Working in China: Inspiration and Chaos

China's digital environment is vast and growing at breakneck speed. The pace of adopting platforms and technologies is relentless. Government regulations can transform that environment overnight. Clients demand solutions the day after briefing us. It's vibrant, chaotic, and utterly unpredictable.

Q: "What characteristics must an advertising agency possess to succeed in this environment?"
A: "They need to be anti-fragile."

For many readers, "anti-fragility" may still be an unfamiliar term. It's a concept proposed by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book of the same name (2012, not yet translated into Japanese), known for his bestseller The Black Swan (2007). He is a professional who has competed in the world of traders, a complex system itself. In the international financial markets, constantly exposed to intense stress, people fear losses and strive to design robust structures. Yet history has proven that such structures shatter into pieces under stress exceeding a certain threshold, triggering financial collapse.

Taleb argues that what is needed is a structure possessing "anti-fragility" – not merely robust, nor merely flexible. It is defined as a structure that not only withstands external stress, but actually gains resilience when stressed.

The defining characteristic of anti-fragile structures lies in their networked nature. In a network, the destruction of a single node does not destroy the whole. They evolve and become more resilient by learning from failures and accidents. The structure of the internet is a prime example. The international aviation safety system is another clear illustration. National airlines share information because the network learns from each accident, evolving and strengthening to make air travel safer.

Another key characteristic is flexibility, simplicity, and speed. The more rigid a structure, the more likely it is to snap suddenly. Anti-fragile structures possess a resilient, spring-like quality that disperses applied forces, preventing breakage. While some fast-food chains succeed by offering "the same taste everywhere," this approach doesn't work for us as a marketing services company. We need a flexible team structure capable of adapting to each individual client and a simple organization that can move quickly even in unpredictable environments.

To embed this structure internally, I began testing a method I named "Idea Sprint." It aims to be simple, fast, and an open system where all participants enjoy collaborating. If colleagues working worldwide can join and refine it, I expect an international network equipped with "anti-fragility" will emerge.

(Supervised by: Dentsu Inc. Global Business Center)