E5.005 (ReIMAGINE Your Business) BEYOND ROBUST - BECOMING ANTIFRAGILE - mATTHEW sCHWAM & WILLIAM EASTMAN

SPECIAL SHOW with Matthew Schwam discussing how he redefined an existing and well respected brand and used that experience to launch a new business.

Today we are accomplishing 2 things - introducing a great businessman to our audience and his story of building resilience into his companies, and then discussing the concept of Antifragile - how to create companies that not only survive disruptions, like Covid19, but benefit.

INTRODUCTION
Matthew Schwam - Matthew Schwam Design Solutions
Matthew is a widely recognized creative visionary, brand strategist, commercial and retail designer known for his revenue generating iconic visual presentations and marketing strategies.  With over 25 years of experience, his vision has guided corporate leaders of brands worldwide.

​OBJECTIVES

1. How did Matthew redefine and extend his name to create a multiple robust offer?
2. What is an 'antifragile' business?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW​
Antifragile: “Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” Nassem Talib

• Fragile organisms and organizations break under stress. It is the species one step from extinction or an organization one mistake from failure. The majority of businesses find themselves in this condition. The final event in their demise can be self-induced like running out working capital during a growth spurt, or driven by external events like the pandemic shutdown.
• Robust organisms and organizations resist shocks and remain the same under stress. They have sufficient redundancy to withstand the effects of an internal error or an external black swan event. These organisms and organizations are immunized from shocks that black swan events generate.
• Antifragile organisms and organizations get better under stress. Taleb coined this phrase because there was nothing in the literature that describes this condition. These organisms and organizations prosper during periods of great stress because their response is to build or take advantage of extra capacity; they get better under stress.

There are apparent and not so obvious implications of this model. For example, our drive to make everything lean or optimized by the reduction of redundancies tends to blow up under stress. Take JIT inventory for example. What happens when the supply chain breaks down and the only inventory you have in reserve is on the shelves and not in a back room? Exactly where several retailers found themselves a few weeks into the pandemic.

"The World of Business at Your Fingertips" 

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