Resilience Reimagined: A Practical Guide for Organisations

Summary

The findings in this report adds up to an exciting agenda for industry leaders, policymakers, and academics. There is much to be done to meet the challenge of reimagining resilience. For decades, organisations have pursued a performance optimisation agenda counterbalanced with a prescriptive system of preventative controls. However, the scale and dynamic nature of some incidents are forcing organisations to be agile and fluid in their readiness, responsiveness, recovery and regeneration. We are entering a new period of uncertainty and change, with an ever-increasing possibility of failure. The threat landscape appears to be growing in complexity and volatility with the emergence of sudden shocks such as a pandemic, extreme weather events, terrorism, and long term, intractable challenges, such as climate change, meeting the needs of an ageing society and tackling inequality. A growing reliance on inter-dependent technologies also exposes businesses to emergent threats and systemic/networked risks. Achieving a balanced approach to resilience will require values to evolve, practices to be questioned, and people to change their beliefs and behaviours. Consequently, developing resilience arguably should constitute a new grand challenge for the 21st Century. We hope that this report offers a vehicle for leaders wishing to reimagine resilience in their organisations.

49 Resilience Reimagined: A practical guide for organisations