Monday, May 08, 2006
DIMENSIONS OF RESILIENCE
Steve DeAngelis, founder of Enterra Solutions was kind enough to comment on my recent post over at his Enterprise Resilience Management Blog:
"This is an important discussion. While we're grateful for Mark's positive comments about Development in a Box, we are even more grateful that we can join a conversation about the ways in which the Enterprise Resilience Management framework interacts with and transforms organizational culture. Enterprise Resilience Management is not just a technology solution -- though it has a significant technology component. And it is not just a management methodology, though it starts with a comprehensive assessment of critical assets and the processes and best practices that support them. Rather, the framework combines best practices and technology to create an entirely new organizational architecture. Methodology and technology, working together, break down the barriers between organizational silos and create new systems -- both cultural and technological -- for whole-organization response.
The resilience of an organization depends only in part on its willingness to adopt new technologies. Resilience also depends on the ability of people -- leaders, line managers and staff -- to create a resilient culture."
Very true. An important point which leads me to explain why I consider "Resilience" to be a meta-principle governing an emerging world where the governing paradigm will be a complex system of systems. Evidence of resilience as a phenomena is manifested across both an enormous scale of magnitude and in multiple domains, including:
1. Complexity Theory
2. Network Theory
3. Ecological-Environmental-Economic systems
4. Social Networks
5. Security Policy and Counterterrorism
6. Human Psychology ( see NYT here)
There are probably infinite possibilities here.
I would expect that any in any adaptive complex system , regardless of the field in which it is traditionally categorized, evidence of resilient characteristics will be readily discoverable ( at least until you reach quantum or cosmological extremes of scale, there I'd have to hedge my hypothesis and let more qualified people speak to that). I would further suggest, more to Steve's point in his post, that overlapping levels of resilience will be highly beneficial.
An organization with a resilient culture will help its employees or members become more resilient themselves by providing a shared "cognitive template" or schema that encourages the practice of resilient behaviors, which with time, may become internalized. Conversely, psychological resiliency among key personnel - the leaders and "hubs" of the organization's social network - are indispensible in building a coherent organization from the ground up or weathering a severe crisis. Resilient leadership operating in a resilient organizational culture are apt to be synergistically reinforcing and, therefore, likelier to pass on the institution and its mores to successive generations.
How many generations ? If you think of corporations, states and organized religions in terms of their formal structures, the timeline now runs into centuries. In a few cases, thousands of years.
Now that's what I call being resilient. ¶ 12:00 AM
Steve DeAngelis, founder of Enterra Solutions was kind enough to comment on my recent post over at his Enterprise Resilience Management Blog:
"This is an important discussion. While we're grateful for Mark's positive comments about Development in a Box, we are even more grateful that we can join a conversation about the ways in which the Enterprise Resilience Management framework interacts with and transforms organizational culture. Enterprise Resilience Management is not just a technology solution -- though it has a significant technology component. And it is not just a management methodology, though it starts with a comprehensive assessment of critical assets and the processes and best practices that support them. Rather, the framework combines best practices and technology to create an entirely new organizational architecture. Methodology and technology, working together, break down the barriers between organizational silos and create new systems -- both cultural and technological -- for whole-organization response.
The resilience of an organization depends only in part on its willingness to adopt new technologies. Resilience also depends on the ability of people -- leaders, line managers and staff -- to create a resilient culture."
Very true. An important point which leads me to explain why I consider "Resilience" to be a meta-principle governing an emerging world where the governing paradigm will be a complex system of systems. Evidence of resilience as a phenomena is manifested across both an enormous scale of magnitude and in multiple domains, including:
1. Complexity Theory
2. Network Theory
3. Ecological-Environmental-Economic systems
4. Social Networks
5. Security Policy and Counterterrorism
6. Human Psychology ( see NYT here)
There are probably infinite possibilities here.
I would expect that any in any adaptive complex system , regardless of the field in which it is traditionally categorized, evidence of resilient characteristics will be readily discoverable ( at least until you reach quantum or cosmological extremes of scale, there I'd have to hedge my hypothesis and let more qualified people speak to that). I would further suggest, more to Steve's point in his post, that overlapping levels of resilience will be highly beneficial.
An organization with a resilient culture will help its employees or members become more resilient themselves by providing a shared "cognitive template" or schema that encourages the practice of resilient behaviors, which with time, may become internalized. Conversely, psychological resiliency among key personnel - the leaders and "hubs" of the organization's social network - are indispensible in building a coherent organization from the ground up or weathering a severe crisis. Resilient leadership operating in a resilient organizational culture are apt to be synergistically reinforcing and, therefore, likelier to pass on the institution and its mores to successive generations.
How many generations ? If you think of corporations, states and organized religions in terms of their formal structures, the timeline now runs into centuries. In a few cases, thousands of years.
Now that's what I call being resilient. ¶ 12:00 AM
Comments:
<< Home
this is a very intriguing concept mark, and a well written post. i do have a question, and i apologize in advance if my terminology is not up to date...
i believe it is true that part of "resiliency" in nature (at least in terms of avoiding death of the species) is the ability to mutate, as you no doubt know. this is why this quote of yours perplexes me.
Resilient leadership operating in a resilient organizational culture are apt to be synergistically reinforcing and, therefore, likelier to pass on the institution and its mores to successive generations.
if the leadership passes on "too much"... quashing any opportunity to mutate, the institution is destined for extinction. i am sure you understand this. but what i am unsure about, and what forms the basis of my questions, is how does DiB avoid this? what mechanisms are in place to do more than just survive... but also to evolve?
i believe it is true that part of "resiliency" in nature (at least in terms of avoiding death of the species) is the ability to mutate, as you no doubt know. this is why this quote of yours perplexes me.
Resilient leadership operating in a resilient organizational culture are apt to be synergistically reinforcing and, therefore, likelier to pass on the institution and its mores to successive generations.
if the leadership passes on "too much"... quashing any opportunity to mutate, the institution is destined for extinction. i am sure you understand this. but what i am unsure about, and what forms the basis of my questions, is how does DiB avoid this? what mechanisms are in place to do more than just survive... but also to evolve?
Great comment Fed X
I think you are right, even as the "cultural DNA " is passed on, there are mutations due to cultural evolution over time.
The Catholic Church is not the same today as in the day of Thomas Aquinas ( yet it remains recognizably the Catholic Church). We can see similar trends of continuity and change in, say, Japanese culture from the Fujiwara period through the Tokugawa Shogunate through Meiji- to Japan today.
Cultures that lack any acceptance of change would be rather sterile. Ancient Egypt enforced rigid cultural standards for thousands of years but this rigidity was abetted by relative isolation and weak neighbors. Egypt proved unable to adapt in the face of change - the dynamic Alexander and the Romans - and suffered foreign domination from the Ptolemaic dynasty to the toppling of Farouk.
Your DiB question is best directed at Steve and Alan - since they read Zenpundit, hopefully one of them will answer you with specifics here or at their blog
I think you are right, even as the "cultural DNA " is passed on, there are mutations due to cultural evolution over time.
The Catholic Church is not the same today as in the day of Thomas Aquinas ( yet it remains recognizably the Catholic Church). We can see similar trends of continuity and change in, say, Japanese culture from the Fujiwara period through the Tokugawa Shogunate through Meiji- to Japan today.
Cultures that lack any acceptance of change would be rather sterile. Ancient Egypt enforced rigid cultural standards for thousands of years but this rigidity was abetted by relative isolation and weak neighbors. Egypt proved unable to adapt in the face of change - the dynamic Alexander and the Romans - and suffered foreign domination from the Ptolemaic dynasty to the toppling of Farouk.
Your DiB question is best directed at Steve and Alan - since they read Zenpundit, hopefully one of them will answer you with specifics here or at their blog
Mark
You are consistently one of the tiny few who report on connections between these fields.
I am sure they will revolutionise thinking on international relations over next decade as more junior people with different education and time to read move up.
Thanks for your efforts.
Dominic
You are consistently one of the tiny few who report on connections between these fields.
I am sure they will revolutionise thinking on international relations over next decade as more junior people with different education and time to read move up.
Thanks for your efforts.
Dominic
# posted by 
: Wednesday, 10 May, 2006
: Wednesday, 10 May, 2006
Hi Dominic,
Thank you. I'm getting very deep into trying to puzzle out how the physics of complex systems help us understand globalization and strategic policy, though I'm not always certain how many ppl care to read about these things. Glad you like it ( because more is coming soon).
Cheers !
Post a Comment
Thank you. I'm getting very deep into trying to puzzle out how the physics of complex systems help us understand globalization and strategic policy, though I'm not always certain how many ppl care to read about these things. Glad you like it ( because more is coming soon).
Cheers !
<< Home
