What is proactive resilience, and why focus on it now?

Recent global disruptions have shown how quickly change can happen, and often without warning. From the pandemic, fuel shortages and geopolitical risks to global weather and environmental disasters, disruptions have caused billions of pounds worth of damage in the past few years.

And equally, these disruptions have shown how effective businesses can innovate and shift focus in little or no time, while responding to changing customer demands and shifts in the market. But to thrive during times of high-change, organisations need to master agility and resilience.

So, what is proactive resilience? If, resilience is described as the ability to function during a crisis and recover afterwards from difficulties. Proactive resilience requires a holistic, company-wide risk management approach that results in sustained superior performance, maintaining a high performance and self-renewal over time through innovation and agility.

As defined by BCG , top performing organisations in economic uncertainty do not just wait for recovery; instead, they build competitive advantage and turn ambiguity into a source of opportunity.

For leaders, the only certainty is that waiting for clarity is a losing strategy. The best organisations know how to turn uncertainty into sustained growth. That relies on two elements, a clear view of the world and an adaptable plan to win.

Taking steps to proactive resilience

Rather than defending against the unpredictable, truly agile organisations move towards leveraging opportunities for growth. Leaders need to shift away from multi-layer reporting structures, rigid annual planning and budgeting cycles and a compliance-oriented culture.

According to McKinsey, true organisational agility goes beyond adding agile teams. Leaders need to reimagine the organisation as a network of high-performing teams, supported by an effective, stable backbone of strategy, structure, process, people, and technology.

There are three key steps to navigate uncertainty and secure a clear pathway for sustained growth:

1. Harness data to discern market trends, evaluate potential impacts and develop dynamic scenarios to support business decisions.
2. Build resilience across the value chain and functions, including organisational and supply chain resilience
3. Seize growth opportunities to build competitive advantage and medium- to long-term market position

It’s well known that data-driven decision-making at the highest level of the business leads to effective strategy and organisational agility. This is underpinned by a high degree of clarity and transparency about what the organisation is trying to achieve, which increases alignment, efficiency, and accountability.

To navigate uncertainty, it’s critical that all leaders and decision makers have the most robust data and dashboards possible, with embedded external industry data. According to Forbes “Data-focused executives make better decisions in times of volatility and crisis, and data transparency aids challenging conversations across the executive team regarding resourcing, growth, and service.”

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