Wrote during Covid time to how to manage crisis in such a situation (first published on March 27, 2020)
The black swan concept theory is known to many of us. These are unpredictable events that cannot be addressed in a planned manner. We must find out how to manage the show when it happens, and pre-planning becomes difficult. It is the occurrence of "unplanned low probability high impact events". The black swan is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise and has a significant effect. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson.
Nassim Taleb (a Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, and former options trader and risk analyst, whose work concerns problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty) coined the term "Black Swan" in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable(2007).
It indicates that:
The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology
The non-computability of the probability of consequential rare events using scientific methods
The psychological biases blind people -both individually and collectively - to uncertaintyÂ
In this context, the concept of resilience should get more attention. The chaos and systems theories taught that small changes could have significant effects, which got translated in business terms into the concept of 'leverage': the idea that "small, well-focused actions can sometimes produce significant, enduring improvements".
The COVID-19 environment is like a Black Swan, which could be the magnitude; many learned people do not want to dwell on them. In such an environment, the following fundamental principles are to be practised, and the faster we can align to these principles, the better we will be.
Learn to accept the fact that the environment is not 'normal'. It creates chaos: Political, Economic, Social, and familial. It could bring major national and global cultural shifts if the situation continues. The impact could be much more than what we can imagine. However, it does not mean that we can panic. Panic (sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour) actions/behaviour will happen when we cannot think collectively and we feel an utterly hopeless situation. Today, we can believe and do not consider going into an utterly useless situation necessary. Therefore, do not panic, but proactively think and act 'as if things are not going to be normal'.
Collectively think within each organism, as each organism is different. It would be futile to believe that we can address everything happening around us, but we can consider what can go wrong and what we can proactively do in our immediate context.
Throw away existing framework (legal/political/economic): We cannot think and act in the contours created by the existing framework in a crisis like this. Therefore, the government, people, and Society should be ready to look at issues/concerns from a macro perspective rather than a self-interest protection basis. It would be contrary to point 2 above. When you act, act at your organism level, but when government and Society act/think, they do that at the macro level.
Communicate Purpose and FACTS: Communication with a larger perspective involving/impacting larger stakeholders (within each organism) should be Fair, Authentic, Conviction, Transparent, and safeguarded. A proactive bulletin and instructions on communicating to the public must be shared with all media - as they are still dishing out the same old "style of communication". In many cases, the principles of FACTS need to be adhered to.
Rewire Crisis Management at each level: Crisis management pre-supposes, Preparation, Prevention, Identification, Recovery, and Monitoring cycle. However, in a Black Swan Event, this needs to be rewired, keeping 3 C's in focus: Communication (using Digital tools and Purpose in mind involving all stakeholders), Convergence (global, national, local), Creative thinking (a platform to assimilate new ideas, thinking through as much as possible and formulate a mechanism to develop)
We still are not looking at the current crisis in a severe manner. Hence, I thought of penning these initial thoughts. I am available to support you as much as possible.
Let's shake our minds from existing cobwebs to address humanity's concerns.
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