How much of your career is down to ‘luck’?

This article builds on the essay What we might become, a topology of sharing and forms part of the research into my next book on human sensemaking.

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Reframing the question

“How much of your career is down to luck?”

When you speak to someone about their career, there is a fair chance they’ll use the term ‘luck’ to describe selected past events, which in retrospect turned out to be pivotal to how they arrived in their current role. 

How a person frames this question usually provides greater insight about them than their answer, so let’s break down why. 

A simple defintion

A simple definition of ‘luck’ is where the outcome of an event is attributed to chance and is assessed as either positive or negative (Figure 1). For example: 

Anna is queuing for 30-minutes at a bakery counter, and as she reaches the front of the line she purchases the last available loaf of bread (Figure 1, A1). Alternatively, the person proceeding her in the queue purchases the last available loaf of bread (A2). 

Figure 1. A simple definition of “luck”

Anticipation of, and an emotional investment in the outcome

Anticipation of the event and an emotional attachment to a preferred outcome (Figure 2, A1) nudges consideration of alternatives outcomes that can be compared and prioritised (A2-A6). If the outcome has a very low probability (A7) this pushes the assessment to one of the extremes (A2 or A6). 

Figure 2. The impact of anticipation and low probabilities

For example:

Whilst in the queue, Anna imagines serving bread to guests for a dinner party that evening (a higher emotional attachment, leading to either A2 or A6 outcomes), or alternatively, Anna imagines making a sandwich for lunch (lower attachment, A3 or A5). With insufficient anticipation there is no-, or less-incentive to make an assessment and the event is more easily forgotten (A4). 

The impact of time elapsed between event and outcome

The time between the event and the consequences of the outcome becoming apparent varies considerably (Figure 3). For example the consequences could occur:

• In the moment e.g. Anna purchases the last available loaf of bread (A1) and nibbles on it on the way home, or,
• Years later e.g. Anna has a chance encounter whilst queuing at the bakery that eventually leads to a job opportunity (A2).

The longer the time elapsed between the event and the outcome, the less likely that an association will be made.

Figure 3. The impact of time on an assessment of luck

There are however, many other reasons affecting the likelihood of remembering an event, and making a positive, negative, or (more easily forgotten) neutral assessment:

• Uniqueness of the event,
• Associations with things that occurred around the event,
• Emotional investment in the outcome,
• Consequences of the outcome, with strongly positive or negative consequences more likely to be remembered, compared to moderate or neutral outcomes.
• Cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias “this always happens to me!”, misremembering the factors that lead to the outcome, sunken cost fallacy, or a misattribution of memory such as recalling the story and substituting a loaf of bread, for something else. Cognitive biases are likely to bias in favour of their personal-narrative, their self-identity positioned and recalled in narrative form. Whilst a self-narrative can be more effective than other formats for recall and communication, it is inherently subjective and inherent assumptions can be challenging to update.
• An alternative framing of events and outcomes. 

Alternative ways to frame luck

The concept of ‘luck’ assumes a belief in randomness and chance arising from unpredictable events. However, Anna’s framing of events and outcomes could be grounded in an alternative set of beliefs and assumptions, for example: 

• Preparedness, for example, on a previous visit she asks the bakery staff when they serve that bread, and times her visit accordingly,
• Probability, Anna considers the number and type of other customers for that day’s weather conditions, and what they are likely to order at that time of day,
• Skill, for example Anna knows a short-cut to join the queue, or recognises that she could have taken the short-cut, but decided not to,
• Fate or destiny, where Anna’s life is pre-ordained, and the outcome is part of her destiny, or attributed to spiritual preordination,
• Auspiciousness, for example Anna has eight banknotes in her wallet —her lucky number, so ‘of course’ she would be able to buy the last loaf of bread, or alternatively a black cat crossed her path earlier that day so ‘of course’ she due some bad luck,
• As a result of her moral behaviour, for example, she gives a customer carrying an infant her place in the queue, and her new queue position enables her to interact with someone who later provides a job opportunity—which she later attributes to ‘karma’.

There are many, culturally grounded beliefs that frame events and outcomes each with their own origins, world-views, and assumptions (Figure 4, A1), of which ‘luck’ is just one. 

Figure 4. Framing events affects the assessment of outcomes

Some beliefs are limited in use to particular communities, whilst others like ‘karma’ have gained more mainstream adoption. Other examples include: the Persian concept of kismet which describes a force or personified power that determines the course of future events; maktub, where something is decreed by the Quran; the Polynesian and Melanesian concept of maná where the power of elemental forces are embodied in a person or object; or the German word schicksal, denoting fate or an inevitable luck. 

A person may hold onto a single, overriding world view such as a belief in probabilities or fate, but many people adopt and adapt worldviews depending on context, even when they are contradictory. For example, Christianity and Islam are the primary religions in Nigeria, but are often practised alongside forms of juju with its spells, amulets and blood sacrifices—contradictory to the tenets of the other religions, but readily adopted by some to affect outcomes. Alternatively, in many other parts of the world people assume outcomes are guided by skill, probability, and the alignment of the stars. 

A common justification for holding these seemingly contradictory beliefs is to adapt the guiding mechanism to the context, and to benefit from ‘compound effects’.

Using luck+ as a dissociative mechanism 

Finally, some people sometimes attribute their own positive outcomes to luck, fate, karma, schicksal and so on, to disassociate their active role in achieving that outcome. The motivation for doing so ranges from maintaining social cohesion, masking privilege, to more machiavellian tendencies. 

So, just how much of your career is down to ‘luck’? 

I’m exploring the concept of ‘luck’ and its cultural equivalents because it is often used as a justification to explain things that affect a career. This is a side-bar to my essay on What we might become: a topology of sharing, the relevance of which will become apparent in the next article.

For now, consider what your framing of the question reveals about your beliefs, assumptions and intentions.

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Photo: New York City to Austin Continental Airlines flight, with no ‘unlucky’ thirteenth row.