Page 32 - The Resilient Organization

Fallen Eagles: Bet on Resilience, Not on Strategy 19

VOICE OF RESILIENCE

Amazon.com acquired the online shoe retailer Zappos in July 2009.
The New York Times reported (July 22, 2009) that the management
team of Zappos would remain intact. Zappos has a favorable reputa-
tion among consumers owing to its personalized service, free overnight
shipping, and its policy of allowing buyers to return any pair of shoes
free. “We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run
Zappos—continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our
culture, and our business,” wrote Tony Hsieh, the Zappos CEO. Jeff
Bezos, Amazon.com’s chief executive, praised Zappos as having “a cus-
tomer obsession, which is so easy for me to admire. . . . I get all weak-
kneed when I see a customer-obsessed company.”

TOWARD RESILIENCE

Historically, we have tended to think of resilience as a fallback. Resilience
has typically been seen as an ability to bounce back after strategy failure, to
make a recovery, or to persist during a crisis. Table 2.1 contrasts this notion
of resilience as a crisis capability (Resilience II) to our new proposed notion
of resilience that begins by taking timely action before the misfortune has a
chance to wreak havoc (Resilience I).

Table 2.1 Conceptions of Resilience
Resilience I Resilience II
The capacity to: The capacity to:

• Change without first experiencing • Recover after experiencing a crisis
a crisis
• Change without a lot of accompanying • Persist in the face of threat;
trauma not to yield; tenacity
• Take action before it is a final necessity • Survive trauma