The document discusses how organizations can build resilience and remain relevant in the future. It suggests that organizations focus on changing resource allocations to achieve objectives, build in redundancies, simplify processes, and design systems to limit errors. Organizations are advised to regularly fail simply, map dependencies, encourage questioning, and build trust and sharing between employees. Real change requires permanently changing habits and tackling difficult issues. The overall message is that organizations need to adapt how they operate if they want to cope with an unpredictable future.

1. From Resilience
to Relevance
Douglas Reid
dreid@business.queensu.ca
reidthis.ca
@douglasreid

2. Objectives
•Resilience in practice
•Creating future relevance

4. Every worry that this
could be your company?
Or worse, that you can’t
do anything to prevent it?

5. In fact, you can…

7. You are here.
Where do you want to go next?

8. Does this matter?

9. Or this?

10. Or this?

11. Or this?

17. Frustrations
•Monetary policy
•US economy
•Border issues
•Access to capital to grow
•Where do we go to find new markets?
•Entry to new markets (beyond US)
•People and skills

18. Advantages
•Stable banking system
•Generally good infrastructure
•Space
•Forgiving social climate
•Can still grow with immigration
•Experienced workforce
•Leadership in the room
•Reasonably stable government
•Food producer

19. What world do you live in?

20. Custo
willin mer
gness
to pa
What
y
outcomes
you’re being
hired to
create
ring s
elive buy
d
Co st of tomer
e cus
w hat th

23. Implementation happen
primarily by changing
the allocation of resources
consistent with objectives

24. Money
Brands, equipment, IP,
licenses, machinery,
information, etc.
Any non‐human asset
of an organization that
a manager can deploy

25. People Skills

26. Time
Duration, sequence and
project choices to which you
apply the money and people
that you have

27. Targets
Resources
Strategy

28. DOING
DIFFERENTLY
WITH LESS

29. What do we all want?
• Increasing revenues, profits and share price
• Outperforming rivals
• Being right
Forever…

30. What do we all
want to avoid?

31. Common organizational
response is to…

32. But how do we prepare for the known, but unpredictable?

33. Actually, we can cope better than we imagine…
Rseaerch icntidaes taht the oerdr of the ltteers in a wrod
dnsoe’t relaly mettar. Waht relaly mtteras is the frist and lsat
leettr in the wrod. If tehy are in the rhgit palce,
you can raed the wdors.
Source: Speed Reading for Dummies by Sutz and Weverka

34. The problem is how
we think.
Metaphors
Mental models
Cognitive biases
Belief in our ability to
model the future.

35. What will you trade off
to become resilient?

36. THERE IS
NO
PLAN B

37. THERE IS
NOW
PLAN B

38. Advice

39. Lean may not
always be attractive.
Build three types
of redundancy.

40. Lighten up.
JIT = DOA

41. Size isn’t everything.
Remain too small to fail.

42. Measure differently

43. Deepen your moats.

44. Simplify

45. Pay for performance.
But only when you’re
sure it’s happened.

46. Build social capital. Make friends everywhere.

47. Design systems to
limit propagation of error

48. Vaccinate against
catastrophic failure by
failing simply, often

49. Map your critical dependencies,
including assumptions

50. Assign formal roles
…such as Devil’s Advocate

51. Call out your
cognitive biases

52. Drive out fear.
Everyone’s job is to ask “why?”

53. Build “We” at work.
How We‐Centric is Your Culture?
Competitive/exclusion Co‐creating Community / inclusion
Distrust / judging Humanizing Trust / respect / appreciation
Stagnant / limiting Optimizing Growth / possibilities / expanding
Withholding / silos Interacting Sharing / exploring
Competing / persuading Catalyzing Wondering / innovating
Dictate / control Expressing Encouraging / developing
Compliance / resistance Synchronizing Spirit / commitment / creating
Source: Glaser, Creating We

54. Realize this will
all take time.
So why not start now?

55. Engagement makes you more
relevant to the future…

61. What signals are the future sending?

62. Canada USA
China India
Data available here (click!)

63. Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

65. Innovation in Business Models

66. Getting There…

69. You can’t achieve anything worthwhile
through things that you do “reasonably
well, most of the time.”
The essential questions of strategy are:
•Which of our habits are we really
prepared to change, permanently and
forever?
•Which lifestyle changes are we really
prepared to make?
•What issues are we really ready to tackle?
There is no benefit in claiming to pursue a
goal that everyone can tell you don’t have
the guts to pursue.

71. Douglas Reid
douglas.reid@queensu.ca
reidthis.ca
@douglasreid

72. Thank you!