This document discusses the concept of resilience. It defines resilience as "the skill and capacity to be robust under conditions of enormous stress and change." While resilience is simple to define, it is difficult to develop in today's complex, rapidly changing world. The document argues that organizational resilience requires the ability to respond quickly to unforeseen changes, even chaotic disruptions. It also discusses the importance of resilience and examines some of the components involved in cultivating resilience within an organization, including strategic planning, infrastructure development, and business continuity planning.

1. WHAT IS RESILIENCE?
“RESILIENCE IS MERELY THE SKILL
AND CAPACITY TO BE ROBUST
UNDER CONDITIONS OF ENORMOUS
STRESS AND CHANGE.”
(COUTU, 2002).
BY MALCOLM REID
Member of the AmCham T&T OSAC Committee
THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF BUZZ ABOUT RESILIENCE THESE DAYS. IT ERM process must be integrated with its crisis
IS AN EMERGENT BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE THAT IS SPURRED BY THE management or business continuity planning”
INCREASINGLY DYNAMIC AND UNPREDICTABLE NATURE OF OUR WORLD. (Barton, Shenkir, & Walker, 2008, p.29). Business
THERE IS TALK ABOUT PERSONAL RESILIENCE, ORGANISATIONAL Continuity Planning (BCP) involves preparation
RESILIENCE, STRATEGIC RESILIENCE, IT RESILIENCE, AND OPERATIONAL and response to events that can impact or
RESILIENCE. ONCE YOU GET PAST ALL THE HYPE, RESILIENCE IS A threaten a companies’ ability to meet its mission.
SIMPLE CONCEPT TO UNDERSTAND. AS DEFINED IN HARVARD BUSINESS Effective BCP doesn’t rely on prediction of events,
REVIEW, “IT IS MERELY THE SKILL AND CAPACITY TO BE ROBUST UNDER but rather concentrates on the critical processes
CONDITIONS OF ENORMOUS STRESS AND CHANGE” (COUTU, 2002). of a company, the impact that loss of the process
WHILE RESILIENCE MAY BE SIMPLE ENOUGH TO DEFINE, IT IS NOT SO would have to the business, and implementing
SIMPLE TO DEVELOP IN THE HIGHLY COMPLEX, RAPIDLY CHANGING, AND a plan that can restore those processes within
INTERRELATED WORLD. the required time frame. BCP then, focuses
on developing contingencies that can restore
ORGANISATIONAL RESILIENCE In risk management potential loss events are an organisation’s critical business functions as
Business leaders are interested in the concept identified and then the business decides to quickly as possible. It’s not just about backing up
of organisational resilience. One definition avoid, accept, transfer, or mitigate risks. A matrix the server for instance, but about contingency
follows, “It is an enterprise’s capability to as in figure 1 is a tool that helps in this process planning for all the infrastructure requirements
(people, hardware, software, facility, power,
etc.) that would be needed to have that server
support the over-arching business process that
Impacts
Likelihood
it exists for.
1 Minor 2 Significant 3 Major 4 Severe The capability to rapidly respond to unforeseen
1 Extremely change will require even more than risk
unlikely management and effective continuity planning.
2 Unlikely
It requires leadership and development of an
organisational culture that is agile and responsive
3 likely to both incremental and radical change.
Leadership must be able to also circumnavigate
4 Very likely the land mines of catastrophic events, which can
alter the business landscape in one moment,
such as 9-11. Jeffrey Greenberg, CEO of Marsh
respond rapidly to unforeseen change, even & McLennan Companies, who had over 1,908
chaotic disruption. It is the ability to bounce Often, risks with a likelihood of 1 are not people working in or visiting their offices in the
back – and, in fact, to bounce forward – with considered at all, even with a potential impact twin towers and one person as a passenger on
speed, grace, determination, and precision” of 4. Risk management tends to focus resources one of the planes, loss a total of 295 members
(Bell, 2002). The key words in this definition on the very likely and likely. Therefore, it can be of their corporate family in the terrorist attack
are “capability to respond rapidly to unforeseen argued that risk management is about prevention of 9-11 (Greenberg, 2002). Marsh & McLennan
change.” Now that does bear some resemblance of predictable events. “Since scenario analysis Companies were able to survive and in fact thrive
to business continuity and risk management. can never be totally accurate, an organisation’s in the midst of a cataclysmic event, as evidenced
continued on page 6
4 AmCham T&T Linkage Q3/2010

2. RESILIENCE (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4):
by their care of employees and victims’ families, disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti its underlying infrastructure, and development
while maintaining high quality customer service, earthquake, and unfettered financial crises. It of a BCP process that can support continuous
and even capitalising on newly created market is therefore, a strategic imperative to cultivate improvement of contingency planning.
opportunities by offering new products and organisational resilience.
services. Greenburg attributes that capability, IMPLICATIONS FOR HSE
what we call resilience, to leadership, culture, COMPONENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL Just two words will vividly bring to your
adaptability, and a priority on the well-being of RESILIENCE mind the implications of organisational resilience
people. Disaster recovery and business continuity What can an organisation do towards on Health, Safety, and the Environment (HSE):
plans played their part, though arguably all cultivation what some would consider an elusive DEEPWATER HORIZON. According to reports,
of the companies in the twin towers had capability. “It is not enough to have a plan in the exploration plan and environmental impact
these plans but Marsh & McLennan is a stellar place that defines how to act after a disaster analysis presented the likelihood of a catastrophic
example, facing uncertainty and bouncing occurs. Instead, organisations are looking to accident as “unlikely or virtually impossible”
back, no bouncing forward “with speed, grace, build continuity into there business processes so (MSN, 2010). The sad truth is that when the
determination, and precision. they are better able to adapt – and even thrive offshore rig exploded, 11 people died, more were
– during changing conditions” (IBM, 2008). injured, and millions of gallons of oil have leaked
WHY RESILIENCE IS AN IMPERATIVE In fact, organisations must go even further by from the underwater well since, causing a not
September 11, provides the most appropriate making agility a strategic imperative. A high- yet calculable environmental crisis for beaches,
introduction to the imperative for resilience. It level conceptualisation of the components of wildlife, and related industries. The costs are still
was a highly unanticipated and unpredictable organisational resilience is provided in Figure rising and the impact is immeasurable.
event. What Nicholas Taleb, calls a “black Strategic, Process, Infrastructure (People, The debate surrounding BP’s decisions and
swan,” in his best-seller, The Black Swan: The Hardware, Applications, Facilities, Power etc.) their culpability in the disastrous explosion which
Impact of the Highly Improbable. Taleb defines precipitated the loss of life, and the worse
these events by their “rarity, extre me impact, LEADERSHIP, CULTURE, BCP/DR environmental crises in decades will go on
and retrospective (though not prospective) Each company would analyze these for years. However, a case can be made now
predictability.” Barton and colleagues suggest components within the context of their that appropriate contingencies were not in
that many organisations ignore black swans since organisation and their market. Strategically, place to respond effectively to the giant crude
they are so unpredictable; however, they argue this would involve leadership, cultivation of oil spill that occurred following the explosion.
that this approach is not acceptable, given that organisational culture appropriately, and 20/20 hindsight makes it clear that greater
so-called black swans seem to be on the rise. Our developing the ability to anticipate customers consideration should have been given to this
present reality is that we live in turbulent times changing needs and followed by execution type of disaster due to the potential HSE impacts
in which resilience becomes a necessity (Hamel of actions to fill those needs. In the areas despite the low probability predicted. This case
& Valikangas, 2010). These turbulent times of process and infrastructure, this requires provides an important lesson for us all – severity
are characterised by unfathomable man-made understanding the various complexities and trumps probability when HSE is involved. That
disasters such as 9-11, catastrophic natural interdependencies of business functions and is not to imply that probability should not be
considered, it just means that severity can not
be ignored based on probability in these cases.
Businesses may choose to accept risks that only
involve up to the survivability of an organisation.
Str ERM However, avoidable risks that jeopardise HSE
ate
gy should not be accepted.
IN CONCLUSION
Op
era Risks are indeed a reality of business. They
tio
ns
BCP are an indispensible factor in competition.
Organisations must take risks in order to make
gains. I am reminded of an admonishment from
my aunt when I was an impetuous 20-year
Inf
ras old and all too eager to risk everything for the
tru /DR
ctu
re BCP
hope of future gains. She said, ‘Do what you
want, but know what you’re doing.’ After much
experience, including some failures, I would
add to that, the reality is you very well could
loose it all, therefore, develop the strengths
necessary to rebound from loss. Whether you
have to face loss or not, those strengths will fuel
your success.
6 AmCham T&T Linkage Q3/2010