What’s luck got to do with it?

One of the many privileges I have in my role at Mercia Ventures is speaking on a daily basis with people who have been very successful in their field who are either in Executive roles or now developing a portfolio of Non-Executive roles, having been successful as a Leader.  

I was chatting recently to a Chair of one of our portfolio companies who has been very successful over their career as a Chief Executive and the subject of luck came up.  He very modestly mapped out how he felt that what on the face of it was a very successful exit for himself, his investors and all shareholders, was due in his view to three specific elements of luck that played out to ultimately drive the success of the company and the excellent exit.

Luck comes in may forms and often people think about luck as kind of “what” luck but Jim Collins the Good to Great author likes to refer to “who luck”. He describes “who luck” as when you come across somebody who changes your trajectory or invests in you, bets on you, or gives you guidance.

I was at a charity event this week and the guest speaker was the sports promoter Barry Hearn who has been remarkably successful as Chairman of Matchroom Sport and the driving force behind the boom in snooker, boxing and darts in recent years.  He described how his first bit of luck was meeting a young snooker player by the name of Steve Davis, the year before the BBC decided to start showing Snooker on live TV and became his agent.  Davis then went on to become a multiple World Champion.  After success in snooker he then had the opportunity to expand into boxing after a chance meeting with an unknown young boxer called Chris Eubank and the rest as he explained is history.

Clearly these chance meetings alone are not enough and it is then what anyone does to maximise the opportunity.  Psychologist Richard Wiseman has dedicated significant research to the role of luck following a decade-long project that identified the psychological principles used by lucky people to create their good fortune, which he describes in his book The Luck Factor.

He identified four principles used by lucky people to create good fortune in their lives:

Principle One: Maximise Chance OpportunitiesLucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Principle Two: Listening to Lucky HunchesLucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Principle Three: Expect Good FortuneLucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to GoodLucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation.

Wiseman then describes techniques that help people think and behave like a lucky person which he coined ‘Luck School’. The results suggested that a significant number of participants report positive and long-lasting change, including increased levels of perceived luck, self-esteem, confidence and health.

So are some people naturally luckier than others or do they develop the art of maximising  opportunities, trusting their gut, have a positive mindset and take control of any given situation.

As always interested in everyone’s thoughts?

Are you feeling lucky?