The Serendipity Of Ideas Myth

One of the buzzwords of late around Return-To-Office Mandates has been the "Serendipity of Ideas".

There is a belief that Innovation is lacking because people are not in the office, and forcing employees back will generate new Innovation.

It sounds like a really nice idea, just like rainbows, butterflies, and unicorns.

However, when you actually look at reality, it makes no sense.

Why?

Let's start with the idea of lacking Innovation.

Is this a new problem?

No, organizations have struggled with new Innovations for decades.

Almost the entire time organizations have struggled to create real and new Innovations, it has always been in-office work where they struggled.

When you look at the recent reality, some of the greatest Innovations in businesses of late happened BECAUSE of the Pandemic.

The reason is simple - a new set of circumstances, and a greatly altered environment, forced businesses to adapt or die.

Serendipity in this case happened because circumstances forced it to occur.

However, when it comes to in-office work, has it really led to gigantic Innovations?

No, not really.

Again, this is not a new problem for businesses.

Have there been some Innovations here and there, absolutely.

However, most of them occur outside of an established industry, not within the same companies.

This really comes down to the science of Flow States.

See, Innovation is really just a form of Creativity, something boosted and accelerated by Flow States.

However, when you look at history, Innovation is usually killed within industries and Innovation actually occurs when ideas from different industries are brought together.

Let's look at two examples.

The first is the "Digital Camera".

Currently, Canon holds the highest market share in that industry, but they weren't the first company that created the Digital Camera.

Do you know which company did design the first Digital Camera?

Kodak.

At one time they had 90% of the market share on cameras, and indeed they created the very first Digital Camera.

Seems like an Innovation that should have taken off, right?

But it didn't.

The reason is that the executives were too worried that the Digital Camera would destroy their Film Camera stronghold, and so they squashed the idea.

Eventually, the Innovation took off, and Kodak was right about how it would destroy its Film Camera stronghold.

Kodak dropped to having less than 10% of the market.

Similar trends happen often all over the place.

Almost always, it is a new company that arrives that creates an Innovative idea (or decides to capitalize on the missed opportunity of giants) and combines ideas from different Industries.

Let's look at our second example of where Innovation happens.

The iPhone is a perfect example of this.

Was Mac in the phone industry at all?

No!

However, there was an opportunity in the phone industry that Mac took hold of, an Innovation they spearheaded by combining ideas from a completely different industry.

Organizations have been trying to "force" Innovations "in-office" for a long time, with some "minor" success here and there.

But Large Innovation doesn't work that way, and that's what these companies are looking for.

What do you call an idea that has been tested again and again, and gets the same outcome?

Insanity.

Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum, and that is what is created when you force people back into an office they don't want to be in.

ESPECIALLY when they have made it clear that they don't want to be there.

It will only lead to one thing - Active Disengagement.

This, in turn, will reduce Flow States, destroy Creativity, and make people laugh about "Serendipity" that never comes.

Not to mention that employees have gained value being out of the office, which is going to be stripped from them.

No one likes a Value-Loss.

Do you know what could ACTUALLY be interesting to create real Serendipity AND perhaps convince employees to return to the office by choice?

Creating different events where people from other industries can mingle and learn from each other in the offices that are now lying empty.

The companies that are pushing for "Serendipity" are some of the largest and most successful companies in the world, and people would love to learn from them.

So, you create events to purposefully create that cross-pollination that is necessary to ignite Flow States toward true Innovation.

The organizations that host these events can also purposefully choose other leaders to learn from within other industries.

If these events are successful, then employees might actually choose to return to the office because this is actually a Value-Add.

There isn't a loss of "Serendipity of Ideas" because people aren't working in the office together.

Businesses struggle with Innovation because they lack the audacity to change and try something new and different.