Aligning with SDGs on a nonlinear planet

ur global vision for sustainable development is expressed in the 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that UN Member States adopted in 2015. These have created a framework for national action and global cooperation on sustainable development. The SDGs provide time-bound targets for prosperity, people, planet, peace, and partnership to guide national action and global cooperation. The 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda are aimed at everyone, from states to individual citizens.

We cannot achieve sustainability using linear models and static tools created in the past decades for a linear world. Nonlinear phenomena are all around in science, ecology, epidemiology, communities and business. The Black Swans propagated by the multiple, complex and interconnected crisis are derailing SDGs, as humanity continues to move into the Anthropocene at increasing speed.

Nassim Taleb defines a Black Swan as an event with the following three attributes: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. There are positive Black Swans (opportunities) and negative Black Swans (threats) with catastrophic consequences.

In his book ‘The Black Swan – The Impact of the Highly Improbable’ Taleb notes that ‘The notion of asymmetric outcomes is the central idea of this book: I will never get to know the unknown since, by definition, it is unknown. However, I can always guess how it might affect me, and I should base my decision around that […] This idea that in order to make a decision you need to focus on the consequences (which you can know) rather than the probability (which you can’t know) is the central idea of uncertainty […] As it happens, many rare events yield their structure to us: it is not easy to compute their probability, but it is easy to get a general idea about the possibility of their occurrence. We can turn these Black Swans into Grey Swans, so to speak, reducing their surprise effect.’

The field of innovation is concerned with finding Black Swans, rare events that capture significant returns. The strategy is to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can. Since antifragile means to benefit more than to lose (positive asymmetry), the first step is to reduce possible losses. Reducing potential losses means to reduce the exposure to negative disruptive elements (negative Black Swans).

Government, business and more generally brands operate in a high risk/high gain environment. New dynamic tools and nonlinear models are needed to help public and private organizations detect and exploit favorable asymmetries (exponential opportunities) and avoid unfavorable asymmetries (catastrophic risks) in a systematic manner.

After many years of research, I developed a new Innovation Model which takes into account fragility, nonlinearities and exponentiality. This new Innovation System is presented analytically in a step-by-step practical Guide which among other, includes a comprehensive Innovation Toolbox with 92 strategic tools, mechanisms, techniques, methods, models, frameworks and standards. The most appropriate tools are selected case by case since every innovation is different.

The Innovation Toolbox can help private and public sector organizations modify their exposure accordingly in order to exploit positive asymmetries (be open to opportunities) and protect themselves against negative asymmetries (decrease exposure to catastrophic dangers). The detection and exploitation of positive asymmetries captures exponential multiplicative returns whilst the avoidance of negative asymmetries lessens the potential damage and eliminates the risk of ruin. This pioneering multitool is applicable to all organizations (public and private sector) regardless of type, size or activities. The practical Guide I have prepared can:

1. Help organizations: a) Innovate under conditions of extreme uncertainty and b) manage known unknowns (currency risk, supplier default, accidents, fire, bad weather) and unknown unknowns (terrorist attacks, pandemics, natural disasters, financial crises).

2. Build business and community resilience.

3. Enhance nonlinear thinking, cross cutting creativity and innovation capability.

4. Accelerate public administration and local government reforms.

5. Improve competitiveness.

In summary: The new Innovation Model presented very briefly above can help public sector organizations and business navigate the nonlinear future and contribute to achieving the SDGs.