Building Resilient Organizations through Change, Chance, and Complexity

Description

A must-read in the wake of COVID-19, this book unpacks the nature of resilient organizations and how they prepare for unpredictable, complex, and profound change. Organizations that do not adapt and evolve die. To date, however, it has not been at all clear how to build a resilient organization. That puts us all in the unenviable position of trying to ready our organizations for an increasingly uncertain future without the proper guidance to do it. This book introduces 14 elements of resilience that consistently emerge in organizations that have thrived amid adversity and volatility. Resilience is not about determination, grit, cybersecurity, or teams of resilient individuals; resilience, it turns out, is often confused with robustness. Readers will discover how resilient organizations build and employ a distinctive combination of crews, capital, culture, and leadership—and, crucially—how to adapt these combinations for their own organization. Senior business leaders, consultants, entrepreneurs, students, and professionals will appreciate this book’s practical, approachable, and engaging guidance, including insights by leaders from Health Care for the Homeless, The Ohio State University, NBCUniversal, retail stores, and more. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Fumbling for Resilience Eating Mysterious Vegetables I’ll Know It When I See It No, It’s Not “Grit” Aspects of Resilience Realities of Resilience Chapter 1 An Introduction to Crews 12,165 Online Courses Making the Impossible Possible Crews Transition Note Chapter 2 The Nature of Crews We’re Putting a Crew Together Innovation and Resistance The Right Stuff Self-selection; Self-Organization Teams Or Crews? The Cost of Crews Transition Notes Chapter 3 Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs Prayer for the Dead Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs Entrepreneurial Crews “Organizational Resilience Occurs When Organizations Create, Invent and Discover Unknown Markets.”—Annette Towler The Cost of Entrepreneurial Crews Intrapreneurial Crews “For the Corporation to Live, It Must Be Willing to See Business Units Die. If the Corporation Doesn’t Kill Them Off Itself, Competitors Will.”—Bower and Christensen The Cost of Intrapreneurial Crews Transition Notes Chapter 4 Contrarians and Red Teams Groupthink and Complacency “Red Teaming Makes Critical and Contrarian Thinking Part of Your Company’s Planning Process...” What If We’re Wrong? Transition Notes Chapter 5 The Recurrence of Crews A Return to The Ohio State University Are Crews Really So Important? Recurring Resilience The Eternal Return of Loss and Evolution Note Chapter 6 An Introduction to Capital Fluff N Stuff Pet Retailers Capital Transition Chapter 7 Resource Capital Cash Is King The Tip of the Iceberg Reduce and Shift Spending Increase Spending Mobilize Resources Caveat: Infrastructure Transition Notes Chapter 8 Relationship Capital I Know a Guy Trust Strong- and Weak-Tie Networks Uncomfortable Costs Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen Cultivation and Costs Transition Notes Chapter 9 Information Capital Preparing Without Predicting Three Phases in Dealing With Disruptions The Plan-Ahead Team and Think-Ahead Crew Fragility, Signal, and Noise Cognitive Biases Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control Narratives Transition Notes Chapter 10 Capital Combined A Return to Fluff N Stuff The Future of Fluff N Stuff Chapter 11 Transition to an Interlude Cynefin® and Antifragile Chapter 12 The Cynefin® Sense-Making Framework Overview Examples Falling Off a Cliff The Bottom Line Notes Chapter 13 Antifragile The Legacy of Black Swans The Future Is Unpredictable The Future Belongs to the Antifragile Falling Off a Cliff (Again) A Combined Example Transition Notes Chapter 14 An Introduction to a Culture of Experimentation Live From New York Behind the Curtain Three Elements of a Culture of Experimentation Transition Notes Chapter 15 A Reality-Seeking Culture The Story and the Schedule Through a Glass Ever More Darkly How Resilience Works The Wisdom of a Dissimilar Room “How Much Truth Does a Spirit Endure, How Much Truth Does It Dare? More and More That Became for Me the Real Measure of Value.”—Nietzsche, Ecce Homo Transition Notes Chapter 16 A Safe-To-Fail Culture of Experimentation Launch Agile and Lean Experimentation Safe-to-fail Learning Improvisation “What’s Necessary, in Short, Is Not Just Imagination But the Institutionalization of Imagination.”— J. Peter Scoblic Orient Explore Exploit Transform Conclusion Transition Notes Chapter 17 A Culture of Dissimilar Individuals Another Terrible Tension Dream Teams Assemble Divergent Individuals Get Them to Interact; Then Get Them to Play Dissent Establish Superordinate Goals Implications Range Transition Notes Chapter 18 An Introduction to Exponential Leadership “It Began to Feel Like a War.” Synthesis Exponential Leadership Notes Chapter 19 Situational Leaders Managing Complexity Cynefin® Again “The Ability to Respond to the Particular Crisis Is Going to Be More Important Than Ever Before.”—Steve Forbes Gaining Mastery Caveat Transition Notes Chapter 20 Purposeful Leaders “[T].he Capacity to Be More Resilient, Is Directly Proportional to Our Ability to Zero in On Our Purpose Specific to the Situat Start With Why A Critical Aside: Grit V. Resilience Purpose Is Paramount Loss Moving Cheese Transition Notes Chapter 21 Loss-Aware Leaders “Some Choices Cost Us Everything.”—Eggers and Barlow Transition Notes Chapter 22 Empowering Leaders “Delegate Or Die.”—Patty Azzarello “Indeed, Companies That Survive Regard Improvisation as a Core Skill. Consider UPS, Which Empowers Its Drivers to Do Whatever It Takes to Deliver Packages On Time.”—Diane L. Coutu “Organizations That Survive Dangerous Times Have Developed the Ability to Swiftly Delegate Authority and Decision-Making to People With Expertise On the Front Lines.”—Suarez and Montes “Organizations Can Accomplish [resilience] Through Giving Employees Task Autonomy and Discretion...”—Annette Towler Transition Notes Chapter 23 Caring Leaders Abandon Ship Mom and Pop Duty The Great Resignation Transition Notes Chapter 24 Conclusion: The Resilient Organization and the Chief Resilience Officer A Prescription for Resilience Crews Capital Culture Leadership The Limitations of Robustness Chief Resilience Officer Crews Entrepreneurs Intrapreneurs Contrarians and Red Teams Capital Resource Relationship Information Culture Reality Seeking Experimental Dissimilar Leadership Situational Purposeful Loss-aware Empowering Caring Parts of the Whole Chapter 25 Epilogue: What Is Organizational Resilience? A Definition A Problem of Success A Refined Definition of Organizational Resilience For Further Exploration Notes Index