Organisational Resilience: Definitions, Contexts & Connectors Influencing Operational Resilience Pursuits

Our environments and the world are subject to perpetual change. As a result, resilience and protection remain fleeting in wake of change, threats, technology, and adaptive, intelligent human actors.

In other words, individuals and organisations alike must constantly review and respond to their immediate and influential environments, in order to to pursue resilient structures, practices or operations.

An objective that will never be finished, and a defined state constantly subject to change, with each passing hour and day.

"...resilience is liberally used in organisations and across society in numerous contexts. There is little consistency in its use in terms of Organisational Resilience and a lack of common understanding as to the essential concepts prevails."

(Braes & Brooks, 2010)

Therefore, before resilience is either asserted or assured, disclosure and consideration of the prevailing systems and structures (both soft and hard) is necessary.

Because, resilience is neither achievable nor sustainable without knowledge, awareness, support, structure and coordination.

Which remains a constant state of tension within organisations and departments, each jockeying for resources, support or validation. A persistent issue with the three lines of defence (3LOD) model or practices, and every subsequent iteration or attempts over the years.

Some models can be sketched or described on the back of an envelope. Others are a little more complex, but an integrated architecture and supporting evidence remains constant. Moreover, process, culture, relationships, power, conflicts, vulnerabilities and scales of resourcefulness and capability to both adaptive and reactive change need to be evaluated and monitored.

As resilience is undermined and prone to failure without external knowledge, awareness and preparedness, so too a failure to monitor or understand internal resourcefulness inevitably leads to diminished resilience and descends down the path towards failure if left undetected or corrected.

Identification and representation of key tenants within organisations, as it has in past, and as it will be until the end of time, create both organisational and operational resilience - a product of the active management of varied scales and timings related to opportunity, change and risk.

"The fields of enterprise risk management, business continuity management, emergency management, crisis management, physical security and cyber-security have been at the heart of organisations’ attempts to protect themselves in the past."

(Braes & Brooks, 2010)

Names, titles, roles and functions may change with trends, industry, discovery, regulation and failure, but the general needs and involvement will largely remain the same.

That is, change is a fact of life, so we need to remain aware for opportunity(ies) and minimise harm or exposure, which requires vigilance and the constant flow of information and knowledge, if survival, preservation or reward is to be assured.

As a result, there are many moving parts, actors and connectors, in either resourcefulness or resilience.

In sum, both organisational and operational resilience are the product of many influences, factors, individuals, systems and processes.

Resilience is neither fixed nor assured. Nor can it be achieved by subjective labelling or abstract utilisation of the term. Evidence, architecture and persistence are required.

Moreover, risk, crisis, intelligence, safety and security contribute to resilience in disparate ways, at different times and varying scales.

Even rudimentary resilience can not be achieved without these functions or actors. Even more so when it comes to contemporary threats and socio-technical systems. Sustained resilience is even more dependent upon these functions and skills.

In short, in much the same way "it takes a village to raise a child"...it takes a village to create, maintain and sustain resilience.

The same applies to organisations, industries and communities.

Ridley Tony

Risk, Security, Safety, Resilience & Management Sciences

Reference:

Braes, B. & Brooks, D. (2010). Organisational resilience: a propositional study to understand and identify the essential concepts, Australian Security and Intelligence Conference