Page 33 - The Resilient Organization

20 Part One: Why Resilience Now?

EXAMPLES OF RESILIENCE I AND II

The United States showed great resilience after 9/11. The economic
recovery, after the most serious attack in U.S. history, was remarkable,
and the people’s collective determination not to give in to terrorism was
laudable. This was Resilience II. However, in terms of Resilience I, the
record is less admirable. Despite multiple indications of a possible ter-
rorist threat, no preventative action was taken. The 9/11 Commission
Report calls the events “a shock, not a surprise” (see the Executive
Summary, p. 2). Further, the eventual response to the threat—the forma-
tion of a large Homeland Security Department—is questionable in
terms of its ability to meet an ever-changing variety of threats. The for-
mation of a prison camp in Guantanamo Bay also marked a forfeiture
of the very values the country was supposed to defend, thus opening up
an opportunity for the enemy to cry hypocrisy. All these things dimin-
ish Resilience I, the capacity to turn the threat—hostile action—into an
opportunity, namely the beginning of a new kind of relationship
between the peoples of the United States and the Middle East (some-
thing President Obama attempted in his speech in Cairo, June 4, 2009).

I define strategic resilience as the capability to turn threats into oppor-
tunities prior to their becoming either. This is a definition closer to
Resilience I than Resilience II, but it sets an even higher standard. It is not
sufficient to momentarily neutralize (Resilience I) or survive (Resilience II)
threats—in the long term, such threats tend to resurface and wear the
company down.
Foundational to such resilience is having the courage to see opportunity
where others see threat. Vinod Khosla, a highly acclaimed venture capital-
ist in the Silicon Valley, recently raised $1.1 billion “to spur development of
renewable energy and other clean technologies” (Los Angeles Times,
September 2, 2009). Khosla describes part of the funding as “science exper-
iments,” which perfectly captures the potential for serendipity—to create
positive surprises, insightful understandings, or framings of happenstance
events—that is so critical for resilience. These kinds of surprises are “fat