The art of making your business antifragile
(Last of two parts)
This is a continuation of my article last week, “How to make your business antifragile.”
Bloomberg has called me an “expert in managing times of change and uncertainty.” Well, we do have tons of that right now! And it is not going to end anytime soon—even if the wars calm down a bit. Geopolitically, we are witnessing the global power struggle of two main superpowers: The United States as the reigning power and China as the incumbent.
Most of all, the conflicts we are witnessing around the world have an indirect or direct connection to this main power struggle.
These struggles of new powers threatening existing superpowers are not new—it has existed since the dawn of time and have always followed the same cycles, by and large. If you are interested in how these cycles play out in detail, I recommend reading Ray Dalio’s excellent book “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail.”
What the recent wars have taught us about fragility
Both the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Iran-US-Israel-Gulf Cooperation Council conflict have taught us all one important lesson: We are all more connected than we thought, and to an extent that still surprises most people.
They have also shown us that countries have to become more self-reliant and self-sufficient. And if they cannot do that, then at least they have to make sure their supplies come from a mix of different countries and there is no single-point dependency.
If you read about several countries complaining that their oil supply will run out in X number of days and they fear for the existential survival of their economies, that is what we are seeing.
If Japan sources 90 percent of its oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz and the Philippines declares a national state of emergency; Australia says they have 60 days of supply left; one principle becomes clear. In the future, countries—and businesses—can no longer source where it is most efficient and cheapest. They have to diversify their sourcing to avoid single-point dependency as much as possible.
Build flexibility
When the world becomes volatile, the most valuable asset in business is not perfection. It is flexibility.
Flexibility gives you options. And options are what allow a business to adapt before damage becomes irreversible.
This is why antifragile companies are often designed differently from conventional firms. They diversify critical suppliers. They avoid overdependence on a single customer segment. They create variable cost structures where possible. They build modular products and services that can be adjusted quickly. They maintain channels that allow them to shift distribution when the market moves. They cross-train talent. They invest in information flows that make change visible early.
All of these may appear slightly less efficient in the short term. It is often vastly more intelligent in the long term. The right question for a CEO is not simply “how do we eliminate slack?” It is “where do we need options?”
Because optionality is one of the deepest sources of antifragility.
When you have choices, volatility becomes less dangerous. In some cases, it becomes beneficial.
When one path weakens, you have another. When one market softens, another may strengthen. When one supplier fails, another is already in place. When one strategy stalls, a second is already under development.
Decentralize enough to let the organization learn and respond fast
Another hallmark of antifragile businesses is that they do not depend on one brain at the top to notice everything and decide everything.
In highly unstable periods, centralized control becomes slower and more fragile than many CEOs realize. Why? Because reality changes first at the edges.
Customers change behavior before strategy decks are updated. Supply disruptions appear in operating detail before they show up in board reports. Competitors shift posture in the field before headquarters language catches up.
The people closest to the market often see the future first. Antifragile businesses are designed to use that information.
That does not mean chaos. It means the company is built with enough distributed authority that local decisions can be made quickly within clear strategic guardrails.
The CEO sets direction, priorities, principles and capital allocation.
But the organization is trusted to respond.
That matters because speed is not just about energy. It is about structure. If every important adjustment must travel upward for approval and then slowly back down again, the company becomes brittle under pressure. If capable teams can act within a disciplined framework, the business becomes more adaptive, more informed and more alive.
Antifragility depends on that kind of living intelligence.
Stop treating redundancy as waste
Start treating it as insurance and opportunity. One reason antifragile companies outperform in disorder is that they think carefully about redundancy. That word makes some executives uncomfortable. It sounds expensive. It sounds inefficient. It sounds like duplication. Sometimes it is.
But strategically applied redundancy is not waste. It is shock absorption. Cash reserves are redundancy. A second supplier is redundancy. Cross-trained managers are redundancy. Backup systems are redundancy. Alternative logistics routes, spare capacity in critical areas, deeper cybersecurity protection and succession depth are all forms of redundancy.
These do not maximize short-term neatness. They maximize survivability and maneuverability.
That is the point. An antifragile company does not spread redundancy everywhere. That would be lazy and costly.
It places redundancy where failure would be disproportionately damaging. It identifies the choke points, dependencies and pressure points that could become existential in a crisis, then builds intelligent backup around them.
That is not defensive thinking. It is a sophisticated strategic design. Because once the shock comes, the company with redundancy has time. And time, in a crisis, is one of the most valuable currencies in business.
Your three to thrive
1. Build options, not just plans.
In unstable markets, optionality is power. The company with more intelligent choices usually wins.
2. Learn faster than disruption spreads.
Volatility will teach every business something. The winners are the ones who turn stress into adaptation before competitors do.
3. Stop treating redundancy as waste.
Start treating it as insurance and opportunity. Avoid single-point dependency just because it seems “efficient” on the surface.
The stronger ambition for any serious owner and CEO is to build a business that does not merely withstand disorder but gains from it. Because in the years ahead, the companies that win will not be those that wait for calm. They will be those built to grow stronger when calm disappears.
Tom Oliver, a “global management guru” (Bloomberg), is the chair of The Tom Oliver Group, the trusted advisor and counselor to many of the world’s most influential family businesses, medium-sized enterprises, market leaders and global conglomerates. For more information and inquiries: TomOliverGroup.com or email Tom.Oliver@inquirer.com.ph.
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