Systems thinking, continuous improvement, and fostering a culture of resilience are three strategies provided by MIT Sloan specialists for enhancing organizational resilience.
MIT Sloan professors John Carrier and Retsef Levi have outlined a playbook for improving organizational resilience, advocating for an approach that leans on systems thinking and continuous improvement to help organizations identify problems before they occur. The professors argue that most companies operate without proper awareness of the operational boundaries of their systems and therefore fail to detect promptly that their regular operations have been disrupted. They recommend establishing structured decision processes, designing systems for both resilience and steady-state operation, understanding the possibilities and limits of technology’s enabling role, creating a culture of resilience, and practicing to improve resilience. Resilience is an organization’s ability to cultivate awareness of its own systems boundaries and enablers, continuously monitor changes over time, and identify risks and threats that could impact enabling operating conditions.
