Publish at February 15 2023 Updated February 15 2023
"Unhappiness is never pure, nor is happiness. One word helps organize another way of understanding the mystery of those who have made it through: resilience, which refers to the ability to succeed, to live, to thrive despite adversity."
Boris Cyrulnik
Boris Cyrulnik popularized the concept of resilience stretching the notion from the metallurgical world to the social world. Resilience is defined as the resistance of a material or as a moral strength; the quality of someone who does not get discouraged, does not give in. Resilience is a reshaping of the past, an awareness of a redrawing future, a possible rebirth.
Baitan (2022), defines organizational resilience as the "temporary ability of a [business] enterprise to adapt by systemic effect to a situation that does not appear favorable to it based on available resources and the influence of its environment."
Organizations develop resilient behaviors in order to ensure their sustainability over long time frames. They adapt to changes in governance, to the hazards of their markets, to changes in the tastes of their customers, to the different temporalities of the actors who make it live or to the expectations of their employees. They are able to cope with uncertainties.
The history of organizations is sometimes loaded: covid crisis, energy crisis, difficult management succession, growth crisis, recession, personalization of power, bifurcation of narratives, change of visions, departure of a founder etc. It requires an archaeology of the feelings and emotions of the teams in order to overcome the feelings and to project oneself towards the future serenely without remaining fixed on the idea that "it was better before" or that it is impossible to do otherwise than what is programmed by habits and painful lessons.
Following a crisis or major events, everyone sometimes tries to forget what went wrong. Unspoken words settle in with their share of badly digested feelings. It is then possible to learn by organizing workshops during which the participants will summon the past, feel the negative emotions, connect to the collective unconscious and the trauma experienced. These times of catharsis help to say things, to identify incongruities and to find new paths to take. These purges aim to evaluate differently what has been experienced in order to prepare a new meaning.
Narrative practices on the occasion of which a group fabricates narratives and evolves the organizational memory, the expression of beliefs play of collective introspection and trigger feedback loops carrying new interpretations. These narratives of adaptation of each shared with others allow us to understand how destructive rumors were born how the initial narrative went off track and distorted to produce discomfort or even pain and sometimes the impossibility of moving forward.
In communicating everyone to everyone, it is important not to confuse trust with clarity. Giving everyone time to express their views on the story builds trust together. This memory work sometimes seems tedious, but it's good to remember that "The truth has not finished putting on its shoes that the lie has gone around the world." Demonstrating clarity allows everyone to find their place in the narrative of building a truth for all.
Resilience workshops can mobilize appreciative inquiry to identify positive leverage points for the future. The survey will identify the strengths of teams that have learned to adapt.
In some situations where the personal dimension is strong, drawing on psycho-genealogy allows for the analysis of personhood issues over time and filiations, person-to-person legacies, for example in the form of injunctions to be or to live a culture based on past beliefs and contexts.
A specific training offer has been set up to work on the question of resilience in organizations at a time when they are being heckled. This offer makes the ability to express one's fragilities a strength.
Progressing on the issue of organizational resilience makes it possible to avoid processes of stagnation, of victimization, to get out of the dramatic triangle where the permutation of the roles of rescuer, persecutor and victim ends up producing drama. Successively the leader, the manager the collaborator merge into the role of the moment and frustration is engaged.
Each of these figures of the drama contributing to reactivate the deceptive mechanics of the collective failure by passing the blame to each other.
The issue is to move from the power dynamic with its unspoken and taboos to the dynamic of being with roles of coach, challenger and actors. To evolve from the springs of drama to those of a prospective offering a place in the story to everyone. To deviate the story written in advance goes through the opening of spaces for dialogue and the expression of issues to learn together.
The expression of needs for the future is a key moment of collective learning. It allows us to ask questions about the right place of the actors and their ways of being in connection and in trust with each other. Resilience is then possible.
Taking on resilience work is to promote silent transformation and the identification of implicit slippage. The benefit is to discern and unfold the complexity and take the most promising bend. Resilience operates like the shedding of a snake that leaves an old skin on the ground in order to continue the journey, no matter what happens.
Sources
Wikipedia Organizational Resilience https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9silience_organisationnelle
Cirero. Organizational resilience http://www.resilience-organisationnelle.com/
Organizational resilience https://youtu.be/lW7mVNl_26g
Live mentor show https://live.mentorshow.com/vb-boris-cyrulnik
Resilience workshop https://www.resilience-institute-europe.com/fr/atelier-resilience-2/
Manciaux, M. (2001). Resilience. Studies, 395(10), 321-330. https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-2001-10-page-321.htm
Cnrtl resilience https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/r%C3%A9silience
Baitan M. (2022). What is organizational resilience? Some not sufficient elements to contribute to the debate. Qualife Foundation conference. 22 September 2022. Geneva, accessed October 7, 2022 at https://www.hesge.ch/heg/sites/default/files/formation-continue/DAS-Resiliences/documents/20220922-conf-la-resilience-organisationnel.pdf
Brene Brown https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability
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