Black Swan crises and adaptive governance

A photo of black swans on Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, Australia.  Original photo by Stephen Codrington.

The term “black swan event” springs from the idea that, for centuries, people in Europe assumed that all swans were white because no one had ever seen otherwise.  This belief was shattered when Dutch explorers under the leadership of Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Western Australia in 1697.

The phrase “black swan event” has evolved to symbolise an unexpected, seemingly unpredictable occurrence that completely upends existing assumptions.  It is an exception to the prevailing wisdom that undermines accepted assumptions.  The expression was popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book “The Black Swan”, where he defined a black swan event as rare (it lies outside regular expectations), high impact (its consequences are extreme) and retrospectively predictable (after it happens, people try to rationalise it as if it should have been foreseen).

Recent examples of “black swan events” include the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the 2008 global financial crisis, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and some assert perhaps even the disruptive rise of Donald Trump in US politics.

There is no way that a school board can establish enough policies and procedures to eliminate every risk.  Therefore, when school boards and leaders fulfil their duty to manage risk in the school, they typically focus on identifying risks according to two main criteria: their likelihood and their consequences.  Risks that are highly likely to occur and have severe consequences understandably become the highest priority areas for school boards to address.  Risks that have less likelihood and/or less significant impacts can be placed lower on the priority list.

Almost by definition, “black swan” risks lie outside this formulaic framework as they are unpredictable (except, perhaps, in hindsight, as Taleb points out).  Furthermore, “black swan” risks typically come from sources that are external to the school, making them even more difficult to forecast.  Every “black swan” event is different, but there are certain frameworks that a school board can set in place to minimise (or at least ameliorate) their impact.

For schools, one type of “black swan” event is more dangerous than any other, and that is a crisis which threatens the school’s Mission.  The Mission is the school’s enduring purpose – why the school was established and why it is important for it to continue to operate.  School boards can provide some defence against “black swan” events which pose an existential threat to the school by practising what has become known as ‘adaptive governance’.  This is a flexible, learning-based approach that is designed to manage complex and uncertain situations in ways that enhance the capacity of an organisation to deal with and adapt to changes while protecting the same organisation from becoming unstable. 

Adaptive governance is widely applied in black-swan-like situations such as climate change adaptation, water resource management and biodiversity conservation – situations where uncertainty and complexity require continuous learning and co-operation.  Strategies of adaptive governance include keeping up with and utilising new knowledge and changing conditions, dispersing decision-making power, engaging diverse groups to collaborate and work together to build resilience and adaptation, and using adaptive management strategies to test and refine policies over time.

In school situations, using the practice of adaptive governance to help prepare for and ameliorate unforeseeable black swan events involves three broad steps:

Step 1: Map out the school as a system, identifying inputs, outputs, functions, outcomes, and the interrelationships between the different parts.

Step 2: Identify potential disruptors to this system.  Cast a wide net to identify those scenarios that could create great disruption for the school or offer new opportunities. Start at a large scale and then narrow down the identification so that the focus becomes concentrated on those events that will have the greatest impact on the school’s mission.

Step 3: Ask “what if” questions.  After identifying risks or opportunities, the board’s inclination may be to go immediately to mitigation or creation strategies.  However, it is more important first to ask “what if” questions.  These questions will help uncover the school’s greatest vulnerabilities and the most promising opportunities.

Risk identification should be done by as broad and diverse a range of people as possible, including board members, operations staff, teachers in charge of critical areas, part-time staff, contractors, volunteers, and perhaps even students.  Identifying potential risks is one area where diverse perspectives are really needed.

- Dr Stephen Codrington



We offer support for school leaders and board members in many areas, including workshops on risk management and direct help for boards to develop their risk management strategies.

Further information on this and many other facets of best practice in school leadership and governance is provided in the books “Optimal School Governance", and “Insights into School Leadership and Board Governance”, which can be ordered directly through Pronins.

You may also be interested in previous articles which are archived at https://optimalschool.com/articles.html. You can subscribe to receive future articles by e-mail using the red button below.