The turtle is not the sexiest creature in the animal kingdom. It can't run or fly and does not have big teeth or claws. You might think it is too slow to react topredators and challenges.
But
Turtles possess armour and they can camouflage and confuse their challengers. They can hibernate and they eat almost anything!
They also live longer than almost any other animal!
The tiger is a fearsome and magnificent animal but it is not as resilient as the turtle!
Would you be a tiger or a turtle?
We need to learn from this.
The ability of an organisation to change its tactics and strategy quickly and properly as a condition of tisk exposure can mean the difference between the life and death of an organisation.
Resilience is never optimal. It can always be improved.
An organisation needs cash reserves, insurance and low and manageable levels of external debt to aim for resilience.
Huge expansions of external debt may promote short to medium term growth but when revenues fall, this could mean an organisation will reduce its organisational resilience!
Is higher leverage a price worth paying for lower Resilience?
I don't think so.
The world we know is an uncertain place and preparing for uncertain events makes an organisation more resilient.
At the individual level we buy home insuŕance and emergency food to improve our personal Resilience.
What things can we do at the organisational level to promote resilience?
Here are some pointers for a resilient organisation:
1.Prudential,affordable and sustainable external debt
2. Controllable fixed, overhead and operating expenses
3. Adequate cash reserves for expected and unexpected contingencies
4. Multiple ways of delivering products and services
5.flexible employees who can handle several roles including resilience roles.
6. No single points of service failure for an organisation.
7.Fail safe/back up systems for all core organisational processes
8. A belief in the resilience team that what they do will make a difference.
Planning as well as performance is the hallmark of a resilient organisation!
The above points contribute to an organisation's resilience.
What are you doing to address this in your organisation?
Resilience, like the turtle, is not very sexy and expenditure on it suffers from absence blindness because it is difficult to prove it makes a difference!
But It does !
It can save the life of your organisation when the going gets tough and risks are existential!
Perhaps we need to think more like a turtle and less like a tiger!
This would be less sexy but certainly more resilient.
After all, a resilient organisation is what we ate all after?
Turtle or tiger?
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