The Need for Organisational Resilience - Chapter 7

pursued an approach of defensive consistency (see Figure 7.1); relying on consistency in

action and protection of the status quo. In contrast, the Germans predominantly relied on a

form of progressive flexibility, while trying to maintain a minimum of defensive consistency.

Progressive (Achieving results)

Performance Optimisation (Improving and exploiting)

Adaptive Innovation (Imagining and creating)

Consistency (Goals, processes, routines)

Flexibility (Ideas, views, actions)

Mindful Action (Noticing and responding)

Preventative Control (Monitoring and complying)

Defensive (Protecting results)

Figure 7.1: Focus of Resilience of France and Germany in 1940 (adapted from Denyer 2017)

The question of how to establish resilience is less a matter of and/or − whether to focus

on one aspect or another − and rather one of both/and. A myopic focus on one or the other

reveals blind spots in organisational resilience. In this regard, the French and their Allies

were restricted in planning for and acting upon anything other than what was expected to

happen. The lack of mindful action, the lack of mental flexibility to prepare and ready

themselves for the unexpected cost them dearly.

Nevertheless, the French in particular had little choice but to focus on an approach of

defensive consistency, as their organisational resources mainly consisted of a citizen army.

Conscripts simply lacked the experience and training to engage with anything but “simple”

static defensive warfare. A citizen army could not be expected to provide anything other than

“cannon fodder”, maintaining a position until overwhelmed. Complex undertakings such as

flanking moves would have been the prerogative of those crack motorised divisions that had

been committed prematurely to the northern front.

The rationale for the Germans’ pursuit of progressive flexibility as a dominant approach

to organisational resilience is explained by circumstances after WWI (see Chapter 2). In

contrast, the Allies’ planning in those post WWI years revolved around not repeating the

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