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Is Serendipity Really Serendipitous? Come Find Out!

24 October 2025

Serendipity-isnt-serendipitous

Ever had a chance encounter that sparked a great opportunity. In my new article, Is Serendipity Serendipitous? (2025), I dive into why serendipity isn’t just random luck—and how you can make it work for you, by turning chance into opportunity.

From an elevator pitch to IKEA’s flatpack revolution, I share stories of how serendipity shapes lives and organizations. Discover why coffee machine chats outshine Zoom call for discoveries, how small encounters can lead to lasting success. Read the full article, open access, then skip a zoom call and head straight to the coffee machine. 

 

Blog

This blog is about reframing management and lots more. It started as a TWOG (TWeet 2 blOG) but is now also a much LinkedIn 2 blog. Every few weeks, from pithy pronouncements in a line or few to playful provocations in a page or few. See the BLOGs directly (now numbering over 200 posts), connect to them via LinkedIn or twiXer, or subscribe on MailChimp.

Categories

2 September 2014
Time 2 Twog
18 December 2023
Higher Education research beyond the ivory tower
3 October 2022
Design Doing: Paving the Pathways for Structuring Organizations
25 February 2022
#AbusiveBossesToo
9 March 2019
Fake Facts from and for all
2 September 2015
Happy birthday TWOG!
Simply Managing
23 May 2023
The Inescapable Conundrums of Managing
9 September 2022
Here are five easy steps to kill your company (any one will do)
7 December 2020
Zooming ahead? Not so fast!
6 December 2020
Zoom à tout prix? Pas si vite!
17 October 2018
Managing Scrambled Eggs
22 March 2017
Some Half-truths of Management
21 July 2016
Decision Making: It’s not what we think. It’s also what we see. And what we do too.
16 June 2016
Managing Government, Governing Management
25 May 2016
The Epidemic of Managing without Soul
7 April 2016
Managing Scrambled Eggs
24 March 2016
The tricky task of measuring managers
29 January 2016
Natural and Unnatural Managerial Jobs (thinking outside the boxes)
14 January 2016
Celebrating the Flawed Manager
30 July 2015
It Does Have an Off Button
23 July 2015
Managing in the Digital Age: Over the Edge?
28 May 2015
If You Can’t Measure It, You’d Better Manage It.
21 May 2015
The Epidemic of Managing without Soul
19 February 2015
Managing to Lead
31 October 2014
Celebrating the Flawed Manager
24 October 2014
A CEO letter to the Board…long overdue
26 September 2014
Decision Making: It’s not what we think. It’s also what we see. And what we do too.
Simply Organizing
11 May 2023
Fundamental Forms for Favorite Sports
27 January 2023
Our World of Organizations
6 January 2023
The Back Cover of 'Understanding Organizations'
17 November 2022
Two Warnings about the Divisional Form of Structure
16 February 2019
Organizing like a Cow
18 November 2018
Communityship beyond Leadership
28 July 2018
Manageable and Unmanageable Managing
2 June 2018
Ye gods: an efficient orchestra!
15 September 2017
Transformation from the top? How about engagement on the ground?
3 June 2016
Organizations around Public, Private, Plural
21 April 2016
Ye gods: an efficient orchestra!
14 April 2016
Species of Organizations
17 March 2016
The Board as Bee
10 December 2015
Working like a Cow by Walking like a Cow
22 October 2015
Enough of silos? How about slabs?
1 May 2015
Building Community in a Classroom
19 March 2015
Why do we say “Top Management” yet never “Bottom Management”?
12 February 2015
Enough Leadership. Time for Communityship.
5 February 2015
Working like a Cow by Walking like a Cow
3 October 2014
Ye gods: an efficient orchestra!
19 September 2014
Five Easy Steps to Destroying your Organization
Simply Measuring
2 April 2025
Musk is doing a number on efficiency
1 April 2020
Le ventre mou des « données dures »
29 August 2018
How National Happiness became gross
14 July 2017
What could possibly be wrong with “efficiency”? Plenty.
24 August 2016
Analyst: Analyze Thyself
9 September 2015
What could possibly be wrong with “efficiency”? Plenty.
9 July 2015
The Soft Underbelly of “Hard Data”
25 June 2015
How National Happiness became gross
26 March 2015
Productive and Destructive Productivity
10 October 2014
What could possibly be wrong with “efficiency”? Plenty.
Simply Nonsense
23 September 2023
Donald’s Sins
7 January 2022
Ending the Epidemic of Entitlement
4 October 2021
Sports can be Punny
19 September 2020
That mask is your guardian angel
7 December 2019
The sins of a president
22 October 2019
Not noble: the fake fact of economics
28 January 2019
The Maestro Myth of Managing
3 January 2019
Happy Anniversary fellow prostitutes
16 March 2018
Gambling CEO Style: Always All-In
4 October 2017
“Guns don’t kill, people kill.” Sure, but… people with guns kill.
12 August 2017
In a dangerous world, mine can no longer be bigger than yours
14 September 2016
Trumped both ways: ‘Snake Oil’ or ‘Business as Usual’
5 November 2015
The lies lobbyists tell us
29 October 2015
Do the people of America have the right to bear nuclear arms?
11 June 2015
Today is the day to face the farce
2 April 2015
“Downsizing” as 21st Century Bloodletting
Simply Thinking
2 April 2024
Reflecting On, and In, America
17 April 2023
What is dumbing us down?
19 February 2021
Where has all the judgement gone?
15 August 2018
“Marketing Myopia” Myopia
31 March 2016
Judgment and Jack
15 October 2015
We live in times of great continuity
5 March 2015
The Extraordinary Power of Ordinary Creativity
30 January 2015
Global? How about Worldly?
21 November 2014
We live in times of great continuity
Learning Strategy
14 September 2018
Strategic Thinking as “Seeing”
29 June 2018
Need a strategy? Let them grow like weeds in the garden
23 October 2016
Need a strategy? Let it grow like a weed in the garden
28 November 2014
“Mike—you should have been here yesterday.”
Developing Managers
19 March 2023
Corruption in the MBA and EMBA Rankings
5 April 2019
Imagine an “emba” that engages managers beyond administration
4 May 2017
Don’t just sit there…
22 February 2017
MBAs as CEOs: Some troubling evidence
7 February 2017
How about an “emba” that engages managers beyond administration
1 July 2015
Don’t just sit there…
19 December 2014
Time for Management Education
12 December 2014
The Harvard 19
5 December 2014
Jack’s Turn
Managing the Care of Health
10 April 2024
Reorganising our Heads for the Care of our Health
2 September 2020
“…but we did everything right.”
2 April 2020
Le NOUS informé n’importe comment
30 March 2018
The Great Strength and Debilitating Weakness of Modern Medicine… and Management
13 February 2018
CBC interview on some outrages in health care
18 May 2017
The Haphazardly Informed We
19 April 2017
ANNOUNCING my new book
27 July 2016
Do you run for cure? How about running for cause.
6 January 2016
Who can possibly manage a hospital?
24 December 2015
Reframing the managing and organizing of health care—toward a system
3 December 2015
How not to fix health care
26 November 2015
Two Myths: that the system of health care is failing
Rebalancing Society
12 August 2022
Click here to save the world
24 June 2022
Fixing Capitalism will not fix America
25 November 2021
Climate change is not the problem
7 March 2020
Consolidation for Reformation
1 February 2020
Next step: What can we do now?
1 January 2020
The Declaration of our Interdependence
20 December 2019
Making Progress on our Puzzle
4 October 2019
Donald Trump is not the problem - Part V
5 September 2019
Donald Trump is not the problem - Part IV
16 August 2019
Donald Trump is not the problem - Part III
19 July 2019
Donald Trump is not the problem - Part II
4 July 2019
Donald Trump is not the problem - Part I
20 June 2019
Saving community from technology

18 May 2019
Concerned but confused? Time to coalesce and correct
30 April 2019
From Ebola to Imbalance
23 March 2019
The next step Greta…
2 October 2018
Nailing Corporate Reformation to the Door
7 December 2017
Please welcome CSR 2.0
6 July 2016
Brexit and the rest: it all adds up
16 December 2015
Rescuing Capitalism from Itself
23 September 2015
VW: The syndrome behind the scandal
17 September 2015
Social Enterprises and the Social Economy: Ownership Matters
27 August 2015
Demise of Democracy
6 August 2015
A Manifesto for Planet and Progeny
22 January 2015
Can the World Economic Forum deal with the world’s social problems?
20 January 2015
Guest TWOG: John Breitner on The John Question
16 January 2015
To Win-Win in a Balanced World: Ask John. Ask Irene. Ask the BIG question.
9 January 2015
Lose-Lose in the Global Game
2 January 2015
New Year, Thinking Anew?
26 December 2014
Rebalancing Society…radical renewal beyond left, right, and center
14 November 2014
There is no Nobel Prize in Economics … and why that matters
7 November 2014
Has the Berlin Wall fallen on us?
17 October 2014
Getting Past the Adjectival Capitalism Fix
Imagine
24 October 2025
Is Serendipity Really Serendipitous? Come Find Out!
25 January 2025
The Rise of Pipsqueak Canada
1 August 2024
Mixing metaphors out of their Box
11 July 2023
Prosecuting the criminals instead of the corporations
2 April 2022
Marginalizing the Superpowers
25 March 2022
Marginalizing the Superpowers
27 October 2021
COPing In
18 October 2020
Playful Solutions for Puzzling Problems
5 August 2020
Being a prophet in our own land
9 June 2020
Moving Ahead of the Pandemic
8 June 2020
Prendre les devants sur la pandémie
2 May 2020
Going forward, not backward
1 May 2020
Aller de l’avant, plutôt que de reculer
15 January 2019
What can be next for France…and the world
15 January 2018
Effective organizations like healthy families
9 November 2017
Enough of MORE: Better is better
29 July 2017
A CEO letter to the Board...long overdue
9 March 2017
Imagine getting it…beyond Donald Trump
26 January 2017
Marching to Clever Campaigns
11 February 2016
Do we really need stock markets?
18 June 2015
Win-Winning in a Collaborative World
5 June 2015
Imagine the emba as engaging managers beyond administration
Managing in the Digital Age
3 June 2017
The Tower of Bapple
4 October 2016
The devil is in a detail
8 October 2015
Networks are not Communities
The Global Game
31 October 2018
I am for and against globalization
27 October 2017
Uber Uber über alles
7 December 2016
Globalization or Democracy? Trade Pacts and Tribunals behind Closed Doors
17 April 2015
Developing from the Inside Up
10 April 2015
Levelling the Level Playing Field
Getting it together
8 April 2021
RebalancingSociety.org is up
17 July 2020
Confronting Socially Transmitted Epidemics
8 December 2018
PPPPs for Climate Change
13 July 2018
Porterian and Peterian Performance
17 May 2018
Nothing is rotten in the state of Denmark
21 December 2017
Going public with my puzzle
2 September 2016
Confronting Socially Transmitted Epidemics
17 August 2016
Coalescing around Climate
19 May 2016
Citizenship, Communityship, Ownership & Leadership
20 August 2015
Evidence and Experience in Management, Medicine, and more
An ignorant take on...
28 April 2016
The maestro myth of managing
10 March 2016
Futebol (and other sporting things)
Reporting Live
5 April 2020
Investigating the Cause of the Coronavirus - Part II
4 April 2020
Deuxième partie : Expliquer les anomalies
3 April 2020
Enquête sur la cause du coronavirus – Première partie
31 March 2020
Investigating the Cause of the Coronavirus - Part I
7 June 2018
Opportunity for the G6
1 July 2017
Happy Birthday Canada!
22 June 2017
Draining the Reservoir?
8 June 2017
British election: The surprise will be on whom?
20 January 2017
Forgive me for raining on that parade
12 August 2016
Dis-organizing our way to balance
5 August 2016
Resourcefulness for Climate Change: Cool Facts for Cool Ideas
14 July 2016
On the earth, for the Earth
8 June 2016
Contrary to the Harvard Business School?
24 February 2016
Why not Brazil?
21 January 2016
“Canada is back!” perhaps for a better world
12 November 2015
The Trains to Hope
24 April 2015
The Reflective Mindset: Keynote Listening
Reframing
14 September 2025
The center’s not holding, it’s folding. How about rounding?