What have we learned about Scaling Human Resilience? Apparently not very much.

In a rescent study from McKinsey & Company, senior executives were asked to share their thoughts and opinions about risk management and strategic Corporate Resilience. What I discovered is that companies still have much to learn about managing risk and Human Resilience in the new business world. The following is an executive summary of the report along with my perspective as a Organizational Human Resilience Expert.

Apparently, there are only 4 important areas of resilience that a company need pay attention to:

1. Operational Resilience
2. Technology Resilience
3. Financial Resilience
4. Digital Resilience

Because I primarily focus on Human Resilience, my hope was that I would find some representation of that in the Operational Resilience category. The sage advice given was that "everyone needs to feel included, so they can perform at their best". This got me excited to read on, because now they were talking my language. But while 60% of respondents felt they have excellent or very good resilience capabilities, they also admitted that...

"few firms have a comprehensive strategic perspective to meet the challenges of the next disruption over the horizon."

Isn't this an oxymoron?

Now I'm getting curious. I'll admit that Technical, Financial and Digital Resilience are not in my wheelhouse and people with MBA's who posses those skill sets are few and far between. So these folks are going to be hard to find and even harder to keep right? But they are still people, they aren't some kind of new AI in people skins.

Let's take a closer look at what the report had to say about Operational Resilience, and I apologize in advance for the business-speak. When you don't know what you're talking about, sometimes it's better to let the BS baffle brains.

"Resilient organizations maintain robust production capacity that can pivot to meet changes in demand or remain stable in the face of operational disruption, all without sacrificing quality. They also fortify both their supply chains and delivery mechanisms to maintain operational capacity and the provision of goods and services to customers, even under stress of all forms ranging from failures of individual suppliers or distributors to natural catastrophes and geopolitical events."

And I thought I wrote wordy sentences. Not much about resilient people or Scaling Human Resilience in that statement. Why? Isn't it obvious...

People are not trained in resilience, because performance evaluation is not based on it.

Oh boy, now this is starting to make sense. For a number of purely performance based reasons, few institutions have built sufficient strategic strategies to develop Human Resilience. Managers and leaders are measured based on their analytical and decision making performance metrics, not in their ability to bring their best self to work and help their team members do the same. Hmm, curious?

The report goes on to say...

"We have no universal means of measuring resilience, but we are working on it!"

Isn't it true that every business metric goes up with healthy, happy employees? Isn't it also true that client satisfaction goes up when customers have exceptional interactions with fully engaged people? Maybe the global consultants don't have a universal means of measuring Human Resilience but you do...

1. Employee Absenteeism
2. Employee Turnover
3. Employee Engagement
4. Net Promoter Score

The report finishes up by suggesting that companies need to build first line capabilities in resilience; building personal resilience and resilience within their teams. Um, that's called Scaling Human Resilience and it's a simple duplicative process when you understand what the process is.

Why isn't Scaling Human Resilience happening on a larger scale you might ask? Because this type of training doesn't exist, or at least it hasn't existed for the past 5 years that I have been working in the Corporate Learning Space. This isn't a problem as much as it is an opportunity for those who are willing to move away from the status-quo and ask better questions that demand better answers.

The world's not all sunshine and roses, and daily struggle is what most people can relate to. If you're looking for a way to Scale Human Resilience and not get lost in the wellness rabbit hole, DM me or leave a comment below. I'd be happy to share a strategy for Scaling Human Resilience that just might work for you.

I may not have 4.5M followers like McKinsey, but those who believe what I believe, that everyone deserves to have a strategy to bring their best selves to work every day, think I might be on to something.

If you are an HR professional and you have questions about Scaling Human Resilience, leave a comment below. The only bad questions are the ones that never get asked. In business, we call those missed opportunities.