technology: Take steps to use technology to your advantage in order to expand your opportunities. This may mean writing speculative emails to people you admire, or inviting someone in a different department or function to coffee or a video call. You can ‘plant serendipity seeds,’ with the end goal being to engage in unexpected conversations that subsequently increase the chances you can connect the dots to an exciting opportunity.

In our fast-changing world, many of the emerging problems are so complex that much of our future will be driven by the unexpected. In a time when uncertainty pushes many people to rely on dogma as an anchor, we have the alternative to develop a serendipity mindset that helps us to cope with whatever life throws at us. And, like a muscle, with appropriate training it will become stronger and part of our natural (and more resilient) way of life.

But let’s not kid ourselves: ‘bad luck’ happens to everyone, and our starting points are very different. Events such Covid-19 might not discriminate (much) but our systems do, be it access to healthcare or the ability to stay home.

A serendipity mindset is not designed to make problems go away, but rather to give us the skills to find opportunity out of the unexpected.

Dr Christian Busch's book, 'The Serendipity Mindset: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck', is published by Penguin Books