Thus they know that to achieve eventual success they may have to look in a number of places , some of which may turn out to be fruitless . And for that they espouse Edison ’ s dictum that finding many things that don ’ t work is not failure but success on the route to finding those that do .
This exploring approach is reflected in the principles of ‘ effectuation ’ identified by Saras Sarasvathy . She found that many successful entrepreneurs distrust market research and , when deciding how much they would invest in a new venture , base their decisions on how much they could afford to lose rather than how much they might gain .
They expect that reality will turn out to be different from prior expectations and so are prepared to adjust their approaches accordingly as they progress .
And Taleb also picks up this investment approach when he speaks of those whose investments of choice are not the ones with the best balance of risk and potential return but those with the lowest risk of catastrophe .
Such exploring approaches have a long history and are often referred to as ‘ trial and error ’ although error is the wrong word as it is really trial , observation , feedback and improvement .
Such considerations are encompassed in the ideas of ‘ lean startup ’ in which developers of new technical devices and systems are encouraged , not to wait for a fully developed version before exposing a new product to the public , but instead to try limited market releases of early versions in order to get real market feedback which can often be surprising in the problems or successes and the likes or dislikes it reveals .
Taleb ’ s book Antifragile has already been mentioned but it is worth explaining the title . Taleb invented the word ‘ antifragile ’ as the opposite of ‘ fragile ’ which is not ‘ robust ’, he says , because , whereas something which is fragile may be damaged by careless handling , something which is robust is liable to be unchanged and he wanted a word for something which instead got better .
Robustness is often achieved by strengthening the subject and insulating it from outside effects which is why it won ’ t be changed by them . But Taleb wanted a label for those things that may be strengthened or improved as a result of uncertain , careless or rough handling – and for that they have to be exposed to the influences in question .
Releasing a prototype for rigorous testing so that problems can be identified and improvements made is an example of antifagility in practice .
Those are just a few of the ideas which might be helpful when faced with uncertainty – so is it possible to learn from that way of thinking ?
There is guidance to help us to face uncertainty – but essentially it requires a change in mindset . We need to move from the traditional business wisdom which encourages a leftbrained approach of looking for certainty ( or as close to it as possible ) and planning on that basis – and instead practice a rightbrained acceptance that things are uncertain but that it is in that uncertainty that opportunities can be found and improvements made .
One way of summarising this might be in the expression ‘ readyfireaim ’. We are used to the sequence ‘ readyaimfire ’ which applies when firing something like a rifle when the shooter has no further control over the bullet once the trigger is pulled .
But real life events are often much more like guided missiles which can be steered after they have been started and are much better at hitting targets whose future movements are uncertain .
So ‘ readyfireaim ’ is often the better way – if you have the right outlook and toolkit to support it .
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