During a recent conversation with one of my mentees, one of the questions we’ve explored together was:
Are there things someone can do to increase the opportunities coming their way?
Here are 4 of the ways we’ve crystallized based on the talk:
Become good in areas that are useful for others;
Develop a network in the areas that interest you;
Care about something meaningful;
And keep the eyes open and avoid tunnel vision.
Let’s unpack how these actions work together for increasing the chances of more incoming professional opportunities.
First thing: as we’re talking about chances and surface of luck, we’re in the realm of probabilistic thinking. This way of thinking is in contrast with deterministic thinking, which pervades organizations and societies in general.
Probabilistic thinking = working with likelihoods.
See this deep dive from Farnam Street for more info and nuances.
Deterministic thinking = if we do X, then Y happens.
See this deep dive from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for more info and nuances. Or this more accessible Medium article.
Basically, the ideas that I’m sharing with you here will probably help you increase the likelihood of getting more professional opportunities coming your way.
The sources for the ideas are both my own experience and a logic that connects them. Note that I won’t get into the conceptual roots too much, since the purpose of this article is to help you with practical insights. Let’s go!
1. Become good in areas that are useful for others
Professional opportunities are born from the needs of others to get things done (better, faster, cheaper, in a structured way etc).
Whether we’re talking about a decision maker in a company that wants to employ someone (or to hire a contractor, consultant, coach, adviser, facilitator, trainer, or other types of external help), a founder who searches for a co-founder for their next impactful business, a conference organizer who needs audience-attracting speakers, an NGO who needs help in increasing their impact, or a community who needs people in order to evolve - everyone needs professionals to get things done and get the results they want.
Logic says that people that are good at getting those things done (better, faster, cheaper, in a structured way etc) have a better chance of being chosen when the opportunity or moment of need arises.
Lifelong learning and continuous professional development are key enablers for becoming good at things, as well as learning to learn and making the most of your current experiences.
In my own experience, an important approach has been to strive to become the best in the areas that I’m interested in, even when switching careers or domains. Even though it has been a very bumpy road (especially since leaving the corporate comfort zone) and even though learning cannot be a highly efficient process (thanks to forgetting, half life of knowledge and many other factors), I believe this is the best investment someone can do with their time and money.
As a personal example in the realm of finances, I’m making now about 2-3x the money I made in a full-time middle management corporate role, while keeping my enabling constraint of doing only 1.5 days of client work per week. Lifelong learning + constantly navigating through uncertainty (adjusting personal strategies) have been and are key for this.
2. Develop a network in the areas that interest you
Another action that dramatically increases the chances of incoming professional opportunities is connecting with people (that might be connected to people) who would need your contribution at some point.
This idea has been thoroughly backed by empirical research linked to network theory - see for example some recent findings (September 2022) from a team of Stanford, MIT, and Harvard scientists that “weaker ties” are more beneficial for job seekers on LinkedIn.
The concept of weak ties has been eye-opening for me back in 2008. In a nutshell:
The strength of weak ties theory is based on the idea that weak ties allow distant clusters of people to access novel information that can lead to new opportunities, innovation, and increased productivity. The author of this theory, Mark Granovetter, argued in 1973 that weak ties are particularly helpful in delivering new employment opportunities because they introduce novel labor market information to a broader social network.
In other words, there’s a chance that acquaintances from various walks of professional life (domains, disciplines, industries, communities etc) that remember you - and what you’re interested in and/or good at - can share professional opportunities if you are on their radar when they connect the dots.
Network centrality is another key concept that is relevant for increasing incoming opportunities. Becoming influential in a professional network or, at least, being connected with influential people in that network, being in the inner circle of the network, also creates more chances for professional luck and serendipity.
For example, being in the core organising team of a professional community places you in the center of that community, especially if you’re investing in connecting with peers and helping them make the most of their involvement in the community.
As a recent story, a start-up conference organizer who needed a speaker that is knowledgeable on rapid experimentation reached out to us in the core team of the local Product community, and we further recommended someone in the community who had both the availability and the expertise.
Developing a network is also a significant investment, usually a personal strategic direction that requires at least a few hours each month.
In my own experience, this is the second best investment area someone can do, especially in highly competitive professional areas (e.g. with a high supply = lots of people being sufficiently good in doing the things needed in those areas).
3. Care about something meaningful
Having a mission that resonates with people, a contribution that you want to offer to the world, an impact that you want to make in a specific area, a vision of a better future for people in your city, country, profession etc. are elements that further increase the likelihood to have opportunities coming your way.
Why? Because all of them combine in a story that you share with the world, a story that increases the chances that people will remember it and remember what you are about, which may further increase the odds that they’ll connect the dots between the need they have (or find out about) and you.
If you genuinely care about something meaningful and tell and show the people around you what you care about, in my experience this propagates through the networks, through the conversations that the people around you are further having with the people around them.
As I was sharing with another group of mentees, around the topic of “crafting powerful visions”, these story elements that resonate with some people can act as mental magnets that connect the dots and draw you closer to the opportunities in the space you want to have an impact on.
For the engineers reading this, it’s like an optimized search algorithm in the mental graph - the collective mental space that drives what people pay attention to.
Coming back to simpler terms, a powerful story has a good chance to attract the attention of the right people around you, if they get to hear it.
In my case, my mission of sharing profound knowledge that is easy to understand and apply increases the likelihood of interacting with learners that feel at least a sense of curiosity to this kind of knowledge.
It also filters out a lot of people who are happy with less profound knowledge that crowds channels like LinkedIn, Youtube, newsletters, conferences… not to mention Facebook, TikTok or Instagram.
Crafting your story is not a huge investment, yet it has the power to help you stand out, especially in a crowded professional space. On the other hand, constantly telling your story, through the conversations you have with the people around you, is an act of discipline and can add up to a big investment depending on the scale that you aim at.
If you want to explore this further, the practice of positioning in marketing can bring lots of insights, as well as reflecting how identity shapes strategy and strategy shapes identity.
4. Keep the eyes open and avoid tunnel vision
Of course, none of the above matters if you’re not seeing or actually ignoring the opportunities coming your way.
Won’t go into detail with this one, as the logic is clear. A good practice to make the most of the opportunities is to develop ways to filter the opportunities that are right for you.
In my experience, if you’re doing the 3 actions mentioned earlier, there are increased chances that multiple opportunities come your way, sometimes at the same time.
This is why assessing opportunities is a muscle that you might want to practice - in an intuitive and/or in a structured way.
Here are, for example, 12 questions that could inspire you to develop your own opportunity assessment approach:
The very act of assessing opportunities requires an investment on your part. To go to that lunch or catching up meeting, have that call, to have that chat on Slack, to answer to that intro or question on LinkedIn and so on. Luckily, this is an investment that you can optimize in time with better filters that make sense to you and your specific personal strategy.
In summary:
Becoming good at things can increase your chances to 1. build a reputation, 2. be chosen and 3. be able to follow through the opportunity;
Developing a network can increase the odds that 1. people know you, 2. think about you when an opportunity arises and 3. choose to connect you with the opportunity;
Caring about something meaningful can increase the likelihood that 1. you are memorable, 2. people resonate and might want to help you advance your cause and 3. people around you could connect you with others that care about those things and the collaboration opportunities linked with this;
Keeping the eyes open and avoiding tunnel vision can mainly help you have a better chance to see and pick the right opportunities for you.
Together, these actions won’t guarantee an increased number of incoming opportunities, but will most likely increase your luck surface and the likelihood of connecting with opportunities.
Keep on increasing the chances,
Bülent
As a strategic adviser and lifelong learner, Bülent Duagi works with Directors in 🇷🇴 Tech companies to help them make more impact with the limited resources they have at hand, by:
🧭 having a clear strategy that enables better and faster decision making;
🤝 organizing better to both run operations and implement strategy with the available bandwidth and budgets;
🚀 implementing strategic initiatives and programs in an efficient and effective manner, paying attention to the people side of change;
⚡️ intentionally developing proper internal capabilities that are sustainable in the long run.
He's been recently advising, mentoring and training leaders from:
· Adobe, DB Global Technology, Deloitte Digital, HP, IT Smart Systems, Orange, Orange Services, OTP Bank, Servier, Stockday and TotalSoft.