{"id":29252,"date":"2022-10-26T07:15:30","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T14:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29252"},"modified":"2022-10-25T19:08:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T02:08:35","slug":"surprisingly-provoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/surprisingly-provoking\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprisingly Provoking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taleb is a Lebanese American statistician, trader, and analyst who also became a well-known author. One book, the Black Swan<\/em>, came out in 2007 and was touted as one of the most influential books since WWII.[1]<\/a> I found it helpful to have a rudimentary understanding of The Black Swan <\/em>as the prologue of Antifragile<\/em> suggests that it is the main volume and The Black Swan <\/em>serves as a supporting, theological work. Being that I have not read The Black Swan, <\/em>the key ideas as cited on Blinkist were helpful:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cBlack Swans\u201d are events thought to lie outside the realm of possibility, and yet happen anyway.<\/li>\n
  2. Black Swan events can have earth-shattering consequences for those who are blind to them.<\/li>\n
  3. We are very easily fooled by even the most basic of logical fallacies.<\/li>\n
  4. The way that our brains categorize information makes accurate predictions extremely difficult.<\/li>\n
  5. We don\u2019t easily distinguish between scalable and non-scalable information.<\/li>\n
  6. We are far too confident in what we believe we know.<\/li>\n
  7. Taking an inventory of what you don\u2019t know will help you to assess risks better.<\/li>\n
  8. Having a good understanding of our limitations as human beings can help us to make better choices.[2]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Antifragile<\/em> is often classified among psychological works, but the book’s influence is vast, spanning across economics, religion, entrepreneurship, and politics, to name a few. Composed of seven sections, or books<\/em> as Taleb refers to them, there are three levels at which the book is written: #1 \u2013 literary and philosophical, #2 \u2013 the appendix, and #3 \u2013 backup material. The prologue provided a helpful definition of \u201cantifragile.\u201d It says,<\/p>\n

    Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile.<\/p>\n

    Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.<\/strong> (bold print mine)[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    An illustration I found helpful to understand antifragility<\/em> was the story of Hydra in Greek mythology. Each time Hydra had a head cut off in battle, two would grow in its place. While Hydra’s enemies thought they were weakening (and even killing) the serpent, in all reality, the opposition only served to strengthen her. This is an example of antifragile.<\/p>\n

    Two reviews provided me with valuable insights into conceptualizing this complex book. The first was \u201c7 Key Takeaways From Taleb\u2019s Antifragile\u201d and the second was Antifragile Summary and Review, written by Taleb himself. Following are his ten key ideas:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The antifragility of a system depends on the fragility of its constituent parts.<\/li>\n
    2. Shocks and stressors strengthen antifragile systems by forcing them to build up extra capacity.<\/li>\n
    3. Tranquil environments result in fragile systems \u2013 antifragility stems from volatility — It is birthed in chaos.<\/li>\n
    4. To take advantage of antifragility you don\u2019t need to understand the opportunities you see, just when to seize them.<\/li>\n
    5. To become antifragile, manage your risks so you can benefit from unpredictable events.<\/li>\n
    6. The larger the organization or system is, the harder it will be hit by unexpected crises.<\/li>\n
    7. Many modern professions are antifragile, but at everybody else\u2019s expense.<\/li>\n
    8. Our desire to eliminate volatility from life will eventually make our society more fragile — we need struggle (and I would say a theology of suffering).<\/em><\/li>\n
    9. Modern teaching suffers from a \u201cturkey problem\u201d \u2013 we misread the past to predict the future.<\/li>\n
    10. We undervalue the role of antifragility in fuelling progress and advances in society.[4]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I confess that upon my first read of this book, I was less than engaged. Taleb\u2019s writing came across as dry, philosophical, and wordy. However, having reviewed my notes on the book and re-reading a few blogs, I retract my initial sentiment and acknowledge that while this book has some deep waters, it is worth the struggle to glean from his perspective. On the heels of Polanyi, I saw a direct connection to his work when Taleb states, \u201cWe know more than we think we do, a lot more than we can articulate.\u201d[5]<\/a> I also could not help but consider The Molecule of More<\/em> and the antifragility the early explorers demonstrated, driven by a desire for more and a lack of contentment for \u201cthe ways things have always been.\u201d<\/p>\n

      I look forward to what my colleagues glean from this book. If I had more time (and space to write!), and I was not looking at a stack of nearly thirty books on my \u201cto read shelf,\u201d this is a book I would want to re-read and discuss with a few colleagues as I believe there are some incredibly valuable leadership principles that could be applied in a variety of contexts.<\/p>\n

      [1]<\/a> \u201cBooks That Helped to Change the World | the Sunday Times,\u201d accessed October 24, 2022, https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/books-that-helped-to-change-the-world-qbhxgvg2kwh.<\/p>\n

      [2]<\/a> The Black Swan | Summary of Key Ideas | Book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Blinkist<\/em>, n.d., accessed October 24, 2022, https:\/\/www.blinkist.com\/en\/books\/the-black-swan-en.<\/p>\n

      [3]<\/a> Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder<\/em>, Random House Trade Paperback edition. (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014), 3.<\/p>\n

      [4]<\/a> Nassim Nicholas Taleb, \u201cAntifragile Summary and Review,\u201d accessed September 20, 2022, https:\/\/lifeclub.org\/books\/antifragile-nicholas-nassim-taleb-review-summary.<\/p>\n

      [5]<\/a> Taleb, Antifragile<\/em>, 35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Taleb is a Lebanese American statistician, trader, and analyst who also became a well-known author. One book, the Black Swan, came out in 2007 and was touted as one of the most influential books since WWII.[1] I found it helpful to have a rudimentary understanding of The Black Swan as the prologue of Antifragile suggests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2412,2411],"class_list":["post-29252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-antifragile","tag-taleb","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29253,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29252\/revisions\/29253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}