Right Time + Right Place + Right Mindset = Serendipity!

“Right place, right time.” You’ve probably heard this saying before, like when a team member happens to spot a small workplace issue before it gets worse or when you hear a miraculous story about a random bystander saving someone from an accident. Maybe you’ve even thought it yourself, like when when you arrive at your favorite coffeeshop just in time to snag the last available table.

But is it really all about being in the right place at the right time, or does your mindset play a role as well? This was the topic of a recent Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast episode, where guest Noah Graff and I talked about how leaders can shift their mindsets to embrace those serendipitous “right place, right time” moments.

Mindsets Make a Big Difference

When it comes to mindsets, most leaders fall into two categories: fixed mindsets or growth mindsets. Both of these terms were coined by psychologist Carol Dweck, who wrote about them in her 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

If you have a fixed mindset, it means you see everything as finite. For example, you might think statements like “if I’m not naturally good at this, then I never will be” or feel that you must either completely succeed or completely fail.
A growth mindset is essentially the opposite. With this mindset, you’re committed to learning from mistakes and see setbacks as an opportunity to learn and grow.

If you have a fixed mindset, you’re less likely to find serendipity in your life. For example, imagine a presentation doesn’t go as planned. With a fixed mindset, you might call it a failure and move on without reflecting on what went wrong. But if you have a growth mindset, you might seek out a team member to get their thoughts on your presentation and how you can improve . . . and in the process, you might gain some powerful tips or hear a game-changing new perspective. By having an open mind and a willingness to grow, you’ve found yourself a great new opportunity.

Finding Serendipity

Once you’ve worked on developing a growth mindset, it’s so much easier to find serendipity. During my podcast with Noah, he shared a great scenario on how an open mindset leads to new opportunities: you walk into a café and find all the tables are full, so you have to share a table with someone else. If they ask what you do, you could shy away from the conversation . . . or you could share some fun facts about yourself and take the conversation to a deeper level. When you do this, you open yourself up many new opportunities, ranging from making a new networking connection to maybe even finding a new job.

Learn More on the Podcast

To learn more about mindsets and hear some of Noah’s great stories, check out his episode of the Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast here.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website