Why You Need to Embrace Serendipity to Become More Innovative
A lesson from history
In the 1920s, bacterial infections were a leading cause of death.
Staphylococcus aureus, or staph, a bacterium commonly found on people’s skin, was and is still a highly problematic cause.
Soldiers during World War I, in particular, were affected by bacterial infections as they lived in unsanitary conditions within trenches.
“The smell was unbearable—latrines overflowed, and the dead lay unburied just beyond the parapet. Rats were everywhere, their eyes glinting in the dark, stealing biscuits from our pockets. One man shot at a rat and hit his own foot; he laughed hysterically until we sent him to the dressing station. Sleep was impossible with the cold and the constant shelling,” recounted Robert Graves, a British officer in the war.
One man, Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician and microbiologist, stood at the crossroads.
He had discovered cures for the different bacterial infections such as sepsis, meningitis, and pneumonia.
However, in 1928, staph was still a tough nut to crack for Fleming, and he had been investigating this strain of bacteria.
As the story is told, Fleming prepared a set of petri dishes with Staphylococcus bacteria and left for a two-week vacation. He forgot about them and went to take a much-needed break.
Returning from his vacation later in September, Fleming discovered a peculiarity in his cultures.
All of the petri dishes with the staph bacteria had grown mold, except for one that he had left uncovered.
In one area, a blob of a blue-green mold had grown.
“That’s funny.” He remarked.
What caught his eye was the area around the mold. There was a clear, bacteria-free zone surrounding the fungal colony, meaning the Staphylococcus bacteria were not growing in that vicinity.
The discovery would later lead Fleming to isolate the mold and identify it as a species of Penicillium, specifically Penicillium notatum. This would later be named penicillin, after the bacteria that produced it.
The cure for antibacterial infections had been undeniably serendipitous, although Fleming’s keen eye was a factor that mattered.
Why does serendipity matter?
You might be wondering where this story is headed.
Serendipitous discovery: finding things that were not initially intended has played a hand in the invention of different things.
Serendipitous discovery led to the discovery of cornflakes in 1894 when the Kellogg brothers accidentally left boiled wheat to sit. When they later rolled it out, it flaked and turned into toasted cornflakes.
It also did in 1945 when engineer Percy Spencer was working with an active radar set emitting microwave signals. He realized the radar’s compact cavity magnetron tube was melting the chocolate bar in his pocket.
In each of these stories, innovations emerged through accident.
However, in our modern productive life, we can leverage this by creating conditions that allow us to discover solutions to problems that we were unaware of.
Today, it’s no longer about accidental discovery; it’s about creating an environment where we are free to experiment so that we land on innovations that we were not even looking for.
This week, create the specific environment that fosters serendipitous discovery.
Embrace curiosity—be open to learning new things beyond your field. Read widely, even if only a 4-minute article.
Leave some time for unstructured exploration—while you have to meet your deadlines, set a few minutes to explore without a specific goal.
Document the unexpected—keep a digital journal where you note down unexpected observations.
Try new tools and solutions to your problems—there is no harm in trying. Exposure to only what we know can be limiting.
This week, be open to curiosity and have some time to try out new tools that directly influence your workflows.
One way I am open to discovery is I have begun using Rize, which gives me an honest audit report for my workday.
My focused time.
My meetings.
My breaks.
My distractions (😬)
I learned that sometimes, I get distracted browsing, viewing social media, and seeking entertainment.
Perhaps it might reveal something you were unaware of in your workflow.
Get started here.
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That's it for now.
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