Lots of evidence recently of COVID-related health damages and deaths. Hiring qualified replacements is increasingly difficult. For a business today, this is a scary but terribly real situation. But, what if a business lost, say, up to two-thirds of its workforce as a result? Is there anything it can do to prepare, especially given the possibility that no such worker-loss horror will actually occur?
At long last things are getting back to normal. Masks mostly gone. Distancing mostly gone. Occupancy limits mostly gone. Huge numbers vaccinated. We are back on the road to serious economic recovery, yes? Well, such hope is nice but reality is rarely nice. What if reality is still in charge? How vulnerable is your business to the next black swan or even lesser hits? How much might not knowing cost you?
Fragility is a measure of how much stress it takes to break or greatly damage something. A system may be highly stress-resistant when it encounters some kinds of stress but easily broken by other kinds of stress. Businesses as systems have a latent fragility that can lead to failure during times of great stress – like today.
