The Need For Agility In The Face Of Crises

Think like a chess player

The loss of meaning makes us either go in all directions or ground us. The global health crisis has exposed the nihilism that consumes our lives. For some, welfare gives the illusion of a world that goes on, without suspecting that the next world will be quite different. For those who have not experienced the crisis in their flesh, there are two scenarios: those whose lives are resilient or even anti-fragile (a concept developed by Nassim Taleb in his eponymous book) and those whose suffering from the crisis will be postponed until later, particularly in its economic aspect.

A crisis with three faces: a health crisis generating an economic crisis which itself generates a crisis of meaning. They challenge the certainties on which our lives had been built until now. They force us to think about the world differently while taking note of a change in life that for some will be irreversible. The belief that progress follows a linear curve that can be joined like a train taken along the way is false. Progress is only possible through the collapse of part of the existing, in the words of Schumpeter and his famous creative destruction. The economic boom functions in successive phases of expansion and contraction. The globalization of growth generates global wealth through increased productivity. However, another globalization is always hanging over our heads, like a sword of Damocles, it is sometimes the globalization of creative destruction and sometimes the globalization of crisis, whether economic, health or moral.
To be resilient in a globalized world is to develop in such a way that we benefit from the benefits of the globalization of growth while being impervious to the misdeeds of destruction. It is in itself cultivating a form of contradiction that is not antinomic. Resilience lies in the ability to draw strength from globalization and anti-globalization. For example, it means being able to trade with international and local customers, to deliver services or products that are both virtual and real, to give customers the possibility of paying in cash, in assets, or in currencies based on blockchain technology.
Today’s crisis has finally highlighted the need to diversify our activity in order to be able to bounce back quickly, like an army on the march that has infantry, artillery and cavalry at its disposal in order to be able to face all types of enemies.

The current crisis is one of specialization and monoactivity. To be resilient is to be one or more steps ahead to be able to counter temporary or permanent bad times.