Since business is a continuous activity, organizations have to learn to deal with changes within and without. This short note discusses how organizations succeed in creating resilient structures
There has been intense discussions on resilient structures among engineers and scientists over the past few years with so many natural and other phenomena disrupting normal life. Resilience is a matter of how quickly a structure can return to normalcy after battling whatever hazards an event has thrown its way. Some have discussed resilience in relation to communities of people as well as it should be. Here, I would like to restrict the discussion to business organizations although I might offer examples from without.
If the world is dynamic and ceaselessly so, it does become important to ask – How to create a resilient structure in organizations? Not frozen, not stifling but resilient. Since we are in the world of business which is susceptible to influence by individuals, one of the points of discussion is resilience in the face of change of personalities, especially one who dominated during his or her tenure. While this discussion is valid for any organization, there is an added dimension in the case of business – the stock market. So much in modern economies revolve around markets (and all that go with it) that this itself becomes a matter of testing resilience. We have seen this in the case of so many large and leading companies. It is not my intention to name names but readers can easily remember many where change of a leading personality did raise questions over resilience, which would assume different dimensions in different companies depending on what are considered value drivers. In some cases, changes in the business environment & brand loyalty may hold the key as the organization may have no choice to brush off one and embrace another. This depends on who is the customer – consumers or enterprises?
Resilient structure overcomes vulnerabilities; it is not invulnerable because any structure can be penetrated. Consider the former USSR. For over 7 decades, it was an impenetrable structure – in fact, no one even had a clue to what lay underneath. And in 1991, some 74 years since it was formed, it just collapsed, in a matter of months. Truly collapsed becoming completely fragmented and porous. It became directionless, unruly, with massive law & order problems – the very opposite of what it was. If ever there was a lesson that any structure can be penetrated or can collapse, I can’t think of a better example than the former USSR. In its place another structure emerged, different and yet same but that is an entirely different subject.
To come back to our main interest. So, how to create a resilient structure? First step is to depersonalize. One of the biggest problems in businesses is some get far too closely linked to an individual to extricate easily upon the individual’s departure, natural or otherwise. Too close an association with an individual or group is detrimental as the structure will collapse and has to be rebuilt. However, this is easier said than done. The norm is always going to be this because the influence of a single individual can be just as bad as it can be liberating. A new individual and a new structure. This seems to be the inevitable way of life. Because structure can be fought only with (another) structure. As any new CEO would know.
In businesses (as in any organization), structure will be impacted by reporting lines and relationships, informal but influential relationships that may interfere with stated reporting lines. In any event that calls for a display of resilience, it is these aspects that will (need to) rise to the fore. Their significance is demonstrated by the oft-repeated fact that it doesn’t take long for processes (which facilitate work) to become bureaucracy. Which is why, in human structures, the influence of the new (people, relationships) is so crucial to get resilience to show itself. Perhaps, that is the difference between us and other structures.
Takeaways
Resilience can turn into its opposite in no time
Strong examples to support this view
First step to create a resilient structure is to depersonalize
Structure is vulnerable to reporting lines and relationships
