The Role of Serendipity in Business

Successful CEOs of mid-large companies usually carry this aura of being smarter than most around them, or having made some bold and correct decisions in life as well as business. What is little spoken about is how luck plays an extremely important role in the lives and professional success of these CEOs and the businesses they run. 

Srijan, the company i founded in 2002 is now over 180 people, and that would qualify it as a decenetly successful business. When for the first 8-10 years we were a struggling business, i always used to be in awe of the successful CEOs around me including my first employer who built a company pretty much the same size as Srijan is now. Over these years i've come to realise how little our purported 'extra-smartness' has to do with our success, and how much "serendipity" [1] (with a distant cousin "luck") has in the success of these CEOs. I always felt that things 'happened' -- and those events took us in directions unknown or unplanned or not strategised about. I always felt uncomfortable with this. As i a CEO i was "supposed" to be in control.

It was when co-CEO of a very well known design firm once shared over a deeply personal conversation that 'how much role luck plays in our business', that i woke up to the idea that it was not only me who felt 'lucky'. Then i came across wonderful books [2] by and articles by likes of Harvard which talked about the role of luck in CEOs and their large companies' success [3] -- and my perspectives on running a business changed dramatically. 

In this session, i would like to take the audience -- yound entrepreneurs, CEOs, managers and even techies ona  journey of what it means to accept 'serendipity' in ones life, job and business. I will walk the audience through a personal journey with founding my company and how completely unplanned events gave it new direction most often not aligned with the grand plan & strategy one had made. I hope to, with my talk, inspire the audience to open up to Life and the unforeseen opportunities it opens for us in unexpected ways, as opposed to constantly stressing ourselves with grand plans, strategies or stretch goals.

[1] Definition: "luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for" 
[2] http://www.hsgl.com/
[3] https://hbr.org/2013/11/the-luck-factor-in-great-decisions