Currently, there are many companies that have gone from being excellent to being regular due to turbulence such as technological discontinuities, regulatory changes, geopolitical impacts, sudden changes in consumer preferences and a greater number of competitors, which is why successful organizations are They have seen the need to change processes that in previous years would probably bring them good results, but which currently does not allow them to be the best.
Organizational resilience is not about reacting or recovering from a single crisis, but about constantly adapting and anticipating deep and long-term trends, making changes before they are critically necessary; That is why one of the main characteristics of resilience is creativity and initiative.
In a resilient organization there is a lot of enthusiasm and little trauma; That is why modern companies must develop these attitudes through the liberation of nostalgia, denial, arrogance and being aware of how changes affect their current success, seeking to go beyond operational excellence and flawless execution. of activities.
Organizational Resilience
Organizational resilience manifests itself in the form of positive adjustments (adaptation) under challenging conditions. Although these challenging conditions are often thought to refer only to unfavorable circumstances, such as crises or adversity, the truth is that they also include favorable circumstances, such as the emergence of new opportunities. In the first case, resilience is the ability to recover from difficulties, or to absorb tension and preserve (and even improve) the functioning of the organization in the presence of misadventures or setbacks. In the second, a resilient organization has a greater chance of identifying opportunities and making the most of them.
Thus, while some organizations thrive on problems and seem to benefit from each scenario, such as Southwest Airlines, others are hit by misfortunes or lag behind environmental changes, as was the case with Polaroid.
The crisis that began a couple of years ago, and that turned into turbulent environments until now stable, such as Europe and the USA, has motivated a growing interest in the study of organizational resilience, since it provides an approximation to the way in which organizations achieve Desirable outcomes amid calamity, stress, and significant barriers to adaptation and development.
Resilience is the result of promoting and maintaining certain practices in organizations. It is not a cure that is acquired when adversity arises, but rather a series of capacities and strengths that have to be developed if they are to be counted on. Resilience manifests itself primarily as adaptability, which pays off equally in stable and turbulent times.
Analogous to gratitude, resilience manifests itself in individuals, groups, and organizations. Resilience in people rests mainly on two factors: adequate resources and mastery of motivation. Adequate resources refer to human, social and material capital, which allow people to develop the appropriate skills. The domain of motivation is activated when individuals have experiences that have allowed them to achieve success and feel effective, which motivates them to seek success again. (Bravo, 2012)
Definition
For resilience in the organization, several versions have emerged such as:
The ability of an organization to absorb shocks and deep impacts without losing the ability to fulfill its mission. (Sampedro, 2009)
Those companies capable of absorbing changes and ruptures, both internal and external, without affecting their profitability and that even develop such flexibility that, through rapid adaptation processes, they manage to obtain extra benefits, be they pecuniary or intangible., derived from adverse and / or unforeseen circumstances. (Minolli, 2000)
The organizational ability to anticipate key events related to emerging trends, constantly adapt to change, and recover quickly after disasters and crises. (Marcos, 2008)
Organizational resilience is a collective and articulated capacity that allows to be prepared to take advantage of conflicts, weaknesses and threats as a source of opportunity and development, learning from the change process and coming out strengthened from the experience. It is transforming an adversity into an opportunity.
Resilience is a determining factor in the continued success of organizations, whose changing environment requires companies to constantly adapt, taking advantage of the opportunities that arise to position themselves as leaders in the market.
Origin
The word resilience comes from the English term resilience, which expresses the ability of a material to regain its original shape after being subjected to high pressure. In this sense, it is the amount of energy stored by a material when pressure forces it to reduce its volume, and is expressed in joules per cubic meter (J / m3).
Some years ago, the child psychiatrist Michael Rutter (1970) and the French neurologist, psychiatrist and ethologist Boris Cyrulnik (1983), inspired by the concept of physics, introduced the term in the field of psychology to denote the capacity of people to overcome tragedies or highly traumatic events. Cyrulnik, whose Jewish parents were killed by the Nazis, studied the resilience of concentration camp survivors and children raised in orphanages.
Regarding resilient people, it should be noted that they have the ability to accept and face reality. They possess abilities to find meaning to aspects of life through transcendental meaning Furthermore, within the realm of individual capabilities or of the rules imposed within a human group, these people often possess the necessary and exceptional abilities to solve problems without using the usual or obvious tools. For this reason, they become a great strength for organizations.
The use of the concept of resilience is recent in the organizational field. Resilience in the organization can be defined as the ability of a system to absorb changes, which are seen as a series of sudden crises and still retain its essential functionality.
If crisis situations inhibit the vital processes of the system, it is because we understand them as a form of individual or systemic failure due to a probable lack of performance. We are talking about the temporary inability to deal effectively with the complexity generated by the actors and variables located in the context of the system.
In opposition, the success of overcoming the critical moment belongs to resilient organizations, groups and individuals, because they are the agents capable of recognizing, adapting and absorbing variations, changes, alterations, upheavals and surprises. Especially with those interruptions or critical situations that are outside the set of disturbances with which the system can deal normally.
Therefore, organizational resilience is considered by some authors as a concept with different meanings, but with related meanings. (Eusfera, sf)
Importance
The world of organizations and companies is rapidly becoming more interconnected, unpredictable and volatile, and, in turn, the consequences of external events have greater impact and significance. Responding too late or inappropriately, more than ever, puts the sustainability of the organization at risk.
There are several phenomena that must be considered by executives and managers in their strategic planning activity:
Faster and multifaceted change. Today's businesses are affected by changes in their political and social context.
Environmental changes. Environmental changes, such as global warming, are becoming a great threat to more and more sectors, far from those traditionally linked to the natural environment.
Large-scale mergers and acquisitions. Global organizations have great influence, some even concentrate productive and financial resources that exceed the gross domestic product (GDP) of some countries.
Faster racing transitions. Individuals within organizations become less and less accommodating, and career transitions and changes continually occur. People are changing roles within an organization more often and working in more companies than in past decades.
Unprecedented advances in information technology. The new information technologies (IT) are creating new communication channels; changing consumer behavior patterns and creating new ways of networking and networking.
Take action on organizational resilience. The key to building organizational resilience is making the ability to adapt and recover intrinsic to the business. In this way, it becomes dynamic, self-organized, and deeply ingrained in the day-to-day operations of the organization, as well as in the way it does business.
Design of resilient systems. A suitable mechanism for building resilience is to adopt a systemic approach, emphasizing resilience as an organic and inherent property of the organization, and not as an abstract goal or goal. Resilient systems are typically set up with decentralized but interconnected units that exchange information on a regular basis. The systems approach emphasizes resilience as a property of technical, organizational and social systems. (Marcos, 2008)
Benefits
The benefits of building resilience in companies:
- Survive and prosper: Knowing how to respond to situations never before experienced: accidents, deaths, bankruptcy. Survive a changing environment. Competitiveness: companies are more demanding when looking for products and services, even looking for companies with certifications. Consistency: Organizations must seek quality certifications, information security, even comprehensive management systems. Efficiency and effectiveness: The more resilience, the more responsive it is to risk situations, which translates into cost savings. Reputation: It is vital to maintain a good reputation and increase it, offering clients greater transparency, security and responsibility.Resilience of societies: Be aware that you live in society and consider the neighbors of your organization.
characteristics
What characterizes a resilient organization, endowed with the ability to anticipate key events related to emerging trends, constantly adapt to change, and recover quickly after disasters and crises is:
- The entire organization, starting with the example, the dedication and commitment of its leaders, is attentive to the dynamics of the environment, from where it is nourished, learns, and decides, questioning its practices, projects and strategies, and daring to resize them, when deems appropriate, pertinent and necessary.
- Leadership and management are effectively committed to the Mission, Vision and Values of the organization and have a transcendent sense of purpose, which they transmit with confidence, conviction and security to their collaborators, thanks to the articulation of management practices and communication dynamics based on the principles of empathic and influential leadership.
- These organizations foster collaborative work environments, supported by a structure that, before being hierarchical, is formed as a network, where communication flows, operating in multiple directions and strategically directed, in addition to being effective in reducing uncertainty and fostering a spirit of Cohesion and sense of purpose in teams enable the metamorphosis of isolated individual intelligences or islands of knowledge, into a true collective intelligence.
- It is privileged with the decisive support of Senior Management, a Culture of Innovation, which facilitates and encourages the realization of personal creativity processes, promotes the free discussion and prioritization of ideas, and identifies, supports and manages various projects with potential to generate innovation of indisputable business value.
- The organization manages to reconcile the professional development expectations of its collaborators according to their potential and the competency profile inherent to their role, with the organization's business strategy. A talented professional, committed to his role, and identified with his organization perceives with satisfaction and pride that he can learn, grow and develop professionally, on his own initiative, with the facilitation of HR, and the support of influential leaders and managers.
- Management and senior managers accept that the transformative leadership process is susceptible to the incidence of errors linked to the adoption and consolidation of a culture of innovation. These possible errors are part of the perpetual change process of an organization that systematically adjusts its strategic north, constantly reinvents itself, learns, and is capable of innovating, in a space where there is no room for the expression of arrogant attitudes, nor to reinforce the conformism and the risk-averse feeling of unmotivated employees, fearful of losing their job.
- Resilient organizations promote, encourage and stimulate in their employees an attitude of open curiosity about innovation, the desire to learn autonomously, and the adoption of systems thinking, focused on innovation and aligned with business strategy.
- Resilient managers and leaders tend to face crisis environments, articulating high-risk decisions based on the analysis of environmental information, relevant benchmarks (a technique used to measure the performance of a system or component thereof), interacting with competitors with whom it is possible to establish cooperative relationships, and managing change with coaching practices and consulting efforts.
- It is key in the management of transformational projects, the ability of management to mobilize its collaborators and influence them, around the relevance of sharing a vision and creating a sense of purpose that is crucial, when a company operates in highly critical, volatile and uncertain environments.
- Resilient organizations consistently and critically raise pertinent questions, have the courage to answer these questions honestly and seek a new sense of purpose if necessary, adjust business strategy with agility and flexibility when circumstances warrant, and they develop relatively high-risk projects to survive and successfully consolidate in highly conflictive and highly-risk environments. (Crossbow, 2011)
Approaches
By taking an approach that considers the entire organization, there are three sectors that span the entire organization:
- The operational resilience, which involves having a great understanding of how the organization operates, as well as the environment in which it does, with the ability to go obtaining relevant information, generate analyze it and learn from it, in order to identify factors and opportunities that ensure its operability and, even more, look for the right situations to prosper.
- Information resilience. You should not only think about levels of availability, protection, continuity plans and disaster recovery. This concept covers much more, it is a different way of treating information that implies having the ability to generate knowledge of it that allows us to speak of an organizational intelligence.
- The resilience of the supply chain. It doesn't matter how robust and secure an organization is; If you do not understand your supply chain, you have a high risk of putting the operation in serious trouble, but especially your reputation. (Muñoz, 2016)
Aspects to consider
Among the challenges to build resilience, after evaluating the risk situation, one must consider the optimal moment to implement a strategy and be aware of how much risk one is willing to manage, determine the cost and integrate the factors within of the organization.
Here are some suggestions for building organizational resilience:
- Being informed: having a situational awareness, knowing where I am standing, what my context is, knowing the risks and taking action based on that information. Establish direction: Define goals, objectives, values to establish direction. Achieve coherence: That is, that everything that is carried out has a common purpose with methodologies, strategies and techniques compatible with each other Develop the capacity to adapt: we do not know what will happen in the future, therefore there is uncertainty, look for strategies to improve responsiveness, adapt to circumstances. Strengthen the organization:implement the necessary recovery and continuity practices in order not to fail in delivery or production. Validation and review: Perform practices such as gap analysis or audits. Do tests and exercises on all programs and systems, providing peace of mind that things are being done correctly.
conclusion
Business organizations are using the principle of resilience to solve the serious difficulties and problems they are facing in the globalized market in which they operate. In companies, disruptions occur in different ways, affecting production, sales, finances, quality, problems that if not overcome will produce unsatisfied customers and the market is lost or reduced.
Resilience makes available to companies the methods that must be used, the application of which must be directed by the resilient leader who, working in coordination with the directors, executives and all employees of the company, puts into practice the strategic plan aligning the activities to be carried out with the objectives of the organization, executing all actions to face and overcome problems, and thus regain the company's position as a market leader and emerge stronger after overcoming a crisis.
References
Ballesta, O. (February 08, 2011). Dynamic Management Today. Obtained from
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