THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE:
Opportunities to Shape the World for the Better There are infinite possibilities hiding in the world around us. Seven principles can help you tap into an expansive field of opportunity, individually and as an organization.
hovering at the edges of the IMAGINE A KIND OF SHADOWY FUTURE, present state of things; a map of all the various ways in which the present can reinvent itself. This, dear readers, is the everpresent state known as the ‘adjacent possible.’
The term was coined by theoretical biologist Stuart A. Kauffman, who used it to describe how evolutionary adaptations often find surprising new uses in At Home in the Universe. For instance, how feathers, evolved for warmth, turned out to be useful for flying; or how the complex jawbones of fish, no longer useful on land, proved useful for hearing. Kauffman went on to apply the term to underscore that although we may perceive a finite world, there are actually infinite possibilities hidden around us. His favourite example is the screwdriver. Most of us see a single use, but in fact, there are infinite ways it can be used. It can turn screws, wedge a door, be used in a sculpture, for spearfishing, and so on.
As applied to modern innovation by Steven Johnson, bestselling author of Where Good Ideas Come From, the adjacent possible tells us that at any moment, the world is capable of extraordinary change; but that only certain changes can happen, because good ideas are inevitably constrained by the objects and skills that surround them.
A green sheet of paper can be torn to look like grass while a black sheet of paper can be folded into a pair of cool sunglasses. And in a modern world overflowing with data, the possibilities are endless. As Kumar Srivastava recently argued in Wired magazine:
Looking adjacently from the data set that is the main target of analysis can uncover other related data sets that offer more context, signals and potential insights through their blending with the main data set.
How can we tap into this expansive field of opportunity hovering just out of sight? In this article we will offer up some principles to embrace.
PRINCIPLE 1: PAY GREATER ATTENTION
In the 19th century, surgeon Joseph Lister noted something curious: carbolic acid that was used to treat the sewage spread on fields reduced the number of parasites in the cattle grazing there. He wondered if carbolic acid could also decrease the amount of bacteria in wounds after surgery. He experimented and discovered that using antiseptics reduced mortality rates after major operations from 40 per cent to less than three per cent by 1910, saving as many lives as were lost in all the wars of the 19th century.
PRINCIPLE 2: CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE PROBLEM YOU ARE FACING.
Adjacent possibles also reveal themselves when we look thoughtfully at the problems we face. When Barbara Alink and her aging mother passed a group of elderly people sitting in wheelchairs, Alink’s mother announced, “Over my dead body will I ever use one of those.” Baffled by her mother’s statement, Alink realized, as she put it, “we live in a society that has caused a divide between people with and without disabilities. Mobility devices emphasize the disability.” Alink is quick to clarify that wheelchairs are “amazing” for people who need them, but 60 per cent of wheelchair users still have some use of their legs, and she wanted to make a device that gave greater freedom for that 60 per cent.
She set about designing a device “so cool that it overcomes the discomfort other people have with the disability.” Using available bicycle parts, she designed the Alinker, which has a tricycle-like frame that allows users to remain at eye level, get around using their feet, and keep their hands free. The device required years of prototyping and she funded multiple iterations on personal credit cards, but in the end, she succeeded in creating a device that allows users to engage with people at face level while also giving them greater mobility.
Alinker users can’t express enough gratitude. For ten-yearold Luca, who required 24/7 care and was always lying on his side, the Alinker has given him his childhood back: he can snack from the countertop, engage with friends and is even learning to swing a cricket bat.
PRINCIPLE 3: QUESTION ASSUMPTIONS
Adjacent possibles also reveal themselves when we question assumptions. Vicki Saunders, a successful executive, recalls discovering this as a young woman living in Europe when the Berlin Wall came down. She jumped on a train to Prague, where “every sentence was, ‘Now that I’m free, I’m going to do this. Now that I’m free, I’m going to do that.’ Every single person was dreaming. It was absolutely intoxicating.” Amid the elation, Saunders suddenly thought, Oh my god! I’m free too! What am I going to do?
When she reframed her own situation, it allowed her to see new and bolder options. “I ended up staying for four years, and it completely changed my life,” she concludes. After a career in Silicon Valley, she began to wonder why for her it “felt like a burden to be a woman in business. It felt like a burden to be a woman in society.” One day she realized, “I’m not surprised it is hard, because we were not at the table to design this world.” Only four per cent of venture capital money goes to women founders, and five men hold as much wealth as 3.5 billion people.
“How do you solve this?” Saunders asked. “Where are the acupuncture points in the system where you could create disruption so you could open up everything? For me, there were three: finance, education and media. We need to fund women’s ideas.” Inspired by the Native peoples of the United States and Canada, whose wealth was demonstrated by how much they gave away, Saunders began to experiment with ‘radical generosity.’
She founded Coralus (formerly SHEEO), a perpetual investment fund where women give $1,100 to become ‘activators,’ loaning to female entrepreneurs at a zero per cent interest rate. This fund is built on “the sanity of women looking at something, saying, ‘That makes sense to me. It is doing good in the world. I’d like to support it,’” Saunders explains. “Fifty per cent of the population have had innovations sitting on the sidelines for generations. We have ideas on how to change things, and we haven’t been able to get funded.” Curious about the kinds of projects Coralus funds? For one, it funded the Alinker.
PRINCIPLE 4: PURPOSELY RECOMBINE THINGS
Adjacent possibles reveal themselves, too, when we purposefully recombine things. Van Phillips enrolled in medical school because he was curious about creating a better prosthetic after losing a leg in a boating accident. His professors discouraged him, claiming all the prosthetic advancements had already been made. But Phillips argued that while existing prosthetics looked like a leg, they didn’t function like one.
More interested in function than form, he borrowed principles from diving boards, pole vaults and cheetahs to create the Flex-foot, a carbon fibre prosthetic that works like a spring to help wearers move in ways — including running and jumping — that other prostheses don’t. It has even been used in professional athletic competitions.
PRINCIPLE 5: ASK ‘WHAT’S MISSING?’
Adjacent possibles can also reveal themselves when we ask what’s missing. Designer Adrien Gardère is famous for the Melampo Lamp, for which he borrowed the folding mechanism of an Opinel knife to create two positions — straight down for diffuse indirect light or inclined for direct light. Today he designs spaces like the Louvre-lens museum in France and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Recently he was asked to reimagine Chinese-french artist Huang Yong Ping’s installation in Paris’s Grand Palais, which featured a dragon’s silver skeleton wrapping around shipping containers. The exhibit, a commentary on China and global commerce, was well received, and the group supporting it made five to-scale models to recoup some of the exhibit’s cost. When none sold, they asked Gardère to explore why.
He observed the model and noticed something critical was missing: The model did not capture the play of light and shadow through the glass ceiling of the Grand Palais. Gardère set about designing a projector system that recreated the light of the Parisian sun as it passed over the windows of the historic building. The results were stunning, and the five models quickly sold.
PRINCIPLE 6: CONSIDER THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO.
If we’re facing a tempting but risky choice, sometimes adjacent possibles reveal themselves when we ask what the worst-case scenario is. Steve Blank, the serial entrepreneur and father of the Lean Start-up movement, began his career as an engineer. He recounts visiting Silicon Valley for a work assignment and being shocked upon opening the Mercury News to find page upon page of job listings. Blank decided right then to quit his job and stay. His colleague thought he was insane — back home, positions were scarce. But Blank asked himself, “What’s the worst that could happen? I knew that in this country I wouldn’t starve, so why not try?” Reframing the choice this way, Blank saw a viable adjacent possible, which gave him the courage to face one of life’s scariest uncertainties — joblessness — and ultimately enabled a much more dynamic career than if he had stayed with what was comfortable and certain.
PRINCIPLE 7: QUESTION THE STATUS QUO.
Finally, adjacent possibles reveal themselves by questioning status quo assumptions, like where we can live, how much we need to earn or our definition of a good life. Lynne Curran, a tapestry artist featured in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, and David Swift, an artist and educator who has worked with refugees and people with mental illnesses, are a creative couple who challenge norms. Rich in life but poor in resources, they bought an old house in Edinburgh, Scotland, so decrepit that the assessor suggested they demolish it.
Instead, they transformed it into a gem regularly featured in design magazines with a gorgeous garden. But when a correctional facility opened next door, young men out on ‘good behaviour’ started breaking in, lighting cars on fire and throwing stones through the windows. The anxiety interrupting their work demanded a change. Unable to afford anything with any potential remotely close to Edinburgh, they at first searched the suburbs, but then asked: Why stay here?
They considered Japan but settled on Tuscany, a place they had visited before and loved, and where they found an ancient farmhouse in Chiusi della Verna, the mystical mountainside of Michelangelo’s youth. They moved in, again after significant renovations, and now can wake in the morning to see the mist clinging to the hills, walk past the rock Michelangelo painted into The Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling and take fresh water from the springs that cover the mountainside.
The Limitations of the Present
As Steven Johnson has described it, adjacent possibles are “intelligently curtailed at every step by the limitations of the present.” This may be no better illustrated than by the life of Buckminster Fuller, who suffered a series of defeats that left him contemplating taking his own life. After getting kicked out of Harvard twice, he married and then co-founded a company, only to be pushed out of that same company a few years later, just after losing his three-year-old daughter to spinal meningitis.
With no job prospects and a second baby on the way, he wandered the streets of Chicago, thinking of drowning himself so his family could at least collect the life insurance payments. Then,
in an inspirational flash, he considered a shadowy ‘what if ’ — an adjacent possible he described in almost religious terms: Rather than giving in to despair and despite his powerless position, what if he tried his best to simply change the world for the better?
From that starting conviction, Fuller went on to write more than 30 books, register more than two dozen patents, invent the geodesic dome and influence tens of thousands as a thought leader for reinventing the future. The year he died, Fuller continued to describe himself in the humblest of terms as “guinea pig B,” summarizing his life as follows:
Now close to 88, I am confident that the only thing important about me is that I am an average healthy human. I am also a living case history of a thoroughly documented, half-century, search-and-research project designed to discover what, if anything, an unknown, moneyless individual with a dependent wife and newborn child might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that could not be accomplished by great nations, religions, or private enterprise, no matter how rich or powerfully armed.
Adjacent possibles are not obvious, even when hiding in plain sight. They always require a creative sideways glance that often starts with a hunch that something might be there. One thing I have noticed is that adjacent possibles are usually discovered by individuals who have a deep interest or need. These people tend to be curious, puzzling about the possibility for reasons other than fame or reward.
Lynne Curran and David Swift were more likely to see the Tuscany option because they had spent time there before. Van Phillips was more likely to see the possibility of Flex-foot because he wore prosthetics and wanted a leg that performed, not one that looked like a leg. Vicki Saunders walked through the ‘rooms’ of her career in male-dominated industries for decades before she could recombine the elements that led her to create Coralus.
Following are some questions to help you explore the adjacent possibles hovering at the edges of your own life and career. These questions can easily be adapted to an organizational setting, as well.
1. What am I curious about? How can I delve deeper into that curiosity?
2. What do I long to do? If I rank-ordered the list, what would be persistent and recurring?
3. What do I care about? What am I already involved with that begs for more of my attention for greater change?
4. What interactions or processes that I am a part of feel inherently broken? Which might be open to change that I could effect?
Once you have alighted on the adjacent possible you want to explore, the following questions will inspire you to be more creative about the resources you may or may not have, as well as about the roles others play in either helping or hindering your discovery and roll-out of adjacent possibles.
5. What skills and talents do I have? Could I use them in new ways?
6. What kinds of people interest me or leave me feeling inspired? What qualities do I admire them for? Do I share some of those positive or negative traits, and could I start to nurture them?
7. What could I stop doing to free up time and energy to explore an adjacent possible? Do I have obligations, relationships, or tasks that could be put off, finished or delegated to free up energy?
Sometimes the most interesting adjacent possibles reveal themselves when we challenge our most quotidian assumptions. Thesecouldbesimpleassumptions,likehowthingsaresupposed to work. Once, Nathan and his roommate realized they rarely received guests, so they moved their beds from the cramped bedroom to the spacious living room, where they awoke to the rising sun. But there are even bigger assumptions we live by. What if we could reframe our lives to see them in new ways? Consider the following.
• What beliefs (family, cultural, religious and so forth) have you inherited that might be limiting your ability to find the adjacent possible? If you were born into a family of creatives, innovators or risk takers, experiments might feel
natural to you. If not, you might assume that the life you are living is the only one available. Take courage from Fuller’s guinea pig B moment, when from a sense of total unworthiness, he intuited that money, fame and power weren’t required to change the world.
• Spend some time around people who have lived across cultures and ask them: How has their sense of what is possible changed as a result? One of the greatest perks of being an expat is the way it reveals the made-up quality of much of what we do and how we do it. Take the idea of vacation. In France, schoolchildren have two weeks off every six weeks (with affordable childcare options available to parents who work), and everyone gets at least two weeks off in August (and most take the whole month).
In closing
The adjacent possible is always expanding, and this is true for both personal creativity and global innovation. Discovering adjacent possibles requires two things: a willingness to look for them and the courage to pursue them.
Moreover, adjacent possibles build on each other, in that each step you take into the unknown reveals yet more adjacent possibles in the future. As you consider the potential of adjacent possibles in your own life, recall Fuller’s words: “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”
Nathan Furr is an Associate Professor of Strategy at INSEAD. Susannah Harmon Furr is a designer, entrepreneur and art historian. They are co-authors of The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022).