Building Resilient Organizations - Learning in Action

1 WEAREINthe most amazing period oftransformational change the world hasever seen. The business and social envi-ronment is complex, dynamic and turbulent,which means that today s success formula canbecome tomorrow s liability nearly or even surviving in this context requiresa fundamental re-thinking of the meaning andapplication of our most basic assumptions aboutleading, and managing, business growth and sur-vival. Our companies and Organizations mustbecome capable of living in a state of near-contin-uous flow. Every element of business must contin-uously change in response to ever-changingdemands. THE Resilient ORGANIZATIONI have developed a framework for under-standing and working with Organizations thataddresses this issue.

2 The framework is a creativesynthesis of ideas and approaches drawn fromorganization psychodynamics and the new sci-ences, particularly the area of complex adaptivesystems. Framework emphasis is on how todevelop what I call Resilient Organizations . I willshare this framework with you, some work I havedone with companies using it, and some ideasabout how you might use it in your own work. Let me start with a definition. A ResilientOrganizationis able to sustain competitiveadvantage over time through its capability to dotwo things simultaneously: deliver excellent performance against currentgoals. effectively innovate and adapt to rapid, turbulentchanges in markets and Resilient organization exhibits certainbroad characteristics.

3 It is able to: createstructure, and to dissolveit; provide safety(not necessarily security or stabil-ity) in the midst of change ; manage the emotional consequences of contin-uous transformation and change : anxiety andgrief; learn, develop and can such Organizations be built? A greatdeal of research has taken place over the last fif-teen years or so on complex adaptive systems , orlearning systems, which are able to successfullyadapt to changing environmental Learning systems are comprised of two inter-penetrating sub-systems with complementarydomains of activity. The first of these subsystemsmight be called the Performance System,which isresponsible for performance of current goals andtasks in the interest of immediate survival.

4 It isfocused on the first goal in the above definition. The complementary sub-system might becalled the Adaptation System, which is responsiblefor long-term sustainability via generation of alter-native paths, ideas, modes of operating and behav-ioral norms. It constantly generates possible futuresVOL. 32|NO. 3|200027 BuildingResilient OrganizationsBy Dean Robb The Resilient organization integrates the two domains by actively and consciously creating two subsystems: The Performance System and the Adaptation for the total system, in service of the second defi-nitional goal. Successful adaptive/ Learning systemsare characterized by robustness in both subsys-tems, and by strong linkages between them.

5 How-ever, in my work I have found that companiespresently tend to be overly adapted toward onedirection or the other. PERFORMANCE-DRIVEN ORGANIZATIONSP erformance-Driven Organizations are mostlya legacy of the Industrial Revolution and the his-tory of scientific management launched by Freder-ick Taylor (among others). They tend to be excel-lent at repetitive tasks, and delivering resultsagainst current goals. They aregenerally bureaucratic, and arebased on underlying assumptionsof task and environmental bureaucratic, political struc-tures serve to cope with anxietyand stress primarily by controllingit or suppressing it in the interestsof preserving order and the statusquo.

6 The price is that they tend tohave great difficulty with innova-tion and EXAMPLE:APERFORMANCE-DRIVEN ORGANIZATIONI did some consulting workwith a long-standing telecommuni-cations company that had a set ofconcerns common to Perfor-mance-Driven Organizations . Theirservice installation processes wereheavily documented and meas-ured, and deeply embedded intheir organizational structures, sys-tems and culture. Employees performing the workwere well trained and generally had been doingtheir jobs for a long time. The issue in this project was a lack of processflexibility, with an attendant difficulty in respond-ing to changing customer requirements. Adapta-tion, innovation and change were difficult proposi-tions indeed in this traditional, bureaucratic com-pany.

7 Getting the changes implemented required asignificant change management track built into theproject, to build support, work organizational poli-tics, and deal with entrenched resistance at variousmanagement ORGANIZATIONSThe second type is what I call the Adaptation-Driven organization . Characteristically, this type isa start-up or relatively new, growing companyfocused around responsiveness, innovation, andchange. Their processes and organizational struc-tures are fluid and dynamic. They are extremelyresponsive, but often have difficulties with incon-sistent performance, unstable processes, and creat-ing stable formulas for success. They can flounderon their difficulty in forming the structures nec-essary to deliver consistent, repeatable, EXAMPLE:AN ADAPTATION-DRIVEN ORGANIZATIONI consulted to a relatively new, fast-growinghigh tech company that provides integrated mes-saging services, which provide capability to sendand access voice messages, emails and faxesthrough a single access point via a telephone orcomputer.

8 The company and its environment werecharacterized by rapid, dynamic change in productcapabilities, enabling technologies, markets, andcompetitors. This company was strongly the start of the project, new service instal-lation was a complex, dynamic project manage-ment exercise requiring the ability to deal withongoing changes in technologies, customerrequirements, and project scope throughout theduration of the project. Process documentationwas scant or inadequate, and there was a heavyreliance on a small set of highly experienced proj-ect managers, continuous heroics, and a monu-mental effort at the very end to pull everythingtogether. Relationships among team members28 ODPRACTITIONERB uilding Resilient OrganizationsDEAN ROBB, MA, MSspent16 years in the corporateworld in quality managementand organizational effective-ness, instructional technology,training, marketing, and busi-ness research.

9 For the pastseven years he has been anindependent consultant andhas helped companies in avariety of industries, nationallyand internationally, to improvebusiness operations and teamperformance, build more effec-tive, adaptable Organizations ,and manage change . Dean smasters degrees are in HumanDevelopment and Statistics. He is currently a doctoral can-didate at The Fielding become conflicted, and people were start-ing to feel burned out. Customers did not feelentirely secure. The project focus was to rational-ize the process and make it more turnkey ,because the company desired to outsource instal-lation so they could focus more heavily on prod-uct innovation. THE Resilient organization :THE Building BLOCKSThe Resilient organization is a hybrid Resilient organization integrates the twodomains by actively and consciously creating twosubsystems: The Performance System and theAdaptation System, which are linked togetherthrough a foundation of:Each of these foundational elements has twocomplementary domains that correspond to thePerformance and Adaptation sides of theResilience equation.

10 Let s look a bit more deeplyinto each of Resilient organization links together twoarchitectures, each of which is focused on one ofthe two complementary domains of activity. ThePerformance System is comprised of those com-pany structures focused on current performance,which include: Effective, efficient business processes, tightlyaligned with customer needs Clear boundaries, goals and performance meas-ures for functions, teams and individuals Clear relationships between individuals, man-agers, teams and Organizations An effective performance management the perspective of the Resilient Organi-zation, these elements serve one purpose only:they are a temporarymeans of delivering value tocustomers, stockholders, employees, and perhapsthe surrounding community.