Page 105 - The Resilient Organization

92 Part Three: Step 2. Building Resilience into the Organization

MAKING RESILIENCE A NATURAL ACCOMPANIMENT
TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL DAY

Therefore, I propose making the organization—rather than its leadership—
resilient. Instead of relying solely on the leader’s capacity (whether it’s a
CEO or a head of government) to take preemptive or corrective action in
time, the organization should be imbued with resilience capability. Such
resilience building still requires some intention and determination on every-
one’s part (including the leader), but when resilience is a natural accompa-
niment to organizational activities, it becomes everyone’s responsibility.
Also, turning threats into opportunities on a daily basis is much more effec-
tive (and perhaps continuously rewarding) than doing so when the corpo-
ration is at the end of its success run. Such continuous action also makes
resilience a real-life, everyday capability rather than an abstract concept
that is to be invoked at the times of crisis. When the crisis hits, it is not at
all given that the resilience capability is there to be galvanized, unless it has
been frequently enough rehearsed. (It is like assuming that you can outrun
the tiger, should the need arise, without testing the matter ahead of time,
before encountering the very tiger you ought to be running away from.
Well, not many people live to tell their success story.) It is good to battle
train before the battle.
Resilience building concerns five dimensions that make strong and
imaginative organizations: organizational intelligence, resourcing,
design, adaptation, and culture (or sisu, a Finnish word suggesting
tenacity):

1. Organizational intelligence: Organizations are intelligent when they
successfully accommodate multiple voices and diverse thought.
2. Resourcing: Organizations are resourceful when they manage to
mitigate change or even better, use resource scarcity for innovative
breakthroughs.
3. Design: Organizations are robustly designed when their structural
characteristics support resilience and avoid systemic traps.
4. Adaptation: Organizations are adaptive and fit when they rehearse
change.