Page 107 - The Resilient Organization

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

decision-making routines, is the issue framed? Invite framing contests
and strategy debates.
4. Add thinking redundancy/equifinality/ambiguity (multiple meanings)
through one of the following methods:
• Playing devil’s advocate (Someone acts as a challenger to consen-
sus decisions.)
• A shadow executive team (a group of junior organizational mem-
bers who express their views on strategic decisions for discussion
with the “real” executive team)
• Developing a network of independent people to entertain con-
trasting and differing views about future scenarios
• Maintaining “hypocrisy”: Keep talk and action separate to allow
the organization to cope with inconsistent societal demands that
cannot be reconciled [Brunsson, 1996 (in Warglien & Masuch,
1996)].
• Use humor, or even a “corporate jester,” to make points that oth-
erwise would be rejected (see the Chapter 8 sidebar, “A Note on
Jesters and the Role of Humor”). Jesters are, by their function and
through their antics, able to make occasionally true and helpful
(maybe annoying) points that others would get fired for.
5. Explore the issue in terms of extremes (grotesque, for example):
What is the very best or worst possible case? What is still possible
(even if unthinkable in its consequences)?
6. Consider the expected outcomes of important decisions, and write
3
the outcomes down at the time of the decision making. Compare the
events that unfolded to the expected course of events. What does the
difference suggest about the decision assumptions?

Schwartz and Randall [2007: 97–98 (in Fukuyama, 2007)], in their dis-
cussion on anticipating strategic surprises, recommend being “both imagina-
tive and systematic.” Beyond raw labor, it is important to have the knack to
put together different bits of information in a way that builds various sce-
narios and event paths. Thus, one must be able to consider serendipity as
part of one’s calculation in such a way that it enhances the interpretation of
what can be (made) possible. This is being “serendipitously sagacious.” One
may be able to be lucky and wise and identify an opportunity as per chance.