Managing Uncertainty: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in Turbulent Times

Chapter 5

Resilience

The capability to absorb and build positively on adversity, shocks and setbacks

Resilience is the ability to take a knock, dust yourself down and start again.

Richard Gartside, Balfour Beatty

If leaders can only be negative about the future, a sense of helplessness and paralysis sinks in. The business begins to feel it is a victim and that it cannot do anything positive to shape its future.

Learning and development manager, defence technology manufacturer

ORGANISATIONS MUST BE RESILIENT if they are to survive in uncertain and volatile times. If they are, they will be better able to adjust to sudden disruptive change and cope with sustained stress and pressure.

Resilience goes hand in hand with agility. As companies seize the advantage or neutralise a threat (open a new factory or close a poorly performing business unit), they must be resilient enough to handle the disruption and uncertainty their actions have triggered.

A resilient organisation is more likely to face up to unexpected change and remain focused on performance. Less resilient organisations are more likely to ignore or underplay the potential effects of external shocks, or may simply be overwhelmed by them. Organisations that lack resilience are all too likely to become locked in a downward spiral of performance.

By definition, a crisis has a definite beginning and end. Some form of resolution is reached, whether positive – survival and/or recovery – or negative, such as the business being split ...