My website’s Stories section goes behind the papers: the questions, the evidence and why the findings matter. From economics and law to psychology and computing, explore the research and the connections between disciplines. craigwright.net/short-paths-…

What is serendipity? Serendipity is finding something valuable while looking for something else. You set out to solve one problem, take a wrong turn, and discover something your original plan was too respectable to consider. It is one of life’s more elegant ways of exposing the limits of management. But serendipity requires more than an accident. A useful accident can happen in front of someone who dismisses it, tidies it away, and congratulates himself on maintaining standards. The discovery comes when somebody notices the unexpected thing and recognises that it might matter. Chance supplies the interruption. Attention makes something of it. Suppose you enter a bookshop looking for a particular novel. Beside it, you find a book on a subject you know nothing about. You open it, read a paragraph, and discover an idea that changes how you understand a problem you have been wrestling with for months. Finding the book was accidental. Recognising its relevance required everything you brought into the shop. This is why curiosity matters. A curious person gives the unexpected a little room to explain itself. Someone interested only in confirming what they already believe will walk past a discovery to purchase another reassuring opinion. There is, admittedly, a fine line between remaining open to surprise and spending the afternoon wandering about. Calling every distraction “serendipity” is a splendid way to dignify procrastination. The unexpected encounter must yield something worthwhile. Otherwise, you have simply missed your train. You cannot order serendipity to arrive at three o’clock with a supporting slide deck. You can, however, make it more likely: read beyond your usual subjects, speak to people outside your profession, investigate results that seem wrong, and occasionally allow a question to survive without immediately forcing it into a familiar answer. Then comes the less glamorous part: checking what you have found. A surprising connection may be a discovery, a coincidence, or nonsense wearing an unusually good jacket. Delight is an excellent reason to investigate. It is a poor substitute for evidence. Serendipity, then, is an unexpected opportunity recognised and pursued. It involves luck, but also curiosity, judgment, and the willingness to depart from the plan when the world offers something better. You went looking for one thing and found another worth having. The trick is to notice before you complain that it wasn’t what you ordered.