Lots of people are talking about resilience these days, as the secret to staying afloat and strong in times of extreme challenge. But what is resilience in companies and how can it be built?
Clues to the answer can be found in the psychologists’ definition of resilience: psychological stamina, or the ability to survive difficult situations without incurring lasting damage.
What does this mean for a company? Resilience in a company can best be characterized as the ability to successfully overcome crises, external shocks or major setbacks caused by changes to social, economic and/or political conditions, and to grow even stronger in adapting to the new circumstances.
Building and maintaining resilience should of course be automatically included in the strategic goals of any company hoping to survive and be successful in an unpredictable world. But this is much harder than it sounds. So, you may ask, how do I go about this?
The development of a strategy for resilience should comprise the following main steps and answer key questions:
| Carry out a structured, holistic (but also sufficiently detailed) status review |
– Where does the company stand today?
|
| Identify risks and vulnerabilities, including those that could be game changers |
– What could prevent us from bounding back from a crisis? |
| Introduce preventive and protective measures | – How could we avoid or protect ourselves against such an occurrence? |
| Ensure the optimal balance between agility and predictability | – How flexible can we be without losing our inner stability? |
| “Keep your eye on the ball”
|
– How can we maintain resilience on an ongoing basis?
|
It is often very difficult to develop an objective response to such questions, and companies spend considerable sums on consultants to obtain one. But there is another way: the STRATURITY Human Capital Self-Assessment© provides answers and specific recommendations for achieving continuous improvement. And it can be carried out from the comfort of Home Office!!
