Beyond Resilience

Everyone involved in travel and tourism is dealing with the consequences of what we now know as long COVID…the persistent second and third order effects that no one expected or was prepared for:  high levels of debt, high interest rates, a supply crisis, political polarization, an urban doom loop…everyone surprised by a cascade of events beyond their control. Their fragility exposed because of hubris, panic, and unpreparedness.

When I wrote ‘A post-COVID-19 future – tourism re-imagined and re-enabled’ in 2020, I said that the survival of visitor-serving enterprises depended on them becoming ‘anti-fragile’ – organizations that could and should be prepared to gain from a degree of disorder.

Problem is, and based on what I’ve observed, few in the industry have been paying attention.  Why?  Their existing management practices are sticky, stubborn, and suitable only for stability.  Practices that have dulled the senses, driven out intuition, created bureaucracies, impersonalized planning, abolished grassroots-learning and thick-knowing, driven out commitment, human energy, and motivation.

Proposals to adapt to complexity, become more resilient, seek re-invention, or change business models, may be well-intentioned, yet possibly unrealistic, unless more organizations recognized that control, as a core maxim of management, is a myth when volatility, stressors, and randomness represent the norm. 

Many authors have opined about the future of management, but few have actually taken the time to reflect on the nuances associated with anti-fragility. Here’s a simple overview and a more complex explanation. 

Organization cannot create buffers from environmental forces, but they can engage in concerted intervention to modernize their managerial practices, ensuring they become more organic, more human, and more meaningfully responsible to all the people and communities they serve. 

If organizations are to become more aware of their options and exit ramps, more connected and concerned about the sustained recovery and well-being of their communities-as-destinations, maybe they would learn a lesson or two.