Resilient organisations and change

For lasting change to occur both the soft and hard aspects of change need to be addressed - which has proved to be an effective route to go. Many performance development projects, with public and private sector organisations, have demonstrated that one of the most critical challenges is equipping them to lead through turbulent times. This is particularly pertinent in our current times.

• How do organisational systems adapt to be able to respond quickly and effectively to the array of changes thrown at them?
• How do leaders and managers engage, motivate and develop staff to cope with constant change?
• What does dealing effectively with these challenges imply for leadership style?
• How do we know which management processes and practices need to change, and how to do it?

From these experiences and much research has evolved the concept of the resilient organisation - this is one that adapts, organically and dynamically to a changing environment.  All employees are actors in this scenario.

The immediate and critical consequences of acquiring a high level of organisational resilience include:

• Performance improvements continue to be gained, even in the face of a non-supportive environment. 

• Costs are reduced and better managed, as staff engagement gets better.

• A collateral benefit is the avoidance of the ’dreaded change programme’.  These often cataclysmic events, with a high failure rate, are generally damaging to the business, its customers and employees.

One way of thinking about the need for change programmes is that they signal an earlier failure to develop a more resilient organisation.  Where change and adaptation is a way of life, change programmes become part of history but not a current or future need.

The characteristics of resilient organisations are well known, which means that the changes needed are also well know and straightforward to design and implement. There is, however, one missing ingredient - the current state.  Planning a journey is tricky if the start point is not known - however clear the goals may be, and however good the maps that are available.

A GPS device always knows where it is, and hence journey planning becomes a much better ordered affair. A new research project launched in 2010 is the resilient organisation equivalent of a SatNav - it provides crystal clear insights into the current state of the organisation, and that makes journey planning a much simpler business. Three compelling reasons to join us:

• If you wish to benchmark your organisation in terms of its current degree of resilience

• If you need to understand the changes that will be needed to drive towards higher levels of resilience

• If you wish to see your organisation’s assessment presented graphically, making it easy to communicate what is needed and why it is needed

For more information, or to participate in the research, please click here. For a brief insight into how the research is progressing so far, click here.

For more information about the methodology, please go to the Magus Indexer page. For a brief history of the development of the resilient organisation concept, please visit the History page.