{"id":29280,"date":"2022-10-27T16:37:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T23:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29280"},"modified":"2022-10-27T16:37:19","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T23:37:19","slug":"beyond-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/beyond-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moving beyond fragility and resilience, Nassim Nicholas Taleb draws our attention to a new word to the English language: antifragility<\/em>. He defines this as the ability to benefit, thrive or grow when exposed to \u201cshocks \u2026 volatility, randomness, disorder, \u2026 stressors \u2026 risk, and uncertainty[1]<\/a>.\u201d Unimaginable as this may seem, the author notes that antifragility is Illustrated in how \u201clack of stress (here, bones under a weight-bearing load) can cause aging[2]<\/a>.” Similarly, drawing from Greek mythology, the author points out that while Damocles could easily be killed from the sword dangling over his head, demonstrating fragility, a phoenix is reborn from its ashes, amazingly bouncing back. But what is most intriguing is that a hydra grows two heads when one head is cut off. The hydra thus goes beyond resilience to being antifragile[3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Using several chapters grouped into seven sections, Taleb carefully examines this important subject highlighting the value of leveraging the opportunity for growth that is hidden in every challenge. For example, reflecting on the crisis that overtook his homeland, he states:<\/p>\n

My Levantine village of origin, Amioun, was pillaged and evacuated during the war, sending its inhabitants into exile across the planet. Twenty-five years later, it became opulent, having bounced back with a vengeance: my own house, dynamited, is now bigger than the previous version. My father, showing me the multiplication of villas in the countryside while bemoaning these nouveaux riches, calmly told me, \u201cYou, too, had you stayed here, would have become a beach bum. People from Amioun only do well when shaken.\u201d That\u2019s antifragility[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In view of this I am compelled to question why the low-income community I am privileged to serve has not learned from this, regardless of whatever is responsible for their difficult circumstances. Perhaps pain is an indispensable part in the journey to significance. I often wonder if my community does not regard pain as a final destination, instead of a stop-over.<\/p>\n

Antifragile<\/em> reminds me of Bolsinger\u2019s argument in support of the need for leaders to be tempered<\/em>. Inspired by the practice of blacksmithing, Bolsinger describes tempering as a multi-layered process of:<\/p>\n

heating, holding, hammering, cooling, and reheating that adds stress to raw iron until it becomes a glistening knife blade or chisel tip \u2026 [ultimately resulting in] something greater than the sum of its parts.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Bolsinger admits that \u201cleading change is difficult. It requires us to hew hope out of despair[6]<\/a>.\u201d Sometimes this hope seems out of reach, but history is filled with example after example of individuals who were defined by their hope. In other words, Taleb and Bolsinger both suggest that antifragility is an essential characteristic of leadership. We see antifragility demonstrated in leaders like George Washington, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Tutu and many others. This also suggests that life\u2019s challenges may be viewed from the perspective of opportunities to transition from survival to resilience to antifragility.<\/p>\n

Taleb\u2019s work also brings to mind Eve Poole\u2019s book, Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership<\/em>. Right from the beginning, Poole identifies eight important stakeholders in the leadership ecosystem: leaders in training; learning and development practitioners; executive coaches; weary leaders; talents; leaders in transition; and others.[7]<\/a> In other words, everyone<\/em> has the potential to be antifragile.<\/p>\n

Some would argue that Rwanda\u2019s president Paul Kagame resembles an antifragile political leader. Against the background of a bitter genocide that claimed the lives of some one million of his countrymen, Kagame has managed to lead his country into greater prominence than it previously enjoyed. Among the country\u2019s many achievements is her ranking as the sixth safest country in the world (and the safest in Africa) for solo travelers[8]<\/a>. Widely regarded as a benevolent dictator, Kagame is one African leader I hope to study in my search for modern individuals that exemplify antifragility. It is my hope that our generation would see many more examples of antifragility, and like Taleb, many more promoters of it.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder<\/em>. (New York. Random House, 2012), 3.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Taleb, Antifragile, 58.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 33.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 203.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Bolsinger, Tod. Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change<\/em>. (Downers Grove, Illinois. Intervarsity Press, 2020), 5.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience, 209.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Poole, Eve. Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership<\/em>. (London. Bloomsbury Business, 2017) location 55.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/travel\/2022\/01\/24\/rwanda-the-6th-safest-country-for-solo-travellers-new-survey-finds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moving beyond fragility and resilience, Nassim Nicholas Taleb draws our attention to a new word to the English language: antifragility. He defines this as the ability to benefit, thrive or grow when exposed to \u201cshocks \u2026 volatility, randomness, disorder, \u2026 stressors \u2026 risk, and uncertainty[1].\u201d Unimaginable as this may seem, the author notes that antifragility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"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":[2412,1980],"class_list":["post-29280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-antifragile","tag-nassim-taleb","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29280","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\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29281,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29280\/revisions\/29281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}