Surprise at Work: An Integrative Review of Engineering Surprises (Not Just Reacting to Them)

Most organizational research treats surprise as something that happens to us—e.g., market disruptions, crises, or unexpected setbacks that require reactive management. But our research reveals a powerful alternative: leaders and professionals who proactively engineer surprises as strategic tools. In other words, this review shows how leaders, peers, and employees can engineer surprises to drive performance and productive change in organizations.

Surprise as a Strategic Tool in Organizations

Indeed, effective professionals and leaders don't just respond to surprises, they create them. Coaches design unexpected plays to outmaneuver opponents. Teachers use surprising examples to capture wandering attention. Product designers defy customer expectations to create breakthrough innovations. These aren't accidents; they're deliberate strategies that leverage surprise's unique psychological power.

When we experience surprise, our brains shift from ‘autopilot’ to active attention. This creates two valuable windows: focused attention and openness to learning. Smart leaders use engineered surprises to break through organizational routine and catalyze meaningful change.

Two Approaches to Engineering Surprise

Our review identifies two primary strategies: surprises of confidence and surprises of emergence:

• Surprises of confidence work by building expectations, norms and routines then deliberately violating them. A manager might establish a pattern of routine weekly meetings, then suddenly announce a major strategic pivot. The violation of established expectations creates a powerful impact.

• Surprises of emergence create chaotic contexts where unexpected connections naturally arise. Think of cross-functional brainstorming sessions or rotational assignments that expose people to unfamiliar challenges. The surprise emerges from novel combinations.

Practical Applications

The research suggests five key principles for leaders:

1. Democratize surprise authority. Don't reserve surprise for senior leadership—encourage surprises from all levels. Upward surprises from employees often feel more authentic and drive stronger innovation.

   
   

2. Make surprises purposeful. Before engineering any surprise, ask: "What assumption or expectation am I trying to challenge?" Use surprise as a catalyst for learning, not just effect.

   
   

3. Practice in low-stakes settings. Test surprise strategies in team meetings or planning sessions before deploying them in more critical situations.

   
   

4. Always debrief. The meaning of surprise depends on how people make sense of it afterward. Build in reflection time to reinforce learning and surface different interpretations.

   
   

5. Build “surprise fluency.” Organizations need to develop collective capacity to recognize, interpret, and respond constructively to unexpected events. This isn't about predicting surprises, it is about becoming comfortable with and even embrace uncertainty.

The Deeper Opportunity

In sum, organizations that master engineered surprises gain a crucial advantage: they become comfortable disrupting themselves rather than waiting to be disrupted by external forces. They develop what the researchers call “surprise fluency”—i.e., the ability to thrive amid uncertainty rather than merely survive it.

The key insight is counterintuitive: the best way to handle unexpected challenges isn't to eliminate surprise through better planning, but to become fluent with surprise through intentional practice. Leaders who engineer surprises for their teams prepare them to excel when genuine unexpected challenges arise.

In an era where change is the only constant, the ability to create and navigate surprise may be one of leadership's most essential skills.