“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”
Alvin Toffler
With this quote Ralf Knegtmans begins the foreword for the Polish edition of his book Agile Talent: Nine Essential Steps for Selecting Tomorrow’s Top Talent.
Recent events have confirmed how unpredictable and volatile today’s world is, often described by the acronym VUCA, which comes from the words: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It was invented by the American army and created from the first letters of words describing the peculiarities of the situation during the war. VUCA been adopted quite quickly in the business world, as it describes well the environment in which today’s organizations operate – rapid changes have become the norm. Some also talk about the Black Swans, although personally prefer VUCA.
What is resiliency?
The word resiliency – the ability or process of adapting a person to changing conditions – has been repeating over and over and over again. Preparing an article for the previous edition of Strefa PMI on the new normality and trends in project management, I asked a question about which of the topics is worth exploring. I received the following response: “I’m happy to read about examples of team and organizational resilience”.
Hence the idea of writing a few words on this subject, not forgetting also personal resiliency, which has been recognized as one of the three most important leadership competences in these days (Talent Development Institute and Adventure for Thought study of 100 companies ). Chris Burry, on the other hand, mentioned resilience as top Mindset of the Successful Entrepreneur at Infoshare 2020 conference.
Psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. As much as resilience involves “bouncing back” from these difficult experiences, it can also involve profound personal growth (American Psychology Association, 2018).
Antifragile
“Complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors”
Nassim Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined the term of antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. What Taleb has identified and calls antifragile is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.
From the organization’s perspective, antifragile is “the result of the characteristics of its ruling units adjusted for flexibility and the ability of holistic leaders to perceive challenges. Complexity requires a holistic approach, the ability to prioritize and draw on the team’s diverse experiences and skills” (Taleb, Antifragile, 2014)
Regardless of how the company is managed, it is a complex adaptive system (CAS) that requires a systemic view and management from the whole system perspective. It is a set of individual factors that work in a way that is not always entirely predictable in the way that the behaviour of one factor affects the behaviour of others. Complex systems are full of interdependencies – hard to detect – and nonlinear responses – there is no simple cause-and-effect (Taleb, Antifragile, 2014). However, not all organizations understand this and see the organization as a steam-driven machine and mechanical system, often optimizing individual parts of it.
Personally, I hoped that today’s crisis would force organisations to change the paradigm of thinking to more holistic view. And instead of repairing the individual components of the machine – optimizing and cutting costs – they will invest in preparing the right ground, thanks to which people will flourish. As the psychologist Jonathan Haidt (Happiness, 2006) rightly pointed out, humans are not machines, but plants. “It’s impossible to fix a plant – you can create the right conditions for it: provide it with water, sun and fertile soil – and wait. The rest belongs to her.”
Organisational Agility
However, I am saddened to see how far we are from agility, which Christopher Worley defines as “the ability to make timely, effective and sustained organisation change when and where it provides performance advantage for the organisation”. An agile organization is one that changes better than anyone else. The changes should address areas such as goal setting, feedback, evaluation, rewarding and budgeting. Agile organizations are built around interdisciplinary teams or at least work together across departments to achieve better results. They actively fight “US and THEM” thinking by investing in a common understanding.
The agile organization is characterized by the following routines (Worley, 2015):
• setting innovative objectives, a shared strategy and creating a climate for its implementation,
• continuous monitoring of the business environment and communication of changes to decision-makers for interpretation and action,
• creating a climate for continuous implementation of change – a culture supporting cooperation, open communication and transparency,
• learning by experimentation – making mistakes is part of the learning process,
• craftsmanship – continuous improvement and development of all members of the organization.
Worth mentioning here is the Amy Edmondson’s concept of teaming. Teaming is a dynamic way of working that provides the coordination and collaboration without the rigidity of stable team structures. Teaming and its associated behaviours support organisational learning and require the right leadership mindset to optimise outcomes. Starting from teaming and its four behaviours: speaking up, experimenting, collaboration and reflection, through Organising to Learn mindset which involve four actions: reaching across boundaries, learning from failure, creating psychological safety and reframing for learning the organisation reaches Execution as Learning – a way of operating that builds learning into ongoing operations. Execution as Learning is defined in contrast to Execution to Efficiency, which values control over flexibility and adherence over experimentation, and often relies on fear to promote control and adherence. Execution as Learning comprises of four steps: diagnose, design, act, reflect.
How to develop resilience at work?
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us”
Alexander Graham Bell
Even self-conscious and emotionally strong leaders can sometimes be surprised by unexpected events and challenges, so it is worth learning healthy ways to deal with adversity that will help us strengthen psychological resilience.
Below are some tips shared by psychologist Barbara Mróz in the Leader’s Compass, and more at the Agile Leadership Navigator workshop:
• Develop self-awareness
• Use self-reflection
• Take care of physical immunity: sleep, nutrition, physical fitness
• Search your area of influence
• Build a social support network
• Learn to see situations as challenges, not threats
• Search for meaning and meaning in what you do
• Develop a lifelong learning habit
• Consciously decide your answer to what happens
• Develop positive thinking
• Show compassion.
Activity: When one door closes, another opens
Think of a time in your life when someone rejected you, you missed something important, or dropped a big plan. These would be the moments of your life where the door closed. Now think about what happened next: what door opened later? What would never have happened if the first door hadn’t closed? Write down as many experiences as possible that will come to your mind.
Agility Pyramid
Source: Own compilation from C. WorleyEpilogue
Unfortunately, my observations confirm that, despite the increasing complexity and uncertainty and the available knowledge and practices on how to deal with them, organizations are constantly looking for ways to stretch a single into a triple – cut costs and optimize the “machine”. Just as the opposite of fragile is not robust but anitifragile – Taleb had to come up with a new word, the opposite of uncertainty is not certainty but the new possibilities, and these require a paradigm shift.
[ENG] Project management, agile and teal passionate with over 20 years of experience in global projects and programs in various sectors and industries. Agile coach, mentor, business trainer and volunteer. She specializes in transitions and transformations, combining traditional and agile approaches. AgilePMO Founder, Kozminski University Program Director, creator of innovative training programs and business solutions in the field of managing and leading projects, teams and organisations such as Transition Manager Academy, and co-founder of the Agile Women Leadership community (Zwinna Liderka) and Agile Leadership Academy. She has been awarded „Strong Women in IT 2019 & 2023” and „Strong Women in IT 2021 – Global Edition.
[PL] Pasjonatka zarządzania projektami z ponad 20-letnim doświadczeniem w globalnych projektach i programach w różnych sektorach i branżach. Ambasadorka zwinności i turkusu, mentorka, trenerka biznesu i społeczniczka. Specjalizuje się w tranzycjach i transformacjach, łącząc w nich podejścia tradycyjne i zwinne. Właścicielka AgilePMO, koordynatorka merytoryczna Akademii Leona Koźmińskiego, twórczyni innowacyjnych programów szkoleniowych i rozwiązań biznesowych z zakresu zarządzania projektami, zespołami i organizacjami oraz przywództwa takich jak Akademia Transition Managera oraz współtwórczyni Akademii Zwinnej Liderki, Akademii Zwinnego Przywództwa. Wyróżniona tytułem „Strong Women in IT 2019” oraz „Strong Women in IT 2021 & 2023– Global Edition”.