Page 21 - The Resilient Organization

8 Part One: Why Resilience Now?

July 30, 2009), and it may be turning into a wasteland. The citizens of the
beautiful lagoon islands of the Maldives are looking for a new home as theirs
may be swallowed by rising waters. A fire engulfing more than 100,000
square feet in its first week was burning the suburbs of Los Angeles at the
end of August 2009. The LA firefighters called the fire “angry.” In Europe,
there has been a sharp rise in fatalities resulting from heat waves, such as the
2003 temperatures that killed 15,000 people in France alone. The planet evi-
dently cannot sustain abusive wars, neglect, and rising temperatures without
severe consequences to its capacity for sustaining life.
Even if the economy is turning around and a new growth period is now
emerging, we should not let the crisis of the past years go to waste. It is an
opportunity for transformation; but, more importantly, it is an opportunity
also for reflection and learning. Indeed, it would be immoral and wasteful
not to take the opportunity to learn.

RESISTANCE OR ADAPTATION?

When the ecologists talk about “resilience,” they mean the ability of a sys-
tem to resist major change (or, to endure perturbances without systemic
change). When population ecologists in business schools talk about “struc-
tural inertia,” they consider it a hallmark of stability and reliability in a
company. This forms the absorptive fodder that ideally eliminates the need
for restructuring. When Gary Hamel and I wrote about resilience in 2003
in the corporate context, we assumed that change is necessary and that,
rather than focus on resistance, it would be best to focus on cost: how to
effect change as cheaply, or as free of trauma, as possible. Figure 1.1 pres-
ents this simple framework: any change can be evaluated relative to its cost.
Cheap change might mean small-scale experimentation that, if it works,
is eventually scaled up. It might also mean the compounding of many
experiments so that they add up to something significant. Or it might mean
learning from others because doing so is presumably cheaper than going
through the experience and inevitable failures yourself. Change that comes
cheap might also mean starting early, so that there is time for learning and
correction while all options are still open—no need to take potentially huge,
costly, traumatic, and life-changing risks.