The Prevention Paradox: Why Successful Resilience Work Becomes Its Own Enemy
The Prevention Paradox describes a destructive cycle where successful resilience work makes itself appear unnecessary, leading organizations to systematically disinvest in the very capabilities that prevent disasters. This occurs because human cognition struggles to value "non-events"—the failures that never happen—causing leadership to question the ROI of prevention work during stable periods, ultimately resulting in budget cuts that erode resilience capabilities until major outages inevitably return. Breaking this cycle requires making invisible prevention work visible through measurement frameworks that quantify prevented failures, business-impact narratives that translate technical prevention into economic value, and cultural transformation that celebrates prevention work as a strategic capability rather than a cost center.
Beyond Root Cause: A Better Approach to Understanding Complex System Failures
Discover why traditional root cause analysis and 5 Whys frameworks fall short in complex systems. Learn practical alternatives and the 'Trojan Horse' approach to implement meaningful change in your organization's incident investigation process.
Transform Disruption into Competitive Advantage
Let's be honest; disruption is the norm, not the exception. Headlines regularly feature outages affecting banks, e-commerce platforms, entertainment providers, and airlines. Failure has become an everyday reality.
But what if I told you that these disruptions could actually become your competitive advantage?
Most executive conversations about resilience start in the wrong place. They begin with questions like 'How much will this cost?' or 'What's the ROI?' These questions fundamentally misunderstand what resilience engineering delivers.
Resilience is not about making money. Resilience is about not losing money.
This distinction is critical. Unlike features that directly generate revenue, resilience measures typically prevent losses that would occur during failures or outages. This prevention-focused value proposition requires a different calculation framework than traditional ROI models
What is Resilience Engineering?
Resilience Engineering goes beyond traditional reliability by focusing not just on preventing failures, but on successfully adapting to them when they occur. With applications across software development, healthcare, aviation, and more, this 20-year-old discipline transforms how organizations approach risk and recovery.