Antifragility and Resilience: Two Different Concepts?

by Oliviero Casale

Introduction

In recent years, the concept of resilience has gained considerable attention, especially in response to significant global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and climate change. However, the increasing complexity and variability of the contexts in which resilience is applied has led many scholars and practitioners to seek to further qualify the original concept with new attributes or adjectives. This development reflects an emerging need to refer to the concept of antifragility, introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which Oliviero Casale , Rick Fernandez , Alvaro Reynoso , Pier Cassone , Paola Rinaldi, Phd and Marco Cibien then explored in depth in the ebook “Antifragility and Innovation Management” as a distinct notion and complete, not simply as an evolution of resilience.

Resilience: A Concept in Transformation

Traditionally, resilience has been understood as the ability of a system to "return to normal" after a shock, a concept known as " bouncing back". This vision is based on an idea of equilibrium where the objective is to restore the state prior to the disturbance. However, recent literature has introduced a transformative perspective of resilience, which emphasizes adaptation and fundamental system change over time, in the face of multiple disturbances and shocks.

This evolutionary perspective views shocks not only as challenges to be overcome but also as opportunities for learning and improving the system. This approach, although more dynamic, continues to focus on maintaining the functionality of the system, even if this may involve a significant transformation of its structure.

The Resilience Scale: From Reactive to Antifragile

To better understand the evolution of the concepts of resilience and antifragility, it is useful to consider the scale of organizational capabilities in response to shocks proposed in the ebook "Antifragility and Innovation Management":

1. Reactive : At the lowest level, reactive organizations respond to shocks only after they have occurred, often attempting to repair damage and return to a functioning state.
2. Resilient : Resilient organizations not only respond to shocks but are also prepared to deal with them, trying to maintain their functionality or quickly return to their previous state.
3. Transilient : At a higher level, organizations achieve “ transilience ,” the ability to not only recover but adapt and improve in response to shocks, innovating and transforming to reach a new level of operation.
4. Antifragile : At the top of the scale, antifragile organizations thrive on shocks. They not only adapt and improve, but they use uncertainty and disruption as sources of continuous innovation and growth.

Antifragility: A Distinct Concept

Antifragility, a concept developed by Taleb, represents a further step forward. An antifragile system not only resists and adapts to shocks, but actually thrives and improves when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder and uncertainty. This concept embraces the idea that some things improve when subjected to stress and disorder, as opposed to simple resilience which seeks to maintain or restore balance.

Antifragility therefore incorporates some aspects of resilience, such as adaptation and the ability to deal with shocks, but overcomes them by integrating them into a framework that sees disorder as a source of continuous improvement and innovation. Resilience includes adaptation, flexibility, the ability to absorb and recover from shocks, and learning from experience. Antifragility, on the other hand, adds to these aspects the ability to thrive and improve thanks to shocks, exploiting disorder and uncertainty as sources of competitive advantage and innovation. This makes antifragility not a simple extension of resilience but an entirely distinct entity that requires a new lens of interpretation and application.

In this context, it is significant to note that in reference to the reference practice published by UNI Ente Italiano di Normazione and proposed by Enel Group entitled “UNI/ PdR 155” for the first time in a technical normative document there is an official definition of antifragility, which describes it as "property of systems in which the capacity to thrive increases following stress factors, shocks, volatility, disorder, error, failures, attacks or failures". Furthermore, an antifragile system welcomes the unexpected, uncertainty and takes risk positively. This means that an antifragile system is not only capable of dealing with unexpected situations but welcomes them as opportunities to improve and grow. Starting from the concept that antifragility is the true opposite of the concept of fragility, while a fragile system breaks down under stress, an antifragile system becomes stronger. This conceptual opposite highlights the importance of seeing antifragility as a separate paradigm and not simply an extension of resilience.

The Importance of Distinguishing Concepts

In the context of innovation management and economic policies, as discussed in the ebook "Antifragility and Innovation Management", it is crucial to consider antifragility as a separate concept from resilience. This is because antifragility does not simply respond to shocks to maintain or restore a state of equilibrium, but uses shocks as leverage to continuously evolve and improve.

As highlighted by the document "Resilience – Definitions , Concepts and Measurement", many of the resilience strategies still focus on preparation, response and recovery from specific shocks, reflecting a vision still predominantly oriented towards stability and risk mitigation. In contrast, antifragility embraces uncertainty and disorder as sources of information and learning opportunities, improving system performance and robustness in the face of adversity.

Anticipatory Innovation: Anticipate to Innovate

One of the key factors characterizing antifragility is anticipatory innovation. This uses strategic foresight to identify emerging trends and potential discontinuities. The key lies in integrating these practices of anticipation and innovation within the strategic decision-making process: in this way decisions are based not only on current information but also on strategic hypotheses and forecasts, allowing organizations to be proactive and capable of anticipate, rather than reactive. Innovation thus becomes a dynamic tool for exploring creative solutions and experimenting with new processes, technologies and business models capable of transforming these potential comparisons into opportunities.

Antifragility: A New Perspective

Antifragility stands out for its ability to transform shocks into advantages and new opportunities, a concept therefore that goes beyond the simple resilience of resilience. While resilience in its initial concept seeks to return to a previous state or adapt to maintain functionality, antifragility thrives and regenerates through variability and disruption, improving with exposure to risk. This characteristic makes antifragility a powerful concept for managing innovation, where adaptability and the ability to take advantage of changing conditions are crucial.

Application Perspectives

In the economic and policy fields, recognizing antifragility as an entity in its own right allows us to develop strategies that not only protect against crises, but that use such events as catalysts for innovation and growth. For example, policies based on antifragility could incentivize diversification and continuous experimentation, creating economic systems that not only resist shocks, but improve because of them.

Conclusions

The distinction between resilience and antifragility is not merely theoretical, but has significant practical implications for innovation management and economic policies. Recognizing antifragility as a separate and complementary concept to resilience can guide the design of more robust and adaptable systems capable of thriving in disruption and uncertainty. As we started to explore in the ebook "Antifragility and Innovation Management", It is now time to adopt this new perspective to face future challenges more effectively and creatively, in line with the guidelines of the ISO 56000 series of standards on innovation management on which ISO TC 279 - Innovation Management is continuing to work.