In my last blog I introduced the concept of organizational resilience and how we might actually assess this capacity in an organization. Got some powerful feedback especially as it related to the full scope of what resilience, adversity and trauma are. Suffice it to say that the whole concept of resilience can be - and is - sufficient to exceed the limited space of any one blog to address and has a breadth and depth of opportunity to support any number of graduate and post-graduate courses and degrees! All that being said, I want to move beyond identifying how one might start to measure organizational resilience to how leaders could take steps to further develop resilience in their organization.
Whether an organization has undertaken a formal and well-developed assessment of current ability to effectively respond to adversity or has taken a much more limited and cursory approach to this evaluation the results may largely be the same - there is room for improvement and strengthening of organizational resilience. First off, no organization has all the perfect systems or structures in place. I always believer there is room for improvement. Second, even if those systems and structures were best-in-class when introduced, they likely need ongoing maintenance and attention as times passes. Complacency and hubris can lead to unpleasant surprises down the road. Finally, resilience in an organization is a function not just of the structures and systems that an organization has in place but also of the individual capacity of each individual employee as well. The reality is that these individuals operate at different levels of capability and resilience on any given day and that this reality shifts daily. Personal and organizational resilience are always in flux.
A key takeaway from understanding organizational resilience aside from the need to do some form of assessment and appreciating that it is always in flux is that fact that when adversity (or even a major disaster/trauma hits) that whatever we show up to the event with is what our capabilities will be in the moment. The organization, its leaders, and its staff will not have the luxury of asking the pain point to come back when we are more ready. An organization needs to be proactive in preparing for eventuality of adversity and worse.
Some core elements of enhancing, sustaining and building organizational resilience come back to the areas of resilience assessment introduced in the last blog.
Core Values & Purpose - One of the comments I received from a reader on my last blog related to how too many organizations seem to have lost their "why?" The passion and clarity of purpose was seen as lacking and an explanation as to why we are seeing so much employee disengagement and turnover. In this reader's view the lack of articulation AND ADHERENCE to core values and purpose was a key driver of the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting.
I agree. An organization would do well to revisit/refresh its Mission, Vision and Values on a regular basis; ensure that all internal stakeholders (at least) are part of that process to support commitment, buy-in and execution: and then vigorously embed these foundational elements into organizational systems and processes. This latter effort, continues the organization-wide discussion around the "why", the "where" and the "how" - it makes the commitments and promises real. As one of my coaching colleagues says all the time - "We need to take these statements off the wall and make them walk down the hall!"
Organizational Decision-Making - A core part of making the purpose and values real and vibrant is ensuring that they are in fact used in organizational decision-making. A consistent reference and application of these core elements needs to be part of any decision that the Board, senior leadership, middle management and front-line staff use to make large and small decisions. Alignment of purpose and grounding in common frameworks allows all internal stakeholders to be centred in advance of adversity and provides them with the ability to get recentred when adversity throws individuals and organizations for a loop.
Investment in Leaders and Staff - Hopefully, it is relatively obvious that resilient leaders provide the capacity for organizations as a whole to be resilient. If leadership is stressed, exhausted, and otherwise fragile (for any number of reasons) the capacity of the organization to respond to adversity is likely to be limited, reactive, late and even counter-productive. If physical, emotional, mental and spiritual resilience of the leaders is diminished they cannot similarly evaluate, monitor and attend to the capacity of staff. Leaders ARE a key point of leverage for organizational success and will determine how your organization will respond in the moment of adversity. This reality speaks to the need for ongoing engagement surveys (not just once every few years), actionable and credible plans to address the results of the engagement surveys, the development of systems that allow leaders and staff to do work effectively and with limited frustration (e.g., suitable IT systems, sufficient supplies, good equipment, etc.), strong communication throughout the organization, and ongoing leadership and staff development.
Organizational Coping Skills - Every organization should provide its leaders and staff clarity as to how to respond in a moment of adversity. The time for critical learning is not at the time of a critical event! This can be as simple as having a well-understood response plan in the event of a fire alarm (don't laugh - I've seen something this basic be taken for granted and experience miserable failure as a result), an IT outage or hack, all the way through to supports available to react to and immediately recover from an episode of violence in the workplace. If leaders and staff know the commitment and seriousness of the organization's efforts to support them in the moment - and then experience that level of support in the moment - confidence and resilience are maintained and impact is more rapidly recovered from.
Organizational Self-Care - Beyond the immediate crisis, an organization must similarly invest in a range of longer range and proactive initiatives that lay a strong foundation for building capacity. This includes investment of serious time and energy - and sometimes dollars - in areas and systems such as business continuity plans, partnerships with suppliers and other service partners, customer service initiatives and relationship building, succession planning efforts, and long-term capital infrastructure maintenance and replacement plans. The list is certainly not exhaustive but hopefully illustrates the flavor of proactive investments in long-term organizational strategies that can support organizational resilience.
Culture & Personality - the final element that I propose that an organization attend to on a consistent and proactive basis is the health of its culture. This takes on many forms - some of which relate to the initiatives we have just covered above. Overall, an organization that has a strong, consistent and aligned culture has a greater chance of successfully moving through and beyond adversity than an organization that doesn't understand and own its strengths, doesn't promote or practice within a learning environment, and overall believes in its collective capacity and strength.
When we put forth the concept of alignment this speaks to two aspects. One, the organization's systems, decisions and actions must be aligned with, support advancement of, and be driven by the organization's Mission, Vision and Values. Second, all leaders, staff, departments, and functions of the organizations must know and feel that they are moving in the same direction and hopefully with equal passion and commitment.
Overall, this perspective implies a level of investment in organizational self-confidence, recognizing and rewarding individual, team and organization performance and successes. This implies a level of connectivity and camaraderie within the organization with limited to no barriers for information sharing and collaboration. This suggests that the organization has both the humility to assess and test itself, is driven to improvement, and is willing to learn from (versus simply punish) mistakes. This suggests that the organization and its staff have the confidence in all circumstances to maintain control over events rather than seeing themselves as victims of external forces.
Ultimately, organizational resilience - once understood and assessed - can be improved by a series of purposeful and aligned initiatives. Failure to undertake such efforts puts not only organizational heath and success at risk but may also result in complete failure and demise of the enterprise.
I suggest that attending to and promoting organizational resilience is neither simple nor easy. But it is critical. And ultimately a resilient organization is all about leadership.
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Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
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