Why you should never leave serendipity to chance!

Finding the right partners that share the same values can be challenging?

It’s easy to jump to lazy assumptions when you first interact with someone. We rarely take a step back to think about the bigger picture!

Moments of magic and serendipity are becoming less common as cultural and technology shifts makes us more connected on a global level but meaningful relationships are declining.

People’s needs are complex and messy.

Everyone has an agenda

We live in a “what have you done for me lately” world!

People believe relationships are transactional rather than something personal. We become hyper-connected through social networks. Yet, many new relationships are meaningless. Society is becoming disconnected due to the lack of investment made to foster new encounters.     

In 2017, trust was at an all-time low, making it more challenging to build authentic relationships as hidden agendas, miscommunication and building trust act as barriers to creating any long term value.

“Trust dynamics impact outcomes. Winner takes all in low trust environments. Value is more evenly distributed in high trust environments” – Nathan Kinch, founder of Greater Than X

We can all relate to a moment in our lives when we had a trusted group of people we can depend on. Dunbar’s number 150 model is always a great way to highlight how much time people truly invest in others as relationships can become stronger or weaker overtime.

Life is not that straight forward and neither is building trust and understanding what other people truly want from connections due to everyone’s complex agendas.

Perhaps this imbalance of trust can shift with a change in mindset.

Meaningful relationships start somewhere

“Shared values build relationships” - Alex Fiance, CEO of Kairos

Getting to know people better and understanding what really motivates them takes time.

Before jumping into a new potential partnership whether that is professional or personal. There needs to be a conscious pause to recognise what you can do for them rather than expecting something from someone straight away without building trust and communicating to understand what deeper value can be fostered. Everyone has different motivations that can impact their decision to work with someone.

“Whether you are talking about sports or business, the ability to bring out other peoples best selves and building relationships is key” - John Donovan, AT&T communication CEO

Meaningful relationships are not necessarily built on a quick rapport with someone. It involves taking the time to learn a little bit more about what others want before asking for something in return. Taking time to truly understand someone to foster a connection is better.

Are we investing enough time to foster connections with potential partners and delay our own needs or our own sense of instant gratitude? 

Supporting Structured Serendipity

It almost becomes magic when we can bring the right people together!

Structured serendipity comes from not going to fast or slow but finding a balance where there are environments to explore new opportunities together in a natural way.

Serendipity has often been seen as chance encounters!

However, there are opportunities to invest time and effort into connecting with others for a greater purpose. Newly formed friends can be crafted into long term relationships with endless possibilities.    

We become overly delusional with short-term gains when starting relationships. Often being misguided and not working as hard to focus on looking at what the other person really wants, as despite the need for monetary gains could be seen as the first need there is always a deeper rooted human need that is unmet.

What if we can create the right types of environments and relationships to accelerate the chance of happy outcomes and mutual benefits that can evolve into long-term and meaningful relationships. Imagine if chance interactions become more frequent leading to more opportunities for experimentation.

By multiplying these chance interactions there is a great opportunity to met people with new ways of thinking, fresh perspectives on challenges and creating new value from shared resources.