Antifragile patterns I’ve learned from the event industry

I’m using the word “robust” as “unbreakable” and the word “antifragile” as something that gains from disorder, which is also the name of the seminal book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who introduced this term.

Organizations that incorporate antifragile patterns into their work, systems, and culture can not only withstand challenges but also grow stronger from them. In these articles, I aim to trigger ideas for introducing antifragile patterns into your work, team, and systems. Subscribe for deliberate delivery 😉.

Antifragile pattern: Act as if there is no contract – talk to the human!

Have you ever been in a conflict with a service provider, customer, or even employee who insisted that things should go according to the contract without truly understanding the cost it has on you?

Story: Our event location partner wanted to cancel an entire day shortly before our event because of a 7-figure opportunity.

For one of our biggest festivals in Heidelberg, we worked with the beautiful Stadthalle and, for years, have been renting the entire space for 4 days once a year. I would say that our relationship with them was great. Still, one day shortly before our 5th edition of the Festival, I got an email from my main contact saying that they needed to cancel the entire Sunday on us for another giant client. At this point, I had an almost sold-out event, committed to over 80 talents for whom I’ve bought travel and accommodations, and we were just a month away from the event.

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind not to hurt our relationship with any type of “how can you do this to us” and try to use guilt or force, as that would only cause a terrible long-term relationship. Instead, I got on the phone and learned that they had an incredible opportunity for a seven-figure contract but needed all Sunday to prep the venue. I scheduled a meeting to talk in person, and meanwhile I brainstormed on how we can turn this into a win-win situation rather than turning towards lawyers.

During our meeting, we could carve out a solution that allowed us to offer a changed but still good last-day experience to our guests while the venue could still have the time needed to complete the setup. In fact, the new concept was so good that we ended up keeping it in subsequent years.

The antifragile moral of this story

Having strong contracts to lean on makes your organization robust. Having the skills and presence of mind to stay calm and collaborate with your partners to find a new win-win solution when circumstances change is an antifragile pattern that makes you come out stronger.

Story: Writing policy documents makes your organization robust, but leaning on them to save time invites a challenge

An important lesson I learned some years ago was that I introduced company policies without also going over with my managers how to introduce these policies to the rest of the company.

Naturally, each manager took their own approach, and as you can imagine, we got very different reactions. In one case, we had exactly the reaction intended with the document, and in the other, a lot of relationship mending needed to happen afterward.

What was the difference?

One team was introduced to the policies by the manager, who walked them through the document, infused it with humanity, and addressed questions and insecurities on the spot, while the other manager simply sent the document to the rest of the team, hoping it would handle all the communication needed. This approach, of course, made the interaction feel like a “message from above,” which was not the culture we aimed for, resulting in a lot of loss of trust. Resolving this issue took much longer for the entire company than it would have to personally go over the points with each individual.

The antifragile moral of this story is

Having the document is a robust pattern. Creating the space and time to go over it together for a richer context and bilateral communication is an antifragile pattern.

Next up: How we use “human nature” in project planning to introduce antifragile patterns.

(Subscribe 🔔 & Repost ♻️ this article if you like it)

P.S. Do you consider these as antifragile patterns? Give me a Yes/No in the comments.