Modern society is characterized by control. We plan our careers, our projects, our investments and our life choices as if the future were a function of how well we can optimize the present. But beneath the surface of planning and order lies a force that influences us more than we like to admit: the random. It shapes our encounters, our opportunities and our breakthroughs. It creates disruptions in patterns, mutations in ideas and openings in systems that would otherwise have remained closed.
The question is whether we have become allergic to randomness. Have we, in our pursuit of control and predictability, lost the ability to see chance as a friend?
Random as the engine of evolution
In biology, randomness is not a threat, but a prerequisite for the development of life. Mutations do not occur because they are planned but because they arise without purpose. Most are insignificant, some are harmful, but individual changes lead to leaps in development. The diversity and adaptability of species come from precisely this unplanned variation.
Charles Darwin described evolution as a process of natural selection, but without random mutations there would have been nothing to choose from. Evolution would have come to a standstill. This insight also applies to innovation, creativity and social development. We need the whims of randomness to break the prison of predictability.
Our Illusion of Control
In his book Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters, sociologist and author Brian Klaas describes how we overestimate our control over the world. He writes: “We control nothing, but we influence everything.” This means that we can never completely control what happens, but we can influence the probability of certain things happening.
The problem is that we often try to control instead of influence. We want certainty, structure and measurability. We construct systems that reduce uncertainty, but in the process we also reduce the possibility of the unexpected occurring. In the world of innovation, this is devastating.
Randomness as an innovation tool
In organizations and social development, we often talk about continuous improvement. We streamline, reduce waste, improve incrementally. It is important but limited. Simply reducing carbon emissions, for example, is working towards less bad. To create a future that is radically better, leaps are required. Leaps rarely arise from planning, but from unexpected combinations, meetings and contexts.
The most groundbreaking innovations often have a random component. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by chance when a bacteria culture became contaminated. The Post-it note arose from a failed attempt to create a super-strong glue. Spotify was born in a small office in Stockholm at the intersection of piracy, interest in technology and passion for music. No one could plan that exact chain of events.
So randomness is not chaos. It is an ecosystem of possibilities that can be influenced, but not controlled.
Randomness in a complex world
In complex systems, linear relationships do not work. Cause and effect are spread across networks of relationships and feedback loops. This means that small changes can have big effects, but we rarely know which ones in advance.
Those who try to control complex systems, companies, societies, climate, economy, tend to overload them. Those who instead accept uncertainty and build in resilience, adaptability and variation, cope better. Evolution teaches us the same thing. A system that does not allow for random variation becomes vulnerable.
Being open to the unexpected is therefore not a sign of weakness, but of wisdom.
The place of randomness in sustainable transition
The transition towards sustainability requires precisely this openness. We cannot plan a circular economy with the same logic that built the linear one. We must experiment, test and fail. We must let new ideas meet reality and see what happens.
Part of the solution is to create structures where chance can play a role. This can involve mixing different skills in project groups, working with open innovation platforms or creating space for experiments that do not need to have guaranteed returns.
Randomness does not need to be excluded from planning. It needs to be planned in.
When control becomes an obstacle
People who try to control every aspect of their lives or organizations often fail when complexity increases. They become slow, cautious, and inflexible. They lose their sense of timing and intuition.
On the other hand, those who accept the role of random see the possibilities in change. They know that the unexpected can lead to something better. This does not mean that you should stop planning, but that you should plan with humility in the face of uncertainty.
Brian Klaas believes that it is not randomness itself that determines everything, but how we relate to it. We cannot control it, but we can influence the probability that good random events will happen by creating the right environments, networks, and habits.
Practicing randomness
One way to start using random as a tool in everyday life is to consciously expose yourself to new contexts. It could be reading a magazine you have never read, going to an event in a different industry, traveling without a plan, or talking to someone whose opinions you do not share.
Every time you encounter something you cannot predict, your ability to navigate the unexpected is trained. This builds creativity and resilience. In an innovation context, this could involve letting algorithms randomly generate unexpected combinations of ideas or using methods such as bisociation and idea pairing to provoke the untested.
Randomness as part of the system of life
Perhaps the question is not whether we should understand randomness, but whether we should live with it. We are used to seeing existence as something that can be controlled, but life is fundamentally a network of probabilities.
When we realize that randomness is not a threat but a source of opportunity, we can begin to act more curiously, more openly, and more humanely. We are not victims of uncertainty, but participants in it.
We control nothing, but we influence everything. And perhaps that is the most liberating realization of all.
