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Organizational Resilience | BSI and Cranfield School of Management
within the organization for the two separate strategies, and thirdly ‘contextual’
i.e. people make their own judgements about how to divide their time between
conflicting demands for alignment and adaptability (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004).
Contextual ambidexterity is achieved when people feel discipline, stretch, support,
and trust (Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1994). Leadership can exacerbate or ameliorate
the tensions in Organizational Resilience (Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey, 2007).
Effective leadership can enable “reinforcing, virtuous cycles” (Lewis and Smith, 2014).
Leveraging these tensions by employing ‘both/and’ thinking (Farjoun, 2010) is a
critical aspect of Organizational Resilience.
Avoiding erosion
Numerous high profile failures in retail, manufacturing, energy production,
healthcare, public services and banking and other sectors have shown that failures
tend to occur when preventative control, mindful action, performance optimization
and adaptive innovation are eroded over time. Figure 5 shows the typical pattern of
a failure.
FLEXIBILITY
(Ideas, views,
actions)
PROGRESSIVE
(Achieving results)
ABILITY TO
ANTICIPATE,
PREPARE FOR, AND
RESPOND AND
ADAPT TO
INCREMENTAL
CHANGE AND
SUDDEN
DISRUPTIONS
DEFENSIVE
(Protecting results)
CONSISTENCY
(Goals, processes,
routines)
Organizational Resilience
is eroded
ADAPTIVE INNOVATION
Imagining and creating
MINDFUL ACTION
Noticing and responding
PREVENTATIVE CONTROL
Monitoring and complying
PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION
Improving and exploiting
Figure 5: The erosion of Organizational Resilience: sleepwalking into disaster
Performance optimization is eroded when organizations enjoy a long period of
success resulting in the dismissal of the possibility of future failure (Hollnagel et al.,
2006). A singular focus on short-term productivity gain has also proved detrimental
to medium-term mission and sustainable performance as the primary goal. Over
time organizations create the illusion that “failure can’t happen here” (Woods and
Cook, 2002).
Adaptive innovation is inhibited when the organization feels the threat of impending
crisis. Organizations tend to control expenditure and resources and focus on the
one thing they do well (e.g. their core product or service), known as a threat-rigidity
effect (Staw, Sanderlands and Dutton, 1981). By implication, the range of options
open to the organization narrows and it becomes progressively more difficult to
Key learning point:
Organizational Resilience
requires preventative
control, mindful action,
performance optimization
and adaptive innovation.
Paradoxical thinking helps
leaders shift beyond
‘either/or’ towards ‘both/
and’ outcomes.