Organizations must be resilient if they are to survive and thrive in turbulent times. Learning from experience, investments in leadership and culture, networks, and change readiness can help them move from denial and paralysis to acceptance and practical solutions.

1. The views expressed in this presentation are the views of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian
Development Bank, or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included
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The Resilient Organization:
Adapting to Change in a
Challenging World
Olivier Serrat
2014

2. A Darwinian Epic
Resilience has a long history in ecology and, when persons are
the subject, psychology. Additionally, of late, it has been used
in the context of communities, hence, organizations, where it
is more and more defined in active, not passive, terms to
connote deliberate efforts to deal with—perhaps even thrive
on—hardship. For communities and organizations, resilience
must surely stand for more than mere survival.
With an initial focus on tragedies in the wake of 9/11, the
notion of organizational resilience has burgeoned because of
the need to manage uncertainty and ambiguity in modern
societies and their economies, all of them complex and
increasingly interconnected.

3. The Quickening Fragility of Success
Certainly, in the private sector, success has never been so
fragile: large organizations fail more often than in the past.
Every day, the sustainability of organizations is tested in a world
that constantly changes and offers new challenges.
Emerging ideas evolve ways to accommodate turbulence and
effectively manage disruptive change and its pace to engage,
adjust, adapt, and recover; capture or realize opportunity; and
sometimes even morph to become stronger from experience.
The capacity to constantly adapt, improvise, and even shape
change can only spring from latent potential at individual,
group, and organizational levels, nurtured over a history of
prior experience.

4. Dimensions of Resilience
Resilient Organizations suggest that the resilience of an
organization is a function of three interdependent attributes.
Leadership and
Culture—which
define the
adaptive
capacity of the
organization.
Networks—
which amount to
the internal and
external
relationships
fostered and
developed for
the organization
to leverage when
needed
Change
Readinesss—
which signifies
the planning
undertaken and
direction
established to
enable the
organization to
be change-ready.

5. Resilience Indicators
Leadership
and
Culture
Leadership
Staff
Engagement
Situation
Awareness
Decision Making
Innovation and
Creativity
Networks
Effective
Partnerships
Leveraging
Knowledge
Breaking Silos
Internal
Resources

6. Resilience Indicators
Change
Readiness
Unity of Purpose
Proactive Posture
Planning Strategies
Stress-Testing Plans
Resilient Organizations also
provides a resilience
benchmark tool and
associated questionnaire to
gauge the resilience of an
organization, monitor
progress over time, and
compare resilience strengths
and weaknesses against
other organizations in the
sector of interest or of a
similar size.

7. Further Reading
• ADB. 2008. Reading the Future. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/reading-future
• ——. 2008. Action Learning. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/action-learning
• ——. 2009. Overcoming Roadblocks to Learning. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/overcoming-roadblocks-learning
• ——. 2009. Dimensions of the Learning Organization. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/dimensions-learning-organization
• ——. 2009. Building a Learning Organization. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/building-learning-organization

8. Further Reading
• ADB. 2009. Understanding Complexity. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/understanding-complexity
• ——. 2009. A Primer on Organizational Learning. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/primer-organizational-learning
• ——. 2010. The Critical Incident Technique. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/critical-incident-technique
• ——. 2010. Bridging Organizational Silos. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/bridging-organizational-silos
• ——. 2011. A Primer on Corporate Governance. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/primer-corporate-governance

9. Further Reading
• ADB. 2012. On Organizational Configurations. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/organizational-configurations
• ——. 2012. Future Search Conferencing. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/future-search-conferencing
• ——. 2013. On Resilient Organizations. Manila.
digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intl/270/
• Resilient Organizations. 2014. www.resorgs.org.nz/

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