Taleb’s Antifragile has the secret
Anti-fragile businesses prosper during the crisis. The randomness and visible risks make them ride through black-swan events such as lock-down. Big brands such as Amazon and Flipkart could not function during the lock-down.
Taleb writes in Anti Fragile: Thanks to variability, these artisanal careers harbor a bit of anti fragility: small variations make them adapt and change continuously by learning from the environment and being, sort of,continuously under pressure to be fit.
Small businesses have been facing the stressors such as e-commerce and digital payments. These stressors are actionable information. They adjusted accordingly. Big e-commerce brands did not sense any risk. They did not adjust. Small businesses are open to gifts and positive surprises, such as doubling of businesses during the lock-down.
Top down approach of the centralised governments make it difficult to respond to the crisis. Kerala Model of governance is about empowering local bodies, which tackled Corona crisis with success. Madhya Pradesh’s top down approach failed.