Over the last year or so there are a number of words and phrases that have become part of our common vocabulary. Social distancing, new normal, hybrid working, furlough and lockdown are just a few that spring to mind and I know there are loads more.
One of the words that’s really stood out for me recently is the word RESILIENCE.
What is resilience?
Resilience has been used frequently to talk about how organisations and their employees have fared in the pandemic, the building blocks required to create a resilient culture and more recently, when looking at the sporting success of our Olympic Team GB and the England football team.
And whilst for businesses, resilience is often intertwined with financial performance and stability, a recent McKinsey article argues that…
““Today’s world demands more than financial resilience...”
”Catastrophic events will grow more frequent but less predictable. They will unfold faster but in more varied ways. The digital and technology revolution, climate change, and geopolitical uncertainty will all play major roles.””
They suggest that true resilience requires am equal focus on six dimension: financials, operations, technology, organisation, reputation, and business model.1
And whilst all of these require attention, from a communications perspective, there were two that caught my eye; organisation and reputation.
Organisation
Organisational resilience looks at the need for businesses to foster a diverse workforce, recruit the best talent, develop it equally and implement strong people processes free from bias. They highlight the need to maintain robust succession plans and put the right steps in place so that culture and desired behaviours are mutually reinforcing.
Dr. Avneet Kaur, EMEA Wellbeing Solutions Leader at Aon builds on this theme in HR Magazine, by demonstrating the intrinsic link between employee wellbeing, resilience and company performance. 2
In a survey they conducted in partnership with IPSOS, they found that whilst a high percentage of companies surveyed said employee wellbeing and resilience was important (and had put initiatives in place), few had strategies focused on this area and even fewer had fully integrated wellbeing into their business and talent strategy.
““Wellbeing is so much more than programmes and individual initiatives; it is a long-term people and performance strategy, using resources to achieve resilience goals over a sustained period…
“Leadership support and buy-in are critical factors in creating a culture and a wellbeing strategy that can positively impact workforce resilience and overall company performance.””
Ultimately it seems, leadership is key.
Reputation
Reputational resilience McKinsey highlight, requires a strong sense of self, built around a clear mission, values and purpose. It requires being accountable to a wide range of stakeholders – external and internal – and actively communicating and listening to what they have to say as well as anticipating and addressing societal expectations.
And when I think about how resilient a business is reputationally, once again, I believe, it has much to do with its leaders. How they demonstrate resilience, how they support and develop their people and guide them through a challenge or a crisis and critically, how they communicate effectively with their stakeholders; how they listen and engage.
Role-modelling Resilience
And we’ve had some pretty impressive role models over the last year or so.
The resilience of NHS workers, care home workers, teachers and many more who carried on despite everything that was thrown at them with unwavering commitment, empathy and compassion. They showed true resilience. Children, who had their world’s turned upside down, yet managed to adapt to home-schooling and remote learning whilst putting on hold so much of what they loved doing for the greater good. I’m pretty positive about our leaders of tomorrow if that’s how they respond when times get tough.
And most recently we’ve seen this resilience in our Olympic Team GB who delivered an amazing performance to gain an impressive medal tally as well as England football manager, Gareth Southgate who built a resilient, hugely impressive team with a bright future, even if the end result at Euro 2020 wasn’t what we were hoping for.
So what can we learn from this?
Resilience it seems is a pretty broad theme. What’s clear though, is that to be resilient as a business you need to look beyond the financials and day to day operations to your culture, your people and your leaders.
And you need to do all of this so it’s grounded in your purpose and values as an organisation, so that its built into how you support and develop your people and is reflected in how you communicate; so that you do what you say and say what you do.
Do all of this and you have the right foundations in place for resilience.
Sources