It’s fairly well known that immigrants are prodigious entrepreneurs. For instance, research from Kellogg School of Management shows that immigrants create a huge number of jobs by virtue of their entrepreneurial abilities.

Similarly, Wharton research further elaborates on this point by pointing out that immigrant founders not only create jobs but also bring considerable finance with them. The authors state that cross-border VC investment is now at record levels, with this in large part due to the increasingly international nature of entrepreneurship.

This prowess is traditionally believed to have two main reasons, the first of which is the lack of familiarity with domestic labor markets, which makes creating a business often the most attractive option, while the second argues that immigrants bring fresh perspectives and can connect the dots in innovative and creative ways.

Connecting the dots

Author Christian Busch believes that this ability to connect dots is not something that is unique to immigrants, however, and is something we can all develop if we have the right attitude and mindset. At its heart is the ability to cultivate serendipity.

“Serendipity is not just something that happens to us, it’s a phenomenon with distinct features, and each of those features can be nurtured in our lives,” he explains in his recent book Connect the Dots. “For us to really understand serendipity and to be able to see it not as an external force but as a magical tool we can use, we need to look more closely.”

He believes that doing this requires us to understand that serendipity tends to have three core elements to it. The first part is the unexpected event that jolts us from our status quo. This acts as the serendipity trigger. We then respond to this event, with the most effective approach being to link this with something previously unrelated. This helps us to realize the potential value in what was largely a chance event. This, in turn, helps us to realize the largely unexpected and unanticipated value from the event.

Developing the serendipity mindset

To improve our chances of enjoying the benefits of serendipity, Busch outlines three actions we can all take to improve what he refers to as our serendipity mindset:

• Cultivating serendipity spotting, which involves really paying attention to the unexpected, both in terms of big things and small things.  This process can be vital in skewering assumptions that are wrong, which in turn opens our minds to new ways of doing things.
• De-risking ideas, which involves the development of an environment that encourages risk-taking and the cross-pollination of ideas.  This notion of learning from failure and creating psychological safety have both been well explored by other thinkers and play a big role in creative thinking.
• Developing an environment of trust, which builds upon this inherent de-risking, as it will be impossible to truly experiment if you’re always worried about the consequences.

Standing in the way are a number of biases that prevent us from developing the serendipity mindset, including our tendency to underestimate the unexpected, post-rationalize events, and conform to the majority.

Arguably the most inhibiting of these biases is our willingness to underestimate the unexpected, which Busch argues can be best combated by discarding the “risk management” approach we so often take and instead develop our ability to find potential in the unexpected.