Lessons for Organisational Resilience Obtained from the Recent Covid-19 Pandemic: Resilience is not Power.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic that has now impacted 205 countries across the globe has shown that the majority of the nations were unready for a devastating pandemic. While Covid-19 has resulted in a large number of deaths, it is still delivering a less than 5% mortality rate; had this been a more lethal virus, such as SARS, MARS or of the Ebola variant, then the global response would have led to a catastrophic impact within weeks to the human race.

What the pandemic has clearly shown, at an international, national and organisational level is that Resilience in not Power – Resilience is Understanding, effective use of resources and investment in People. Those that seek to push the concept of Resilience is Power demonstrate a real failing in understanding the concept of Resilience within both the natural and business worlds.

What has become very clear is that several countries have demonstrated an effective response to the threat, while many more have implemented an approach that was ineffective, focussing on containment rather than understanding. Those, like South Korea, that sought to build a rapid understanding of the affected areas, the spread and the potential threats rapidly sought to put into place isolation, separation and medical activities to identify, track and isolate potential carriers and infected individuals. Those nations that rapidly ramped up population testing in the street, as well as their frontline medical staff, were able to quickly get a well-informed operational picture of what they were dealing with.

Other nations, especially the Western based ones, sought to design specific responses focussed on relying on specific defined processes, following the scientific guidance or building a “herd immunity” approach, while down-playing the threat. The reliance was on more effective technology, better operating procedures and a more advanced medical setup. They forgot one key element – the understanding of what they were dealing with. The down-playing of the risk, of which we still see, is leading to increasing death and infection rates. The on-going message within the UK is that Covid-19 is a disease that kills only the elderly or those with under-lying health issues; the public response has been to ignore the initial calls for social distancing, with the London Tube still heavily packed with commuters, beaches rammed full of holiday goers and beauty spots, with a high concentration of elderly residents, inundated with tourists. Recent investigations into the state of the effective capability of the country to respond highlighted the NHS, critically damaged by years of underfunding, now facing a national emergency with severe staffing gaps, unfit equipment, outdated procedures, woefully low critical care capability, dangerously low PPE stocks and questionable levels of effective strategic leadership. The supply chain was non-existent, with staff and patients put in harm’s way by poor strategic decisions and a clear lack of leadership at a political level.

So what lessons have we already identified from the current situation that need to taken forward for the next pandemic that we will experience, potentially in 12 months time, when another variant of a Covid strain appears.

The importance of understanding the threat: - For the UK there were several clear active case studies that demonstrated activities that worked and those that did not. These were:

• The initial down-playing of the threat, such as in China and Italy, resulted in the increased spread of the disease;, while in South Korea the immediate implication of potential risk to all resulted in a population more aware of the threat and more complaint in the country-wide response;
• The use of face-masks, even as a visual sign of risk, supported by a public warning campaign, large scale testing and enforced social distancing, at an early stage, in South Korea, assisted in developing a comprehensive approach to early understanding and containment. In Italy, France, UK and the US the constant subliminal message o only the old and those with underlying health issues resulted in many of the population ignoring initial directions;
•  The importance of the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy of an organisation should not be underestimated when responding to a major crisis. The UK football association was on the receiving end of a public backlash when continuing to pay players full salaries while forcing working staff to take leave or furloughed to reduce costs. Sports Direct received a public outcry when it sought to utilise the situation to its advantage by trying to remain open by saying it was “a key organisation.” Formula 1 obtained popular approval as it turned its technical expertise to building key elements to ventilators to support the NHS.
•  Failing to utilise public media at an early stage enabled the development of several “hotspots” and incubation periods for the disease to develop an ink-spot effect across the UK. By the time the government had built up an understanding of the threat, the virus had taken hold in several areas;
•  The impact of the cult of the individual. In the UK, the desire to be liked by politicians, rather than the desire to lead, resulted in several missed opportunities to limit the effect of the virus. Delays in closing down social gathering areas, schools, non-Critical National Infrastructure enabled the virus to spread further. There has been ongoing leadership confusion on the best strategy to take, as the fatalities continue to increase.
• The impact of Brexit onto the UK supply chain, the NHS and the food chain has been devastating; Farmers are warning of the inability to collect all the food from their fields; supermarket supply chains have shattered, PPE supply chains and central stock for key medical staff have been woefully managed by senior leadership. The arrogance of the UK politic leadership in believing the UK can go it alone has resulted in the UK missing out on 27,000 ventilators, as the UK refused to be part of an EU programme. This has resulted in the UK missing out on the combined industrial power of more advanced nations, such as Germany, to mass produce key items. UK medical trusts are sending their Covid-19 tests abroad because the UK does not have the capacity to manage, while UK firms are selling PPE overseas as the UK government does not have the correct frameworks in place to purchase and store the equipment.
• Resilience is not business continuity or disaster recovery; the collapse of IT services or organisational response mechanisms is not the same as maintaining effective resilience capability. The levels of staffing capability, their availability and the use of an organisation’s social capital provides a strong level of resilience. Organisations with people can operate in a situation where the IT or processes are damaged; people are adaptable and can function while IT systems are brought back online. Organisations without people are useless, no matter how effective their processes and IT are. Yet we have seen, in numerous cases, organisations invest in IT and process systems, yet fail to invest in their people. It is a damning reflection on the current state of the UK that the key individuals in the fight to keep the UK afloat are also in the lowest paid within the country.
• The importance of effective crisis management and the taking of unpopular but necessary decisions to minimise the impact. As many senior leaders know, making key decisions early to limit the impact of a crisis will not make you popular; what we witnessed within the UK government in the early stages was a desire to remain liked, rather than taking the key decisions necessary. This resulted in large numbers being put at risk, as well as the senior leadership of the UK being infected by the virus due to the correct procedures not being implemented and followed by all parties.
• The importance of understanding that organisations are not stand-alone; the modern business environment is a system of systems environment, where one incident can cause several impacts across multiple organisations. We are currently witnessing this on a global scale unseen except in time of global conflict.

These are just several of the lessons that organisations and politicians are experiencing with impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lessons that could have been learnt were not, and the cost has been felt in reputational, economical and social impacts. The failure to properly plan, prepare and test response and recovery plans as a system of systems across various potentially impacted organisations has resulted in the UK’s response being delivered with limited effectiveness. Going forward, it has to be accepted that Resilience is not Power – Resilience is understanding, preparation and investment. Power has nothing to do with how effective your Resilience is; only those who do not understand resilience would make this claim.