A must-read in the wake of COVID-19, this book unpacks the nature of resilient organizations and how they prepare for unpredictable, complex, and profound change.
Organizations that do not adapt and evolve die. To date, however, it has not been at all clear how to build a resilient organization. That puts us all in the unenviable position of trying to ready our organizations for an increasingly uncertain future without the proper guidance to do it. This book introduces 14 elements of resilience that consistently emerge in organizations that have thrived amid adversity and volatility. Resilience is not about determination, grit, cybersecurity, or teams of resilient individuals; resilience, it turns out, is often confused with robustness. Readers will discover how resilient organizations build and employ a distinctive combination of crews, capital, culture, and leadership—and, crucially—how to adapt these combinations for their own organization.
Senior business leaders, consultants, entrepreneurs, students, and professionals will appreciate this book’s practical, approachable, and engaging guidance, including insights by leaders from Health Care for the Homeless, The Ohio State University, NBCUniversal, retail stores, and more.
Author(s): David Lindstedt
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 214
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Fumbling for Resilience
Eating Mysterious Vegetables
I’ll Know It When I See It
No, It’s Not “Grit”
Aspects of Resilience
Realities of Resilience
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Crews
12,165 Online Courses
Making the Impossible Possible
Crews
Transition
Note
Chapter 2 The Nature of Crews
We’re Putting a Crew Together
Innovation and Resistance
The Right Stuff
Self-selection; Self-Organization
Teams Or Crews?
The Cost of Crews
Transition
Notes
Chapter 3 Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs
Prayer for the Dead
Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs
Entrepreneurial Crews
“Organizational Resilience Occurs When Organizations Create, Invent and Discover Unknown Markets.”—Annette Towler
The Cost of Entrepreneurial Crews
Intrapreneurial Crews
“For the Corporation to Live, It Must Be Willing to See Business Units Die. If the Corporation Doesn’t Kill Them Off Itself, Competitors Will.”—Bower and Christensen
The Cost of Intrapreneurial Crews
Transition
Notes
Chapter 4 Contrarians and Red Teams
Groupthink and Complacency
“Red Teaming Makes Critical and Contrarian Thinking Part of Your Company’s Planning Process...”
What If We’re Wrong?
Transition
Notes
Chapter 5 The Recurrence of Crews
A Return to The Ohio State University
Are Crews Really So Important?
Recurring Resilience
The Eternal Return of Loss and Evolution
Note
Chapter 6 An Introduction to Capital
Fluff N Stuff Pet Retailers
Capital
Transition
Chapter 7 Resource Capital
Cash Is King
The Tip of the Iceberg
Reduce and Shift Spending
Increase Spending
Mobilize Resources
Caveat: Infrastructure
Transition
Notes
Chapter 8 Relationship Capital
I Know a Guy
Trust
Strong- and Weak-Tie Networks
Uncomfortable Costs
Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen
Cultivation and Costs
Transition
Notes
Chapter 9 Information Capital
Preparing Without Predicting
Three Phases in Dealing With Disruptions
The Plan-Ahead Team and Think-Ahead Crew
Fragility, Signal, and Noise
Cognitive Biases
Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control
Narratives
Transition
Notes
Chapter 10 Capital Combined
A Return to Fluff N Stuff
The Future of Fluff N Stuff
Chapter 11 Transition to an Interlude
Cynefin® and Antifragile
Chapter 12 The Cynefin® Sense-Making Framework
Overview
Examples
Falling Off a Cliff
The Bottom Line
Notes
Chapter 13 Antifragile
The Legacy of Black Swans
The Future Is Unpredictable
The Future Belongs to the Antifragile
Falling Off a Cliff (Again)
A Combined Example
Transition
Notes
Chapter 14 An Introduction to a Culture of Experimentation
Live From New York
Behind the Curtain
Three Elements of a Culture of Experimentation
Transition
Notes
Chapter 15 A Reality-Seeking Culture
The Story and the Schedule
Through a Glass Ever More Darkly
How Resilience Works
The Wisdom of a Dissimilar Room
“How Much Truth Does a Spirit Endure, How Much Truth Does It Dare? More and More That Became for Me the Real Measure of Value.”—Nietzsche, Ecce Homo
Transition
Notes
Chapter 16 A Safe-To-Fail Culture of Experimentation
Launch
Agile and Lean Experimentation
Safe-to-fail
Learning
Improvisation
“What’s Necessary, in Short, Is Not Just Imagination But the Institutionalization of Imagination.”— J. Peter Scoblic
Orient
Explore
Exploit
Transform
Conclusion
Transition
Notes
Chapter 17 A Culture of Dissimilar Individuals
Another Terrible Tension
Dream Teams
Assemble Divergent Individuals
Get Them to Interact; Then Get Them to Play
Dissent
Establish Superordinate Goals
Implications
Range
Transition
Notes
Chapter 18 An Introduction to Exponential Leadership
“It Began to Feel Like a War.”
Synthesis
Exponential Leadership
Notes
Chapter 19 Situational Leaders
Managing Complexity
Cynefin® Again
“The Ability to Respond to the Particular Crisis Is Going to Be More Important Than Ever Before.”—Steve Forbes
Gaining Mastery
Caveat
Transition
Notes
Chapter 20 Purposeful Leaders
“[T].he Capacity to Be More Resilient, Is Directly Proportional to Our Ability to Zero in On Our Purpose Specific to the Situat
Start With Why
A Critical Aside: Grit V. Resilience
Purpose Is Paramount
Loss
Moving Cheese
Transition
Notes
Chapter 21 Loss-Aware Leaders
“Some Choices Cost Us Everything.”—Eggers and Barlow
Transition
Notes
Chapter 22 Empowering Leaders
“Delegate Or Die.”—Patty Azzarello
“Indeed, Companies That Survive Regard Improvisation as a Core Skill. Consider UPS, Which Empowers Its Drivers to Do Whatever It Takes to Deliver Packages On Time.”—Diane L. Coutu
“Organizations That Survive Dangerous Times Have Developed the Ability to Swiftly Delegate Authority and Decision-Making to People With Expertise On the Front Lines.”—Suarez and Montes
“Organizations Can Accomplish [resilience] Through Giving Employees Task Autonomy and Discretion...”—Annette Towler
Transition
Notes
Chapter 23 Caring Leaders
Abandon Ship
Mom and Pop
Duty
The Great Resignation
Transition
Notes
Chapter 24 Conclusion: The Resilient Organization and the Chief Resilience Officer
A Prescription for Resilience
Crews
Capital
Culture
Leadership
The Limitations of Robustness
Chief Resilience Officer
Crews
Entrepreneurs
Intrapreneurs
Contrarians and Red Teams
Capital
Resource
Relationship
Information
Culture
Reality Seeking
Experimental
Dissimilar
Leadership
Situational
Purposeful
Loss-aware
Empowering
Caring
Parts of the Whole
Chapter 25 Epilogue: What Is Organizational Resilience?
A Definition
A Problem of Success
A Refined Definition of Organizational Resilience
For Further Exploration
Notes
Index
