“Continuity management is essentially returning a business to ‘business as usual’, and nothing more. Resilience… not only enables organizations to continue with business as usual, but also to learn, progress and flourish… which will likely involve transformation.”

Therefore, to survive and thrive , it is essential for leaders to build their resilience to be able to adapt, learn and be flexible. As they learn this, they then directly impact the resilience of their teams since the most critical ingredient for a resilient organisation is its resilient people.

Research by AON shows that in the UK, 29 percent of employees are resilient, and those with poor resilience have 59 percent lower engagement and are 43 percent less likely to want to stay with their employer. Resilient organisations don’t just bounce back from disruption; they thrive and bounce forward. They absorb the shocks and convert them into opportunities to create sustainable, inclusive growth.

The companies that cultivate organisational resilience—driven not only by crisis but also by opportunity—can gain an important, lasting advantage over competitors.

Where should we start?

McKinsey’s body of research and work over decades with organisations seeking to be more resilient points to the need to bolster capabilities at four levels.

• They can build an agile organisation, having a dense network of empowered teams that operate with high standards of alignment, accountability, expertise, transparency, and collaboration. The company must also have a stable ecosystem in place to ensure that these teams are able to operate effectively.

• They can build self-sufficient teams that, when held accountable and given ownership of outcomes, feel empowered to carry out strategic plans and stay close to customers, and which, through premortems, postmortems, and other feedback loops and mechanisms, have the information they need to continually change course or innovate.

• They can find and promote adaptable leaders that catalyse new behaviours, and they develop capabilities that can help set the conditions for both a short-term response and long-term resiliency.

• And they can invest in talent and culture—now and for the future. The companies that focus on building resilient operations, teams, and leaders may gain a two-way talent advantage: such adaptable environments are more likely to attract top talent who will have a greater chance of success and, in turn, be more likely to perpetuate a cycle of resilience.

Senior management will need to tackle all four of these capabilities in the short term—probably simultaneously. They will have to assess the speed at which they make decisions (which, if you ask most managers, is usually not fast enough), whether existing operating models allow for quick pivots when markets change or disruptions occur, and whether their employee value propositions are attracting the “right” talent.

At Change Corp we are working with clients to address the challenges of hybrid working.

We have developed an approach that focuses on the leadership challenges, and reflects the issues clients have communicated to us

If you want to learn more, please email us at info@thechangecorporation.com to arrange a call to discuss how we can support you.

Visit https://thechangecorporation.com to know more.

References:

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/raising-the-resilience-of-your-organization

https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1742912/only-a-third-of-uk-employees-feel-resilient