Fragile to Antifragile

Nassim Nicholas Taleb introduced the concept of antifragile as, “Things that gain from disorder,” in his 2012 book, Antifragile.  In 2016, Albino and colleagues illustrated antifragility in comparison to fragile, resilient, and anticipatory systems.

Fragile systems buckle under pressure—they become weaker with time and don’t experience recovery. They lack buffers and adaptive capacity.  These systems tend to focus on short-term stability, leaving them exposed when unexpected events occur.  Some health care systems collapsed under pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic, unable to withstand pressures like ICU overflow and staff burnout.  Many systems are still struggling to return from this collapse.

Resilient systems become weaker for a time after a shock, but in time they experience significant recovery.  Resilient systems are focused on recovery and absorbing shocks. During COVID-19, after the initial shocks, many hospitals were able to temporarily reconfigure services to protect core functions like emergency and intensive care.

Antifragile systems benefit from volatility.  They are built to learn from the experience of a shock and in time become stronger—they “gain from disorder”.  Antifragile systems incorporate mechanisms like redundancy and Feedback Loops.  Adoption of telemedicine accelerated during the pandemic, and many of these innovations were subsequently adopted into regular practice.

Anticipatory systems plan for shocks by investing time and resources into imagining their effects and reflecting on possible responses.  These systems don’t wait for disruption before they act to become learning systems.  They may include diverse partnerships that help them become strong in advance of disruption.  Some jurisdictions had stockpiles of PPE and significant capacity in public health when the pandemic hit.

If something is fragile, it breaks under stress. If it is robust or resilient, it resists stress and tries to recover. If it is antifragile, it gets better because of stress, variability, or disruption. And if it is anticipatory, it gets ready to respond to the next disruption.

This image graphs the responses to system shocks over time and shows whether they become weaker or stronger. Fragile systems fail to recover from a shock and is illustrated with a barren landscape. Resilient systems partially recover and is illustrated by some new growth. Antifragile systems are weaker for a time and then learn from the disorder to become stronger while anticipatory systems do not weaken from shocks and is illustrated as a flourishing landscape.
Larger versions of the illustrations from the first image without the timeline.

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