‘Resilience’ is a word we are hearing a lot these days and will hear more today.
On this ANZAC day 2024, there will be a lot of words sprayed around that amount to acknowledgement of the resilience of ANZAC troops.
They clung to the cliffs on the Gallipoli peninsular, died in the mud of Passchendaele, slogged across the Owen Stanleys a couple of times, and lived under rocks in the seaside splendour of Tobruk.
It is used to describe both the personal characteristics required of the individual, and the culture of organisations.
The dictionary definition leaves a bit to be desired, referring to the ability of a person or organisation to return to a previous state. ‘Elasticity’ is a common simile.
How do we measure resilience? If we cannot measure it, as the saying goes, we cannot improve it.
What is the measure of resilience shown by the ANZACS in those meat grinders? Indeed, how do we measure the resilience of those at home, watching as the casualty lists were posted?
In a commercial context, resilience implies the degree to which an enterprise is able to absorb and adjust to the unexpected. Usually, it refers to the short term from the decisions made by others that drive an unexpected outcome that changes the status quo. Substantial competitive moves, new products that deliver new value, or the emergence of something that could be classed to some degree as ‘disruptive’.
Measuring by financial outcomes is misleading. Financial outcomes are the result of other decisions taken on the inputs to the business. Do that well, and you become financially secure, do it poorly and you go out of business.
The allied high command on the Western Front measured the outcomes of their initiatives by two things: the ground gained, and the casualties incurred. Of the two, the first was the more important to them. Field Marshall Haig never got close enough to the lines to understand the resilience required to ‘jump the bags’, again. The linkage and enormous gap between his orders, written in the splendour of the Château de Beaurepaire, and the squalor and death on the front lines that was the outcome, was never meaningfully acknowledged.
Measuring outcomes is always easier than measuring the inputs, then allocating cause and effect to the decisions but is rarely useful. Just as measuring your weight every morning will not assist you to lose weight in the absence of resulting reduction in calories, throwing yourself at a machine gun nest will not win ground.
It does however require resilience, courage, and dedication to both those beside you, the wider objective, and willingness to ‘do the work’.
In our modern world, despite the continuous marketing of the silver bullet products promising the contrary, there is no substitute for domain knowledge, planning, optimised resource allocation, and the sheer resilience to stick at it in the face of adversity.
It comes down to the culture at the micro level. How the individual behaves, and how that behaviour translates to the immediate group.
It has always be so.
It is a lovely autumn day in Sydney, as we reflect on those that gave us the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms we take for granted. It is also my beautiful daughters 38th birthday. Happy birthday Jenn!
How time flies.
The header is an arial photo of the gorge, hidden in the Wollemi State Forest, after the fires of 2019-20. The green spine is made up of the only stand left of Wollemi Pines. They have survived since the dinosaurs roamed the area. Resilience.
