INTRODUCTION
The term resilience, which is commonly used in the area of Psychotherapy, has recently begun to be used within the business field.
Actually, this term was born in our language as a term of a technical nature, with the following meaning:
"The power of certain materials - especially metals - to resist rupture by shock or strong pressure and return to their initial state or form."
Of course, this is not the concept on which we are going to work but the one that refers to human resistance to stress, changes and pressures.
From this point of view, we understand by Resilience:
"The ability and capacity of a person to strengthen and recover under conditions of enormous stress and change."
Seen this way, there is no ethical judgment on this capacity or competence, it is neither good nor ethically bad, it exists or does not exist and, if the latter is given, it is really convenient to be able to develop it.
We can also talk about resilient companies; in this case, we say it is:
"The ability to absorb large amounts of changes / breaks, without causing a significant drop in quality and production standards."
The latest studies have shown that the level of resilience of an individual - that is, to what extent this competence has developed - is what determines their degree of failure or success in situations of extreme change and stress. This level is significantly higher than the results that we can obtain, based solely on education, training and experience.
Resilience has been considered and studied by various authors, from different angles. They range from the causes for which some people can overcome and recover from the horror of the Concentration Camps, to the cancer disease - being able to live with and survive this disease - to business-level decisions, taken in environments of ambiguity and stress, produced by permanent changes.
However, many of these approaches sometimes approach specifics with a partial bias, focusing heavily on some characteristic, which can result in a limitation to see the whole. Thus, many really deep studies, due to their analytical cut, focus on a certain aspect, losing sight of the global set.
Therefore, we will try here to offer a systemic approach that allows us to visualize the parts, without losing sight of the whole.
II. BUILDING BLOCKS
Four are the great bases, or building blocks, of resilience:
1) The existence of future objectives:
To face the crisis, adversity, permanent change, the stress of a certain situation, we must have objectives and results to be obtained.
The man who cannot see any future goals will be defeated.
Nietzsche, in a famous phrase, said: “whoever has something to live for is capable of supporting almost any HOW”.
Many times there is talk of the need for a certain balance in man's life but this is not totally true. Man requires - for his survival, development and maturation - to face challenges, and the tension that is produced - between what has already been achieved and what remains to be achieved or the gap between what is and what should be - is allowing it to develop its potential.
At the company level, this pillar also includes the possibility of developing the ability to visualize objectives to be achieved, even despite how complex and ambiguous the market may be. When this competition has been fully developed, the dangers are no longer considered as such and are seen as real opportunities.
2) Facing Reality:
This second building block is the one that is constituted by the acceptance of the reality of my situation and of the company in which I am. This does not mean that we are simply talking about an optimistic condition; optimism is always necessary as long as it does not produce a distortion of reality.
In individuals, as well as in companies, there must be a clear differentiation between the Past, Present and Future, which are interconnected with each other but keeping a clear differentiation.
The existence of future objectives facilitates the process of facing and accepting reality –no matter how difficult and complex it may seem-; on the contrary, the man - the company - who cannot see a future goal will allow himself to be overcome by the problems of the present.
When the future is disconnected from the present and no possible goals are seen, there is a tendency to regress, to look at the past as a way of helping to appease the present and all its horrors, making it less real. But leaving the present can also mean losing the meaning of life.
People who have this condition - that is, a certain level of resilience - are realistic; they have a clear vision of their present and especially of those parts of reality that really matter to survive.
I understand and accept my situation today. This also occurs at the level of companies, where, instead of lowering their arms and not fighting for survival, efforts are redoubled to continue looking for where the niches are that will allow them to continue advancing successfully.
3) The search for meaning:
This third pillar is based on the value system.
It is constituted by the ability to see reality and, from there, to look for a meaning to terrible things; not to see yourself simply as a victim: "why is this happening to me?", "what is happening to my company?", "why is this happening to me?"
People who have developed the resilience competence "create, through suffering, stress and change, positive elements that can have meaning for themselves and for others."
The same thing happens with resilient companies: they do not think about "why me" but about "why not me too?" and, from there, they generate values that allow recovery.
Being able to find meaning in things - "values" - does not mean that they will last forever; This circumstance makes it necessary to establish a feedback process that really supports and strengthens the permanence of the established values.
4) The ability to do things with the elements that are at hand:
This last pillar is the one that establishes the relationship between today (reality) and tomorrow (the objectives) and allows that, in serious situations of high change and / or deep crisis, a certain ability of inventiveness and flexibility to be given improvise solutions to one or more problems, with the tools available at the time. It allows, therefore, to develop the process that travels the path that goes from the Reality of "Today" to the future that shows us the new objectives of "Tomorrow", and to do it with what we have.
III. SYSTEMIC THINKING AND THE RESILIENCE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Considering the RESILIENCE Process within systemic thinking allows us not only to understand how this process is installed within the Company's Strategy but also what are the steps that will imply its implementation.
This process, developed both on a personal and business level, is that of a constant flow between the reality of TODAY and the objectives of TOMORROW, and that, through permanent feedback, allows the maintenance of values and their adjustment, to in order to successfully cover the gap between the reality we have and the expected objective.
This process is constantly being adjusted through the analysis and understanding of the environment, which will determine the speed and adjustment of the change.
The process starts at:
A) Where we want to be -Tomorrow-: What are the Objectives that we propose to meet. As Covey says, "We must start with an end in our minds." Here, it is essential to develop the ability to visualize existing opportunities in an uncertain future, despite the ambiguity of the present.
B) How will we know that we have reached that desired future: It is necessary to establish a feedback system that, strongly linked to our value systems, allows us to measure the successes achieved on the way to meeting the objectives and reinforce - in turn - the Securities System.
C) Where we are today: One of the fundamental stages is to properly understand our reality. This will allow us to know our Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats.
D) The Process: "The Power to Do Things with What We Have at Hand": The path that will allow us, through adequate performance, to establish an Implementation and Follow-up Model, in order to achieve compliance with the Proposed Objectives, counting only on the Tools available.
E) The Environment - Environment-: Always changing, ambiguous and complex, which requires your permanent analysis and consideration, to make the adjustments that are considered necessary.
IV. REQUIRED SKILLS
The process of developing resilience competence involves possessing and developing, to their full potential, certain fundamental skills or characteristics. These skills, which occur both at a personal and corporate level, imply that the individual / company are:
1. Positive: Resilient individuals (or companies) have the ability to effectively identify opportunities in turbulent environments and, simultaneously, possess the confidence to believe that they can succeed.
2. Concentrates: Resilient individuals (or companies) have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and use this objective as their personal star that will guide them when - at some point in the process - they fall into a state of disorientation or uncertainty.
3. Flexible: Resilient individuals (or companies) act effectively and with a wide margin in the use of both internal and external resources, developing their creativity and establishing strategies to respond to changes.
4. Organized: Resilient individuals (or companies) use a structured approach - organized - to manage ambiguity and thus effectively plan and coordinate the implementation of their strategies.
5. Proactive: Resilient individuals (or companies) take action when faced with uncertainty; they adapt to risks, measure them and adjust, instead of seeking comfort.
6. Adaptable: The development of resilience in people and companies is not a process of uniform and linear growth. Each individual and each company has their own speed for change, and this - in either case - is the result of their ability to adapt to new situations with a minimum of dysfunctional behavior.
The pace within which each one can recover and adapt to the new scenario after the confusion created by uncertainty will be marked by the level of development of the resilience competence; this is the most important factor in increasing the rate of change.
The greater the development of resilience capacity, the faster the adaptation to new scenarios / situations will take place, and the faster it will also be able to recover from the uncertainty experienced.
V. THE RUSSIAN MOUNTAIN OF CHANGE
However, if this process is not dealt with as a whole, if we do not carefully observe its development, if we do not implement a permanent feedback model or do not critically observe the reality that surrounds us and that produces new changes, we may produce setbacks that affect development of our resilience potentials.
This possibility of retreat, the stock of peaks or valleys, we can graph it using what has been called the Roller Coaster of Change. In it, we see the cycle of change, which develops -through various stages- of euphoria or depression -active or passive-, which -if they are adequately accompanied- conclude in acceptance and commitment:
THE RUSSIAN MOUNTAIN OF CHANGE
The process of change, the ambiguity of the situation, uncertainty and stress usually produce - when faced - a shock, which immediately results in paralysis.
When the capacity for resilience has not been developed, it immediately goes to denial, the current situation is not admitted, it is denied as if it were not part of my reality.
The first step of positive affirmation is to accept that the situation does exist and that I am in it; This state produces, initially, an effect of anger and then a feeling of victim - "why me?", "What to do? Fall into a depression?"
As maturation and growth progress, rationalization is reached: we are not victims, but neither are we part of reality, nor do we seek to advance towards the fulfillment of new objectives that allow us to overcome the situation.
This is one of the most dangerous stages because, through rationalization, we can end up in a quasi-autism that takes us away from reality.
Finally, we come to the culmination; Resilience potentials have been developed and individuals (or companies) reach acceptance and consequent commitment to face reality and move on to the phase of moving towards meeting objectives.
Only through adequate coaching and a feedback model that allows us to know the true situation, we can effectively complete the cycle and avoid falling or going back to the previous stage.
HOW TO IMPLEMENT THE RESILIENCE CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN YOUR COMPANY
A successful implementation is not necessarily a highly complex process but requires that its various parts be carefully installed and always keeping a holistic vision ahead.
To develop it properly, so that its officers and the company as a whole begin to grow their resilience potential, both individually and corporately, the following steps should be considered:
PREVIOUS DESIGN
1) Conduct a previous meeting, whose purpose is to show the complete process, its fundamental stages, critical success factors, feedback system and people to be involved.
2) Carry out an adequate Organizational Diagnosis, which allows an adequate evaluation of the present reality.
3) Establish and / or reaffirm the value system.
4) Define future business objectives.
5) Determine the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the implementation of the process.
6) Design the implementation and monitoring model, and the corresponding tools.
IMPLEMENTATION
1) Train the participants in the development of the REQUIRED SKILLS and in the implementation of tools tailored to the needs of the Organization.
2) Verify the obtaining of feedback, evaluating results and progress.
3) Analyze alternatives and propose new paths, according to the results obtained, keeping a permanent look at the surrounding environment.
4) Accompany the adjustment to the new situation, if it is required.
5) Implement a model of permanent accompaniment.
Bibliography
- Carnegie, DaleConner, Daryl R. Coutu, Diane L. Covey, Stephen R. Frankl, VictorGundry, L. - La Mantia, L. Haines, Stephen G. Melillo, Aldo - Suárez Ojeda, Elbio Néstor
