The Importance of Building Capacity to Cultivate Organizational Resilience

This ground is fertile for growth. Many organizations have the chance to seize on this time to shift outdated and inequitable paradigms, innovate, and ultimately prosper.  

But most are focusing more energy on managing exposures rather than capitalizing on opportunities.   

It is understandable why organizations are concerned how COVID-19 will impact their sustainability. A 2017 study demonstrates how organizations respond to a crisis will result in either losses of 30% of the company’s valuation or gains of 20%+. In the world of COVID-19, as we watch the potential implosion of 7.5 million small businesses, these percentages will be higher in both directions.  

Strategic investment in upskilling leaders, cultivating qualities of a resilient organization, and nurturing relationships with stakeholders are key factors when navigating through challenging times. If this is what the studies show, why don’t more organizations respond accordingly? Our neurobiological hardwiring provides the answer. When our brains are under stress in a heightened state of activation, our time horizon shrinks and we slip into protective mode, hoarding resources and becoming increasingly autocratic. This explains why organizational time horizons shrink in crisis and decisions become increasingly deficit focused, as leaders guard resources.  

Institutions need to do the opposite of our neurobiological response: we need to think long term and invest strategically. What organizations do right now will impact the coming years and decades. Resilient organizations cultivate key qualities that allow them to effectively respond to crises including a staunch acceptance of our new reality, the ability to provide clarity when possible, effective empowerment of all employees to make decisions amidst ambiguity, and a prioritization of a culture of reflection and learning during the challenging time.  

Part of the culture of reflection and learning during this time of crisis means throwing out old leadership competencies in service to those that are critical for today. Many administrators today are struggling because they are trying to apply pre-pandemic management skills in a pandemic world. The quick and effective upskilling of leaders in capacities essential for navigating crisis will empower effective support of employees and reduction of stress for all. These new competencies include:  

Inner work - the ability to recognize, reconcile, wrestle with, and learn about oneself to disrupt bias, broaden perspectives, and leverage strengths to ensure capacity for sustainable, meaningful change 

Grief processing - the ability to create spaces for grief to be processed to support acceptance and healing 

Facilitative listening - the ability to listen for values, fears, and what is important to the speakers and to facilitate dialogue that both honors perspectives and deepens understanding/progress to ensure engagement   

Healing centered facilitation - the ability to facilitate spaces that are human centered and support healing to minimize short- and long-term negative impacts

Resilience - the ability to create spaces that foster individual and organizational resilience to cultivate the ability to not only “bounce back” but grow through challenging times  

Ritualizing - the ability to integrate ritual in a meaningful way that reduces anxiety, addresses ambiguity, and helps process trauma to build connection and endurance  

When organizations invest strategically in their employees, use this time to build capacity, and shift to new norms, they build resiliency, foster wellness, and ensure future prosperity. Dark times are fertile soil for positive and necessary change. It can be difficult to imagine what could be, but for organizations who do, the future is bright.