Thought for the Day 26/03/21 - How do you handle Black Swans?

AUDIO

You're just not expecting a black swan, right? 

Everybody knows swans are white.

That's the thing.

A 'Black Swan event' is something you know about, though ... it's the one you're not ready for, and it throws you as it catches you off guard.

So to be clear ...

"A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight" ... or so we are TOLD.

It doesn't help when they happen to be told: 'you'll be alright' ... you need resilience and recovery actions in place to get through them.

It's all about ...

Building in 'anti-fragility'

In the jargon we need to build an ethos in advance that is 'Anti-Fragile'.

This thinking came up again for me recently in a military leadership publication HERE, and then again shortly afterwards in a contribution to the Gospel Coalition blog.

It's all very relevant to an era of pandemic when 'resilience' has become a hot topic.

The problem seems to be that the Black Swan moments we have were quite simply previously unthinkable. By definition, you see, you don't think of or prepare for the unthinkable!

Building anti-fragility into ourselves and our organisations is held to be the way to deal with these events.

How do you prepare for the unthinkable to happen?

This pandemic we've been having is far from having been a Black swan event as it was being widely predicted beforehand, but Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s work on randomness still has lessons to teach us about resilience.

This anti-fragile approach to dealing with events for which an organization is not prepared would suggest that we need to:

 

• maintain our clear goals and priorities
  
  
• be realistic about accepting the world as it is along with the actual curbs on our freedom of action within it and 
  
  
• emphasise risk management and 
  
  
• adaptation in order to 
  
  
• sustain our original objectives. 

Taleb argues that when implemented this anti-fragile approach to organisational leadership will enable teams to not only survive uncertainty but to 'have the last word'.

So WHAT has that got to do with the Bible?!

Remember that last bit about sustaining our original objectives there?

Let's talk Black Swans and the Prophet Jeremiah ...

Black Swans and the prophet Jeremiah

Jeremiah was called to be God's spokesman to the people of God as he lived amongst them when they went through the unthinkable experiences of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem which was followed by the forced emigration into Babylon and captivity.

His brief from the Almighty was to uproot and tear down, to plant and build up ... to turn the coming unthinkable events to reconstruction and the building of an improved and resilient new life. It sounds like an Anti-fragile brief to me!

If you have seven minutes to watch a short video about the book of Jeremiah, it's really interesting, I'd really recommend watching this one HERE.

So how do you plan in advance for your Black Swans, Jeremiah?

Planning in advance for your future Black Swans

Writing before the devastating destruction of the homeland of the people of God and their being carried off as captives to a foreign land, in preparation for the Black Swan that was coming Jeremiah exposes the heart of their problem:

"‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man,

    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the LORD 
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives.

 ‘But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.   

They will be like a tree planted by the water

    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.’"

So here is our Verse for the Day:

The Point

Way before their Black Swan event, Jeremiah was calling for spiritual anti-fragility and he characterised that negatively then positively.

Negatively ...

Trouble was in store for those people who 

• drew their strength from mere flesh and 
  
  
• whose hearts turned away from 
  
  
• their faithful and covenant-keeping God.

Positively ...

Great happiness lay in store for those people who

• trust in the LORD, and who consciously
  
  
• place their confidence in Him

Confidence is the issue, and where you place it.

The former end up "... like a bush in the wastelands;

    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives."

                                                       Jeremiah 17:6

Whatever that means, you know it doesn't sound good!

But when the Black Swan flies in (and for his people, it really did) Jeremiah counsels those people in advance, then 

" blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.’"

                                     Jeremiah 17:7-8

That sounds like the best place to be, doesn't it?

The Takeaway

One of the main characteristics of unexpected and cataclysmic events is that you never expect them in the first place and only looking backwards do you see they were predictable.

The thing about prophets is that they break through that principle and (by definition) tell you what's coming down the pipe.

Jeremiah is doing that for his people and telling them how they need to prepare for it.

It's clearly better to prepare in advance, and the key to that preparation is about where you place your confidence.

To trust your own strength and 'positivity' is not going to get you through life's major but unexpected crises, says Jeremiah but:

"blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,

    whose confidence is in him."

Get that sorted out and He'll get you past your Black Swan.