Management Perspectives

It is important to understand resilience in the context of businesses. Typically, resilience refers to the ability of an object or an individual to come back to status quo or the original position when displaced by an unknown or unforeseen event. Another definition I read talks about the ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties’. These understandings then suggest that the resilience of any organisation should be measured in terms of its ability to ‘return to achieve projected revenue, or profit’. In the context of COVID-19 and the devastation it has caused, resilience seems to be the ability to bounce back to the status quo and resume the journey to revenue and profit generation.

But I tend to view difficulties differently. For an organisation, the path is sometimes described as ‘rock-solid’; one that ‘marches on’ no matter what the adversity. It is almost like a ship designed to sail through frozen seas or a hot knife that slices everything that is thrown at it. By design, this state of mind is dangerous and detrimental to the medium and long-term future of the organisation. Too much attention is paid to get back to ‘as things were’. All effort is directed at getting back on track while another, more subtle issue begins to surface. To illustrate my point, here is a live example from the times of COVID.

When the lockdown hit in March 2020, all transportation came to a standstill. The publishing industry was brought to a grinding halt, so to speak. I heard the following pain points being aired:
– Manuscripts could not reach typesetters because of couriers being shut down;
– Printed books did not reach individuals;
– Retail stores shut down, and hence, customers could not buy books off the shelf;
– Printing presses shut down, so no books were printed.

In the first three months of the pandemic, it is safe to assume that these pain points were focused on and all efforts were made to get rid of them. However, this should have been a wakeup call and a time to introspect. The pandemic thrust upon this industry a situation that should have forced a rethink of processes. Unfortunately, most focused on the tip of their noses so to speak, and hence, suffered—not just through the lockdown but continued to do so after it too.

An adverse event in the course of normal business needs to be viewed differently. Instead of viewing it as a challenge that needs to be overcome, an organisation needs to view it as an early warning sign of change. The event could be an indicator of change that is internal or external with respect to the organisation. It is thus important that appropriate action be taken to address not just the event but the change that the event is a symptom of.

The impact of COVID-19 should be viewed as the symptom of a larger problem that had nothing to do with the pandemic. The ones impacted by COVID-19 had not changed in the following manner:
– Their workflows were heavily dependent on physical movement of goods and services. This should have changed to digital modes almost a decade ago.
– Distribution channels had long moved to online modes, but many sections of the industry were still hesitant to embrace this change.
– The products too had moved from physical ones to digital ones; the ones without a digital strategy were most impacted.

The effects of the pandemic were thus symptoms of greater problems. The pandemic itself was probably not more than a brief interlude to test future readiness.

Building resilience - A 3-step process
Resilience should be understood as the ability of an organisation to be ready to adapt to any unnatural adverse event that has the potential to cripple it. In this context, building culture is important and building this sort of culture can be divided into three easy steps:

Step 1: Clear, long-term peoplefocused objectives
This sounds obvious, but very few organisations commit to long-term objectives. The most important objective should be building a culture of process, product, and people awareness. Processes and products are relatively easy to identify and become aware of. Any industry has market leaders that bring about process and product innovation. These can be adopted/adapted easily. But within any industry, people is one variable that is unique to every organisation and is based on various parameters. My top three parameters are:
1. Size and geographical location of the organisation;
2. Demographics and biases; and
3. Value, reward, and growth systems.

In every organisation, culture is made of the above-mentioned three parameters. Together, they set up the foundation of resilience. An organisation must be committed to building an environment where such objectives are continuously committed to.

Step 2: Empathetic leadership to the fore
A big problem with management is that the higher it sits, the less empathetic it is to the hardships faced by those at the lowest rungs. When an adverse event hits, the scramble at the top leaves the grassroots unattended, thereby contributing to fear, isolation, and lack of will to work. The pandemic is an extreme but valuable event in terms of learning the effects of isolation and the lack of motivation that affect any organisation. When the lockdown hit, many individuals found themselves alone in oneroom apartments or even two roommates living together in an apartment suddenly felt alone. The camaraderie they were used to in the office vanished overnight. Simple tasks such as access to food, essentials, and even medication suddenly became challenges. On top of this, the prospect of job loss loomed large and that had the potential to rapidly deplete any motivation the workforce had.

Senior management cannot wake up to a pandemic and suddenly act empathetically. To be able to do this, empathetic leadership must be an integral part of all rungs of management. When the going is good, managers should be continually taught to take empathetically balanced decisions and not simply quote the ‘rule book’. When an organisation is led by a management that understands the pain of its workforce, every adverse event will be handled effectively.

In SAGE, there are many examples of initiatives that helped, but here are my top three:
1.Creating a database of every employee that lived alone and ensuring that each of them had a buddy they could reach out. Every single one of them was contacted every day to ensure they were well, had food, essentials, and medicine.
2.Setting aside time during working hours to have fun. Many did not understand this or did not want to participate but we insisted that every week, a minimum of 1 hour ‘during working hours’ be spent on having fun. Fun hour was dedicated to hobby lessons. I also shared my passion for cooking and some 300-plus employees attended the CEO cooking sessions.
3. Making the CEO visible. During the lockdown, I ensured that I was on a platform (MS Teams) interacting with 400+plus employees directly. During the interaction, everyone was encouraged to write comments and/or ask questions. This helped bring some of the camaraderie back. As CEO, I answered all questions, no matter how uncomfortable they were. This loosened up individuals in a manner, emails or any other sort of communication couldn’t have.

Step 3: Walk the talk, honestly
To be credible in times of crisis you need to build your credibility ‘before’ the crisis hits. All too often, leaders and managers find themselves ‘not being heard or believed’, when in the midst of an adverse event. And they wonder why. The answer lies in the credibility that has been built over time. Management, and especially the CXO Suite, believe they are credible. But I believe practices, policies, and values as played out in day-to-day operations are a great indicator of credibility. All too often, value statements remain enshrined on fancy paper and even fancier frames hung on office walls. These need to be brought to life and this effort has to be led by the CXO Suite. In the time of adverse events, it is this credibility that helps the workforce to make seemingly instant yet essential changes effectively.

Thus, organisational resilience needs to move away from its conventional definition to a new more relevant one: Resilience should be understood as the ability of an to be ready to adapt to any unnatural adverse event that has the potential to cripple it (the organisation). Businesses change and need to keep pace with changing environments, especially if adverse events become more frequent.