Designed for Volatility
Designed for Volatility

The book is the playbook.

Available now on Amazon

Technological and geopolitical shocks, from AI and tariffs to shifting competitive landscapes, global conflicts, and supply-chain disruption, are rewriting the rules of business faster than most organizations can plan. Many leaders respond by trying to become more resilient, so they can absorb the blow and get back to normal. But normal isn't coming back.

Designed for Volatility shows leaders how to build organizations that don't just survive disruption but grow stronger and more competitive because of it. Drawing on decades of executive experience, David J. Blumenthal and Yair Alan Griver turn this idea, which author Nassim Nicholas Taleb called antifragility, into a practical operating system any leadership team can put to work.

You'll learn how to:

  • Balance safe, core investments with small, smart bets that pay off when the unexpected happens
  • Set clear guardrails so teams can move fast without risking the company
  • Keep your options open instead of locking into a single forecast
  • Push decisions closer to the people who see change first
  • Build a complete operating plan that turns volatility into advantage

Rather than treating AI as a technology race, the book uses it as today's clearest test of how organizations adapt their strategy, culture, talent, and governance.

With clear methods, diagnostics, scorecards, and real-world cases, it is built for leaders who are ready to stop reacting to change and start profiting from it.

Includes access to the free Designed for Volatility toolkit.

A written report on hidden fragility.

What is inside

Four moves, not a syllabus:

See the fragility

Name what looks stable in a quiet quarter and fails when variance arrives.

Protect the core

Wall off what must not fail. Everything else can take a punch — including the next AI pilot.

Build the option portfolio

Small bets, kill rules, barbell allocation.

Hold a 90-day cadence

What we protected, what we tried, what we killed, what we try next.

Under those moves: strategy as a guidance system, decision rights closer to the work, communication as infrastructure, consequences tied to incentives and metrics, and a 90-day / 180-day / 12-month operating plan. Methods and team tools, not a theory to admire.

Who it is for

COOs, CHROs, CIOs, CEOs, and the advisors already in the room — mid-to-large organizations tired of treating each shock as a special project.

If you need a beach read or a general theory of antifragility, this is the wrong book.

How to use it

One copy is a reminder. Shared copies are the playbook. The Work is the 90-minute session or the 90-day working group.

David J. Blumenthal: commercial and operating lens. Yair Alan Griver: technology and operating systems. Two perspectives. One playbook. Bios on About.