When shall we plant the tree?

What does resilience mean in your organisation?

The dictionary definition is:

“The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Or if you prefer, “The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.”

Both definitions above speak about the ability to recover after an event that has had a profound effect on an individual, an organisation, or a thing. In any case it’s clear that how you act after a major incident will determine your ability to continue your previous activity and #preserveprofitability for all stakeholders.

In an organisation that ability does not just happen at the point of impact!

In fact if you did leave the effort until after a major incident has occurred, the chances of recovery being quick or effective are greatly diminished and the result is often the failure of the organisation, if not immediately, by a thousand cuts over several months or years!

The ability to recover quickly is the result of detailed planning, familiarisation, and training, at all levels within the organisation, so that business continuity is understood and recognised by every individual, from the top management, right down to the hands-on operatives to be, business as usual.

Depending on the size of the organisation, achieving a full business continuity solution can take anything from 6 months to 3 years, covering everything in the business continuity cycle:

1. Policy & Programme Management
2. Embedding
3. Impact Analysis
4. Design of solutions
5. Implementation
6. Validation

Get this right and you end up with detailed operational plans, response structures and teams, properly resourced and funded, ready to spring into action the moment an incident occurs.

The incident might only last minutes or hours, but the tail could potentially last for days, weeks or months. Whatever the interruption a response is needed immediately, time is off the essence and delay can mean the difference between success or failure.

There is an old saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is today.

So, if you’d like to know more about operational resilience, why not give us a call so we can discuss the kind of solutions we can put in place, in your organisation.

Because the tree wont plant itself.

tree in green field