Ideas

Organizational Resilience

In our recent blog, Breaking Out of the Hero-Villain Dynamic, we discussed how organizations can seek someone to blame during times of change or unexpected disruptions. We acknowledge that simply removing the “villain” does not resolve the underlying issues, especially if the broader systemic patterns remain unaddressed. Instead, we explored how to shift the focus from either/or thinking (assigning blame to an individual) to addressing systemic issues and creating actionable steps for improvement.

But what does this shift look like, especially as organizations navigate increasingly rapid and unpredictable changes? Organizational decision-making frameworks play a crucial role in helping organizations identify and implement effective actions to tackle systemic issues. This ability to adapt and respond is often referred to as organizational resilience.

How Can Decision-Making Structures Support Resilience?

A resilient organization has different decision-making processes to adapt, respond, and manage different contexts — routine to unfamiliar challenges — aiming to mitigate the harmful effects of historical and structural inequities and embolden people within the organization to respond nimbly in achieving its mission impact.

This tool is a practical roadmap to help your organization build resilience through actionable decision-making strategies. Each step is designed to foster adaptability, collaboration, and effective responses to challenges and to reduce feeling overwhelmed in changing environments.

1. Establish Routine Decisions:
   1. Review and determine which decisions and daily operations can be routine and require minimal effort. These are often repeating events or occurrences that most likely do NOT need intense interaction, deliberation, or communication.
2. Deploy Distributed Leadership:
   1. Create simple guiding principles to make quick decisions and prioritize resources in less predictable situations — how does this action align with our strategy to … fill in the blank?
   2. Shift decision-making to leaders and teams interfacing with the issues in real time to encourage adaptability aligned with organizational strategy.
3. Embrace Real-time Solutions:
   1. Prepare for the unexpected by fostering a culture of improvisation and creativity, which requires nurturing a sense of community within the organization.
   2. Encourage spontaneous problem-solving efforts to navigate sudden disruptions.

Quick Takeaways:

• Establish a routine decision-making process that integrates equity to create more space for leaders and teams to respond to less predictable and new challenges, thereby avoiding what is often referred to as a decision or equity fatigue.
• Build a sense of community that empowers all members to contribute to decision-making and collective problem-solving. Shared experiences among team members and practice working together creates the base for navigating challenges collectively, reducing feeling overwhelmed, and increasing willingness to use guiding values to make decisions in a changing environment. To see more on a sense of community, see our April blog series How Strength of Community Can Enhance Organizations’ Effectiveness.
• Equip teams with the tools and agency needed to respond quickly to emerging challenges. This can be done by incorporating a continuous learning process that produces reliable real-time data sharing and transparency of lessons learned and best practices. See our webinar Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity.
• Decentralize decision-making with distributed leadership by empowering teams to act quickly to new challenges through resilience. This is supported by centralized coordination (organizational strategy) and access to real-time data.

Resilient organizations take proactive measures to anticipate challenges and build systems that distribute decision-making. By empowering leaders at all levels, fostering different decision-making processes, and creating a community-oriented culture, organizations can lessen the impact of disruptions while staying aligned with their mission.

Building a sense of community within an organization — through shared emotional connections, mutual support, and collaboration — is vital for achieving equity and resilience. By reflecting on your current decision-making framework and making focused improvements, your organization can build resilience and thrive in today’s ever-changing landscape. Take a moment today to review your decision-making processes and begin creating a framework that enables your team to navigate challenges with confidence.