Disruption seems to be everywhere these days – industries collapsing, storm surges shutting down major urban centers, financial markets imploding, and more. Preventing these calamities would be everyone’s first choice, of course. But in an increasingly complex world, it’s very difficult. “There’s a deepening appreciation that we’re living in a time of increased, intrinsic volatility,” says Andrew Zolli, the Executive Director and curator of PopTech and the co-author (with Ann Marie Healy) of Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back.
Today, says Zolli, it’s become essential for companies (and individuals) “to become more agile – not just in the face of the risks we know, but in the face of the ones we won’t see coming.” He recently shared his thoughts with me about how companies can improve their ability to withstand disruption.
Work on more than one time cycle. If resources are limited, it may seem like the right move to go “all in” on a new product or strategy. But as Karen Firestone recently discussed in the Harvard Business Review, a company without a Plan B puts itself at grave risk of failure. Instead, says Zolli, “work on more than one time cycle at a time – creating value for both the very short-term and long-term.”
Embrace cognitive diversity. The best companies, says Zolli, “have a lot of cognitive diversity – people with the same values, but with different thinking styles.” The goal is for employees to aim toward the same goal, but bring unique insights and ways of looking at problems.
Don’t forget middle management. In our culture, middle managers get a bad rap (indeed, it’s the entire premise of the Dilbert cartoons). But Zolli says to think twice about piling on. “We’ve gutted most institutional middle management,” he says, “but when things go wrong, it’s often people in the middle who determine an organization’s resilience. It’s rarely the square-jawed, visionary CEO, or the street activist that makes things work together– the middle gets things done. These folks are not at the top, they’re usually 2 or 3 levels down, but they make a huge difference.”