Risk; Uncertainty and Resilience- What is a Resilient Organisation?

We can all agree that risk management is a crucial element of corporate governance in the public and private sectors.

Risk exists when you can calculate a probability of an event. Uncertainty exists when probability cannot be allocated to an event in terms of whether an event occurs or what impact it may have.

Uncertainty is an " unknown unknown " but can we ignore it?

I don't think we can.

Uncertainty should be factored in as a potential event rather than ignored.

Perhaps an event that could stop the organisation from delivering its policies.

In terms of a resilient organisation we can stop bad things from happening and encourage good things to happen.

Some critical resilience factors of an organisation, according to the BSI, include:

Leadership - on the categories of risk

People -:engagement, awareness, training and testing

Processes - governance and accountability, supply chain and knowledge management

Services- Horizon scanning and adaptive capacity

The above issues are taken from the BSI.

CIPFA has tended to see resilience as a financial issue in terms of reserves, finances, budgets and shocks to financial circumstances.

Resilience is about this but it is about much much more than just finance!

Finance bodies seem to think it is just financial but the BSI has a much wider approach and we will consider a much wider approach to resilience in this blog!

We will also need to think about individual ad well as organisational resilience and this blog will consider that as well.

It is not just about finances but mentalities as well.

So far we have examined risk and we will move towards how risk will impact on resilience.

This is the journey I am on which I hope that you will share with me!