Antifragile in the Social Sectors

We experienced a mini natural disaster in Central Virginia last year. A heavy wind storm came in and knocked out power in our rural location. This gave me the chance to break out the generator and the chainsaw and for a brief time, put aside the standard 21st century toolkit of laptop, tablet and phone. 

The ringing drone of the generator and the gasoline smelling hands from hauling the fuel can made me think back to times working on disaster assistance in places like the Philippines and Sudan where it is routine to be working off of generator power with the headlamp illuminating my  hardbound field notebooks that I completed at night under the open sky. 

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Despite being somewhat prepared for the disaster (having the generator, being ok with cutting away trees with a chainsaw and heading over to friends’ houses with power to shower), it was still a limiter. Schools were closed so we scrambled for babysitting. We missed the kids’ baseball practice and spent extra time roving around looking for working internet connections and gas stations. 

But what if a disruption like this actually made you stronger? What if your life and work were geared so that chaos provided additional benefit to you in terms of time, financial wealth, learning or relationships? Nicholas Nassim Talib’s book Antifragile explains this idea. 

Antifragile things benefit from chaos and don’t just bounce back, they become stronger. He describes a spectrum from fragility at one extreme, to resilience/strength, to the ultimate goal of antifragility. 

Examples of fragility, strength and antifragility from Talib’s book, with my additions in red text: 

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Applying antifragile to our work in the Social Sectors
Antifragile is a fun way to turn our normal Social Sector work on its head. In many parts of the do-gooder fields, there is an overemphasis on fragility. In fact there was a recent World Bank conference called the Fragility Forum where participants gathered from around the world to discuss the issue. While there may be some good ideas coming out of that meeting, the title says it all. We love to focus on weakness rather than strength as we try to help people. At best we are focusing on the wrong part of the equation. At worst we are reinforcing fragility. 

Antifragile offers a way to think about solving the many problems that we face in the Social Sectors. Antifragile helps us focus on thriving when anything happens (good or bad) rather than simply repairing something bad. 

At the Antifragile Forum we would look at designing support for people that helps them get stronger when something bad happens. These systems would also benefit people during good times. We would be making personal and family systems that operate like the world’s most profitable hedge funds that are making bets on economic growth and crashes. We would be creating a mindset, strategy and set of tactics that has a set of beneficial options for both good and bad situations. 

Applying antifragile to our lives outside of the Social Sectors
Antifragile personal systems are easier to construct. Here are a few ideas on how we can create  antifragile mindsets, strategies and tactics in our own lives: 

Antifragile mindset - Apply the stoic concept that every life event is a teaching and testing moment for us, and a privilege to experience. When something bad happens to us this is almost impossible. But if we can reframe the calamity into an opportunity to be and act our best, the situation becomes an opportunity. Did you lose that job or project? Great, now you have more time to evaluate, plan and spend time with family as you plot your next move. This links to the stoic idea of Amor Fati - or loving fate, no matter what it brings. 

Antifragile strategy - We can create a written strategy that has built-in options for good and bad things that happen. We have a strategy that gives us clear approaches in all situations. We have a clear set of if-then options already built into our routine. Imagine different scenarios from the most positive to the ultimate negative outcome. Then build in a set of tactics to deal with each scenario. This is the useful polar opposite of simply visualizing a best case scenario. Positive visualization works but only if you also have a negative visualization with your options included in that mix. Visualize and write down your worst, middle and best case scenarios for your work and life. You can use the fear setting exercise to get to the worst case. 

Antifragile tactics - We can design a set of tactics that help us thrive in any situation. This could be a set of work routines that allow us to slip into a state of deep focus at work. These tactics could focus on how to say ‘no’ to distractions at work, like unproductive meetings or projects outside of our chosen goals. Write out a set of Antifragile tactical actions in each scenario.Do this in small pieces in a journaling exercise over time, or  do it in one push. Keep the document on file and refer back, both when something good, and when something bad happens to you. 


Making it work for you
Here are some examples of how to apply antifragile thinking in positive and negative situations:

Work project goes well: Great, you finished that big work output on time, everyone is happy and buying you drinks at happy hour after work. Celebrate, enjoy the moment. But then reflect on the positive outcome. Ask yourself why that worked? How can you replicate that mix of factors? How can you use that positive outcome in future work?  

Work project disintegrates: Great, that happened. Smaller failures create progress over time. We have a lot of useful learning opportunities from that failure. Using the failure recovery strategy, how can you mitigate extreme risk to yourself so you can stay in the game? What can we learn to make ourselves stronger in the next similar work situation? How can we use this failure to reflect and progress? 

Learning a new sport: We finally get around to learning how to ski. We are afraid at first, and we fall a lot on the first few days. Those slow speed, repeated crashes teach us balance and how to use the edge. We eventually learn to make it down the slope. In addition to learning that new skill, we now have a blueprint for facing fear, trying, failing and making progress at something worthwhile, enjoyable and useful. 

Someone criticizes us: Colleagues are criticizing that new work initiative that you are championing. The project will bring positive change to the organization over time but will require changes in the way the group works and makes decisions. Great, this is an excellent opportunity to learn how to depersonalize different opinions. Are those people right about some parts of their misgivings? How can you better explain the initiative? How can you adjust it to account for any legitimate feedback. How can we take that experience of feedback into the next time we create and promote something new? 

Happy trails!