Resilience Thinking creates antifragile systems

When a new system (e.g., an organization) is instituted to solve a problem, it often maximizes innovation by implementing a divergent exploration of various solutions. As the system matures, the initial value of exploration and innovation tends to be replaced by convergence toward a single (or very few) means of solving the problem, in order to maximize efficency. But this creates a problem: Increasing the stability and efficiency of a system is at the cost of flexibility. Resilience thinking attempts to design Antifragile systems that are able to withstand (and even improve from) shocks.

“Resilience thinking” is a burgeoning field that attempts to deal in new ways with the new challenges of complexity. In a resilience paradigm, managers accept the reality that they will inevitably confront unpredicted threats; rather than erecting strong, specialized defenses, they create systems that aim to roll with the punches, or even benefit from them. Resilient systems are those that can encounter unforeseen threats and, when necessary, put themselves back together again.[1]

In Resilience Thinking, Walker and Salt note that the drive for efficiency and optimal outcomes directly results in a more vulnerable system:

the more you optimize elements of a complex system of humans and nature for some specific goal, the more you diminish that system’s resilience. A drive for efficient optimal state outcome has the effect of making the total system more vulnerable to shocks and disturbances.[2]

#systems-thinking #organizations #antifragility

See also:

  1. source: Team of Teams – McChrystal, et al. (2015), ch. 4, “The Threat from Behind.” McChrystal observes, “Resilient systems are those that can encounter unforeseen threats and, when necessary, put themselves back together again.” ↩︎

  2. source: Resilience Thinking – Walker and Salt (2012), ↩︎