A Contrarian View on Resilience

In a world of growing uncertainty and mounting performance pressure, it’s understandable that resilience has become a very hot topic. Everyone is talking about it and writing about it. We all seem to want to develop more resilience. But I’m going to take a contrarian position and suggest that resilience, at least as conventionally defined, is a distraction and perhaps even dangerous.

How can I say that? The view crystallized as I sat through a two day gathering several months ago on the theme of resilience. I was intrigued to go deeper into the topic because I had heard so much about it and these were experts from a broad range of disciplines. But the more I heard, the more distressed I became.

What does resilience mean?

Resilience is used very loosely as a term, so there are many different definitions.  But across all the talks given in that conference (and much of the literature I have read outside the conference) there is one common theme that can be reduced to a simple phrase: it is the ability to “bounce back” in the face of unexpected shocks.  In engineering, it is the ability of a material or structure to resume its original size and shape after being deformed.  In systems science, it is the ability to return to equilibrium, steady state or original function after a shock to the system. In social analysis, it is the capability of a social group to absorb disturbance and reorganize to retain essentially the same function structure and identity.

The conservative impulse driving resilience

The common theme of “bouncing back” reveals an intensely conservative motivation – the key goal is to get back to the original state as quickly as possible.  This conservatism is reinforced by the kinds of shocks that typically are often the subject of resilience conversations – natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, epidemics or terrorist attacks. In the face of such devastating threats, who wouldn’t want to get back to normal as quickly as possible?

Putting resilience into context

But there’s a key assumption behind this conservatism that deserves to be made explicit and examined. The assumption is that the status quo is good, that stability and equilibrium are good.

Making this assumption explicit helps me to understand why resilience has become such a hot topic in the business world as well as public policy circles. Executives feel like they are under attack.  It’s not just about natural disasters or terrorist attacks. It’s much more pervasive and widespread, appearing on a daily basis in thousands of unexpected forms.  In this kind of world, resilience resonates. Help me to get back to where I was.

And, in the context of enterprise resilience, the perception of being under attack is very real. As we have documented in the Center for the Edge Shift Index, corporate performance has been deteriorating for decades, “topple rates” are on the rise, life spans of companies are rapidly diminishing and volatility is increasing.  It’s no wonder that there is intense longing for a “bounce back”.

It helps to make sense of the booming growth on a global scale of the “resilience industry” – books, conferences and experts all willing and able to help executives and their institutions to bounce back. Entrenched interests are desperate for reassurance that they can preserve what they have and will not be vulnerable to unexpected disruptions.

This focus on enterprise resiliency, while understandable, is much too narrow and ultimately dysfunctional and self-defeating. Focusing on enterprise resiliency as the ability to “bounce back” reflects the short-termism that consumes most executives today. It loses sight of the fact that many of these short-term “attacks” are part of a much more profound phase shift at the market/ecosystem level.

This Big Shift is driven by a powerful and ultimately irresistible convergence of two global forces: the deployment and adoption of ever more powerful digital technology infrastructures and a long-term global public policy shift towards economic liberalization, expanding the freedom of movement of people, money, products and ideas across previously insurmountable borders. It has been going on for decades and, by my calculation, will be going on for many decades more.

A key point about this Big Shift is that we are not moving from one static system to another static system. Instead, we are laying the groundwork for growing uncertainty and mounting performance pressure that will become a fact of life, rather than simply a transitional period to be endured in anticipation of new stability.

The danger of resilience

In this context, the conventional view of “bounce back” resilience for enterprises is profoundly dangerous. It simply increases the ability of the institutional status quo to survive when conditions demand a fundamental transformation. It increases the gap between what we are doing and what we need to do. We already face a growing mismatch between the institutions and practices that dominate in business and the needs of the markets and societies that are being re-shaped by the global forces outlined earlier. As long as this mismatch persists, we will face increasing disruptions and stress as we struggle to maintain institutions and practices that are no longer viable. We don’t need to bounce back; we desperately need to move forward.

Aiming higher

We need to find ways to harness the mounting pressure we are all experiencing and the unexpected events that seem to bombard us with increasing frequency so they become catalysts for more rapid transformation of our institutions and practices.  We need to find ways to grow more rapidly to discover the new institutional architectures and business practices that will help us to turn growing stress into growing success. Ultimately, we face an urgent need to frame and pursue an institutional innovation agenda. In this context, “bounce back” resilience is a distraction and delays our movement forward.

So, what is to be done?

At least in the enterprise world (and I might suggest in all institutional arenas, including education, NGO’s and governments), we need to move beyond resilience and focus on something far more ambitious.

If resilience has been captured by the bounce-back folks, perhaps “adaptation” might be a suitable label. My reservation about adaptation is that it tends to suggest short-term sensing and responding to events rather than a more fundamental and powerful adaptation strategy that recognizes the need to drive long-term change.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his powerful new book coins the term “antifragility” to describe many of the same things that I am trying capture here. I’ll be reviewing Taleb’s book in a blog post that will go up here next week.

From my perspective, the best term to use is "thrivable", evangelized by the ever insightful Jean Russell.

Whatever term we use, here’s what our institutional leaders need to develop:

An ability to grow, evolve and thrive over time in the face of short-term performance threats, including the ability to accelerate movement towards fundamentally new functionality and roles in our institutions.

Bottom line

This is not just an opportunity. Given the long-term global forces that are playing out, it is an imperative. Our existing institutions will not survive if all they seek to do is “bounce back” to obsolescence. If we get this right, we will find ways to unleash more and more of our potential as individuals and institutions.  Bouncing back will look more and more like the quaint nostalgia that we finally found the courage and conviction to overcome.

Comments

[Dave Ancel, Ed.D.]

Some mixed metaphors here. The piece mostly reads as if organizations are ecosystems. Resilience has a particular meaning in biological terms -- specifically referring to the ability of system to re-establish health and balance after a disruption, not to return to a pre-existing state. Resilience in psychology suggests the human ability to recover emotionally from a shock, again, not to return to a pre-existing state. Whether an organization is a person or an ecosystem, Resilience is about health and well-being not about returning to a pre-existing state. Just thoughts.

[Kyield.wordpress.com]

An exceptional piece, much appreciated. I agree with Joe Brewer on some confusion on resiliency, and perhaps equilibrium. In my view equilibrium isn't an aquarium where water once spilled must be returned to previous levels, but rather more similar to a biosphere where environmental elements either must be balanced if dominated by hubris of human maintenance engineers, or allow nature to correct--in business with the help of creative destruction. This is where I think the FRB has it wrong, which is very dangerous--I agree with John strongly in recent posts that our institutions are obviously just not up to the task.

I also note however the use of the term conservative, which may be misleading to some given the current macro political environment. Conservatism actually has roots in literal conservancy--as in resources certainly to include natural, which is quite different than the context used by most today--in both parties.

Perhaps risk averse would be more appropriate, or better yet--addiction to power, fear of change. One thing is certain-- adaptability in a world that is undergoing change at the fastest pace in human history isn't optional, but a method of survival.

It's pretty clear to me that most of our institutions are not up to the challenge. I sense in John something more than an aha realization in that regard, which I share. That leaves us with an understanding that is at best uncomfortable--and for futurists somewhat alarming, especially given the lack of progress on structural reforms that can even lead to sustainability--in all major political parties in the U.S. and EU.

[Subbu]

Isn't Bruce Lee's advice the best way out...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ijCSu87I9k

[Joe Brewer]

Throwing my two cents in here... John confuses resilience with robustness. A robust system is one that is able to remain essentially the same in form and function as it is disturbed by outside forces. A resilient system is one that is able to dynamically adapt when disrupted in order to "flow with the punches" and still preserve core functionality.

This can be seen in the way resilience is used in psychotherapy. A resilient person is one who internalizes changes in their life while maintaining the ability to cope and manage new experiences -- very similar to the concept of thriving -- while an unresilient person is traumatized by the experience, crippled emotionally, and less able to manage the stresses of future events.

So John rightly criticizes the use of static models (with inherent preferences for returning to recognizable prior states), but he makes the mistake of treating resilience as if it refers to static models as well. A resilient business will continually innovate in the face of change and be adaptive to new market niches as they arise (or as it participates in their creation). This is not the same as robustness at all.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb makes these distinctions in his book about "antifragility" -- a concept he introduces to explore the distinctions between robustness, fragility, and resilience. I have written a review of the book here that elaborates some of these points:

What Happens When We Shock A System

Still I like his central argument (correcting for this misunderstanding) and tend to agree that the term is often misused by business execs who lack a nuanced understanding of complex adaptive systems.

Thanks for stimulating this wonderfully productive dialogue!

Best,

Joe Brewer
Director, Cognitive Policy Works
Co-Founder, DarwinSF

[Ian Easson]

Resilience is the antithesis of flexibility (which is the ability of a complex system to change its built-in rules to meet new situations and shocks).

Antifragility is merely a special case of flexibility, in which the system (perhaps futilely) tries to make itself even "stronger" (a term which is nowhere defined) in response to such external shocks.

In the very long run, flexibility always wins over resilience.

[Innovandiamo]

Hi John,
thanks for sharing this terrific post.
The bounce-back attitude is indeed conservative.
I'd rather use the word "Transformation" because it conveys a sense of evolution and retains within it the concept of adaptation.
Deal with ambiguity and uncertainty are definitely two crucial traits that a leader in this times needs to master
I am very intrigued by Taleb's Antifragility and look forward to reading it as well as the report you have linked above.

Greets from London
Francesco
@innovandiamo

[Michael Gusek]

Hey, John. Been a while...Have you explored Taleb's idea of Antifragility?

Taken from Investipedia:

"A postulated antithesis to fragility where high-impact events or shocks can be beneficial. Anti-fragility is a concept developed by professor, former trader and former hedge fund manager Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Taleb coined the term "anti-fragility" because he thought the existing words used to describe the opposite of "fragility," such as "robustness," were inaccurate. Anti-fragility goes beyond robustness; it means that something does not merely withstand a shock but actually improves because of it."

I think you are on to something, my man.

[Bruce Waltuck]

Thanks, John, for spotlighting this key point. In my forthcoming book, FLUXed, with Denise Easton, we explore disruptive experience, and the common oatterns and domains of our responses (at both the personal and organizational level). We are familiar with the "anti-fragile" ideas, and similarly, the Panarchy ecocycle. We write about the need for "resilience" in the broad sense, and for adaptability in the face of significant change around us. In the context and parlance of the book, we refer to this as "FLUXcapacity.". The book is in progress, but we have a short e-book coming soon, and an article coming in the Journal for Quality and Participation. We are also gathering stories of people's disruptive experiences. We welcome input - and your stories of being FLUXed - at getfluxed.com

[Eric McNulty]

John,
I must send you the paper that I wrote a few months back. In it I take "resilience" to task for similar reasons as you though I am not yet ready to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I think that the key for leaders is to know when to try to absorb a shock (closest to the bounce back school), when to facilitate adaption, and when to prepare to transform.

In a complex world, there is no single answer to being resilient.

[MaxMckeown]

Thanks for examine the limits of resilience as maintaining that we have rather than something better. In my book - called Adaptability - the distinction is made between adapting to survive, thrive or transcend. Stability is an illusion, which can be dangerous to those who cling to the past and those who want a better future. Thanks again for your work - look forward to your next post.