Resilience and simulations
With less than a week to go until the start of the London Olympics let's start with a topical metaphor. Think of a successful organisation as a healthy athlete. Honed, toned, in the zone and eager for success. Reaching the pinnacle of Olympic success takes time, commitment, vision and only comes with dedicated practice and preparation. This preparation comes in different forms – mental and physical - and all with the aim of being at your best when the moment of truth arrives. Coaches ask their athletes to visualise what it will feel like to compete, to imagine in great detail, how they will compete in those vital moments when there is all to gain, or all to lose. What does success look like? What will it take to win through? How will it feel to do so? What needs to happen for success to be realised?
The same preparatory techniques can be applied to organisations, where simulations can form part of this preparation, helping the organisation develop and maintain its vision during periods of stress in a way that allows it to preserve competitive edge, standing it at the top of its game, honing and toning and making it alert to critical moments and allowing itto be the first to act when the need arises. By thinking ahead, such critical moments might even be avoided. In short, simulations help organisations in their quest for resilience and, ultimately, excellence.
Look at these two definitions of resilience:
“The essence of resilience is therefore the intrinsic ability of an organisation to maintain or regain a dynamically stable state which allows it to continue operations after a major mishap and/or in the presence of continuous stress” (Weick and Sutcliffe, 2001)
"[Resilience is]...the capacity of a system, enterprise, or a person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances”. (Zolli, 2012)
(for HBR audio interview with Zolli click here: )
Good decision making exercises, business simulations and wargames can help organisations develop this resilience.
We know that key predictors of continuity effectiveness and organisational resilience in critical situations include managerial style, leadership attitudes, delegation culture, reporting structures and decision making procedures. We also know that diversity and the workings of the informal system are crucial factors in the way that organisations embed resilience. Simulations can be an essential tool in the identification and development of these attributes, understanding how they may influence, benefit or possibly at times hinder our quest for excellence.
It's an uncertain world
Put your hand in the air if you would be happy to climb onboard an aircraft with a pilot who had not been trained in dealing with an emergency? I can't see you, but the chances are that your hand is still firmly down by your side. Most of us wouldn't dream of such a situation. In the airline industry the impact of unexpected events can quite literally have tragic consequences. For organisations operating in other sectors the impacts of critical incidents may not directly impact life or death, but can create enough excessive pressure to flips the organisation into or towards chaos. A good and well trained pilot has a chance of regaining control whereas an ill-prepared pilot may not. I know which I would rather fly with.
There is a difference of course between planned and unplanned events. Systems (and organisations exist as systems don’t forget) are generally good at dealing with anticipated critical events, but are extremely fragile when unanticipated events rise up to create stress and threaten the stable state. When these events occur the organisation will look to its managers and its leaders to respond. Time to step up to the plate and be counted. Useful then if you have some experience of what to expect.
Developing managers and leaders to cope with such critical situations is not easy, not least because the range of potential situations is so vast. Sit down with a pen and a vivid imagination and very soon you’ll have a disaster movie in the making. But think about your own career and the challenging moments you have faced, and you begin to imagine how even the most every day scenarios can generate extra-ordinary experiences. Some potential critical scenarios may seem fantastic, and sceptics will often counter the idea of potential scenarios with cries of "That'll never happen", but the fact is these incidents do occur. Organisations are frequently responding to unforeseen events. Just pick up a newspaper and read about G4S and the latest situation they find themselves in over Olympic security. Read about the latest revelations at Barclays and the other banks, and realise that these events are all around us, all the time.
And they are not restricted to large organisations. Smaller enterprises may face equally tough times, arguably with greater potential for long term impact. We have to equip our organisations to cope with the uncertainty that such events create, and that means preparing managers and leaders to think flexibly, responsibly and appropriately in difficult situations. Critical events do not develop in a linear fashion - that's inherent in their very nature. They are surrounded by 'friction', those unanticipated but all too real forces that create additional uncertainty. These can feed a positive feedback loop, where events can spiral and the situation can become very unstable, very quickly. When they do, non-resilient organisations will be ill prepared and will find it much harder to bounce back. Resilience in organisations occurs when the system continues to operate despite failures in some of its parts and despite the disturbances caused by critical events. It means navigating some stormy waters in perilous winds, and the maelstrom can be destructive.
But there is also an amazingly constructive side to these incidents. Real critical incidents and good simulations create environments conducive to innovation. They provide excellent learning opportunities and generate new thinking. By using simulations, business wargames and Red Team exercises, organisations can reap the positives of learning without being threatened by the negatives. In fact, good simulations might also allow an exploration of the negatives in such a way that may make it possible to avoid them altogether.
So how, specifically do simulations do this?
That's a topic for another time.
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