Questions for you:
- When did I last experience a genuinely unexpected input in my work?
- Have I optimised my environment and processes to such an extent that I’ve eliminated useful surprise?
- How can I maintain the security and confidentiality of my work, but obtain useful feedback on it from outside of typical sources?
- What mechanisms could I use to deliberately introduce unpredictability into my thinking?
Organisational applications:
Structured slack time programmes:
Implement formal “unexpected input” time where employees must engage in activities unrelated to current projects. Not vague “20% time” (which becomes more work), but structured exposure to different domains—attending conferences outside their field, shadowing colleagues in unrelated departments, or mandatory reading from disciplines far from their expertise. Like Spencer Silver accidentally creating weak adhesive whilst pursuing strong adhesive, breakthrough innovations emerge from unexpected connections.
Failure tolerance with learning capture:
Create explicit budgets for experiments expected to fail, with mandatory documentation of unexpected discoveries rather than just intended outcomes. Most organisations punish failure, ensuring employees optimise for safe, predictable work. But Post-it notes and VELCRO emerged from “failed” experiments where researchers noticed unexpected properties. Establish processes capturing what was learned from failures, particularly surprising results that don’t fit existing frameworks. Document whether tolerance for productive failure generates breakthrough innovations versus environments where all deviations from plan constitute failures requiring correction.
Cross-domain collaboration forcing:
Rather than letting employees choose comfortable collaboration partners, randomly assign project teams combining incompatible expertise. Force engineers to work with marketers, finance analysts with designers, operations specialists with creative writers. Like burr seeds unexpectedly sticking to dog fur inspiring VELCRO, productive exposure to new concepts between unlike domains generates insights that neither would produce independently. The discomfort this may create is the point—comfortable collaboration reinforces existing patterns whilst unexpected combinations force new thinking. Ensure that teams report where forced cross-domain thinking produced qualitatively different innovations.
Strategic inefficiency zones:
Deliberately preserve organisational spaces that haven’t been optimised for efficiency. Maintain physical locations encouraging unexpected encounters (communal kitchens requiring detours, shared equipment forcing cross-team interaction), resist hot-desking practices that eliminate serendipity, and protect unscheduled meeting times where informal conversations occur. Like medieval London’s chaotic streets producing more innovation than Manhattan’s efficient grid, so-called organisational “inefficiency” creates conditions for productive accidents. Monitor whether preserved inefficiency zones generate innovation.
Further reading
On serendipity and unexpected discovery:
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull (Random House, 2014). Pixar co-founder on fostering creativity including famous quote about working “in the shadow of uncertainty,” with practical frameworks for creating conditions where unexpected discoveries emerge. Ed Catmull’s quote comes from this book:
“While the allure of safety and predictability is strong, achieving true balance means engaging in activities whose outcomes and payoffs are not yet apparent. The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty.”
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson (Riverhead Books, 2010). Examines how innovation emerges from unexpected connections and adjacent possibilities, documenting pattern where breakthrough ideas combine existing concepts in unpredictable ways rather than appearing fully formed.
The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World by Frans Johansson (Portfolio, 2012). Analysis of how seemingly random events create breakthrough opportunities, with strategies for increasing exposure to productive accidents whilst recognising serendipity when it appears.
On organisational slack and innovation:
Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco (Broadway Books, 2001). Argues that organisational slack enables innovation by providing space for unexpected discoveries, challenging efficiency-maximisation approaches that eliminate productive inefficiency.
Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives by Tim Harford (Riverhead Books, 2016). Demonstrates how disorder, inefficiency, and unexpected inputs produce superior outcomes across domains from creativity to military strategy, with evidence that over-optimisation eliminates beneficial randomness.
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen (Harvard Business Review Press, 1997). Examines why successful companies fail to innovate, including how optimisation for existing products eliminates slack required for disruptive innovation emerging from unexpected directions.
On creative processes and accident:
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (Knopf, 2013). Documents how creative individuals structure their days, revealing patterns where many deliberately create conditions for unexpected inputs whilst maintaining enough routine to capitalise on accidents.
The Art of Scientific Investigation by W.I.B. Beveridge (Vintage, 1957). Classic examination of how scientific discoveries emerge from unexpected observations, emphasising role of prepared minds recognising significance in accidents that others dismiss as noise.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein (Riverhead Books, 2019). Documents how broad, varied experience creates conditions for unexpected connections that specialisation misses, with evidence that generalists excel at innovation requiring synthesis across domains.
About the image
A recoloured close-up of a strip of VELCRO hooks by Alexander Klink.
Photo montage Matt Balllantine 2026
Photo Alexander Klink 2010, CC-3.0 Attribution Licence https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Velcro_Hooks.jpg
Random the Book 
