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Resilience: What Every Leader Should Know

When it comes to business resilience, you might think of robust systems and infrastructures that can help your operations recover from unexpected issues. An example of this could be knowing that the company’s technology can withstand cyber-attacks and other invasive threats. The strength of a company’s resilience isn’t just a technological matter; it pervades all departments, impacting people, financial performance and clients, too.

The question of resilience has to be addressed when scaling business growth. This is essential to avoid potential implosion and to safeguard employees, customers and brand integrity. Often, the strength of an organization’s resilience comes under pressure when a business grows quickly. The systems that underpin the functionality of the business become stretched and flaky. Processes that are unable to cope with the speed of growth bring vulnerability and risk to the organization.

Being at the center of a situation that challenged the resilience of my business made me appreciate how important it is to a company’s health. A customer wanted to increase their volumes through our warehouse. While we were eager for the additional sales growth, our warehouse was unable to process the significant increase in orders efficiently. Our information technology systems began to creak, creating a knock-on effect that spread like a virus across the business. Resources were directed from other departments to resolve the issue. This, in turn, strained the functionality of other operations. The issue was completely addressable but more challenging to do when we were in the thick of the problem.

Deciding to stress test the resilience of the company’s operations and processes for growth may reveal weak spots. Addressing these before a significant growth phase puts the business in a much stronger position to find robust solutions that eliminate the potential risks that weak spots could cause. Achieving high levels of resilience cannot happen without communication; resolving the issues unveiled in a resilience test requires discussion and collaboration. Relevant colleagues need to communicate to agree on a plan to remedy the situation.

In the fashion industry, the frictionless movement of raw materials and the final delivery of manufactured pieces to destinations across the world creates a complicated supply chain. The resilience of these chains is only as strong as their weakest link. Even the most sophisticated supply chains break, requiring logisticians to quickly fix it. Whether the items are high-end fashion items, materials or street clothing, the impact is the same. Unnecessary costs are incurred as stock is held up at ports and in warehouses. This ultimately disappoints consumers who can’t purchase the items they desire. Communication across countries, suppliers, different transport modes and systems is needed to put resilience back in the chain. Communication is a crucial element in fixing all issues of resilience, even in sophisticated and established processes such as supply chain.

The ability to react swiftly, creatively and calmly to challenges of resilience in operations, systems and infrastructure requires another type of resilience: the human type. Two of the most important questions in business today are: how resilient am I as a leader, and how can I support my team to increase their resilience?

To find out, ask yourself the following questions: Do I recognize the warning signs of my own stress levels and that of my team? How flexible are we in managing and adapting to change when facing difficult challenges? What coping mechanisms do we have in place that allow me and others to rebuild resilience levels? Do we openly discuss the pressure points that impact resilience? Do we actively encourage and implement creative ideas and strategies to improve it?

Each team member may have different triggers that cause their resilience level to plummet. It’s therefore crucial to consider this when creating coping strategies. Tailoring solutions to meet an individual’s specific needs will improve progress over one all-encompassing approach. Our ability to find creative solutions to problems that threaten our own resilience or that of a business cannot be produced when we are stressed and frustrated.

Regardless of the scale of pressure and size of the challenges faced in business today, take a moment to consider your own resilience. Strive to improve your level, and you will be in a stronger position to find creative solutions to any resilience issues your business faces.

Rebecca Jenkins is an international business coach and advisor. She is the author of “Winning Big in Sales.”