Resiliency Should be Comprehensive

Resiliency should be considered as a comprehensive paradigm.

As I've talked with many people about resiliency, I find one of the most common aspects of the conversation being a fairly narrow view of what resiliency means. Most often, this view is presented as an enhanced view of their subject matter expertise or the world in which they work. In other words, their domain on steroids.  For example, and in general:

• The risk management community members I've spoken with see resiliency as a strategic risk management paradigm and often one that can be adequately addressed by a robust Enterprise Risk Management implementation or other high powered risk assessment and management methods.
• The IT community members see resiliency in the context of the protection and recoverability of information management assets/capabilities.
• The preparedness and crisis management communities see resiliency as being able to bounce back quickly because you didn't take too hard of a punch to start with--because you were appropriately hardened and prepared.
• The supply chain communities see the great value in being disruption=proof either through redundancy and flexiblility, and the more of those you are, the more resilient you are likely to be.
• The human capital community sees the discussion of resiliency encompassing the ability of the people being individually and collectively able to cope, flexibly respond, and return to normalcy.

The good news from my perspective is that eveyone is right. However, we would all need to admit that in most companies five separate people or groups would be dispatched to deal with the five areas I cite above. Would they speak to each other and coordinate? Probably not. Would they generate resulting recommendations that balanced overall corporate benefit at the potential "cost" to their particular function/responsibility? I doubt it. Not at least without some overarching framework and common goals that drive them to this balancing. That is one reason I advocate resiliency as a business management paradigm.

Resiliency considerations should start with the premise of what should the organization do to be a surviving and thriving entity, even in the face of major change or crisis. Having the most redundant and secure supply chain helps. As does virtually assured information management capacities. Top-notch plans and procedures for a disaster or crisis is of unquestioned benefit (as long as you've anticipated the type of disaster/crisis). But I suggest that maximizing performance and capabilities in all areas important to resiliency is pretty unattainable to the vast majority of organizations, and it is wise to seek an overall bigger resiliency bang for the buck. This is what a comprehensive resiliency paradigm does.

Darryl Moody